Session 7: Moving Magic Kids. Our Next Business Venture?

A write-up of our biweekly Dungeons & Dragons campaign from the perspective of my character, Heyou, a teenage elf barbarian. Heyou was kidnapped at a young age by bandits. His family was murdered and his face disfigured, including the almost complete removal of his ears, before being sold to the orphanage where he grew up. Orphanages are big business in our fictional world as they produce the laborers that power the economy. The disfigurement means it was impossible for any extended family to identify and claim him. As a result, Heyou has a very jaded world view but also sees the ability to make money by perpetuating the kidnap-and-sell scam. He is not very bright but considers himself so and thus he frequently uses words incorrectly. Heyou and several of his fellow orphanage mates have reached the age where they must leave and go find jobs in the fields they have trained all their lives, however they have chosen a different path and have overthrown the thieves guild that once ran their small corner of town.

Session 7: Moving Magic Kids. Our Next Business Venture?

I pace back and forth in front of the tied-up attacker we captured alive. He’s still passed out and that’s ok. It gives me more time to decide just exactly how we’re going to make him sing.

Anger courses through my veins, burning with an intense, white-hot heat. The door is broken. The traps on the sewer door are dismantled. We’re exposed. The whole situation is going to be one enormous pain in my ass.

And just like that, inspiration strikes.

I tell the rest of the crew still up and able-bodied to gather the corpses of the enemies and to load them in the remaining wagon. Once they are loaded up, I instruct everyone to pants the bodies. They give me some looks like I’m some sort of square, but they do it. I head into the hideout and come back out with an assortment of sticks. There’s not a broom, mop or shovel left with a handle, but Sanjay will just have to figure that out. Maybe Black Lizard can fashion us some new ones. Maybe Sanjay will have to buy some news ones. Maybe we’ll just have to insist on some donations from the people we protect.

Sticks in hand, I walk right up to the wagon of naked-from-the-waist-down bodies and with all my anger channeled, one by one I cram a stick up each of their arses. The others look at me with horror, but we need to make a statement. They competition has found us, assaulted us and tried to wipe us out. We need to let all the other guilds know that this crew ain’t to be messed with.

With the deed done, I tell some of our guys to drive the wagon out to the territory of the group that tried to take us out and leave it there. That’ll learn ‘em.

This is precisely the type of leadership this group needs in order to stake our claim, grow our business and keep the competition at bay. I will give it up to Black Lizard though. He had the great idea to strip the soldiers of their armor, swords and shields before sending them off with the rods rammed up their arses.

I head back inside to see if our “guest” is awake yet. I enter to find Sanjay is completely adjudicated, running to and fro and having a fit about the door and the sewer door traps. As I walk in, he stops midway through his frantic pacing back and forth, and suddenly darts for the prisoner, slapping him across the face. I completely approve of this gesture and wonder why it seems like him and me are the only people who seem upset about this.

Nevertheless, I grab him and drag him back toward the kitchen because I got an idea. I tell Sanjay to go grab some of the hottest, spiciest peppers we have and ground them up. If this solider gives us half as much trouble as the last prisoner, I am going to jam a handful of burning hot pepper dust into his eyes!

After Sanjay returns with the ground up pepper, I usher him off to his little closet so he can go to bed. Black Lizard returns from taking a little rest too so he can heal the prisoner enough to wake him up. He tries but it doesn’t work. Enough of this magic mumbo jumbo. I just dump some water of his head. The prison instantly wakes up.

And I instantly punch him right in his gods damned mouth.

I then gag him, crack my knuckles and grab my bowl of ground up peppers. Before I can get to work though Mayella pipes up and asks to talk to the man first. Jillian points out that the doll might creep the prisoner out, which is hilarious. Also, it is true. She’s the best.

Black Lizard is my man though. In his head, this chump tied up in the chair is already a goner. He’s already asking if he can haul the prisoner down to the carrion crawlers if he doesn’t talk. I think the others think he’s joking, but I know better and give him a wink or approval. I even suggest breaking one of the prisoner’s legs to make it interesting.

While we’re plotting though, Mayella walks up and starts talking to the guy using her gross doll. Somehow though, much to my disappointment, the guys starts singing like a canary. Apparently, his name is Bryan and he works for Gus, but he’s just a dumb ol’ driver though who was told to haul Gus’ goons over to our base. Eventually though Mayella uncovers that Gus has a boss named Jill, and that there are 20-30 people working in the warehouse.

We tell her to show the driver the chit and ask him to decode it. He looks at it and says that it says, “Gus”, and that’s what he shows the warehouse guards to get in. We tell her to ask him again to make sure he understands we want to know if he can read the code. He says again that is says “Gus”.

Ugh. This guy is a complete maroon. He has no idea what he is talking about. But we press on.

The driver doesn’t know Brandy. Never heard of her. So, he can’t tell us why she got no delivery. When we ask him if he’s making fewer deliveries he says he’s actually making more, but he’s driving around thugs and fighters, like he did tonight, more often than before.

Mayella pulls me aside and tells me I don’t need to kill the man. I roll my eyes because I really don’t have time for this bleeding-heart crap from Mayella but then she makes a good point.

I know. I am shocked too.

She says we can use him to get a meeting with this Jill. I agree.

And with that, I whip around and slam my hands down on the man’s thighs, gripping them with all my strength as I lean in just inches from his face. I demand that he tell me where he lives. He stammers and even manages to piss himself but eventually gives me the location. I then tell him he has to set a meeting up between us and Jill or I will kill his wife, disfigure his children and sell them to an orphanage in another town. Further, if he double-crosses us the same fate for his wife and kids will also come in to play.

I think he and I are clear on all points, so I turn back to the group. A few of them let it be known that they’re not sure if chasing after this Gus and Jill are in our best interests. We then go down this deep pathological discussion about the goals for the guild.

Long story short, I point out that we need to kidnap and sell kids to orphanages in order to grow our guild and financially support it. Essentially, everyone completely agrees with me. This is why I am the undestituted leader.

If we ain’t going after Gus then we need to decide what to do with this bum. I think we should kill him, but others think we should let him go. Are they insane? He’s a weasel and will sell us out for sure. Others remind me of the threat I made to him and his family though and think he’ll keep his mouth shut.

Just then Veego notices smoke coming from a building off in the distance from the Candy Cane Gang’s area of the city. He takes off with Dank and Jillian to check it out.

Not long after they leave, Peyton shows up with three young kids. There is Taylor and Marc, who are both six, and Rackshita, who is seven. She seems really upset and comes begging or our help. Peyton tells us that these three kids are like Mayella – special – and that they were smuggled into our orphanage.

I look at Mayella and her nasty doll. She don’t seem so special to me so I ask Peyton what she means. Peyton tells me that Mayella and these children were born with magic abilities. They ain’t never had no training or special schooling. They’re just born with it. Other guilds want to get their hands on powerful orphans like this and so she wants us to protect them.

If these kids were smuggled into the orphanage, I ask Mayella how she got there but she don’t remember nothing. Maybe I should ask the disgusting raggedy doll if it remembers but then I remember how weird that is and decide not to. Whatever. It’s just another instance of Mayella being next to useless.

We agree to take the kids in and protect them. I wake Sanjay up and ask him to get them some food, then clean them up and give them haircuts to change their appearance. I also highly recommend we disfigure the children so no one recognizes them. Of course, Peyton and Mayella have a fit when I suggest it, so I digest for now.

When the others return, they tell us that it’s the orphanage in the Candy Canes part of town that burned. What’s more, Dank says it looks like there is evidence that the Rose guild is responsible.

These guys again. We’re going to eventually deal with them once and for all. For now, however, we need to get rid of Bryan.

On the topic of Bryan, the group votes to spare his miserable life. We let him go but not before I remind him that the lives of his wife and kids are forfeit if he speaks of us or our conversation or location.

Morning comes, too soon at that, and I am exhausted from all the fighting and interrogating, but mostly from being left with Mayella for so long and listening to everyone’s stupid goals. Let me help: 1- Get Filthy Rich, and 2 – Expand our Territory Though Fear and Savagery. Boom. Out of here.

I am determined to speak with Peyton and get the low down on how she identified the special kids like Mayella. Seems like we also need to beef up security for our orphanage too before some of the Rose clowns come around and try to play fire bug in our backyard.

After packing away my red and white striped hat and candles, I walk out into the main room and find Brandy has delivered a deletable breakfast spread for us. My stomach immediately starts growling but before I can take even one bite I look over at Sanjay.

Sanjay gives me a sour look but tells me we didn’t pay for the meal. Darn right, we didn’t. After all the free food we delivered she should be catering buffets for us for a month!

While we enjoy Brandy’s spread, Peyton shows up again and says she has a favor to ask. I like Peyton and all, I really do, but favors in our line of business cost money.

Peyton tells us there is a network of safe houses they move the magic kids between and needs our help getting this bunch to their next destination. And to my absolute jubilation, she produces a nice sized ruby as payment.

Now the wheels are turning in my old business machine upstairs. Right away I seize on this opportunity. How many kids are they moving per month? How far? How often? Most importantly, how much? As in money.

The answers we get aren’t great, unfortunately. Peyton says something about 3 to 30 kids per month and something like a 75% success rate, but all I heard was “move the kids for free” and I ain’t listening  no more. She goes on about how the Mages Guild does unspeakable things to them (no one was crying for me when unspeakable things happened to my family, and then my face), and how these kids are turned into weapons.

I perk up again at that for a moment but then I think of Mayella. She’s supposed to be one of this wizard kids too and she ain’t done nothing but talk to that trash doll of hers. Ok, maybe there was that one guy she embedded into the door, but a blind squirrel finds a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs every now and again, right?

She does let on that the Rose Guild is targeting them though, and I remember Red telling us about how those jerks are amassing magic, so sticking it to them definitely has my interest. What seals it though is when Veego looks at the ruby and says that it’s two-months-worth of funds. We’re in. But just for this one time.

Turns out we only gotta cart the brats about a mile. This is too easy, I think to myself. We talk about moving them through the sewers and Dank says he knows the way. Black Lizard though says he prefers to hide out in the open though, and he’s my boy so that settles that.

I suggest we have Black Lizard get the cart we left with Dale the Miller and have Bryan drive us to the next safe house. Veego with his crazy good senses will run point for us and use Dank in his rat form to send messages back to us.

Before Bryan leaves though, Mayella tells him she cast a spell that will cause him to blow up if he double-crosses us. Bryan is so dumb he believes it. It’s not an actual magic spell like these other kids can supposedly do, but for Mayella that’s still pretty awesome. I didn’t know she had it in her.

Black Lizard returns with the cart and has filled it with boxes and other cargo from the grocer and baker but with enough room to hide some of us. Mayella and the three kids climb in, followed by Jillian and me.

We set off with Veego out in front doing recon. We almost reach the safe house with no issues when suddenly Dank comes racing back in his rat form. He reports that it smells like fire in the safe house. Thinking about the orphanage in the Candy Cane district, we decide it’s wise to pull over and see what’s what.

Black Lizard and Veego head toward the house and eventually enter it to find there was a fire inside just a few hours ago. They look around and it appears that someone has been sifting through the ash, but they can’t find nobody, not even any dead folks.

Dank’s nose starts twitching and he starts poking around a wall. It seems solid but Black Lizard knocks on it. That’s when he hears some dame inside crying out, so he pulls down the false wall and sure enough finds a woman inside. She’s covered in ash and has several burns on her body but she’s alive.

The woman says her name is Danielle and that she ran this orphanage. Something about her seems untrustworthy though. Maybe she’s an agent for the Rose guild. Veego, Black Lizard and Dank want to let her have the kids and then tail her. I’m leaning toward just killing her outright as a sign to the Roses again that we aren’t to be messed with. Jillian smartly asks how they will know it is us though and she’s not wrong. We need a calling card, I say, and she has the perfect idea, suggesting we cram a stick up Danielle’s bum like we did with the guys in the cart and leave her.

Once again through the group is a bunch of sissies and just want to tail Danielle so we let her take the kids. We wait for two hours practically for this Danielle and the kids to come back out so we can follow them. To kill time I hop up in front with Bryan and try to make small talk with him. You know, things like how he met his wife, what his kids’ names are. Basic stuff. He doesn’t seem to want to talk with me for some reason though.

Finally, Veego and Dank head into the house to see what’s up but Danielle and the kids are gone. The boys look about and find a secret door leading to the sewers. They head down to see if they can track the group, but the sewers are spotless. It’s like one of those jelly things we ran into scoured it clean. Taking their best guesses, they wander through the sewers a bit and sure enough find one of the jellies. No dead bodies in it though so it seems like Danielle went another way. Any way we cut it, slice it or dice it, they’re gone.

Well, we met the letter of the law on Peyton’s request in that we delivered the kids to the safe house. Whatever happens to them from here is none of my business, I suppose, so we head back to the base.

On the way back we notice that lack of food is an even bigger issues that it was just a few days back. We also notice government officials stopping carts and inspecting them. Black Lizard hails one of the officials and asks what he knows about all these orphanages burning down but this guy is no use for anything. He just says, “Move it along, flame breath” and that he’s just there to inspect carts.

Back at the base, Black Lizard gets to work on fixing the front door and sewer door. He heads over to see Peyton first though to tell her about fishy-acting Danielle and the kids giving us the slip. I guess Peyton was actually relieved. Also, turns our she’s one of them former special kids too so maybe that’s why she ain’t all burned up to crisp?

We let Bryan go home to his family with the understanding that he would owe a favor to be named at a later time.

Black Lizard returns to the base sometime later with a steel-reinforced wooden door to replace the one them bastards destroyed last night. He also installs a heavy timber beam between the sewer door and the ceiling to wedge it shut. Black Lizard is wicked smart. He even used the remaining steel from the stuff we took from those fools last night and crafted some armor for some of the gang.

Jillian gets some studded leather from Black Lizard, and so does Dank and for some reason Mayella. With the remaining steel he puts together a quarter set of plate armor.

Thinking about Robbie and how he has come up through the sewers to deliver us packages from Red in the past, I suggest we develop a secret knock and share it with Red in case he decides to hook us up in the future.

A few of us decide we need to press Peyton for more details on this Danielle situation because it still don’t smell right. Dank challenges her about Danielle and the strange circumstances but Peyton won’t budge. She’s convinced Danielle can be trusted and that the kids are ok.

I ask her if she thinks our orphanage is a target for the guys setting the fires and I am not pleased to hear that it is. I then ask her if that is because she’s still got some of them magic kids in there. She doesn’t answer me, but I can tell by her demeaniation that there are. Oh, brother.

We think we need to set a watch to protect our territory. I don’t so much care about the magic kids, they’re either more trouble than their worth (which is nothing, other than this one time, apparently) or they’re next to useless like Mayella. I do care about other guilds thinking they can just wander in and burn up my territory though. That dog won’t bark.

Peyton warns us not to set up guards that are obvious. She says that’s a definite signal to would-be attackers that there be some magic kids up in the orphanage. Noted. We’ll be smart about it and just see what happens to these fools if they try to get rowdy on my block.