Hail friends,
Private Posting by Sweeney:I found two decaying houses near Umbra; one will fall in a few days, the other within a week.
All houses fall at about the same exact time, 9 am CST. If you're on, good.
'A few days' has come and go, but 'a week' is just before us. The first Umbra house was long gone, the second house was not so lucky:Ah-ha!
It was early morning, the stage was set, and I quickly put the word out. Slowly, but surely, they begin crawling out of their beds, one scoundrel at a time.
Four others arrive (including Tony Emerald who decided to take a break from THIEF of Atlantic and slum around with us for a while).
The wait was as long as it was harsh.
Boredom and fatigue begin to set in. It was a sad, sad display of stealth. Every other thief was tripping over the next. And I won't swear to it and I know they'll deny it, but there may have been minor cases of grab-ass in the mosh pit. Ah, it happens to the best of us...
(Right...?)
*squints eyes*
The seconds, minutes, and hours pass. We lose Angus to the needy, Chad-hating wench at home. Our numbers are now down to four.
I mark one rune far away and another closeby. I grabbed whatever (free) bags of sending I had laying around.
We remain undisturbed.
We remain calm.
We wait.
(The stage was set.)
::Three and a Half Hours Later::
The four of us collapse on the already collapsed house and the mad dash begins!
I havn't said it aloud, but I think my own philosophy on IDOCs is clear -- finders keepers!Though the morning haze and fresh crust in our eyes, all was going well.
I couldn't have been more than a minute when...
...company arrives!Ari Lych of the (evil aligned) TDO guild!
A guild of blues and reds alike... and yet all evil. If enough of them were awake, their numbers would easily dwarf our own. For for now, it was just the single blue.
He must have been waiting just a few houses away. (I wonder if he was day dreaming, because we got the drop on most of the obvious stash.)He spots me early, Tony trips over someone else, mom does his best with her limited skills, and Ari dives into the frey. Nightstalker provides the distraction with a shuriken to his face while we continue to loot.
The time to be picky was over and the mass exodus of the loot was yet to begin!
Tony jumps in on Nightstalker's fun and I start chugging along the conveyer belt back and forth, back to town.
I had already made three round trips when the body count begins to rise.
I rez them both and the mass exodus continues.
I don't bother locking it down.
I decide to join in on the fun with (still just) the single TDO, just to keep him on his toes. I mount my ethereal steed, equip my kryss, grab a shuriken, and let it fly. I stand toe-to-toe with our treasure grubbing enemy.
(It didn't end well.)
Treasures upon treasures the others announce their findings. A chest full of minor arties here, a chest full of thousands and thousands of ingots there. We each take our licks from our enemy while every other person loots at will. He throws a few explosion pots here and their, but his own real target is Nightstalker.
I make my way to the healers, but find a surprise along the way:(So he wasn't alone after all!)
I tell the others to check him out, but they were all busy.
(Looks like I'll have to take care of this myself.)
(Ah-ha!)
But first......my armor.
(I get my money's worth out of this dead man's LRC.)
(Still there.)
(Quietly mounted on a beetle.)
But was he there or was he not? I don't take any chances. I get ready my kryss, but pull a fast one and swipe the Powder of Fortification before attacking.
Half a second later, he jumps towards the Umbra bridge (and into town guards).
(Bah!)
Enough of this.(I got what I wanted anyway.)
I gladly use up the powder on my weapon, right then and there, and head back for the scraps and whatever else was left behind.By this time, all the valuables have either been gated back to safety or dragged and dropped to semi-safety. The others had been continuing the exodus while I was having my fun. It was time to finish the job.
The truth is... I was half expecting (and hoping) that some of the other TDO would be waiting us in town. But all was eerily quiet on the home front.
And if they weren't going to take the fight to us... I was going to take it to them!
To Safehaven, I go!Through the moongate, down, over, up, and around to the Minoc / Britain / Yew crossroads. (The location of Safehaven and TDO's base of operations is well know.)
Through the many allys of keeps and castles, I look for unfriendly faces that might want to meet my aquaintence.
But all I find is some leftover loot.(And from the looks of the number of jewels in the mix, it was from a fisherman who's found his own great fortune this grand morning.)
Nevertheless...--We claim victory!
And not just the multiple cursed artifacts. And not just the chest full of minor artifacts, thousands of ingots, thousands of arrows, and thousands of bandages. And not just the hundreds of pieces of jewelry and armor we'll be living with (and dying with) daily.
It may not have been filled wall to wall with the rarest of artifacts, million gold piece checks, Tokuno Dyes, and ethereal steeds... But through it all we also received...
Guard Zone front property!Ah, a rare commodity in these parts, where the ability to buy items from inside guard zone (from across the stars) is considered prime vendor real estate.
(The original plan was to drop the plot from the beginning. But due to anti-house-plot-dropping scriptor advancements in technology, we had to improvise.)
'Til next time!
