|
As the events and information from the day proceeds, some anti Torenescu people begin to agitate on the streets. They gather in small groups and then larger groups and larger still. By the end of the day, the speakers are emboldened and they connect Torenescu to the murders and The Veiled Society.
Late afternoon Alzar returns home and most of the stalls have closed for the day but many are still in the market. An orator stands on the edge of the central fountain and the crowd has gathered. He is shouting anti-Torenescu rhetoric. They begin to use anti-nobility invective against Torenescu “Who taxes you?” Their voices are raised, and the clatter of horse hooves can be heard as 30 of the Baron’s men have arrived. The orator and crowd grow quiet. Suddenly a rock flies from the crowd and strikes one of the horseman.
Silence reigns for a few seconds, and then the crowd charges the horsemen. They break ranks and charge back, and soon the horseman are cleaving into the crowd while the peasants are drawing them back. The orator is fleeing.
Alzar can chase the orator, attack the horseman, run away, attack the peasants, or just watch.
He has Megala fly after the orator and follows. He dives down a side street and changes streets twice. Eventually he ducks into a small shack and the door slams shut. Within a moment, Alzar has arrived and unsheathes his axe, spends a round hacking through the door, and then rebinds it.
It is just a bare room with a trapdoor, and Alzar opens it and drops to a passage running one way. Alzar and Megala follow it for roughly 300 feet before it ends at a ladder going up. Alzar hears scraping up in the room above. He leaps up the ladder and flings it open just as the orator was moving a heavy chest to cover it. The orator is totally surprised by Alzar’s speed.
Alzar is able to fire off Ray of Ondovir and the orator spends the next round continuing to push the chest while Alzar pulls out a dagger, grabs him, and holds it to the orator’s throat. It doesn’t take much convincing to get the orator to spill everything. Alzar ties him up and casts ESP. The orator is a member of The Velied Society, and there are at least 20 of them. He was paid 200 gold to stir up trouble for Torenescu. He does not know who leads the Society, or who are the higher ups. They meet in an underground chamber with a secret entrance from the Blue Water Mead Hall at the waterfront. The two killers were named Akarios the Shipwright and Zachariah Boeastes. He even provides a rough map to the location, and what’s there.
He asks for his life, and Alzar is tempted to end it. Instead, he leaves the man as a present for the authorities and heads to bed for the night.
|