Tim decides that studying for his exams is more important than lurking about with his good-fer-nuthin' friends, so he evaporates soon after lunch ends. Paul (Marik), Mike (Skeeter), Chris (Gruul), Chuck (Galen) and Bruce are made of sterner stuff, even in the face of the various off-color jokes Chris tells.
Mike has decided that his tsian aristocrat Glenwyf is a bit too limited for his tastes, so he has abandoned him in favor of the mad bausker Skeeter, one of the crowd of bauskers the characters hired to carry their pottery.
The beginning of the session finds the characters plotting the theft of a spiral loom from the Tsellef workshop outside of Eohel. They are joined in this by Skeeter, a bausker who arrived from Eohel not long ago as a messenger from Jielshefthra to tell the characters that the outsiders in the city are dangerously close to wearing out their welcome. Their conspirators include two of vul-Helten Osk's followers, a pair of dugun who once worked for the family and who can describe the compound. The two duguns are able to tell them:
The duguns know that at least one of the tsian males was trained in the militia, and might still own a spear. Having told the characters this, they once again emphasize that they don't want to see any of the tsians hurt during the theft. The characters finger their well-used weapons and grunt assent.
The characters also get the idea that the duguns in the compound are very likely to be loyal to the Tsellef family, and won't necessarily cooperate with efforts to hurt or steal from them. Gruul grumbles to Galen, "You know, just between us, if we have to kill a few people and some dugun need to fall into a ditch, that's just the cost of doing business."
Gruul proposes the first plan: he wants to find something to slip into the family stewpot, something that will give everyone dysentery. Failing that, he suggests abducting some family members and ransoming them back in exchange for cooperation. He is able to get vul-Helten Osk to produce a dugun master herbalist who claims to be able to produce enough herbal poison to affect 50 people with several days' of herb-gathering. It takes a HT-1 roll to resist the stuff. Failure leaves the victim with a -2d penalty to all skill rolls for 1d hours. Success reduces the penalty to only -2, lasting for only an hour. Gruul remarks that he'd like to have some of this stuff even if he didn't need to use it on any tsians.
Galen listens to these proposals, thinks about the potentially wide-ranging impacts that they could have on the tsians' opinions of outlanders, and suggests, "I think we want to coordinate this effort with Groovy Gravy, or whatever his name was." He goes on to point out that even if everything goes completely quietly, the tsians will realize what's going on the next morning. Gruul agrees, and decides to deal with the problem by framing somebody else for the crime. Skeeter suggests that even if they haven't started asking about looms, the greedy paurkend brothers Pilgren and Welgren should be. Gruul asks the others, "So, should we burn this bridge right now?" The others agree that they probably shouldn't: any danger to the brothers could also be a danger to the characters' Sangorn porcelain (and, as an aside, to Jielshefthra and her bauskers).
Skeeter suggests that a Sangorn merchant named Yayfal has been making a lot of local enemies through his hamhanded efforts to purchase dugun slaves. He would make a really good scapegoat. The other characters store this tidbit away for later use.
With the general plan of sneaking in and taking a loom without letting anyone else be the wiser, the characters decide that they will need a crack bausker loom pit crew to swarm over the loom and break it down. Skeeter agrees to go back to the city and assemble the team.
Drumbek is two days from Eohel by foot. Eohel to the ruins downriver takes another two days by foot. From the ruins to the Boarding Ramps is another day by foot. The Tsellef Workshop is two hours from Eohel by foot. It is currently the 19th day of the 3087th Stay. The characters have twelve days before they are supposed to meet Grunvey Jhegg at the ruins and fifteen days before the boat leaves.
The characters learn from the dugun that the crypt city of Velha is about one day's walk upriver from Eohel. Aristocrats from Eohel and several other cities in the region have been buried there for hundreds of years. Aside from the tombs of the dead, the living residents of Velha are primarily priests and dugun warriors. The warriors are supposed to be descended from the servants of various prominent dead rulers, and are largely held to be utterly incorruptible.
Galen, who has already offered to go back to Eohel and spread bad rumors about the Sangorn merchant Yayfal (that he has managed to purchase a spiral loom for a very cheap price) suggests that he should spread even more rumors about the fellow, specifically that he's found some huge boneyard up north that he's going to try and raid.
Skeeter listens to all this planning and suggests that simple plans are best. He reminds the others that complicated plans inevitably turn into horrible disasters so fast you can't even predict it.
The characters finally manage to get down to the nuts and bolts of who, what and when. They have twelve days before they need to meet Grunvey Jhegg at the ruins.
It will take vul-Helten Osk and Grenwyf six days to move the 300 dugun refugees to the ruins. They depart on the 25th day of the Stay.
It will take Antok two days to reach Eohel, and another two days to reach the ruins from there. He departs immediately to purchase three wagons, eighteen cattle to haul them (200 scepters in town, 120 scepters in the country; Gufteng taxes these at 50 clavars to the head, or 30 clavars to the carcass), and enough spiral-woven cloth and ethef date wine to fill them. He spends the greater part of the last 50,000 scepters the characters fetched from the sale of Tettek's Great Staff. Then, on the 29th day of the Stay he will set out for the ruins along with all the bauskers not involved in the heist.
The loom strike force consists of Gruul, Galen, Marik, Skeeter, two other bauskers, and two duguns. They will immediately depart for Eohel, and then walk in towards the Tsellef Workshop from the city on the 26th day of the Stay, planning to execute the theft that evening. They estimate that a loom will mass about 100 kilograms. Once they have the loom, Galen and Marik will fly the parts out on a flying carpet while everyone else makes their way through the night to Eohel, where they will take a boat downriver to the ruins. They will rejoin the others late in the afternoon of the next day.
The characters spend 1000 scepters hiring up a Venturer merchant to provide boat transportation. And another 100 scepters for tools and random supplies.
Galen spends 150 scepters and botches a Thaumatology roll trying to learn Magelock. Then he spends another 400 scepters getting an explanation from the guy who sold him the notes. Marik expresses little interest in learning the spell.
After all this, the characters find themselves still in possession of a big bag pfaf-Tassef Jiruj's scepters. And they need something to do with all that funny money. Gruul goes looking for some quick muscle. He looks in the bars, and he finds nothing. He looks in the marketplace, and again he comes up empty. Then he looks in the gutters behind the marketplace and he comes up with Gant, a Faian wearing filthy armor and a mournful expression. He quickly learns that Gant was one of four Faians hired by a Faian merchant to provide security. Unfortunately, the merchant managed to deeply offend the gaurmen at the Boarding Ramps. They stripped the man down to his underwear and tossed him into the river. Gant shivers as he recalls the event, inasmuch as the river falls into the Maelstrom not too far from the Boarding Ramps.
Gruul immediately hires the fellow and his three friends Belk, Vinja, and Derk. The surprised Faians initially accept an offer of 200 clavars plus food to escort the characters to the Garden and work for sixty days beyond that. They are deeply surprised when Gruul takes them back to the rest of the group, who quickly cough up enough scepters to outfit the four guards in steel corselets, reinforced leather limbs and helmets, plus hand weapons and shields. They go with Antok and the bauskers.
Nightfall. One last dugun sweeps the courtyard. Then nothing. The lights in the kitchen flicker then fade. One tsian and two duguns go to the family quarters. Then all the lights go dark. The only remaining light is a magical lamp standing in the courtyard.
The characters wait two hours more just to be sure. Galen sucks down a Hermes potion (+4 Stealth, +2 Climbing) and moves in to Magelock the doors. When he signals with a hooded lantern, others will move in from the workshop side.
Galen has the three doors to the family quarters locked when he notices the watchdog. And the watchdog notices him. He acts supernaturally stealthy as the dog approaches. He thinks, "Of all the things we planned on, why didn't we ask if they had a dog?" He reaches for Ghelghul's Terrible Heartseeker, then thinks better of his. He draws out his bastard sword and lashes out. He slays the dog in two mighty blows, then swiftly drops the body down the well. The crisis averted, he continues on to lock up the dugun quarters.
By the time Galen is finished, the bauskers have swarmed through the workshop windows to find six looms. Gruul glances in through the window and is practically beside himself: six looms! Skeeter barely notices the looms: he is too busy running all over the building like a hyperactive squirrel. When he finally does get focused on the task at hand, he and one other bausker manage to convert one loom into parts in about a minute. Then with the help of the others, he takes apart three more of them over the course of the next thirteen minutes. Gruul gets a bit frustrated at this point and Intimidates the other two bauskers into packing up the first loom. They and the duguns make it happen. Skeeter's walking orders are to fill a bag with important spare parts, though Gruul's efforts to force him into useful behaviour are not that effective. Gruul growls at the hyperactive little fellow, "Do you have a backup character?"
Marik is waiting for the others outside when he hears hoofbeats in the distance. He takes cover behind a ruined wall, then sees the others go past, apparently unaware of the sound. He casts Levitation and whisks up in front of the rest of the group, swiftly determining that the noise comes from a patrol of four tsian horsemen traveling along a nearby trail. He decides that the tsians are just a routine patrol and cautions everyone else to stay quiet until they go past.
With the danger of discovery past, Marik drains himself dry to create a flying carpet for himself, Galen and the loom parts. Galen hands back 5 fatigue with Lend ST. The two of them whisk into the sky, leaving Gruul, Skeeter and the others to walk back to Eohel in the dark.
Gruul and Skeeter arrive at the ruins to find a massive crowd of very un-oppressed-looking dugun enjoying yak-butter tea. Galen and Marik greet them and explain that some tayfal stones mysteriously made their way into the hands of the Faians running the hostel. Gruul does his best to work himself up to high dudgeon and lectures the duguns on how to behave like downtrodden slaves. He emphasizes, "Once we start out, don't go off by yourselves. And don't trust strangers. And don't look happy!" Skeeter chirps out, "How 'bout me?" Gruul waves dismissively, "You can go off by yourself. Anytime. Now would be fine."
There is some consternation because Grunvey Jhegg has not yet shown up. Skeeter takes the opportunity to check out the security at the Boarding Ramps. He returns to report that they are surrounded by very professional-looking earthworks, manned by plenty more gaurmen than he ever wanted to see in one place. There are also several oily fellows in nice clothing, predominantly paurkend and Zatulph humans, doing the actual task of tax collecting.
A day later, four days before departure, Grunvey Jhegg shows up with his entourage. He is in high spirits, apparently because he is bringing with him a tremendous herd of cattle and an ever more tremendous herd of dugun in chains. The characters notice that many of the dugun are not dressed appropriately. Some of them appear to be wearing the remains of sleeping-clothing, while others are dressed in the remains of finery. They deduce that Jhegg might not have obtained his charges through strictly economic means. The appearance of a cloud of dust on the horizon tends to confirm this suspicion.
Jhegg does not allow any of these thoughts to interfere with his high spirits. He meets with the characters, crowing about how he purchased his duguns for "A very good price! A very good price indeed!" He shakes their hands, urges the need for speed upon them, and then heads off to further the arrangements.
As soon as Grunvey Jhegg is out of earshot, Marik tells Gruul, "I need your axe. I need it to cut off my hand." Gruul tells the little paurkend dwarf, "I'd be happy to do the deed for you, if you'll promise to do the same for me later." The characters get their dugun refugees moving, mixed among Jhegg's dugun for camouflage.
Grunvey Jhegg is good to his word at the Boarding Ramps. He talks for some time with one of the paurkend functionaries, who delegates two of his assistants to count up the cattle and the duguns. Jhegg ends the exchange by handing over a large bag of money to the fellow.
When the procession starts on its way up the ramps, Gruul notices one of Jhegg's living weapons strike a dugun, apparently out of pique. Gruul walks up to the fellow and tells him to stop. The living weapon responds by reaching for his axe. He never makes it: Gruul puts a pick through his heart before his hand can finish closing. Gruul turns to the other living weapons and growls at them. They back off. Slowly. Without any sudden motions. Neither Grunvey Jhegg nor Gaffad appear to either notice or care.
The session ends on the 32nd day of the 3087th Stay. The characters are back in the Forward Gallery, near the Venturer Guildhall, in the company of Grunvey Jhegg and his men.
Each character gains three experience points.