That last adventure made me feel grateful that I was out of Grizzleheim. I would return, to be sure - I hadn't heard the last of those Ravens which kidnapped Thane Ivar - but I wanted to be someplace warmer, and the steamy modern world of Marleybone was fine with me. Grace had tasked me with helping rid the city of crime so the Mayor would release the Krokonomicon to me and let me give it to Merle to be locked away forever.
And I had to rescue a turncoat from the clockworks. I hate clockworks, they made my best friend Grace give up questing with me and joining a pirate crew. First task, keeping my garden well tended - I had to keep planting couch potatoes, although I would later start work on a really good garden soon. My pen-pal Amber Rainbow is raising Starfish and I promised her lots of Mega Snacks, even though it takes forever to garden these things.
I returned to Ms. Marphaly, who informed me that the tower was lightly guarded and now was the time to rescue Baxter. I nodded, even though he wasn't 'my man', so to speak. I was a single woman.
Yeah, you saw THAT coming. :p
"Password?" said the metallic voice as I knocked on the tower door.
"The cat's away, the clock will play," I purred. The door flung open and I barged in. "SURPRISE!"
"Oh really," I laughed. "Let me ask you something, Mr. Potbelly... are you Storm?"
"No, don't answer that."
The Iron Golem and his gearheaded mook were nothing but scrap metal and electric gears covered in toad vomit. :p
"Thanks!" said Baxter as I untied his feet. "I thought I was going to see my last day. I can't thank you, so I won't... not yet."
"Oh thanks," I said in sarcasm. "My pleasure. So... can you get out of here safely?"
"Sure thing, girl," said Baxter. "I heard Mr. Bones will pay me well in fish for information. I don't mind turning on my old gang, after what I saw... but we can discuss that in a safer place. Thank anyone who helped find me." He leapt through an open window and was gone before I could reply "I sure will!"
I thanked Ms. Marphaly and she told me to say hi to Sherlock for her. The way he reacted, I had a feeling those two had a relationship... best not to go there. *blush* (Sierra got an upgrade to her ring from Ms. Marphaly which she equipped ASAP.)
Sherlock directed me to his house at 22 Barker Street(badaboom) and I went there after I helped that guard I gave the book to earlier with some stupid relationship problems. I could have given the letter to the right girl and then told the guy what I had done, but it's not my business - if he wants to offend the girls with his stupid mistakes, that's his own fault. Don't kill the messenger. :p
I hatched an egg which I had gotten when we cleared out Jarl's hall. I didn't know any ice wizards who could use a Frost Beetle pet, but it was so adorable in its creepiness that I let it stay - I could move it to my future Watchtower Hall, where it would be right at home! ^_^
(Also, Sierra tried to get Blackhope to cough up a unicorn and failed. Yeah, after doing that quest for the guard at Barkingham Palace, she had only 6 EXP to Level 36. 6_^)
We met with Baxter, who told me that Pops, the leader of the O'Leary gang, was planning something big in the Ironworks and Baxter was attacked when they spotted him minding his own business.
Pops was displaying paranoia to have one of his lesser men silenced... clearly that something was VERY secret and VERY big. "Let's go to the Ironworks and find out what Pops has going." I felt sort of bad. I wanted Grace to be there for me, but I could do this as her representative and tell her the story when we met again in Wizard City.
The first thing I did, after promising amnesty to Baxter for helping us, was to locate a key to the first door, which was found after beating up some Nappers. However, there were a bunch of chimneys with picture plates on them and a lever and a locked door.
"The door is locked?" said Baxter. "That's odd, they usually leave that one open. They must know we were coming. Nails knows the combination to the lock." He directed me to the warehouse where I could find Nails O'Leary.
The place was crawling with O'Learys, I had to be careful not to get spotted or the fight would alert Pops to my presence and security would be heightened, making things a lot harder for me.
I eventually found Nails and hammered him(badaboom) and he gave up the combination to the lock, which I entered by pressing the plates and the pulling the lever. "You go, girl," said Baxter. "I have to take the back way to avoid being discovered but I'll meet you at the entrance to the factory."
Baxter informed me when I reached the factory that someone had some plans. He warned me that there were a lot of goons down there, so I tried to be careful... and got distracted and spotted by some rat-crooks when I was studying what seemed to be another iron golem. Luckily, a Necromancer came and saved my hide. (Yeah, stupid pull rate is stupid. I hired a Level 20 Necromancer henchman because he was cheap - 20 crowns. He took out one of the Scroungers with Sunbird. Also, I decided agianst fighting Ol' Smokey - soloing him would be difficult and I wanted to save my mana. He's only there for some rare signature items which aren't great anyways.)
Not wanting to get caught again, I grabbed the blueprints and showed them to Baxter. It was a prison blueprint for Newgate. I shuddered. Newgate Prison was the most infamous of Marleybone's jails - home to the most notorious criminals in the lot. I didn't know WHO was being broken out, but it had to be a powerful crook indeed. I then realized something... that prophecy Christina told me at the end of Jarl's hall... after we beat the dragon....
The Crazed One will get that
Which he seeks
Despite the wards placed on it
By a meowing sneak.
It hit me like a ton of bricks - Malistaire may be unable to steal the Krokonomicon from the museum with his magic, buuuut any criminal in jail would gladly steal it for him WITHOUT magic, which the museum had no defense against, if he freed them, and if it's a Newgate crook... then the theft would be 100% successful. Newgate's prisoners were probably the greatest thieves in the Spiral, it was almost impossible to keep from losing something to them. I grew pale as a ghost and nodded in agreement with Baxter - we HAD to stop the raid before it happened!
Unfortunately, there was a guard at Pop's hiding spot who wanted a secret knock, so I had to find a goon who knew the knock, and I found one and beat it out of him with ninja pigs. Brady the Sneak was all too willing to give up the info. (I had to enter a combination to open a door to the warehouse but it was easy to figure it out. The other code was a dead end.)
 |
| 2000 points of damage exactly, woo! ^_^ |
I used it to get into the last area and confront Pops himself. He was tough but not so much that he couldn't be Ninja Pigged to death. "You're too late, wizardette!" he groaned as he was tied up. "I've already ordered the raid to begin! My capture won't stop it now!"
I cussed under my breath. I had to get back to Sherlock and warn him of the danger...
[To be continued...]
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