Roll20 Episode 1: Golden Liberty!

[Lyahdan]

[as this was an online session, I borrowed heavily from the chat log. Character comments in quotes and a fair bit of their actions were written by their players.]

Participating:
Alexsander
Ilyina Ryavda Rustovnaof
Karl-Gustav Sigfried von Uetliberg
Bronislav Starogora Bozhidarov v'Novgorov

Budorigum’s marketplace is much like any other, full of people about their business. The ringing sounds of smithy hammers and dishes being brought and cleared at the pubs join hundreds of bartering voices and merchants calling out the benefits of their wares. Carthorses clop slowly down the tight side streets, but the market squares are free of them during most business hours. The squares bulge out from market street like beads on a string, with inns and pubs lining the narrower stretches between them.

Everything is red brick, with stark whitewash making signage stand out. Glorious stained glass windows are everywhere. The meanest pub has simple amber glass windows that no doubt shine with a warm glow at night, while larger buildings have elaborate scenes painted in glass.

Our Heroes are catching (or merely ordering) lunch or looking for people they have an interest in, when a rather uncouth fight comes rolling into the square. Red-nosed men and women most sporting red or white in their clothing are rolling, tackling, punching and generally beating the snot out of one another as they roar into the square. This seems to catch almost everyone by surprise, creating a scatter of folks moving away with greater or lesser amounts of grace. Those with much knowledge of current events in Sarmatia recognize the red of Czerwony--supporters of this new Sarmatian democracy--and the white of Bialy traditionalists.

Several of those in red jackets grab the pole holding a cheerful canopy and pull it away to hold horizontally, running at a group of the white-coated folks they’ve been fighting. Other market-goers scatter, or find themselves getting knocked over in the fray. Others clamber up a cart to escape this rush, toppling the cart, which begins to smoke.

Alexsander enthusiastically dives into the fight on the side of his red-jacketed compatriots, with a with a loud cry of "Noble dogs! We will break every single bone in your sorry bodies! For Golden Liberty!" Chasing off a few of the brawlers in white coats.

Meanwhile Ilyina, Karl-Gustav, and Bronislav all move bystanders out of danger's path. Small children are rescued from falling carts and a somewhat addled older man is lead away from his sausage before he can find a punch interrupting his lunch.

Good thing someone pulled the child out from under the smoking cart, because it bursts into flame, having apparently been some sort of food cart with a firebowl of some kind within it. People and animals are churning through the square.

As they were fighting and rescuing people, our heroes notice a number of things. None of the members of the mini-riot rolling into the square seem to have been hurt much for all the apparent fighting, at least not by one another. There's a guy stabbed in the thigh by a fishmonger who's watching his white coat rapidly turn red, but most of them don't even look like they're developing black eyes. Plus, the folks with red jackets or caps have those in white outnumbered two to one, and yet they haven't routed them yet, despite Alexsander's help. There's a bit more effort going toward flipping tables and overturning carts instead.

Also, the square is strangely empty of guards, while a reporter stands very conveniently on the stoop of a guild hall at the north edge of the square, writing rapidly in his notebook while an artist stands beside him sketching and flipping pages as fast as he can.

Ilyina puts her observations together and marches right over to the reporter, chastising him loudly. "You there! I know what it is you are doing!" She makes a sweeping gesture toward the crowd, allowing one half of her dress to fall to the ground as she glares up angrily at him. "I know what it is you are doing! This is stage fight, a puppet play for influencing court politics. Fake news! Fake news!"

"I...just heard there were some rowdies looking to make trouble..." the Reporter blusters, backing against the door. "It's important news! Not...not a puppet show." But he doesn't sound that convincing.

For the surprised artist, she was like a very angry angel stepping out from the crowd. Or maybe he just had a thing for Usurran accents. Either way, he had found something far more interesting to draw, and continues flipping through the pages of his sketchbook, hoping his later paintings of the moment will properly capture the anger in her eyes.

Alexsander, seeing that his fellow reds are simply not engaging in enough good old fashioned White punching, he strives to rally them. "We must fight for Golden Liberty Brothers and Sisters! With our every breath if need be! We fight for our children's future! Let us drive these dogs back into the forgotten pages of history!" While he has their attention, he directs a few to putting out the fire that threatens. They manage the fire, since they frankly don't want to burn down their town, and at least appear to be surrounding most of the remaining flashes of white clothing.

While Alexsander exhorts his fellow Sarmatians to beat one another up, Bronislav is busy patching one of them up. After fending off one of the red-jacketed brawlers, he tends to the knife wounds inflicted by that fishmonger. As two more toughs roll up, attracted by the flash of white coat, Bronislav screams in their faces, "You want some of this, too?", and they flee in terror.

Karl-Gustav had been heading for the fire, but seeing it taken care of, he instead takes a moment to wave to a familiar face across the square to catch his attention. However, before he can go speak to Sargeant Jerzy, Karl-Gustav realizes that the rickety pen holding horses and goats for sale is not remotely going to hold the panicking animals for more than a few seconds longer. Thinking quickly, he walks over to the pen and begins yodelling at the goats as his learned from his great-uncle Gustav-Ludwig when he spent summers in the mountains as a boy. Amazingly, Sarmatian goats respond much as Eisen goats and crowd toward the end of the pen closest to Karl-Gustav, calming rapidly. The horses, used to following the generally calmer lead of the goats, subside as well.

At this point, the sound of running boots and shrill whistles presages the approach of some actual guards. Knowing that they're about done, but more than a little fed up with these meddling kids...er Heroes, the crowd of brawlers wearing red takes some parting shots--swings that 'miss' their intended target and land on the Heroes; tumbling pavilions onto them. They do very little damage in the process; not least because Bronislav rallies the merchants and shoppers against them.

"Citizens of Budorigum! What is power? What is democracy? Is it not the ability to come to the aid of your own brothers and sisters? Rise up! Rise up! Strike back at these impostors who would misuse the name of your freedom to vandalize your very town!" With the flat of his zweihander, he demonstrates proper care and handling of rioting thugs with a resounding whap.

Alexsander needs no demonstration, already fully committed to the fight. However, the conspirator he's tackling, tries to pin blame for all of this on one of the merchants, who recognizes him, which causes him to look a bit closer at the others. He's been here all his life and recognizes folks in red jackets who are well known for supporting the Bialy view of things instead. There are definitely seeds of doubt moving through the population about the narrative that's being spun here. Karl-Gustav pummels one into giving up a name, as well--Klaudja."

After Ilyina smashes a bottle and uses the sharp glass to cut a pavilion's support rope, the reporter clicks his notebook shut and backs away, bleating denials. His notebook is stamped "Budorigum Gazette " She also gets an offer from the artist to do some modeling.

Bronislav feels paper pressed into his hand. When he turns to see who is responsible, there's a quickly retreating, and somewhat raggedly dressed child running through the crowd at top speed. The paper is an envelope, with a date, time, and what is likely a location...The Three Larks.

Jerzy grins at Karl. "Good instincts. But you're too open. One of these times that'll do you in a bad way. But I heard you're willing to learn." He then offers Alexsander a hand up, "Real firebrand, ain't ya?"

Alexsander takes the hand up. "Golden Liberty is young yet sir, as am I. I fight so it may grow old long after I have."

Karl-Gustav says to Sargeant Jerzy, "I look forward to the time when all we have to fight in Freiberg is a few human hooligans like this."

The Guards gather everyone up, including the Heroes, who can offer a report about what happened here, while arresting the more obvious disturbers of the peace that haven't fled the scene.