The plan hits its first snag when Fluffy Shirt Guy doesn't get the deal done tomorrow. Instead he talks a bit and then spends the whole rest of the day wandering around the town, doing random stuff, such as examining the buildings, and telling long boring stories about previous trips which sound entirely made up. If they're true, Shirt Guy could be level one hundred or something. Bah. The bird just wants him to go get his dragon so chaos can properly happen!
Still, it provides an opportunity to ransack his baggage. After all, the guard needs to get a cut. And filling in 'how to get the cut' with something other than 'wing it' is good. However good the bird is at winging it.
And there is indeed some jewelry and some miscellaneous do-dads. The bird takes a small ring with a blue stone for itself and three other pieces for the suborned guard's cut. The rest of the contents of the case are scattered around the town, in hidden locations, to provide maximum confusion. After all, when everyone's holding a piece of the pie, it becomes much more difficult to complain about someone else benefiting from the theft.
The second day, fortunately, Fluffy-Shirt finally goes to get his dragon. He's in a very bad mood. His meal was badly seasoned, the carriage is creaking like a mad thing, and the dragon-keeper's front door is stuck, requiring the party to disembark and walk around to the back door to meet together. Several hasty apologies later, and they finally go to the docks, heading out over the shallow lake on a crude-looking raft.
Out on the platform, most of the employees are in evidence. A stick got blown into the fencing, which somehow managed to short it out and require one of the paddocks to need rewiring. The dragons are crowded and somewhat unruly, alternating between being tired and moderately angry. As Fluffy-shirt watches, there are several fights going on as the unruly creatures paw at each other in the now-crowded pen. The party then heads to the barn, finding it full of creatures to ease the overcrowding. Or it would be. Three of the stalls are soaked, as a dragon managed to kick its way through the bilge wall, and the pump just happened to spring a serious leak. The inside of the barn has sacks retaining the three inches of wall.
There are a few attempts at humour made by the owner and fluffy-shirt man, but it mostly just serves to make things grate. This gets worse as a chunk of the metal roofing breaks loose and falls down in the middle of the barn, causing everyone to jump and scaring the dragons, who get noisy and start to pace around impatiently, cooped up in their cages. The owner does the glare of doom, and begins barking out some orders, handing the metal sheet to another employee, who takes it and skedaddles out of here. He also gives orders to a couple more people, telling them to get the equipment ready and to help calm down the dragons. This gets things mostly under control, and a few hands enter from outside, called in by rooftop guy. Roof guy grabs a couple of tools and sets up a ladder.
Nobody is by the generator shed, and everyone is busy, be it with the boats, the roof, the barn, the fence.. nobody is within thirty feet of the shed. Save for Shirt-Guy's two guards. Somehow, the grumbling guard happens to be the one furthest from the shed, on the right side of the doorway.
Then the smoke starts, with a small column boiling up from the generator room. Or behind the generator room. It's hard to tell from the point of view of the guards. And in the aftermath, nobody is sure who gave those orders, as nobody was inside the generator room, when the other guard heard a call to run inside it. And grumble-guard followed suit, repeating the order and talking about how he was going to run in, to check on their employer. And the other guard ran in, and, if he could be believed, simply followed orders to grab the wheel and turn it, as hard as he could, all the way over. And then to grab the big wrench in the corner, tighten it on the wheel, and stomp it down, bringing his entire weight to bear on the wheel, breaking it with a huge metallic screech.
After that, the sequence of events became somewhat less clear.
The plan hits its first snag when Fluffy Shirt Guy doesn't get the deal done tomorrow. Instead he talks a bit and then spends the whole rest of the day wandering around the town, doing random stuff, such as examining the buildings, and telling long boring stories about previous trips which sound entirely made up. If they're true, Shirt Guy could be level one hundred or something. Bah. The bird just wants him to go get his dragon so chaos can properly happen!
Still, it provides an opportunity to ransack his baggage. After all, the guard needs to get a cut. And filling in 'how to get the cut' with something other than 'wing it' is good. However good the bird is at winging it.
And there is indeed some jewelry and some miscellaneous do-dads. The bird takes a small ring with a blue stone for itself and three other pieces for the suborned guard's cut. The rest of the contents of the case are scattered around the town, in hidden locations, to provide maximum confusion. After all, when everyone's holding a piece of the pie, it becomes much more difficult to complain about someone else benefiting from the theft.
The second day, fortunately, Fluffy-Shirt finally goes to get his dragon. He's in a very bad mood. His meal was badly seasoned, the carriage is creaking like a mad thing, and the dragon-keeper's front door is stuck, requiring the party to disembark and walk around to the back door to meet together. Several hasty apologies later, and they finally go to the docks, heading out over the shallow lake on a crude-looking raft.
Out on the platform, most of the employees are in evidence. A stick got blown into the fencing, which somehow managed to short it out and require one of the paddocks to need rewiring. The dragons are crowded and somewhat unruly, alternating between being tired and moderately angry. As Fluffy-shirt watches, there are several fights going on as the unruly creatures paw at each other in the now-crowded pen. The party then heads to the barn, finding it full of creatures to ease the overcrowding. Or it would be. Three of the stalls are soaked, as a dragon managed to kick its way through the bilge wall, and the pump just happened to spring a serious leak. The inside of the barn has sacks retaining the three inches of wall.
There are a few attempts at humour made by the owner and fluffy-shirt man, but it mostly just serves to make things grate. This gets worse as a chunk of the metal roofing breaks loose and falls down in the middle of the barn, causing everyone to jump and scaring the dragons, who get noisy and start to pace around impatiently, cooped up in their cages. The owner does the glare of doom, and begins barking out some orders, handing the metal sheet to another employee, who takes it and skedaddles out of here. He also gives orders to a couple more people, telling them to get the equipment ready and to help calm down the dragons. This gets things mostly under control, and a few hands enter from outside, called in by rooftop guy. Roof guy grabs a couple of tools and sets up a ladder.
Nobody is by the generator shed, and everyone is busy, be it with the boats, the roof, the barn, the fence.. nobody is within thirty feet of the shed. Save for Shirt-Guy's two guards. Somehow, the grumbling guard happens to be the one furthest from the shed, on the right side of the doorway.
Then the smoke starts, with a small column boiling up from the generator room. Or behind the generator room. It's hard to tell from the point of view of the guards. And in the aftermath, nobody is sure who gave those orders, as nobody was inside the generator room, when the other guard heard a call to run inside it. And grumble-guard followed suit, repeating the order and talking about how he was going to run in, to check on their employer. And the other guard ran in, and, if he could be believed, simply followed orders to grab the wheel and turn it, as hard as he could, all the way over. And then to grab the big wrench in the corner, tighten it on the wheel, and stomp it down, bringing his entire weight to bear on the wheel, breaking it with a huge metallic screech.
After that, the sequence of events became somewhat less clear.
