At the bounty board

[Vera Wolfe]

[This topic is intended for us to get to know each other's characters and devise a preliminary plan of action. As per Ryan's post in the Facebook group, we all know one another, and we've been hunting bounties for a year. What kind of backstory we have with each other can probably be developed on the spot in this thread.]

Uncle Rudy swung one arm into Vera’s path, stopping her short.

“What?” she said, shifting the rifle on her back. She scanned the crowds. A year ago, when she had first been settling into life in Caspia, she would have seen a spy in every face, an assassin in every ‘jack. Now she only saw the coal-stained masses. These people had places to go and things to do, like she did.

Uncle Rudy dropped the tongue of the wagon and thrust one massive finger at the bounty board. She slid through the foot traffic until she was up against it. Yes, he was right—there was something new. Two somethings, rather.

“Well done,” she called back to him. He pulled the wagon on a diagonal across the square to reach her, sending waves of discontent rippling backward through the crowd as it shifted course to avoid the obstruction.

She read each posting over until she had committed every word to memory. Uncle Rudy waited behind her with the patience and demeanor of a mountain. In time, he gave her the gentlest of prods on the chest. She barely stumbled.

“Yes, I will,” she said. “I’ll have to. The runeplate business is starting to dry up."

A burble emanated from his boiler. Vera fancied she heard a note of resignation in it.

"Drop your arm, please?”

Uncle Rudy sank to his knees and lowered one arm to the ground. Vera pulled herself up onto his shoulder and looked out over the plaza. It was a faint hope, but this was one of the busier squares in the city, and it wasn’t out of the question that one of her team members might be passing through. It would be easier for two to spread the word than only one.

[Nos]

Nos stumbled out of the crowd holding his hat on his head and his cape tucked into an arm. "Bellicoso... I think a horse nearly trampled me." He straightened his leathers, and slipped into the safety beneath the 'jack's legs to finally check his ingredient vials.

"Vera you ruined the whole rhythm of the crowd. They lost place, but all wanted to travel prestissimo. There was chaos, no beat to find, and I am but waist high."

He walked to stand beside her, and struggled to read what was written above. "Does anything catch your eye a prima vista?"

[Cliffstriker Grunback]

Stepping out from behind the board with a newspaper under one arm and hand on his lightly smoking pipe, reagrds his compatriots. You're not entirely sure how he fit behind the board that well, was he waiting? He looks between the two of his friends and clears his throat...

"If I may make a suggestion?"

He taps out his pipe on the side of Nos' head before slipping it into his coat. With his now freed hand he pulls one of the papers down of the board and hands it to the gobber. His face is a little grim as he does so.

"Yuri Petrovik. A slippery fellow, to say the least. His name doesn't sit well with my kind, and I relish getting paid to serve some back to him."

He grins as he readjusts his glasses. and slips a hand comfortably into his breast pocket.

"Fair pay, a decent hunt, and we won't have to go too far."

He looks about at the people giving Vera annoyed looks and he pats Uncle Rudy and laughs at her.

"Running him in a busy public place, I like it. Very risque, as always. Fuck the noise complaints. Shall we get a coffee as we wait for the others? Rudy is sure to bring them to us."

[Rend Demmyr]

A small boy, about the same height as Nos, slips through the busy crowd and posts another large wanted posted up on the bounty board. As he finishes nailing the slip of paper, he adjusts his cap and turns to the three present bounty hunters.

He cautiously eyes both the Trollkin and the Gobber before setting sights on the woman, walking up to her with two hands outstretched, "Spare some change, m'am. I'm dreadfully hungry." He asks, looking up at her with an eerie patience, smiling to reveal his brown, crooked teeth.

[Vera Wolfe]

“Hello, Nos,” Vera said as the gobber and his ‘jack fought their way through the crowd. She slid down from Uncle Rudy’s shoulder, dusted off her coat, and took a half-step away from Nos. He always smelled faintly of alchemy, but she’d never dared to mention it to him.

She was just about to read the postings to him when Fynn materialized behind the board and took care of it for her.

Yuri Petrovik. Eva Grey. She turned the two names over in her mind. “I may be inclined to agree with you, Mr. McCool,” Vera said, ignoring the jibe about Petrovik’s name. Its roots were laid in her country, but—well, that was well behind her now. Putting her accent aside, she was just as Cygnaran as anyone else in this square.

“When our options are a warcaster complete with warjack or a single man, and the single man is worth more than the warcaster, our choice becomes quite clear.”

However, she reflected, the posting did stipulate a live capture. If the authorities wanted this man so badly, and were willing to offer such an incredible sum for him, what manner of resistance might he offer? More than a warcaster could produce?

Fynn’s comment about Uncle Rudy’s presence shook her from her thoughts. “We’re picking up a coal shipment,” she said. “Besides, what would I do with him? Leave him at home?”

Uncle Rudy shook his huge wedge-shaped head.

“See? He doesn’t like the idea, either. Yes, coffee sounds—”

It was then that the boy appeared with the third posting. When it rained, it poured, didn’t it? She scanned the bounty between the boy’s arms as he nailed it to the board. A necromancer. That was certainly more perilous than one Khadoran, and perhaps more than the warcaster, too. Why couldn’t it be a runaway husband or a lost cat?

She uttered a sigh, unbuttoned her pocket, and produced a few farthings. She held them in her closed fist above the boy’s hands, but didn’t drop them just yet. “How many of these papers have you put up today?” she asked him. “If it’s very many, you must be starved.”

[Cliffstriker Grunback]

Fynn looks down at the boy and clicked his tongue. Street urchins, a begging one at that. He pushes Vera's arm down before she can deposit her hard earned pay.

"He's being paid by the Office of Law, Vera. I'm sure the most honourable officers are competent enough to pay a child. He's just being greedy."

He looks down to the boy, his eyes partially hidden by his spectacles. His eye-calcifications narrow as he regards the small boy.

"Git, you wretch. You'll have to play your tricks a little more smoothly. Pick your targets in a wiser fashion, next time."

Fynn pats him on the head in a condescending manner and makes a shooing motion before he regards the board. Scanning the new post quickly he harumphs. Turning to his friends, he pulls out his freshly extinguished pipe and packs a new bowl of tobacco lighting it in a smooth motion. Passing the new notice to Nos he puffs in thought for a moment and then says slowly...

"This one sits poorly in my gut. You know me, Nos, I am not a fan of anything moving when it shouldn't. For the extra hundred crowns or so I don't think it's worth it. Let someone with a dirtier disposition look into this one, I'd rather not soil my boots with his undead."

He frowns beneath his pipe at his last word. Bloody priests.

[Rend Demmyr]

The young boy scowls at the Trollkin. He stuffs one hand in his pocket, the other hand pulling two fingers up at the Trollkin. "Ram it, rockface. I'll git me olda' bruvah. He'll drop ya!"

With that, the little urchin scurried away into the crowd, deftly slipping through the bustling congregations to escape the group.

[Yuri Petrovik]

*Elias approaches the assembled group, heavy rifle slung across his back. He gives the street urchin space as he scampers off, protective of his fine clothing as the child disappears into the crowd. He scans over the bounty board.*

"Ah, the only thing worse than a spy, is a traitor. What were you all thinking?"

[Carbonel Leadbetter]

Carbonel walks up to the board in time to hear Fynn's opinion on the necromancer. After reading the posting he gathers his thoughts and says, "I agree with Fynn about Guillaume. I don't much relish the idea of killing something or somethings that are already dead. The payoff is nice but I don't think it is worth the trouble just yet. Maybe if we leave it alone for a while some other group of bounty hunters will complete the job."

Carbonel pauses for a moment with a thoughtful expression and adds, "Better yet, if some bounty hunters get killed trying the constable might increase the price on his head."

"I wouldn't mind capturing Yuri though. The price is right and if he is currently in Cygnar I doubt he would have a lot of backup as that would make his spy work more difficult." Turning to Vera, he continues, "The posting says that he needs to be captured alive, but alive is a very broad term and I think capturing him shouldn't be too difficult considering the steam-powered muscle that Uncle Rudy provides."

Carbonel takes a moment to read Eva Grey's posting and furrows his brow as he reads through it. "Warcaster and light Warjack. That doesn't sound like an easy or pleasant job, especially given the small payoff. What intrigues me, though, is the theft of goods belonging to the Cygnarian military. I wonder what goods would warrant a mention. If she stole something other than the warjack, then she might have something worth a fair amount of crowns. Especially to the black market.

"The spy or the Warcaster are the people we should take care of, and then the necromancer later on if the price is right. I don't have a preference between which we tackle first but I'll let you all figure that out."

[Nos]

Nos keeps out of everyone's way, and pays particular mind not to be underfoot near the trollkin. He stands on his tiptoes to read.

"They are all potential targets. Each would require a different melody, but nothing too difficult. I'll abstain from voting. Once you all choose one I will begin composing."

Nos looked at his adventuring companions as they read the bounties and spoke of the merits of each. Each served a different purpose in their music. Like a proper composer he needed to use their strengths to create a harmony.

[Vera Wolfe]

“That wasn’t entirely charity, Mr. McCool. There was a point to that,” Vera said, pushing the farthings back into her pocket. “I wanted to know how many of those bills the boy had already posted. For all we know, there could be other teams standing at other boards, thinking the same things we are. We could be competing with other hunters for the same bounties.”

As Elias and Carbonel appeared, rounding out their merry little band, Vera found her opinion on the three choices largely reinforced. The gun mage’s final words, however, caused her to plant her feet and turn toward him.

“I’d prefer to steer clear of the warcaster entirely,” she said. “I’ve heard what they’re capable of.” She put a hand on Uncle Rudy’s arm. “A warcaster can take control of a steamjack—not just at the drop of a hat, mind you, but it isn’t out of the question. She could turn our own ‘jacks against us.”

Uncle Rudy swung his enormous head down within reach. She was unsure how much of this he understood, but nevertheless, she patted it reassuringly.

“I would say that our best choice is the Khadoran spy, Petrovik,” she said. “We can deal with the other postings later, if necessary.”

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