4/24 night
I held my amulet and willed a connection to Darcell's necklace. I heard arguing on the other side, quiet but clear. "An what if he's toying with us? I'm not going to say no to some food in our state, but that don't mean we need to trust some random bastard we've never heard of." A deep male voice was grumbling, and I didn't need three guesses to know who he was talking about.
"Come on Garrick, do you even have a plan? Hide out in the vineyard until the slaughter us? Hope the Kobolds miraculously dig a tunnel to freedom? You led us here, we thought you had a plan." The husky feminine voice sounded a bit closer. I was guessing it was Darcell; I wondered if it was her amulet influencing her to trust me, or if she really just thought they were out of options.
I listened in for a bit more. It seemed like I'd just popped in on one of many outbursts or an ongoing debate. There were about five people involved in the conversation, and it was going in circles. None of them knew what to do. It seems their current plans were to either trust me, or something involving several question marks followed by profit. It made sense; these were starting zone goons. Of course they had no clue what they were doing.
I put on my bad cockney accent, and started running my mouth. "If I might contribute, I have just received orders to get you lads out of there. Especially one of you by the name of Padfoot. I have a few possibilities; care to hear em?" There was a bit of stunned silence at that. This may be a world of magic, but this was a bunch of disaffected farmers and laborers in all likelihood. "I'll take that as a yes. Well. I can pop in and get you out one at a time, but that'll be real risky. I'm probably only going to be able to get a few of you out at a time, two or three at most and the rest will have to hide out for a while. The next option relies a lot on Darcell here learning how to use this amulet real fast. She can get you out, but it'll take at least a couple days to teach her, maybe a whole week. The last possibility is if I manage to get an ally to set things up in Goldshire for me, but that'll depend on who I can find."
I had checked apportation, and unfortunately most of the functions of the necklace were only usable by people in my retinue. Until Darcell counted as captured, she probably couldn't teleport anyone. Once she was, it'd be as easy as going into the woods near Goldshire and having her pick up all her friends long enough to send them to me. Easy. Assuming that the guards didn't track them down before that. For that reason, I wanted to just go ahead and grab Garrick Padfoot and shove him in my inventory. After that he'd be safe whatever else happened, and I could drop him off whenever I had the chance. For the sake of completion and to earn some good will with a moderately powerful faction, I wanted to get them all out, but I was only particularly invested in Darcell and Garrick. One was soon to be on team Erich, and the other was a pay day.
While I mused I only barely kept track of the conversation happening a mile or two away. Obviously they weren't thrilled that the plan was "just trust me bro" but I had them in a bind. I waited until one of them brought up that they could be attacked at any moment. "Oh don't you worry none about that. Your illustrious leader is going to be seen near Goldshire just as soon as I can come pick him up. They'll be lookin for him long enough for Darcy here to get her act together. I'll also try to get a bit of work done here, see if I can get them chasing shadows. No offense lads, but you're small fries. Worst the guards are likely to do is put together a posse of volunteers, and they don't have so many of those to go around."
That shifted the conversation. Setting myself up as their protector was one thing; they didn't trust me and they didn't trust my protection. But Garrick Padfoot was their leader. They expected him to take risks to keep them safe. If he backed down from my plan now, he'd be on the spot. He'd need to convince them that he had a better idea, or he was just avoiding risk to save his own skin. At least that's how the Brotherhood would see it. It was clear he didn't like the idea, but that didn't matter. "You lot get ready to scatter. Tonight, I'll have work to do and I can't have you slowing me down."
I brought up Darcell's control panel and decided to be a bit blunt. Following my orders would result in negative emotion reduction, and questioning my motives would be punished with momentary amnesia. I hope that means any chain of reasoning that got her too suspicious of me would cause her to space out for a moment, but I'm not sure.
I put the amulet back in my pocket. I had work to do. The majority of trainees were still out and the militia were patrolling, so the abbey should be relatively quiet. It was time for me to steal some women's clothing.
••••••••••
When I arrived back in the abbey, I went inside and looked around. When I found a nook where nobody else could see me, I touched my amulet in my pocket and made a few changes. First I toned down my physique, making me a bit chubby. Next I grew out my beard and hair, and made them red. New recruits came in all the time. Random redhead guys can be suspicious all they want. I snuck into the hall where the trainers were found, and started trying doors. They weren't locked; everything at the abbey is supposed to be communal.
Drusilla's room took a few checks to find, but eventually I managed it. I quickly swooped in and put the first dress I could find into my inventory. She will probably notice that it is missing, but she had more clothes than a trainee like me. I just have to do my work before she reports it missing. I strolled back to my room, slipping in when nobody was looking and changing back to my default.
••••••••••
A few hours later, after dinner and chores, it was time for bed. I laid down as usual, and set an alarm for midnight on my amulet. When it woke me up, I took a few minutes to sit up and get my bearings, and started to make adjustments. I slimmed myself down tremendously, darkened my hair from brown to black, lengthened and frizzed it up, added a bit of gray, and became female. The dress actually came in handy for sizing, as I could adjust my body until it fit, and I could use the quest log vision of Drusilla for reference. I nudged my appearance around until Covert Talent told me I was close enough to be indistinguishable for most people at a distance. It wasn't exact, and I didn't have her voice or body language, but I looked a lot like her after around an hour's work.
I listened at my door and slipped out when I was fairly sure no one would see it. I strolled casually to the library barefoot, stepping lightly so I wouldn't wake anyone up. I didn't encounter any guards, though I heard metallic footsteps so I'm pretty sure someone was on patrol. When I reached the library, it was locked. A padlock, specifically. Not a particularly fancy one, but unfortunately I didn't know how to pick locks.
I thought for a moment, shrugged, and focused on my long term goals. I needed to start finishing missions. I needed allies stronger than Darcell or Anetta. I needed- POP. The lock took a few smites, each of which hit about as hard as a hammer but let out a soft musical tone instead of a bang, to break the lock off. Between blasts I stopped and waited, listening for footsteps. When I heard them fading as they walked away, I blasted again. Soon, I was in. I entered, ignoring the voice of Covert Talent in my head demanding that I close the door and at least try to make the padlock seem intact.
I knew where the forbidden books were kept, in a cage near the back of the library. It was locked but I already had a solution to that. A couple smites later, the cage was open. Frankly I had no idea what I was looking for, so I just started stealing everything and tossing it into my inventory. "Hey! Who's in here?" Ah. There's the most important, and risky, part of this plan.
I turned around and peeked around the edge of the bookshelf, and saw a man in the white and blue armor of a stormwind guard. I waited until he saw me and then ducked back, circling around the bookcase. I heard him running to cut me off so I did an about face to dodge him.
He'd seen me, so I reached into my dress to grab a hold of my amulet, willing myself to appear near Darcell and the Defias. He'd think Drusilla had teleported away somehow. Instead, I received a silent reminder that apportation can only take me to jewels worn by members of my retinue. My retinue which currently consisted of just me. My blood went cold. Shit. I should have read that one more closely, shouldn't I? Well, the guard was currently coming around the end of the bookshelf with a commendably stereotypical "Stop, thief!" and I needed to get out of here. I started running as quickly as I could and going over my options.
The front door of the abbey was locked tight for the night, but there were windows on the second floor. Windows I could break. After climbing a flight of stairs, outrunning a very dutiful man with a sword and waking multiple trainees, I smote the largest pane of glass I saw; it was smaller than I would have liked, but this was a military building in addition to a religious one. They didn't want it to be easy for enemies to break a window and flood right in, so the stained glass was in a thick metal frame.
I squeezed out, grunting with pain as it lacerated my skin and dress. I was on the verge of panic, stress resistance or no. I got out onto the roof, and crawled out of the window's line of sight as the guard tried to reach out and grab me. Once I figured I could do so safely, I started healing myself, focusing on the areas with the worst bleeding and trying to avoid exhausting myself. I didn't have long; a man in armor was too bulky to come out the same way I did, but there were windows that could be opened from the inside to access the roof.
Once I was in as good a shape as I was going to get, I carefully scrambled over to the edge and dropped down so I was hanging by my fingers. Once I had reduced the distance of my fall as much as I could, I gave a quick prayer to the light and dropped to the ground, bending my legs and trying to stay as relaxed as possible. I imagine it helped, but I was pretty sure I'd broken something.
I was still lucid, thanks exclusively to the five best credits I ever spent, but I needed to heal up as quickly as possible. I focused the light on my legs, and was able to get up and running right about when a couple of Northshire's finest rounded the abbey and started coming after me. I ran into the woods as fast as I could, strengthening and lengthening my legs with my amulet so I could fully utilize body talent. This had been a shit show, but I still had the body of an Olympian. I could outrun anyone, especially if I was a lot less loaded down than they were.
Once I couldn't hear them behind me anymore, I hid in some bushes, changing back to my normal default appearance and clothes. I sent a whispered message to Darcell to clear out of the vineyard while the guards were distracted. They were going to be chasing a fugitive.