Yves also appeared in a cave near Chthul-Ra and headed into the city to seek contacts and training. He'd heard that the party sometimes left and received messages through Silvator's, making a visit there an obvious first step in his mission to recruit Good adventurers in the fight to free Silverton. But first he had to pay the 2ep entry fee and satisfy the hobgoblin who happened to be manning the gate.
- Hobgoblin: [taking notes]
- "What is your name?"
- Yves:
- "Yves."
- Hobgoblin:
- "And what is your purpose here?"
- Yves:
- "I am headed north towards the mountains, and merely plan to tarry here awhile."
- Hobgoblin:
- "Profession?"
- Yves:
- "Operative."
- Hobgoblin:
- "Are you involved in this stupid war?"
- Yves:
- "Nope."
- Hobgoblin: [grinning broadly]
- "That was the right answer. Enter, Mr. Operative, and have a nice stay."
Through Silvator's, Yves was able to sign up for discounted weapons classes at Fighters' Guild. In the guild mess hall, amid the eaters, drinkers, gamblers, and tellers of rogsome tales, a hobgoblin confronted Yves...
- Hobgoblin:
- "You new?"
- Yves:
- "Nope."
- Hobgoblin:
- "OK."
- [The hobgoblin wanders away.]
One of Silvator's assistants was able to set Yves up with some thief training (except for an expert in noise detection, since Yves was already more expert than anyone the assistant knew)...except that Yves had nowhere near enough money to pay for it and no collateral for a loan. So while Yves was learning broadsword at the Fighters' Guild in the mornings, he found himself providing training in detect noise the rest of the day to start raising cash toward his thief training.
The next morning, Yves started his broadsword training, which consisted of sparring (using padded weapons) with volunteers from the guild. His partner was none other than the hobgoblin he'd met in the mess hall (known to the party as Typhor, cousin of Councilman Kharuz and former bodyguard in the shades' Dragon Tears Islands operation; big, strong, not too bright, and basically okay).
- Typhor:
- "I Typhor. You who?"
- Yves:
- "Yves."
- Typhor: [pondering Yves' thiefly AC]
- "You very slippery man. Hard to hit."
- Yves:
- "More work for you."
- Typhor:
- "I have no money. You buy me lunch?"
- Yves:
- "I'm in debt at the moment."
- Typhor:
- "Me too! We must be brothers!"
Typhor then brought Yves to meet a friend of his, a very large human in very smelly armor that was formerly a crocodile's hide.
- Typhor: [to Yves]
- "This my rich friend Rogroc. He lucky."
- [to Rogroc]
- "We want lunch! This Slippery Yves. He in debt, just like me."
- Rogroc:
- "Debt? Tsk."
- Typhor: [to Rogroc]
- "Why don't you win us some money and make us rich?"
- [to Yves]
- "How much you need?"
- Yves:
- "Lessee...I paid nearly 100 ep for various things the first day in town, then 700 at the thieves guild, and will ultimately have to pay them another 700..."
- [Rogroc tries to count to 700 on his fingers.]
Yves decided that 5ep would do for a start, and Typhor said he wanted three. [Rahul: "Yves suspects that Typhor is more seriously in debt but can't count past 3 reliably."] From this, Yves was able to determine that together they needed 8ep, which Typhor found very impressive.
- Typhor:
- "Can you do us favor, Slippery Yves? My friend gamble good but count bad. We get cheated, but not know. Can you count for us?"
- Yves:
- "I'm not good at gambling."
- Typhor: [to Yves]
- "Me not know gambling. Rogroc gamble, you count, I eat lunch?"
- [to Rogroc]
- "What you think?"
- Rogroc:
- "I gamble, no think."
- Typhor:
- "About plan, stupid. Plan sound great to Typhor. Come, we make money."
Rogroc ended up winning exactly 8ep, but when Yves divided the money, he only took 4 for himself and gave one to Rogroc; Typhor noticed this and decided that Yves was definitely a good friend to have. And so Yves found himself inducted into the Fighters' Guild's social elite.
Three weeks later, Typhor left C-Ra on some family business (a punitive expedition against some hill dwarves to the north, no relation to the mountain dwarves in our story), leaving Rogroc temporarily homeless (though he doesn't seem to have a problem simply crashing on the floor at the guild). And the people at Silvator's figured out that Yves was connected to the Champion of Good, so they let him start his thief training on the assumption that Silvana would pay them later.
Since the party's departure for Dustplane, Gorakheel had been at the Western encampment, observing the evolution of the Banzeel situation. Some of Kreel's mercenaries had moved on to C-Ra, many had remained in the army's refugee camps, and one or two had actually been converted to LG. Meanwhile, the halflings had started tending the abandoned farms in the area.
For a few months, refugees were leaving Banzeel. General belief in the city held that the Westerners were planning to convert everyone by force (perhaps a credible-seeming proposition, given Latij's actions in restoring the Temple of the Sun) and that Marakeel had promised aid to the city. The Westerners, meanwhile, were converting next to nobody; while quite a few mercenaries would have been happy to fight for Banzeel's independence, Omimajish was intent on keeping the conflict a "pure and holy war."
The crux of the problem has been that the Westerners don't have enough forces to hold off an attack by Banzeel during a march to Marakeel, so their advance has been halted as long as Banzeel has remained a potential threat. The Western leaders believe that the major threats within Banzeel are the evil temples (which are tied to Marakeel and good at oppressing local populations), but none of the teams they sent in to take on said temples achieved much success. While neither the Westerners nor the Banzeelites really seem to want to fight, the Westerners have no assurance that their rear won't be attacked if they move on, and the Banzeelites are too afraid of the temples to be able to give any such assurance. With no clear solution, the army laid siege to Banzeel; on the inside, the temples sealed the city gates and prevented additional refugees from leaving.
Gorakheel offered to try to sneak into the city in an attempt to open negotiations with the city's merchants (and an attempt to track down the spellbooks and magic items that were taken when he lost his store), but the Westerners couldn't afford to send anyone else to back him up and would prefer to hold him in reserve for after the siege has run its course. (Hmmm...Provisional Governor Gorakheel?)