Session 12

With help from Qutai and Kana providing knowledge of The Pit's layout, the group began to assemble plans to break in. They had two targets: retrieving Qutai's documents to allow him to track down Aman Bedzhi for the group, and searching for and rescuing Dashya Ravi, Mana's brother held hostage.

Despite Wei Liang's eagerness for the plan they decided not to go in as drunkards and bust out during the night. They briefly considered hiding away with the courtesans until the place was quieter, but after much wrangling, hand-wringing and brainstorming came up with the following multi-step plan:

• Qutai would provide the group with information about a merchant that The Pit uses to import fine liquors from the capital city, Maikhan. The group will sneak in to the merchant's compound, check shipping manifests and timetables, forge some copies, and get information on when upcoming deliveries to The Pit are to be made.
• The group will waylay five more Goto-Mei gang members, currently out in force in Downriver, and steal their uniforms. Added to the assorted bits of armour stolen from the two heavies outside the apothecary the previous day this would provide enough to disguise everyone.
• Ambush the merchant's nautical caravan en route to The Pit, tying up and hiding the workers and stealing their uniforms before continuing on to the appointed delivery. They will also add a crate, containing the Goto-Mei uniforms hidden under something else, to the delivery.
• Enter The Pit as the deliverymen for the merchant. Qutai reckoned this would allow them access to the storage areas near the kitchens, on the second floor, to make the delivery. A freight elevator is situated in the south-west corner of the building for moving goods around that will take them up.
• Once in the storage area, dispatch whoever it was they were supposed to meet there and steal their uniforms, giving them free run of The Pit to search for what they need.
• Once inside, the group will loop around the following locations, starting from the storage area on the 2nd Floor South:
	○ Directly next door, the Entertainment Lounge, located on 2nd Floor East.
	○ Up a floor, through either the gang sleeping area or the forges and alchemy labs, the VIP bedrooms, located on 3rd Floor West.
	○ Dropping back down through the kitchen, the slave cages, located on 1st Floor South.
	○ By sneaking through the gladiator's training area, the administration offices, located on Ground Floor West.
	○ Accessed from the administration offices, the basement.
	○ Hidden within the raised central ring and accessed from the basement, the vault.
	○ Escape, either via coming back out of the basement and to their waiting boat if the alarm hasn't been raised, or by a secret passage Qutai claims is in the basement that leads under the river to emerge elsewhere.
• If the group hasn't found Qutai's documents (hopefully in the Vault) and Dashya (hopefully in the Entertainment Lounge, VIP area or slave cages) they'll scour the rest of the building before making their escape.

The plan agreed, the group set about putting it into motion. Qutai provided them the name and address of a merchant he thought was suitable, a man names Khushmi, who operates out of a compound located on the opposite side of The Jungle from where the group was currently hiding out. Wei Liang advised the group to wait for nightfall before breaking in, so instead they set off to scout around the outside of the Downriver district to try to pick off the required Goto-Mei.

On approaching the district the gang quickly saw their first victim, a man wearing a Goto-Mei uniform crouched atop a pole emerging from the water. The group effectively passed themselves off as gormless tourists to allow Wei Liang to get into range and assassinate the man with a single shot from his bow, sending him falling silently into the water.

For the second, Chae-rin-shen approached a bored looking grunt watching over an abandoned courtyard. Using Suggestion she tried to convince the man to hand over the uniform as people were going round hunting Goto-Mei, but the man grew suspicious. Wei and Ryo leapt into action and peppered the fool with arrows before he could react.

Aiming for a more high-ranking uniform, Kathra spied a bandit captain and trailed him until he and the grunt he was with stopped for a drink at a waterfront bar. With “help” from Chae to make herself seem more alluring, Kathra approached the man and sweet-talked him into a liaison in a nearby alleyway. Once separated from his colleague Kathra summoned her spectral blade and sank it into the man's shoulder before she, Sassani, Ryo and Wei brutally murdered him.

Undeterred by her previous mishap, Chae approached the man left forlornly at the bar. Striking up a conversation, she listened to the man, Jenkins, complain about his captain and agreed that he seemed stressed, before Suggesting that a swim in the river would help ease his stress. Jenkins agreed, leaping to his feet and sending his stool splashing into the river before stripping down and leaping in after it. Chae gathered up the man's belongings, apologised to the stall's owner, and scurried away.

Finally, with Kathra, Wei, Chae and Sassani wearing their new disguises, they stalked a healer working for the Goto Mei until he was alone. When they saw their chance, Chae created an illusory wound on herself and stumbled towards him, supported by Kathra and Sassani, whilst Wei summoned the priest to help. The priest spotted the ruse too late and was trapped between the party, and was ruthlessly cut down.

Uniforms secured, the group returned to the jungle hide-away and rested until the middle of the night, when they began their infiltration of Khushmi's compound. Chae, Wei and Kathra jumped the fence, with Ryo and Sassani providing backup outside. They avoided the guards on their approach to the site's office, and Kathra snuck up the stairs to the raised door to cast Detect Traps on the office door and interior. As she described the threats she saw and Wei disarmed the trap on the door it became clear that the group had missed one trap and triggered a silent alarm, as a guard sunk his spear into Chae's back.

As she ran for cover inside the office Wei and Kathra dispatched the three guards, but not before they sounded the alarm. Ryo appeared at the top of the fence and began shooting at the two other guards as they approached, whilst Wei and Chae hid inside the office to wait for a chance to look around. Kathra provided a distraction by fleeing back towards the rope they'd lowered with two of the bodies, and as she reached the bottom Sassani' leapt down and cut down her pursuers. The final guard fled from the massacre, but was picked off by Ryo as he cowered.

With the alarm sounded, Sassani, Chae and Wei started work on the office. Whilst Wei and Sassani set to work on the trapped cabinets, Chae began rooting through draws and found some old shipping routes and dates, giving them some clue as to their next delivery. Neither Wei or Sassani were able to beat their trapped locks, but Wei had the good idea of removing the side of the cabinet instead, bypassing it. Unfortunately, yanking the side off also sprang the trap and released a poisoned cloud into the office. With the sounds of the city watch approaching outside, the three of them grabbed a random selection of documents from the office and fled.

Whilst this was taking place, Ryo and Kathra were busy outside setting up the scene of an epic battle between the guards and a fictitious criminal gang called Jia Ming Tuan Huo to throw any investigation off the scent. When the others burst from the building they joined them in scaling the fence, and the group disappeared into the night.

The next morning the group realised that none of them actually knew how to sail a boat with any degree of proficiency. To combat this, they hatched a plan to coerce some rivermen into assisting them. They decided to recruit the two child taxi-boat drivers, Jago and Kokai, who had previously attempted to rob Ryo, using the group's knowledge of their criminal activity as blackmail for their assistance. Chae, Wei and Sassani headed back to where they had previously found the pair, and Chae and Wei settled down on a barge bar to wait. A long time later the pair were finally spotted, and Chae flagged them down.

As Chae and Wei boarded the boat Kokai tried her normal trick of pickpocketing them as she helped them aboard, whilst Jago kept up a friendly patter to distract them. Whilst Chae was on guard for such unscrupulous activities Kokai managed to best her and pinch her purse, but Wei, swaggering drunk from the bar, caught her. When the children tried to laugh it off Chae turned on them, swiftly cowing them both and scaring Kokai into returning her stolen purse. Threatening to hunt them down should they not agree to her plan, she forced the children into agreeing to help, promising swift retribution should they try anything funny.

This done, the pair departed the boat and returned to the camp to begin the next step of the plan.

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