The Pig: Part 3

When the sun started to set, they walked up the hill to the slaughterhouse and at a certain point the group divided like planned. Morgan, Iwia and Rowan went to the slaughterhouse entrance where the guards recognized two of them from earlier in the day and asked: «Who is this person?» looking at the new face. «She is the boss,» replied Iwia, «the owner of the livestock.» The guards accompanied them in this big office on the second floor where a fat, bald, slimy man was sitting at a desk. The office looked like a normal office, nothing strange or out of order. The man said:- «Oh you must be the guys I was told about doing business with. My name is Eric.» Then he looked with what was supposed to be a charming look but came out as creepy, at Morgan, «Very nice to meet you» and got up to shake her hand. He pointed at two chairs in front of his desk so Morgan and Iwia took a seat. He looked obviously much more interested in her than anybody else but then he was told that the tiefling was the person he should talk to so he started talking to him, not forgetting to lasciviously look at the beautiful rich woman. 

Iwia explained:- «We have a lot of livestock where we live, a bit further away from here but we do have a lot and - pointing at Morgan - her husband passed away».

«You husband passed away?» interrupted The Pig. «Interesting. Are you looking for a new husband?»

Morgan smiled:- «I may be open to that. We can talk later but business first» 

Iwia continued:- «So I was saying we have about a hundred cows to sell». The Pig goes:- «For 100 cows the price is usually 5 gold pieces each but - he looked at Morgan -  I could do 6 pieces each if we have a good date». So they settled for a date later that night, and The Pig agreed to have the bodyguard Rowan at the date too (he looked intrigued), and 600 gold pieces upon delivery of the cattle. 

The group went back to the hotel room to freshen up and make a plan to kill The Pig in the woods at the meeting point. The two women would go ahead and the other three would stay hidden not far away and come out to fight. 

After maybe half an hour they went to the meeting point, a big opening in the woods at the end of the main road up the hill not far from the slaughterhouse. Morgan and Rowan went ahead and Serafina, Sora and Iwia went to hide in the trees around the opening. The Pig arrived, apparently alone, after a few minutes. They started to talk nicely, but barely managed to say a few welcoming words when from the trees came out battle sounds and a scream. Sora had found a guard hidden like them and started battle in the trees launching a dart with her crossbow to one of The Pig’s guards, that had done the same hiding game, and at that point everybody jumped out in plain sight and the fight began.

The Pig yelled with rage:- «I knew you were just scoundrels! You’ll never get me!»

Sora and Hector attacked one of the closest guards, Serafina tried to shoot an arrow to another guard but she missed and he in turn got close to her and attacked her with his sword, leaving her seriously injured. The Pig attacked Morgan with his meat cleaver and Rowan attacked the same guard already wounded by her teammates. The guard fell, killed and Rowan directed her anger to The Pig. Two more guards tried to get closer from behind but Morgan played a lullaby on his lute and they both fell asleep. Sora shot a dart to the guard close to Serafina killing him before he could kill the thief, while both Morgan and Iwia try to hit The Pig. With two guards dead and two asleep, the Pig, already wounded, tried to run away but Rowan followed and hit him fatally with a throwing axe. It took only seconds for Sora and Rowan to make the 2 sleeping guards sleep forever. 

Iwia started cutting The Pig’s head with the spear point, until Rowan said:- «What the fuck?» She took her sword and cut the head entirely off. Iwia decided to keep the head in his backpack, blood and all. The group searched the bodies and found no money but they took their 5 leather armors and The Pig’s ring,

with a nice stone on it.

It was already dark and everybody agreed they had to go rest for the night. They went back to the Inn where they still had a nice room waiting for them to sleep and recover from the fight. The lady at the counter looked at everybody weirdly, probably because she saw them leaving all fresh and nice smelling and they came back not that much later all dirty, with blood stains and with a stench. She especially looked at Serafina, who was still bleeding and could barely walk:- «Little lady, are you OK?» «Yes, yes, just a long evening!»
The group rested and had a very good night’s sleep. Everybody woke up in the morning fresh, clean and ready to go back to the city to prove they did their job. After a substantial breakfast everybody agreed they had to find a way to get past the Basilisk Gate and go back to the Lower City. They went outside, to the market, very on the lookout because supposedly The Guild was still looking for them. Their best bet would have been to go to the same spot that the fish cart dropped them off the day before and see if they could find the same people to get a ride back, but once there they didn’t see anybody. Looking around they could see a lot of people going back and forth, some bumping into them. Serafina, the skilled thief, noticed a kid that, while casually bumping into Rowan, left a note in her pocket and disappeared. So she alerted Rowan to take the note and read it. The note said: “Curiosity shop”.
She looked puzzled and told everybody else about it and after a bit of fuss from Sora about it being a setup, they agreed to go there. There was, in fact, a curiosity shop at the corner of the market. The shop was very small. They saw a lot of strange things inside, dream catchers, unusual objects and curiosities from all over the world, skulls of little animals. There was a counter with a very beautiful woman standing behind it. Everybody went to the counter to talk to her except Sora who just stood next to the door, arms crossed, still thinking this was a bad idea.
«Welcome to my shop», said the woman. Rowan showed her the little note and she said: «Yes, this is the curiosity shop, welcome. You want to buy something?». She talked like she knew nothing about the note or about who sent it and seemed to treat them like normal customers, eager to sell merchandise. but Serafina knew that she was actually using her hands to talk in the secret thief language, so she understood the woman was actually telling her to go to the back of the shop. Morgan saw Serafina just walking behind the counter without saying a word and she followed and soon all the others followed too. The group walked into a little storage room. There, sitting on a bunch of bags that could have been filled with rice or flour, sat the same man that drove the fish cart. He was also dressed as a monk and was wearing a necklace with a symbol that Sora recognized as the symbol of Pelor, the good aligned god of the sun, agriculture and time, also known as healing god. He said: «Finally! You took your time!»
Iwia said: «Can you take us back to your boss?» «Can birds fly?» he replied. He pointed to a back door. They went out the door and found themselves in a backyard full of monks (or people dressed as monks), including children, who handed them 4 adult monk robes and one child robe. Everybody dressed up and was given a parchment with some prayers to recite. The adventurers were hidden in the middle of the monk column and the entire group started walking towards the Gate. It was still morning but it took almost until lunch time to reach the Gate. The guards at the Gate checked some people at the beginning and end of the procession but they couldn’t notice the five adventurers in the middle. The procession kept going towards the north of the city, using the main road until at a certain point,the five adventurers were shown out of the monk procession with a request to undress, leave the robes and just go to the Hissing Stones bathhouse, while everybody else continued chanting and walking.
They all went to the now familiar bathhouse, same routine as last time, they were asked to leave the weapons and were accompanied into a room where the person they knew as Keene was sitting there but this time there were three girls massaging his shoulders.  One of them is the same girl that was at the counter of the Curiosity Shop.
«How did it go?» asked Keene? «It went very well» said Iwia and took the Pig’s head out of his backpack for everybody to see. «Good, good, you got the head, now please toss it in the trash». As Iwia was about to obey, Sora stood up and asked to have an ear for her to keep but she also pointed out she had no weapon. Keene, even if he looked disgusted, nodded and one of the guards just cut off an ear and gave it to her.
«I am a man of my word» said him. «As promised, I will talk to The Guild. The man you tried to rob will still search for you but not the other Guild members. And since you did a good job and it was fast, I will also offer you this» and he showed a little pouch containing 10 gold coins. «Now I will need 24 h to make the Guild stop their search, so lay low for a day and then disappear. I don’t want to see you anymore.» Then he dismissed the group with a gesture of his hands and they were accompanied at the exit, where they retrieved their weapons and went out.
The Misfits had no other choice but to find a quiet place and lay low for another day so they went back to the abandoned house to rest for the night, using side roads and being extra careful.