GURPS Free Cities Session 21: The Third Asilos Raid

Party:
Arc Sol - Human Cleric of Pelor, the god of the sun (330 points)
Aurum Red-Brand - Human Wizard (322 points)
Mor'ath Enanqua - Elven Swashbuckler/Thief (308 points)
Zaxod - Half-Orc Knight (320 points)

Day 47
Weather: Sunny
After Arc lamented missing the sunrise due to the party's escapades the night before, he set about healing the rest of the party and was eventually successful.  They decided to arrange for a meeting with the Grand Autarch to discuss the Asilos' plans to summon a war devil, but went to the Grand Library of Bazionax to make copies of the rituals they had discovered first.  Mor'ath hung around outside and heard a rumour from a group of guards that the Autarch's cousin, Morthos, was possessed by a war devil.

They met with the old clerk again, but after a while of searching discovered that all eight of the books they wanted were currently being viewed by someone else.  Aurum tried to do some Research on devils, but critically failed at Speed-Reading and wasted the next 8 hours, becoming crosseyed (-2 Perception, -2 to attacks) for the next day in the process.

Meanwhile, Zaxod and Mor'ath went to the Autarch's Palace on the western side of Zerakim to set up a meeting with the Autarch, and eventually made it past the heavily-armoured guards at the main gate.  With a two-man escort, they made their way up the hill, past the Game of Thrones betrayal garden, and into the palace proper.

The guards showed them to Chamberlain Wilt, and Zaxod made their claim that the Asilos were planning on summoning a devil.  While the chamberlain seemed to take their claim seriously, he also demanded evidence.  Sadly, without anything more than "a man was kidnapped but doesn't remember anything" and "we will have copies of the rituals later", Wilt declined to schedule an emergency meeting, and informed them that the earliest they could meet was in two weeks.  Zaxod and Mor'ath started back to the Grand Library, defeated.

Arc had been waiting patiently inside the Grand Library for several hours when the clerk finally informed him that the person who had their books was finished.  At the same time, a male tiefling in noble's clothes walked out the main entrance.  Arc, worried that this might be another ally of the man in blue decided to follow him after asking the clerk to hold the books.  Arc noticed that despite his noble bearing, the tiefling was built like a soldier (Zaxod: "So he's a beefling?"), and trailed him all the way across Zerakim, to a guardhouse on the outer wall of the Autarch's Palace.  Worried that they may be about to butt heads with a major conspiracy, he then headed back towards the Grand Library.

Zaxod and Mor'ath arrived at the Grand Library and were greeted by the clerk, who informed them that their books were available and that their mail-wearing friend had left.  They thanked him, and tried to find Aurum, but the library was huge and he clearly didn't want to be interrupted.  They argued about hiring a scribe to copy the information they needed, but realised that they didn't know what parts of the books were important, and that copying all 8 books in their entirety would take too long (though Mor'ath did suggest hiring 100 scribes to copy everything).  With nothing left to do but wait, Mor'ath grabbed a book of Elven poetry while Zaxod twiddled his thumbs.  Eventually, Arc arrived back at the Grand Library and informed them of the tiefling.

Several hours after sunset, Aurum finally emerged from his hidey-hole and came out to copy down the 5 pages they needed.  The party headed back to the Blue Pheasant to rest, and made plans to recruit Katerina's brother, whose name they forgot, to see if his noble rank would help speed things along.  After looking through their "notes" they eventually figured out that they had recorded his name as "Lizard-cus" (actually Photios Lezarios), and settled in for the night.

GURPS Free Cities Session 20: An Eventful Night

Party:
Arc Sol - Human Cleric of Pelor, the god of the sun (326 points)
Aurum Red-Brand - Human Wizard (318 points)
Mor'ath Enanqua - Elven Swashbuckler/Thief (298 points)
Zaxod - Half-Orc Knight (316 points)
Aegert the Green - Human Apprentice (~125 points)

Day 46 (Cont.)
Weather: Cloudy, Rainy
Time: 1AM
Zaxod and Mor'ath regrouped with the rest of the party at the Lazy Dragon Inn nearby, and they planned when to make their next move.  After Arc healed up Zaxod and rested for a while, they took a look over at the Asilos estate and noticed that there were more guard patrols.  With the goal of extracting Leonidas Marinos, they went back to the rear wall of the estate to infiltrate it with the whole party (minus Aegert, who was incapable of stealth and unsuited to combat) this time.

Zaxod was Levitate'd by Aurum while he rode the levitating disc which was following Mor'ath.  Arc waited for Mor'ath to drop Aurum off inside of the wall, and then loop back over with the disc to pick him up.

However, the party got confused and after about 20 seconds of discussion, a pair of guards with halberds came around the corner, noticed Aurum and Zaxod floating just off the ground and 9' in the air, respectively, and sounded the alarm, calling for crossbows.  Zaxod responded by yelling out that he was a demon, here to eat their babies, hoping to distract the guards.  Aurum then moved Zaxod through an open second story window and cancelled his spell, while Mor'ath found a back door and tried to force it.

Zaxod jumped back out the window and landed on the ground beside Mor'ath, who was now picking the lock, and Aurum, who got off the disc.  The guards held their distance while calling out the party's movements ("There's one inside the second floor, no wait he jumped out, okay now they're opening the back door"), and Arc waited patiently, knowing that Mor'ath would quickly come back over the wall to bring him over.

Mor'ath finally got the back door open and they rushed into what was apparently the kitchen.  Aurum quickly locked the door behind them, and they moved through the first floor of the house to the basement, avoiding any more guards through a combination of luck, speed, and stealth.  They made their way down to the basement room where Leonidas was being kept, and Mor'ath picked the cell lock and Zaxod put the unconscious noble on the disc.  Meanwhile, Arc headed back to the Lazy Dragon to meet up with Aegert, having realized that the party had abandoned him.