Part 1: The Shallows

[Krathognis]

~Welcome to the Shallows~

   If the merchant quarters are the heart of the city of Akterumn the The Shallows are it's colon.  One of the oldest districts, the shallows began life as a fishing village along the Avensold River.  Several centuries of 'progress' later it finds itself a slum consisting of dilapidated warehouses, mixed wooden and stone shanties, and dive bars along the once teaming wharf. 

   Until relatively recently The Shallows, while dirty and crime ridden, had served as one of the larger entry points to the city.  Barges carrying ore and wares from Valenshire and the other communities surrounding the Felnath traveled south toward the ports of Corisca and would return with tools, coin, and finished goods from far off lands.  Barge captains and and crews filled the dockside taverns and inns to overflowing while local residents worked the docks, warehouses, and wide variety of shops and services essential to the daily life.

   All that changed two years ago.

  All at once the world seemed to shift.  a dark cloud descended from the Il'Draeshad mountains to envelop the city of Valenshire while rumors of dark and wild magic circulated through the taverns.  Many of the temples and churches of the realms seemed to shutter overnight while the high priests and more prominent clerics either isolated themselves or disappeared altogether.  Trade from the north slowed to a trickle causing strain on the purses of not only the local dock workers, but also the taverns, inns, and shops that rely on trade.

   The nail in the coffin was the arrival of The Knights of Truth.  A foreign army dedicated to restoring the power and prestige of the gods and eradicating the scourge of arcane magic they insist is the cause of the instability in the world, the Knights of Truth seemed to fall from the sky on a dark and misty evening a year and a half ago.  They rode across the Il'Draeshad mountains and rained fire and soldiers from the bellies of their great flying ships.  They have since consolidated their power, taking over the entirety of Akterumn and the surrounding lands and ousting or killing the King Beldine and his line. 

   Currently, the world has settled into what passes for the new normal.  The region is at war with Corisca to the south and the now cleared Valenshire to the north at odds with The Knights of Truth based in Akterumn.  The city has been in complete lock-down for the past year with passage in and out heavily regulated by The Knights and each district controlled by checkpoints at regular intervals.  Access to The Shallows is controlled by two major checkpoints, one at the western gate to the merchant and residential districts of Forlorn Water, and another at the bridge over the Avensold.  While in theory citizens are free to travel between districts on 'approved' business, in practice only those with enough wealth to buy writs of passage, or those merchants who have traded their loyalty for supply contracts are allowed to pass through the checkpoints.

Stay Tuned for another update later today

[Krathognis]

it is against this backdrop that you all find yourselves living.  You are all children of the shallows, children of the streets.  some of you have grown up as thieves, pickpockets, or beggars.  some of you were runners at the docks or warehouses before they were shuttered or control taken over by one of the various merchant or criminal elements struggling for supremacy in the district. all of you have felt the chill of a cold night under a damp blanket and the pain of an empty stomach.  this is why, one by one, you have all found yourselves drawn to this band of street children for support and protection.  you are the Rats of the shallows. 

The Rats are by no means the largest, or strongest of the child street gangs.  In fact, you're barely a gang at all anymore.  Many of your fellows have wandered off, joined other groups, been arrested, or found themselves floating face down the Aven. There are barely a dozen of you left in the Rats, and as most of you are on the cusp of adulthood and therefore eligible for entry into one of the 'real' gangs, there is little hope that the Rats will continue on much longer...

This is why Kore, the de facto leader of the Rats, has proposed one last job, one last BIG job, to try and get enough loot to buy the groups way into the services of Baron Falcone; the largest merchant still operating freely in district.

Corhorn, Gregor, Thaemar, Wensom, Dek, and Zifera :
  You all find yourselves sitting around a small cook fire under in the group's current base of operations; the empty space under a burned out stilted warehouse.  Kore has just finished outlining the basics of the plan.  an assault on a large warehouse on the north eastern end of the docks with two teams.  one team consisting of you six and the groups new tough will sneak in through a secret door and make your way through the building to a hidden smuggler's cache in a sub basement while the second group consisting Kore, Crate, Barrel, Slip and Fen make create a distraction by staging a very loud botched attempt at stealing the warehouse's more public store of grain and supplies imported from the western marches.

[Krathognis]

Kore:

so? what do you think?

[MaesterYoda]

Wensom smiles, poking at the fire with a stick. He considers a moment, before saying, "How sure are we they'll have much worth stealing? Everything good is hidden these days, but we should have some idea what we're looking for before we head in."

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[spidie2000]

Paying no mind to the conversation at hand, Gregor snatches up a rat that is scurrying by.  He squeezes it so tightly that its guts burst from inside.  He skewers the rat and begins cooking it on the fire.

[Daelren]

Adding to Wensom's query, "How sure are we that Falcone won't just kill us and take what we find?"

[Krathognis]

Kore watches in morbid fascination as Gregor snatches up rat.
 
   "I'm not sure whats in the smuggler's hole no." he winces and looks back to Wensom as the ichor begins to flow through Gregor's fingers.  "However, i've been watching this spot for a few months now.  We're not going to be able to keep this up along for much longer. we're going either going to be killed by one of the more organized street gangs, we're going to have to go our separate ways and join one of them, or we get a large enough score to prove our abilities and buy our ways into one of them as a group."

he stands and picks up the think branch he'd recently taken to using as a walking stick.  Slip had quietly mentioned how she suspected that Kore thought it made him look more respectable, 'like a cane or something'

   Kore walked as he spoke, the fire hardened tip of that stick tap tap tapping on hard packed dirt. "And, while Falcone is ruthless he's also fair.  he treats his people with respect and frankly, he's never even going to know we exist.  we don't have to convince HIM we need to convince Winthom; Falcone's lieutenant here in the Shallows. Winthom's boys took a beating last month when they tried to take the territory up by the cemetery and the old oak  they're down a good number of people and the other crews smell blood."

  He stopped short of a full circuit of the small area and looked back toward Wensom. "as for the worth of the take... I don't know... but what i DO know is that the boxes were small but heavy, and there were three off duty truthers helping move it"