[IC] Heroically heroic heroes on an adventurous adventure!

[Halvtand]

The tavern called “The blue lute” does not accept goblins as guests. Baxxink knew this and had fastened his false facial hair well before he'd pushed open the door. The tavern itself was rather unimaginative, as wayside taverns goes. Made all in wood, it looked as if it hadn't been properly looked after for many years. Inside was one big room for eating, drinking and dancing. A raised platform in the farthest end where a lonely harp player plink-plonked out a tune, some empty space between him and the two rows of tables. Each table was round and made by thick wood, looking heavy. Around every table were a couple of stools, three or four at most of them. There were some visitors in there already, huddled around the tables with pints of beer or plates of food in front of them. None of them were of much interest to Baxxink yet.

On the closest wall was a door, and by the smell of it only two things could be on the other side, a mound of trash or the kitchen. A fat human in his fourties, dressed in a stained apron came into the big room as he heard the outer door open. His fat mouth opened to speak, but Baxxink cut him off.
“Hello govenor! A round of pints for me and my mates, eh?” He said.

[Fetzen]

The man's belly was hanging over his stretched girdle, almost touching the goblin's head as he was approached by the owner of the tavern. A big finger, its upper side partly covered by a fairly dense amount of skin hair, was directed at Baxxink. "Can you even drink a single beer ? I hope your companions compensate for your nonexistant size." The man chuckled, then got back to his place behind the counter and started to prepare the beverages.

Vekyzz seemed to be the perfect match for this tavern: His equipment just looked as run-down and patched together as the building, yet the man wearing it was beyond any doubt impressive. The way he tried to get in however was not: The demon's horn scraped along the upper part of the doorframe and so did his arms and shoulders on the sides of it. Gritting his teeth, he slammed the door closed with a certain degree of annoyance in his movements. Vekyzz signaled towards the fat man just saying "Beer please, fast!" and grabbed the first chair available. He didn't spend much time on inspecting how sturdy it was.

[knighthawk]

Gregory looked up at the behemoth with two parts of surprise: One was because anyone chose to join the half orc at the table. The second was that the one who sat with him was actually taller than him by nearly a foot sitting with those horns on his head; and three times as wide in the shoulders. The tusked once smiled broadly and gestured to the already taken seat as he now had company befoe nodding to the small furred one who offered a round. "Fortune favors us all, one buying rounds and a titan with a kings thirst. Come, small one, join us!"

" 'Ere now, mind the wood ya big galoot!" Came the warning wail of a well worn woman as she slapped a rag at him futilely. She was clearly the waitress and most likely the cooks wife, although she looked like the cooks grandmother but tried to dress like the cooks daughter. All in all not a pleasing image unless you have very specific tastes or very low standards. The chair screeched in protest to the callous treatment which became a crackling groan of effort to support the mass. Even black walnut has its limits.

[Halvtand]

As the chair creaked louder and louder the sheer volume of it eventually not only rivalled, but dwarfed that of the lonely harp player. Enraged, the musician put his instrument down and called out across the tavern.
"Hey! Lardarse! Go easy on the scenery, willya? I'm trying to create art over here!"

The operation had gone smooth until that time. The innkeeper hadn't seen through Baxxink's disguise and his companions had settled in nicely, not even the demon had had much trouble getting in, although Baxxink reckoned that it had something to do with his size. Looking around the big room, he took stock of the other guests. The usual drunkards that frequents taverns, a merchant or two, but not of the wealthy kind. If he was going to pay for the drink he needed money. Fast.
The barmaid was a possible solution, she should know where some money were kept, but he'd have to subdue her for it, and he'd rather not.

@Fetzen He got up from the table he shared with his two comrades, and excused himself as he had some call of nature to attend to. He left the big room by the back door and was greeted by a lonely tree that smelled a lot more like urine than pine. He turned and looked up at the tavern. The rooms that guests could stay in were usually on the upper floor, he counted four windows up there.
His plan was simple, climb the piss-tree, jump to the roof, find a window if an occupied room and sneak in, there should be something of value.

[Fetzen]

Of course one could climb any tree as long as one had the proper ratio between one's own physical power and one's weight, which in Baxxink's case clearly was true. However also clearly true was that every tree you climbed usually left some traces of its bark behind on you as your feet and hands dug into it. In the case of the piss tree, well... these traces were well infused with the stench of pee and other disgusting things as well. The jump onto the roof was successful and there was an open window - who'd suspect that someone would climb the piss tree in the first place ?. There were voices heard behind the closed door, indicating that two people were talking in front of it in the hallway. The room's current owner or was it just a coincidence ? Who could know, but whoever had rented this higher class room had to have some assets. Several not super-precious, but still rather valuable items like a richly decorated pen, sheets of high quality parchment and the key to a coach that was standing down somewhere near the tavern waited for the intruder if he was daring enough.

Vekyzz noted that the chair seemed to be pretty much at the brink of its limits, but he didn't care much as long as the thing would hold. What did disturb him however was being called a 'galoot'. And before he had even finished hatching a proper plan of retaliation against a single target, this petty excuse of a real musician added itself to the queue! Vekyzz' decided that 'lard arse' requested higher priority than 'galoot'.

@knighthawk
His hand slammed onto the table and was retracted slowly with some deliberate pressure applied to its claws so there would be superficial scratches left behind. Then, the man got up again. His glimming eyes were focused on the lonely harp player and with the pace of a zombie, but with much, much more straightforwardness and determination, the latter one was approached. Vekyzz didn't plan on destroying the harp, but merely... confiscating it for a while. Vekyzz didn't say a word as he came closer and closer, opening and closing his palms slowly as if he wanted to chop some flesh with them.

[knighthawk]

The poor chair seemed to faint once the monstrosity arose with great theatrics, crumpling to kindling under its own legs. Avoiding reprisal, the wench took a step back and pivoted around a patron with the grace of repetition rather than lightly footed as she put come distance from a backhands reach. The minstrel, however, found himself fast in place as the behemoth made a babies 'grabby hands' motion and held out his arm behind him to protect his treasured lively hood in some futile form of keep-away. "Back, beast!" The words were as weak and hollow sounding as they felt as terror gripped the harpist's heart.

Just as quick as they came, they left again. Leaving the orc rather confused as to the wherewithal of the situation. For the moment he smiled as a drink was brought to him but he put his hand upon the tray to stop her. "If you don not mind, I am forbidden from drink. I'll take the generosity in the rounds worth, pour one less tankard and bring me the coppers, if you please." It was a simple lie, but being cut off from his finances means he needed to get every coin he could into his purse.

Looking around, His orcish eyes peered up to the balcony where two stood at the end of the hall before the door with a heated debate. One wore a navy cloak and the other was covered in furs. They seemed to be passing a satchel back and forth as if neither wanted it, nor did they want any other to have it either. Finally, the taller of the two spoke a dwarven word and went to throw open his door into the higher class room.

[Halvtand]

The two men argued audibly and drew the attention of not just the orc, but almost everyone else in the room that wasn't too drunk to open their eyes. the satchel they passed between them looked heavy and full, but its contents were a mystery. When the bigger of them suddenly burst out in dwarfish his companion did the same, unloading a string of sharp noises and heavy consonants in the direction of his comrade. The big guy turned toward the door to leave, pressed the handle down and without further ceremony walked straight into the solid wood of the barrier. Locked. "Key, ye daft bastard!" He yelled at his friend, who enraged threw the satchel out into the air.
"I ain't got no key, ya baboon, ye got i' yerself!"
The satchel soared through the air with all the grace of an eagle, paralysed from the neck down and n serious need of a shit. By some miraculous coincidence it flew straight toward the orc and with the amazing reflexes of someone who hadn't been dead for hundreds of years he opened his hands and caught it almost silently.
Almost.
The faint "tink" of one coin hitting another escaped.
All eyes were on the satchel.

Baxxink decided to take the chance, he should be swift enough. The pen was pocketed almost before his feet hit the floor, the key came second. He looked at the parchment for a second but left it. Too big, only worth something in good condition and even then only to the right kind of buyer who'd love to get away cheaply. Something heavy slammed against the door and Baxxink instantly abandoned any thought of searching the room further. He swung out of the room like a piss-stained swan and crouched down on the other side. He hadn't gotten any money, which was what he'd been after, he'd have to trade the pen somewhere... The key. Maybe there were some money stored in the coach.

@Fetzen
Baxxink made his way down the tree swiftly, down was the easy part after all. He didn't enjoy rubbing himself against the piss-coloured bark of it, but figured that he could order up a bath and wash his clothes at the same time if he only found some money. He rounded the inn and came up the the spot where coaches were held. There were a lot of them, various sizes and shapes for various amounts of wealthy occupants. Baxxink looked at the key again, but there was no way of determining which coach it belonged to. HE'd have to try them all one by one and hope that the coachmen didn't find him suspicious.

[Fetzen]

Taking a primitive mathematical-theoretical approach, one could state that the probability density of encountering the correct lock was a flat line across the number of coaches already tried. The chance of the last coach to be the right one was equal to the chance of the first or the middle one to be it. However, this statistic did not consider some more subtle factors, one of them being the wannabe-thief being a tad nervous, hasty and thereby not very gentle or even precise with the key-lock-pairing. There were hardly any coachmen (who wanted to wait outside when there was a tavern ?), but after almost a dozen of hard bounces, jams and rubbing against more or less badly lubricated cylinders, the damn key just broke. It did not necessarily mean that the plan had to be abandoned. There were other ways to get in: Break the thin glass, for example. Or take that large iron rod that was leaning against the back outer wall of the tavern and use it as a makeshift crowbar. Or take that other coach that still had two horses hitched up to it and just drive it away. It would be the goblin's own decision if he wanted to leave for greed without his friends or not.

Vekyzz sticked to his slow approach. His shadow more and more started to encompass the harp player, and since he was so tall, he knew that he very soon was in reach of him. The demon didn't care much about the other persons currently present. There was something going on on the upper level, but the first to deal with still was Mr. 'Lard Arse'. He'd soon see why Vekyzz was so freaking large and heavy!

@knighthawk
As if he weighed almost nothing, the musician was grabbed at the collar of his shirt and lifted off the ground at the very end of Vekyzz' outstretched left arm. With his biceps bulging beneath his dark skin, the demon pulled the man towards him, holding him high enough so they could stare into each other's eyes. "Now... what do you say ? Shall me make a few tests of strength to see who of us is more worth his weight ?" Speaking this, Vekyzz allowed for his large teeth to be clearly seen.

[Halvtand]

The musician, eyes bulging, breathing heavy, sweat literally dripping, said nothing at all. The terror of what stood before him had overloaded his brain, he hadn't counted on anything like this to happen and he genuinely feared for his life.
Suddenly something hit Vekyzz in the back. the sudden spray of wood of varying sizes and shapes, as well as the painful imprint the object had made told the demon that it was one of the tavern's many chairs of dubious standard, this one had obviously seen better days. As Vekyzz turned his eyes on the room in order to figure out who needed a swift punch to the groin the most he caught the end of something bright blue as if wafted through the rapidly closing door. The rest of the room was filled with people too stunned to move, some perhaps thinking that they'd be safe if they just stayed perfectly still.

Outside, the goblin known as Baxxink did his best to look inside all the coaches. He was too short for some, and had to stand on his toes or jump to get even the faintest of looks. Sure, he could climb them like nothing, but his clawed hands and feet tended to leave some scuff marks and that was not the mark of a good thief. The key had broke, and some unlucky bugger would have to get a locksmith before he could get in his coach again, Baxxink only hoped that the guy was very comfortable inside the tavern still.

@Fetzen
The coachmen had been careful to remove any baggage from the roof and back of the coaches, the only place he'd find anything of value would be inside the locked compartments. He got up on the back end of one and looked inside. While there was no visible luggage, the seats in the coaches often opened up to allow people to stash stuff down there. The coach he'd chosen looked like it belonged to someone rich enough to stash some money in there, but still not rich enough to set a trap. That is a very specific kind of rich.
Baxxink drew his right arm back, curled his hand into a fist, aimed for the centre of the glass sheet and thought about it.
Glass is hard, brittle, but harder that the average fist. Breaking the glass like that, if even possible by a weak goblin, would hurt like hell and probably scar him for life and drain his blood. He jumped down and looked around, all he needed was something harder than glass, a stone, a good branch, a turtle... Something he could use and then throw away...

[Fetzen]

Stones were the most obvious option. In fact, right from where Baxxink was standing up to several miles away, the object was nothing but ubiquitous. The road leading to the tavern was reinforced with gravel pressed into the softer ground by years of people stepping and vehicles driving on it. The problem was that these were small stones. Very comfortable to grab for a small goblin's hand, but also not very powerful and even less protective. Turtles ? Well... the comedy option was nowhere to be seen. A branch however was available - broken off from the piss tree which could be seen from where Baxxink was. The plant was dying slowly, its life being pissed off by so much piss. But maybe the goblin would remember about a more clever option ? Glass could be selectively weakened by deeply scratching it. This was a job even a bit of the small road pebble would be sufficient for. Maybe a part of the glass could be removed with less brutality (and thereby noise) required than with the brute force method.

Speaking of brute force - Vekyzz was busy remembering what he was damn good at. The musician was slammed back onto the ground harder than gravity alone would have done it. The demon's eyes seemed to burn - and so did the wound the impact had left on his back in the metaphorical sense. It was littered with splinters and would require a bit of attention if one didn't want to risk it becoming even uglier. Right now this wasn't the time for such things however. The demon turned around completely infuriated, the door he had seen the bright blue thing going through fixed in the middle of his view.

@Halvtand
With great anger, Vekyzz slammed a table which happened to block his straightforward way out of the same. He kicked the door open and once again, fast progress was hindered by him not fitting through it. Once he was outside, he yelled: "Which bastard did this ? Come here at once!" Yet apparently he wasn't expecting the coward to show up. Vekyzz stepped further away from the door towards the area where the coaches and horses were waiting. It was there that he expected the person in question to seek refuge because of the many obstacles and possibilities to make a quick escape. Unintentionally his path lead him almost directly towards Baxxink, but the rageful creature didn't have the goblin on its list of suspects. Vekyzz had already decided to leave and therefore he was heading for a saddled horse near the coach. The demon didn't care about its owner - he just wanted to get away from here.

[Halvtand]

The horseman, somehow oblivious to the adventures of Baxxink, was frozen in place, much like the musician inside the tavern. He only went limp when Vekyzz tugged him out of the saddle, and folded himself into a neat pile of human on the ground.
The horse on the other hand would have none of that. As soon as it felt its rider leave the saddle it started to whine and tried to get away. As the demon grabbed the reins to hold the beast still the damn thing panicked and shot of like a lightning bolt down the road, leaving a puzzled vekyzz with a slight burning sensation in his hand. As the horse ran for its life past the far wall of the tavern something bright blue shot out of the shadows, got on top of the horse and rode away at break-neck speed.

Baxxink on the other hand, had grown tired of looking for proper glass-smashing tools and had settled on the urine-coated branch from the infamous tree behind the tavern. He swung the yellowish-brown thing high above his head and smashed the window into a million pieces just as a horse went into full gallop just a few coaches over. While the beast did not cover the sound of the glass, it was likely to draw the attention of anyone nearby, lucky.

@Fetzen
The goblin crawled through the hole without too much hassle and started to rummage around in there as soon as he could. As the passenger compartment was fairly small it didn't take him long. While he looked over his findings something moved outside the window and the demon Vekyzz became clearly visible, he obviously had no intention of staying at the tavern any more. Getting out of the coach as quickly as he could, he immediately jumped into the coachman's seat of the next one over and started to shout and wave his arms to get the attention of his companion.

[Fetzen]

Vekyzz looked at his hand and looked back up to see the animal run away at blazing speed. Then he focused in on his hand again just to recognize how bruised it had become in these fractions of a second. And then he looked back up to check for the horse again, but only to see the blue... whatever it was... again. Then the human he had just smashed to the ground put himself back into action by presenting Vekyzz the most sneering grin the demon had seen in weeks. He wasn't amused at all.

Wasn't somebody waving at him ? Grumbling and baring his teeth, Vekyzz stepped away from the man without looking back. He had to concentrate in order to locate the loud (and somewhat annoying) noise in the middle of the mess this 'parking area' was. Only a considerable number of seconds later Baxxink finally came into the demon's view and he adjusted his course.

@Halvtand
"What's this ? A nutshell ? Couldn't you have picked something even smaller ?" Vekyzz volleyed his personal criticism towards the small goblin. The problem was that using a certain tone or wording too often could lead to others becoming resistant against it. This held true especially for friends - and such they were at least. The coach developed a massive list when Vekyzz placed himself next to the goblin. The demon was emitting a significant amount of warmth despite the fact that he'd hardly engaged physically. "I suggest we go." Of course this wasn't their couch, or was it ?

[Halvtand]

"What are you talking about? It's huge, my whole family could live in this one!" The goblin exclaimed and kicked the horse in front of him hard in the backside. The drowsy beast sprang into action immediately and brought the two unexpected adventurers and the coach with it. Only when they started to go fast did the goblin realise that he had no idea about how to steer a coach and promptly handed the reins over to his larger-than-average friend just as the coachmen got out of the tavern with their crossbows. A few bolts wizzed past or struck the coach, but neither of the two or the horse was hit. One of them, a fellow with a large moustache ran after the coach for a short while before giving up.

Baxxink, not being used to the kind of speed that made his eyes dry out and stomach sink into his trousers, held on for dear life as the demon tugged and pulled at the seemingly tiny leather strips that connected the horse to the coach. Every now and then he risked a look over his shoulder just to make sure they weren't followed. After all, the other coaches were just as ready to go as this one had been, and the guys piloting them were used to travelling faster than sound.

@Fetzen
Before long the sound of hooves on packed dirt could be heard and as Baxxink turned to look he could clearly see half a dozen humans on horseback. Apparently they'd disconnected the beasts from their burdens to make them go even faster, lunatics.
"They're behind us! What are we going to do?" He shouted as loudly as he could, but feared that the air that held his words were well behind their pursuers when it reached the air that had held Vekyzz ears. To make sure that his bulky companion knew about the pursuers he instead rammed a sharp clawed finger into the demon's side, which would surely make him turn to check in a gentlemanly manner so that Baxxink could point out the danger.

[Fetzen]

"Huge ? You call this thing huge ? This is a bloody, rotten nutshell!" Vekyzz snatched the reins out of Baxxink's tiny hands presenting them to him. Well... the demon knew how not to avoid any imperfection in the road's surface. The demon apparently really was much more interesting in optimizing the straightness of their path than in saving them and the coach from any shocks.

Then there was a sudden pain in the demon's flank. Did one of bolts penetrate the coach's wall and hit him ? Then his head wouldn't be safe either despite the fact that he was ducking so hard that only his horns were reaching above the roof... A glance downwards and he discovered the truth. That... greddy, little... useless goblin! Vekyzz bared his teeth and reached for Baxxink's wrist in one rapid movement. It stopped to be visible beneath the demon's fingers and he certainly was applying a vice grip from hell. "You..." was the only word he forced out between his lips, his voice trembling with only halfway suppressed anger.

@Halvtand
Before being able to finally decide and crush the bone in his hand though, their pursuers managed to draw Vekyzz' attention. They were in trouble. Huge trouble. Two against many was a situation that could become critical very quickly and hopefully he didn't need to tell this to his companion.
"Jump onto the horse and leave some space for me! I'll disconnect this heap of junk so we can go faster!"