Hobson & Quazarn: Exit, Pursued by a Bard

Max
[Which way now? To your right are the turnstiles and the tunnel leading to the front, to your left is the gate and ramp to the arena, with lounges branching off to either side before the ramp]

Having hobbled Chief Tallbard, Quazarn and Hobson are ready to get...

Dr Rotwang!

[OUT. Right. Tunnel. Out. Away. Gone. Tunnel. OUT.]

Age of Fable

Me too.

Max

[JM cues Benny Hill theme, plans for chase scene involving bikini-clad doxies and orcs in bobbies' helmets...]

Age of Fable

"Gosh", thinks Hobson,"As per the movement rules on p22, no one can catch me."

Max

Like a bowling ball chasing a runaway pin hobling scampers after conehead down the tunnel. The Chief calls after for a moment then retreats into the locker room.

At the end of the tunnel you find yourselves back on the front lawn. Food and drink stalls and gambling counters crowd right up against the walls of the Vulkin manse, and tents crowded with spectators overrun the front gardens. Beyond the tents the lawn is a parking lot.

Pausing near the tunnel you both feel a bit conspicuous -- you are, after all, a crossbow-wielding hobling in a police uniform and The Warlock Who Almost Tore Bigby's Playhouse Down.

Age of Fable
"Gosh", thinks Hobson, "As per the movement rules on p22, no one can catch me."

Even as he smiles at this thought Hobson hears a voice in his head reply, "Ah, but life is not merely something you read in a book, little hobling. The stronger a fellow is the longer he can run...and on a scale of one to twenty you rate only about a six."

Age of Fable

"And yet, fie on this pessimism" I think.

"With a nature as robotic as mine (and corresponding ability to give myself unpleasant orders) surely I can keep going through the pain like it ain't no thang."

Max

"Hrmmph," grumbles the voice in Hobson's head, "I suppose there's no arguing with that, if you want to run yourself to exhaustion."

[That's good thinking, Fable! If it's necessary to figure out a house rule for forced marches/extended running I'll definitely work that in!]

Age of Fable

[Thanks...I'd treat Robot Nature as including willpower/self-discipline.]

Max

As you linger near the tunnel there's no doubt you're beginning to draw a few stares from the crowd. No sign of any Brawl security. At the moment, anyway.

Age of Fable

Who's lingering? I'm heading away from all this, and encouraging Quazarn to do likewise.

Max

Just a pause to await your choices.

So, away away? As in hoofing it through the parking lot and trucking on down the road?

Dr Rotwang!

Max
[Y]ou are, after all, a crossbow-wielding hobling in a police uniform and The Warlock Who Almost Tore Bigby's Playhouse Down.

[Dude, we're gettin' a rep!]

"Well, my hobling cohort," says Quazarn to Hobson, "we'd best make ourselves hard-to-find -- say, get lost among the crowd? And what of the others? How will we find them?" He twists his lips in searing, incandescent thought. "Splitting up," he reflects, "may well have been a bad idea." Then, "To the stalls! Let us lose ourselves among the throng, visually if not in terms of merit."

Age of Fable

I change my clothes to something which will fit in with the crowd.

"An excellent plan. And yet, it's possible that they may search the crowd - believing as they do that you're a major criminal, and responsible for the head of security (and former senior police officer) getting a crossbow bolt in the leg."

"Also, you have a great big pointy head, presenting some difficulties vis a vis passing unnoticed."

Max

Quazarn is momentarily confused when he notices the hobling in a Hawaiian shirt and deck shoes talking to him, but his keen intellect swiftly pierces Hobson's disguise. The pair do their best to disappear into the crowd.

The food stalls are the usual mix of fast cheap and out of control: rat-on-a-stick, roof lizard eggs fried in savory dough, burgers and brats, toasted chickenoid blood (a favorite despite the raging ontological debate over the question of the chickenoids' sentience). There are also souvenir vendors, betting counters, and tents set up for spectators to watch the fight via holoscreen, scrying pool and quadrophenic sens-surround. Touts race back and forth between the viewing parlors and a beer garden in the shade of a huge baobabbler tree.

Hobson seems to pass unnoticed as long as he keeps out from underfoot, but Quazarn's still drawing a few sidelong looks.

Rondo

(major points for the JG "Rat-On-A-Stick" reference!)

Dr Rotwang!

Quazarn looks around the stalls. "Surely," he mutters, "a crowd such as this is a good market for Ontobian sombreroids. Surely..."

Max

A sharp-eared ratling twitches her head in your direction. She is clean for her species, though her pelt is shaved in strange teknomagical patterns. She points a clawed finger at the beer garden and ducks out of view.

Age of Fable

"Well, she was clean for her species. That...that wasn't true of my last girlfriend."

Age of Fable

Noticing that Quazarn seems to have had another attack of Psychometric Morbidity, Hobson will try to follow the ratling, observing her while being unobserved if possible.

[rolled a 55]

Dr Rotwang!

Surreptitiously, Quazarn follows the ratling.