So I woke up to some loud banging on the front door of Gravath's inlaws' house. I had a feeling it might be Thalian military looking for us, so I quickly suited up. My suspicions were confirmed when I stepped out into the hall and Ronn told us to hide in the cellar. There were apparently a dozen or so Thalian Dragoons out there, with the leader of the group and her second being manifests, so it would prolly not be good to just charge out there and take them head on.
Grey tunneled us out of the basement, coming up a few hundred yards away. Sticking our heads up, we saw a couple of the dragoons guarding the horses, while the rest of them were about searching the premises for us. We were considering just distracting the soldiers long enough to sneak into the barn and ride off on our horses, but we heard screaming from the main house. We couldn't leave the Gravaths like that, so we formulated a rescue plan.
Cassie spooked the horses, taking out one of the guards, and then when the sergeant came out to investigate, Trent began sniping at him. He managed to wound the guy before he and the soldiers with him ducked for cover behind the house. I was sneaking my way there anyways, so I dimension door-ed behind them. The sergeant seemed to be peeking around the corner doing some sort of magic at the others, while his men were heading back into the house. Perfect. I quickly charged over there with my super speed and viciously stabbed him in the back. He managed to turn around and hit me with some sort of spell that I shrugged off, but I quickly finished him off with a straight stab to the heart, wherein I quickly reversed the grip on my blade and flipped it down as soon as it was out his chest and coming around with a underhand slash as I turned. The blade practically decapitated him, and as soon as I came around from my turn, I charged around the back of the house, ignoring the peons and looking for the leader chick. I heard some chaos coming from the other side of the house and saw her being pummelled with various floating objects, while an earth elemental was crushing some guys stuck in a pit.
I started heading her direction, hoping she hadn't noticed me yet so I could sneak up and cut her throat. She was already beat up, and I guess she saw the writing on the wall because she sent some flames towards the house and told us to give up or she'd immolate the house and those inside. I quickly superspeeded over there and though I perfectly timed it so she was turned around, ripe for my “swallow cut”, apparently my attack just didn't sink deep enough to knock her out before she could set the house on fire. But thankfully, she dropped dead after she did, and Grey managed to put it out quickly.
I saw some of the remaining soldiers running off in the distance, and not wanting them to warn the Thalians and bring some more people after us, I used some super-speed and dimension door-ing to quickly catch up with them and dispatch them.
It definitely wasn't safe for the Gravaths anymore, so I opened a gate and sent them to Runearch. After we interrogated the remaining soldiers, Grey told me to dispatch them. We couldn't risk them warning the Thalians, but I still felt slightly guilty just finishing them off like that. I don't think the guy was purposely trying to reassure me, but he accepted his fate, saying that was his lot when he signed up for service.
Getting back to our main mission, it seemed the best place to head was Seldermoor, where a big showdown between the Dukes was set to take place. The capital of the Pal'Parthna duchy, both Duke Melfir and Duchess Veris have sent troops there, giving Duchess Parnth the same ultimatum, join their side of die. Since the results of that three way will probably determine who will win, that sounded as good a place as any to find some answers.
So, after selling the Dragoon's horses for some bank (and keeping their armor just in case we need to disguise ourselves), we warped back to Dimmersdel. It took some doing, but we managed to blunder our way to finding the criminal element of the city. Via a stoolie named Peter the Shiv, we got into contact with a fat dude named Mr Babbage. We worked out a deal to have some smugglers who worked for him sneak us close to Seldermoor. Since we had a couple of days until the airship left, we had some time to kill.
I told the others I was going to Frankie's, a brothel that was recommended to me, and left them to their own devices. The selection of girls they had was okay, there were a couple of pretty attractive girls there, but none of them were really my style. So I headed over to the market square. Last time we were in the city and finding out the word on the street, I remembered there was this cute young-ish green-eyed blond with a nice rack working at a bakery there. Fortuitously, she was working the counter when I got there, and they had just pulled a fresh batch of sticky buns from the oven. She was grabbing something from one of the top shelves, which is when I realized she had a nice ass too. She hadn't notice me come in, because I startled her and she fell off the ladder, but lucky for her I was quick enough to catch her.
“Thanks,” she said blushingly. I introduced myself as “Hoyt” since I didn't want to be throwing my real name around, and she replied her name was Sera. I ordered a sticky bun and since business had been slow with the chaos in Upper Thalia and there weren't that many customers that I would be distracting her from and her boss would be out for the next few hours, I stuck around to work my charms on her. Splitting that bun with her, we got to talking, mostly about herself, which was good because I don't think I could come up with a fake backstory that would stand up to scrutiny. But it all worked out because she complemented me on being such a good listener. She was younger than I thought she was, which surprised me because of her womanly… assets. I talked her into meeting up later, though she was hesitant at first. After a little prodding, she admitted she'd never been out with a boy before by herself because she had an over-protective brother who would scare them all off. Lucky for me, he had gone off and joined the army, though thankfully she did not say he was a dragoon, because that would've freaked me out a little wondering if he might've been one of the guys from a few days before. I said it was okay, and that she didn't need to be embarrassed, and how I'd try my best to make it a perfect first date for her.
I met her at a tavern near the Old Bavarian Inn for dinner. She was a little nervous on our date, because she kept drinking her drink, which unfortunately happened to be a wine recommended with the meal we ordered. She ended going through an entire bottle herself, and was more than a little tipsy by the end of dinner. Not wanting to deal with the others for bringing back some drunk blond girl, I sprang for a room somewhere else. They prolly thought I was whoring it up at Frankie's, though I suppose this was really no different. We started making out on the bed, and since chicks seem to have trouble saying no to me, it began going a little further. However, she did get shy at one point, saying she had never done it before, but I told her that it was all right I'd gently walk her through it, while grinning to myself that that suited me just fine…
Anyways, after all was said and done, I met up with the others and then we met up with the smugglers, who didn't have an airship at the airport, but instead lead us to a hidden dock containing a small river boat. We sailed downriver on that until we were aways from the city, wherein they converted it to airship mode and flew towards our destination.
Strangely enough, Grey and the others wanted to double cross these smugglers and steal their airship. He makes a sound argument, so if that's the consensus, I'll go along with their plan.