The dwarf paid for a few days at the inn upfront, and then slipped the inn keeper a gold piece to bar the door in his absence. Inside he left the plate mail, as Broden's didn't have any defining markings that would draw attention, and a pack that was 40 lbs lighter would be a boon.

Marching through the city of Freeport, the dwarf took stock of the passing people, the passing shops, trying to see if anyone was openly tailing them. If not, when they reached the HBA headquarters, he would comment to the drow.

"We've come to collect."

He put on his best gruff look and tried to look like a ruffian.

Motsognir stood behind Gabe, hands on his axe, menacing in his confetti.

The drow is tryin' his best to be threatenin', but they do trade off the backs'a mere boys. How tough could they be?

"I heard tell this place is for halfling benevolence. Well, I'm a halfling. Benevolent me."

Argumentus immediately follows up this statement by producing the bounty notice. He hunches over the thing so that it can only be seen by the Drow.

"Benevolent you. Oh yeah. That's cute. Never heard that one before, oh no."

He squints at the bounty notice.

"Ohhhh. I see now. You're here to make a... what was it. Tax-deductible donation. To our worthy cause. Ok, you want the donations office, just head on in, go down the east hallway and it's the first door on your right. Now get outta here, I'm tryin' to get a tan."

They meander down the hall as directed, and in the office marked DONATIONS they find a very small man with a very large desk and a very large safe. He examines the notice, and looks the group over.

"You gotta lot of nerve comin' in here, you know that? Karl told us all about you. You're regular celebrities now! You rub out three of the Finn's goons and you just march in here it's nothin'. That takes chutzpah. Or stupidity. We got uses for both of those things, though.

Here's how it works. I ignore the manpower you cost us, pretend you actually killed Broden and give you the money. It's a little favor from us to you. In exchange, we'll ask you for a favor someday. I'm sure you'll do right by us. It would be a shame if anyone were to find out just who turned in the bounty for this particular contract, don't you think? You might become very popular individuals.

Whaddaya say, friends?"

The dwarf wasn't going to remind everyone he said this was a bad idea. He wasn't going to say that. But he bloody well thought this was going to be a bad idea, didn't he? He glanced upwards and shook his head, thankful that he served a neutral god, rather than one with scruples.

"Well, this would make twice we'd be locked up for something we were only marginally involved in" he mused. "On the other hand, I'm sure this... pleasant man in his fine vestments means a paid favour. After all, when you're good at something, you never do it for free."

Argumentus produces the sword from his pack and lays it down on the table. He keeps a firm grip on it so no one can take it away.

"Money."

My necrotic chums engaged the clerk in a discussion, probably a negotiation over the fee we were to be paid for retrieving the sword. I looked around the room while they did, having never been in the offices of a crime syndicate before and curious as to what went on here. I was a little disappointed to be honest, it looked rather like any other office with nothing outwardly on display to suggest criminality. I had been hoping for a secret handshake at the very least and the relative normality of it all left me rather dejected.

I reached out with my senses, hoping that the normality of the office was all a powerful illusion and actually we were unknowingly standing in a proper den of thieves with games of dice going on in the corner and a shady fence buying and selling stolen wares at knock down prices. I also looked around for any small, valuable looking objects that one might be able to pocket through a combination of turning them invisible and dumping them in ones pocket via Presdigitation spells. Despite appearences, this was the office of a major criminal organisation after all and they'd expect nothing less, surely?

Arcana check for any spells being used in the vicinity, look around for anything stealable

The short-even-for-a-halfling fellow behind the desk snaps his fingers, and a heavily-muscled hobgoblin stalks into the room, clutching a hefty sack of coins. The hobgoblin slams the bag onto the table, keeping a firm grip on it so no one can take it away.

"Sword", grunts the muscle.

Getting into the spirit of petty villainy, Bob swipes an inkwell, a handful of blank letterhead (From The Desk of Orm Redleaf, CFO), and a leaden paperweight in the shape of an angry bear. Revenge is his! So avenged, he then casts about for any sign of the arcane mysteries that such an organization must surely be concealing. There is a faint sign of something, but it's emanating from a good 20 feet beneath him. If any sinister magic lies within the building, it's apparently in the basement.

Argumentus places one hand on the money, keeping the other on the sword.

"We trade."

He expects the hobgoblin to do the same to complete the transaction.

In an attempt to make him look more mean and sinister, I used my presdigitation spell to make the big human's eyes appear to glow red.

Argumentus and the hobgoblin stare each other down for a long moment. Suddenly, the human's eyes flash bright red and the hobgoblin is startled. Arg grabs the bag of gold and steps back, leaving the sword lying on the desk. Redleaf nods, and the hobgoblin grabs up the sword and carries it off to who knows where.

"Well, there we go. Nice doing business with you. When we need you, we'll send somebody. Please don't kill them! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a charity supper to attend to and my famous meatballs aren't going to cook themselves."

Another goon appears to escort the party from the building, and after some shoving and grumbling they find themselves back on the street: 500 GP richer and one ridiculously powerful sword poorer.

As for Broden, his eventual fate was kept a secret from most. It seemed to the downtrodden residents of Stag End that Broden had just saddled up and abandoned them. The grip of the Syndicate grows a little tighter, the nightmare underneath the city's cemetery continues to fester, and the Temple of Bahamut loses more ground against the dozens of vile cults that swarm the city.

Just another day in Freeport.

Adventure (anticlimactically) complete! Minor quest reward: 500 XP (100 each)
Arg has the bag of 500 GP in-hand, so if he doesn't want to share I can't force him :plant:

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The dwarf was sullen throughout the horde's travels that day. The death of Broden weighed heavily on his conscience, but he did keep his mind on the tasks at hand long enough to swat Argumentus on the hip at one point and offer him the plate armour currently sitting behind a locked door in the Inn. With Broden's armour securely on his shoulders, he no longer needed it. And the big man could benefit from the added protection.

As the horde slid through the throng, Gabriel stopped by the weapon store and gawked at the Craghammer. It was the weapon he'd always wanted, but the faint glow of power around the opportunistic battle axe made him hesitant to give it up. He was a dwarf who preferred hammers, but he'd live with his axe for now. He did, however, take the time to point Mots at the Executioner's Axe, and tell him he should absolutely buy it.

His only other real stop was Vinely's, where he traded his amethyst for a pair of healing potions. Other than that, the dwarf was generally more gruff than usual, and rather insistent they got on with something to earn some money, and more importantly, keep him busy and his mind off what had just happened.

amethyst for two potions.

We left the syndicate's offices and meandered back to the inn. I was feeling rather despondent. The offices had been nothing at all how I expected a major criminal base to be with virtually no evidence of skullduggery or wrongdoing and barely a harlot in sight. To compound my misery, the local shopkeepers seemed to be expecting an influx of wealthy sheiks from the southern lands of Araby, pockets bulging with gold from the profits of their mines, rather than common adventurers who were just looking to inspire dread in their foes with a bit or war paint. Even the most basic of magical gear was way out of my price range and it seemed that my path to mastery of the arcane arts would be one pockmarked with battlefield scavengery rather than the careful and calculated equipment purchases I had hoped for. Even though my devious thievery had proved most effective at the hideout, I had a sneaking suspicion that attempts to steal from the shops would not end well and as such, I trudged back to the inn having bought only a single potion of healing, as much as an act of retail therapy as anything else.

I resolved that whatever quest we undertook next should be whichever paid the most or with the greatest opportunity for swiping some decent loot. It seemed as though my career as a master of elemental magic to be feared across the land was not destined to be a cheap one!

Once back at the inn, I used my new notepaper and pen to jot down my recent experiences in the form of a diary or journal, entitled The storie of Scarey Bobbe, ann elementalalist moste powerfull hoping that should adventuring not pay the bills, perhaps a regular column in one the the many popular gazettes of the region might be a good alternative career.

Argumentus was facing a personal crisis of sorts. For years he had did the Argumentus way by crushing and punching things. It was fun, but his brief experience with the sword also appealed to him in a fundamental way. The dance of the arterial spray and the red gash of an open cut had their own appeal. Could he find a weapon to satiate his desire to crush and draw blood?

His eyes fell upon a frosted pick, and it was love at first sight.

Trade in hide armors and warhammer while purchasing the War Pick of Frost

Argumentus felt guilty using all of the ill-gotten gains for himself and gave the rest of his money to the whiny dwarf, knowing the paladin and cleric would have no use for blood money.

When Argumentus reaches the notice board, the idea of monster extermination in a cemetery sounds like something Lord Broden would do. Not learning from his mistake, he plants a greasy finger on the Hargast notice.

The big chap seemed keen on visiting the cemetary to investigate the goings on there. This suited me fine as cemetaries are always good sources of ancient tomes and other useful wizardly type stuff and communing with the dead might give me more chance to investigate my own necromantic powers which I must admit, were still something of a mystery to me.

I shrugged and nodded my assent.

Motsognir wraps his arms around Argumentus' leg and doesn't let go until he gets some of the money.

Motsognir stands there pleased, the happy recipient of the giant's leftover gold.

He was too happy to care where they went next, at least for the moment, and was content to lean against the wall in a quiet daze.

I wasn't in the mood for shoppin' or socializin'. It was bad enough that we had't sully our hands in such business what pits the naive against the naive, but I was a mere 37 gp away from anything good in the stores.

I had wanted to purify the cemetery earlier, however, before we got mixed up in all this Broden business, so I agreed with the giant man-golem and the idiot city-lady.

The wizard and the paladin, finding nearly everything too rich for their blood, purchase naught but a few potions. Argumentus, suddenly flush with ill-gotten cash, purchases what he believed to be the most ostentatious weapon available. Sadly, when the clerk claimed the pick to be "dripping with ice" he was being entirely literal. Argumentus spends a great deal of time tossing the weapon from one hand to the other whenever numbness starts to set in. Too cold, too cold.

Looking for space on his belt to keep the frigid weapon, he pulls off his nearly-empty coinpurse and tosses it to Motsognir. The remaining 48 GP is no fortune, but Soggy seems driven nearly to tears of joy.

The party seemed to have already reached a consensus, so Argumentus tears off the Hargast notice and begins to set off.

The dwarf smirked as he saw the choice made by the horde. It was precisely what he wanted: A chance to tip the scales back in return for what they'd been a part of. On to the cemetary.

As we made our way out of the city, we once again passed the shop with the facepaints and I gave them a long, wistful look, hoping soon to return triumphant from our quest laden down with enough loot to be able to buy them...

Onwards to victory!