"Don't hit him Sturg! He doesn't look like he's with those crazy paladins!" called out Dakhir.
The Sturg hesitated. In his opinion strange creatures that came bursting suddenly into his room unannounced shouldn't complain when he hit them. Admittedly this particular strange creature, wild eyed and frantic though it may be, didn't seem very threatening. Also it had a shell. The Strug approved of shells. He had one himself and it was very useful. His armor not only kept the weapons and claws of his enemies away but it also kept the people away.
As Dakhir continued to glare at him, and the stranger continued to not attack anyone, The Sturg slowly lowered his sword.
The party stared in awe at the stranger, momentarily forgetting the dire strait they were in,
"My word" said Whisperleaf wonderingly. "I do believe that's a Tortle! I've never actually seen one, thought they were myths. How marvelous!"
"It looks like a big walking turtle" said Ricmo emerging from the shadows on top of the bunkbed from where he had been preparing a leap. "Pretty neat. Hard to get a knife into that shell I bet" He thumbed the blade of his short sword a considering look in his eyes.
For Telo, this was clearly an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" moment. A few minutes ago he'd been enjoying a glass of wine on the balcony, basking in the late afternoon tropical sun, when he'd notice the company of musketeers quietly surrounding the inn.
His first though had been that the Artillerists Guild had finally caught up with him, and was planning to carry through on their threat to "arrest him, lock him up somewhere dark and forget about him". As the guardsmen had blocked the exits, he'd instinctively turned and darted through the balcony door and into the second floor of the inn.
A floor that was evidently populated by heavily armed lunatics.
Carefully Telo extended both hands, palms upward in a gesture of peace as he was confronted by a hedgehog of swords bows, maces and muskets.
"Telo doesn't mean any harm friends. Telo is just passing through. Just trying to avoid some unpleasant folk who are after him. Telo will be moving along now"
"He looked again at the seven foot tall behemoth in black armor facing him and blurted out
"What ARE you"
"Some say that he owns a baby unicorn, and that he once knocked a tavern to the ground, with his bare hands. All I know is that he's called The Sturg." said Dakhir.
"Lunatics" thought Telo as he frantically looked around the room for an escape. For some reason the crazy people had barricaded the only way down to the first floor, moving the table and a bunkbed over the trapdoor.
"You won't be leaving that way" said Marius. "They are already down below, trying to get up. Heavy blows from below confirmed her words.
"We are surrounded" Marius continued. "I count at least six groups of enemy, ringing the inn. Musketeers on the roofs of neighboring buildings, an assault team taking the ground floor, another assault team is coming up the stairs to the balcony. That sound is the downstairs door giving way.
"At least forty of them all told, including our friends the Paladins of Mithras."
Freddy leaned around Telo and shut the balcony door, locking it even as heavy boots were heard on the balcony floor outside. "Sturg, help me barricade this?"
"This assault was well planned" said Marius approvingly. "Whomever the captain of these men is, he knows his business.
"Lovely" groaned Dakhir. "So glad you approve Marius"
"Hullo the inn!" came a booming voice from outside. "Surrender yourself immediately or be slain."
Telo was starting to have his doubts about whether the people outside were actually with the Artillerist Guild. This seemed like an unbelievably extreme reaction just to arrest one Tortle engaged in unlicensed metallurgy.
The light was starting to dawn as to who those soldiers were really after. Freddy smiled sympathetically at the growing revelation coupled with horror crossing the Tortle's beaked features. "I'm afraid you've thrown your lot in with us now, my friend, inadvertently though it may be. Those gentlemen outside are not too likely to listen if you try to explain that you are not one of us."
Telo nodded, bemusedly.
"Last chance, or we're coming in!" the voice from outside bellowed
"Only two options." said Dakhir. "We fight or we run. What think you?" Neither option seemed very appealing. Dakhir had no doubt they could escape, his worry was could they escape without burning the building and possibly the town down. He quite liked the innkeeper and his family, and felt a strong desire to not repay their hospitality by destroying their home.
"Why don't we hide?" said Telo.
"Hide? Hide where brother? This room is barely big enough to even fit us all. Hiding is impossible" answered Radiant.
"No it isn't" said the Tortle. "we just have to pull our shell in after us."
"This is amazing" said Ricmo. "That rope came out of that box with all the gears in it, just went up into the air all on it's own. And then we climbed it, and we were here! And then you pulled the rope up after us! Where are we? In the sky? Is this Turtle Magic?"
“Not Turtle Magic. Turtle Science” correct Telo gently
The room was perfectly square, featureless and white, with barely enough room for the eight of them. White walls, white floor, white roof, the kind of white that was so pure it was difficult to even focus on it. The air was fresh and renewed itself somehow, but smelled faintly of ozone. The only feature in the place was the trapdoor in the floor, through which they could clearly see the room below they had just vacated.
"No, not in the sky. This place is nowhere." answered the Tortle tranquially. "It is nothing."
"Fascinating" said Whisperleaf intrigued. "I've heard of such things, pocket dimensions and whatnot but never actually seen one. Turtle Science indeed! And you are sure they cannot see us?" He pointed at the room below, where the door finally gave way to the incessant pounding and soldiers rushed into the room.
"No they cannot see nothing or nowhere" said Telo placidly. "How can you see nothing and nowhere? What would you see it with? There is no-place where you can see nowhere and nothing from. There would be nowhere to stand for one thing". He nodded decisively as if to punctuate his impeccable logic.
"Who are you exactly?" asked Dakhir.
"I am Telo. I study how the world works and I make things. Wonderous things." The Tortle was clearly a crafter of some kind, tool-belts and pouches of materials festooned his ornately carved shell. He carried a long iron staff in one hand and several spears and large metal tubes hung from harnesses across his back.
"In this city, they do not care for my wonderous things. You evidently have to be part of the correct club in order to be allowed to make things here" he said disapprovingly.
"Guilds" nodded Ricmo in agreement, and theatrically spit on the perfect white floor.
Below them the guards were half heartedly searching the small room.
"We had reliable reports they were here" said one of the priests. "Our man had eyes on them entering and not leaving this room."
"Well" said the solider with the halberd, in a voice that clearly said "non-com-talking-to-idiot-superior "I don't think they could all be hiding under the bed". One of the soldiers snickered.
The large, blond haired paladin frowned. "Where is the tortle? We clearly saw a tortle enter this room, likely a lookout for our quarry. And yet he is nowhere to be seen. Clearly there is some sorcery at work here"
"Well then do some magic back at it?" said the non-com. The paladin glared a glare that would peel paint.
Ricmo snickered. "This is great. We just hang out here until they get tired of looking for us and then we leave."
"Yes" said the Tortle. "Provided they get tired and leave in under an hour."
"Uh what?" said Ricmo. "What happens in an hour?"
"Nowhere becomes somewhere again" said Telo.
-----------------
Below, their would-be captors had come to the conclusion that their spy must have been mistaken. After some discussion, they agreed to leave a detachment behind to lie in wait, both in the room and hidden nearby, to catch the heroes when they returned. The paladin, one of the priests and six musketeers positioned themselves at the casements, taking care to keep in the shadows so as not to be visible from outside. The rest of the soldiers withdrew.
From below on the ground floor they could hear raised voices.
"Blackjack is really giving them hell" said Whisperleaf approvingly. "Looks like our friends the priests are seriously overstepping their legal authority with this little operation of theirs."
"Large quantities of Gold have a jurisdiction all their own" said Dakhir cynically. "I wonder what he means by the "Docks Protective Association"?
"That's their version of the City Watch" said Ricmo knowledgably. "In Haven, each district has it's own, and it's private enterprise not a government thing like in Valoria. In the North Docks it's called the Docks Protective Association and they have the reputation of being some mean SOB's. Blackjack is a paid up member and he is threatening to sic the Watch on these guys for busting up his business."
"That could be handy" said Whisperleaf.
"Yeah if it happens in the next half hour" said Dakhir.
"Twenty seven minutes" said Telo after consulting some crazy clockwork contraption he'd evidentially build inside a turtle shell.
-----------
"Ok so everyone understands the plan?" said Whisperleaf. "How much time left Telo?"
"Seven minutes" replied the Tortle.
"Remember, avert your eyes or you are in for a seriously bad trip" said Freddie. He nodded to Telo, and as the Tortle dropped the rope back down through the trapdoor, thus reconnecting the pocket dimension to the real world, Freddy began to sing.
It was easy to forget what a powerful magician Fantastic Freddy was. His spells tended to the subtle and lacked the flash and fire of Dakhir or Whisperleaf but it some ways they could be even more sinister. Whisperleaf might rend your flesh, and Dakhir might burn your body, but Freddy's magic attacked your mind.
The rest of the heroes only caught a glimpse of the vortex of images that Freddy summoned with his songs, but even that glimpse was enough to make them want more, make them want to do nothing but sit and watch and listen ignoring all else.
"Now" said Freddy.
Only two of the enemy resisted Freddy's blandishments, the paladin and the priest. The reward the paladin got for his trouble was seven feet of The Sturg falling on him, shortly followed by nine feet of sabre toothed tiger.
Needless to say the struggle was a short one. The priest had the wisdom to surrender, and survived, the paladin refused and did not.
The priest and the entranced soldiery quickly found themselves bound and gagged and piled on the bunk beds.
"That was pretty quiet" said Marus approvingly. "I doubt anyone heard. What is our next move?"
"The innkeeper" said Whisperleaf. "We need to talk to him"
"On it" said Ricmo, quietly easing the trapdoor open and slipping down the stairs.
----------------
"Yes they left soldiers behind in several of the adjacent buildings. The girls in Rosie Palm's next door are furious, it's ruining their business they say. So not safe for you to leave yet. But don't you lads worry. Just hold tight for another half hour or so until the Protective gets here and then we will show these soldier boys what's what." said Blackjack MacCafferty.
"The nerve of these puta's to come in to MY inn like this. You can bet that after the Protective gets done breaking their balls the courts are going to hear of this. Just you wait, we will get you out"
And true to his word in around half an hour a large group of very heavily armed men rounded the corner on Port Street. These men were clearly not soldiers as much as brawlers, the weapons they carried were crude and designed for close quarters no holds barred fighting, their armor and helms simple, cheap and heavily padded. But they were big, burly, and no nonsense and there were a LOT of them.
After a tense showdown in the courtyard, the Captain of the soldiers exercised the better part of valor, backed down and withdrew his men, to the cat calls of the working girls and guffaws of the drunken sailors.
"You can use the chaos to get down to the docks easy enough" said Blackjack. "But I would avoid the city gastes and leave the city by water"
"Oh we aren't leaving yet" said Whisperleaf. "We have to see a lady about a ghost."
"Telo, you are welcome to come with us" said Dakhir. "You're associated with us now, so getting out of town might be good for you. We have a powerful ship that can take you safely away from here."
"Telo will come with you. These people are not worthy of his genius anyway. I will see this ship of yours"
"Excellent!" said Ricmo. "Welcome to the Lords of Doom!
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