RuneQuest - more from Apple Lane!

Last time we left our heroes defending Gringle's Pawn Shop in Apple Lane from a determined assault by a pack of baboons. Thanks mainly to the efforts of Rothgar, a barbarian clad in sack cloth, several baboons have been slain/incapacitated in a most brutal manner. Quilliam, a somewhat ineffectual sorceror, has investigated the sound of someone trying to bash down the kitchen door...

Inevitably, the kitchen door was battered down, and there came the tumult of something/someone stumbling through the pots and pans Quilliam had thoughtfully strewn across the kitchen floor. Before long, the inner kitchen door burst open, and an armoured centaur charged through into the temple. By this stage, Rothgar had appeared in the opposite doorway, and he charged the centaur, while Quilliam, with scimitars drawn, attacked from its left.

At the top of the stairs leading to the kitchen, Zariah had rolled one of the barrels from the upstairs storeroom into position, and now nocked an arrow to her bow, sighting on the centaur (we duly pondered the friendly fire rules for RQ, as, while the centaur was partly hidden from Zariah behind a door, if she missed, there was a good chance of hitting Quilliam or Rothgar).

The centaur fought hard to defend itself against the two men, but was quickly wounded in several locations, and brought down. While Quilliam focused on finishing off the beast, Rothgar charged into the kitchen, tackling two dragon newts that had been standing behind the centaur with bows ready, only to now be faced with the blood-smeared apparition of Rothgar, while behind him the sorceror gleefully hacked away at their fallen centaur comrade.

Rothgar used his tower shield to charge straight into one dragon newt, driving it to the ground and then finishing it off with his short sword. Meanwhile, Maria charged into the kitchen wielding her rapier, and got a lucky critical hit in on the other dragon newt, dispatching it on the sport. Rothgar now ran over to the back door, which had been bashed off its hinges, and almost ran straight into a larger dragon newt armed with an odd-looking serrated club. The creature had a swipe at Rothgar, unsuccessfully, before the barbarian struck back, injuring it. Seeing two of its comrades down already, it chose the better part of valour, and fled into the night.

With the battle over, the adventurers paused for breath. Checking outside the front of the pawn shop, they found the body of one of the baboons, the leader who had fallen from the roof, was missing, presumably dragged away by someone else. The door to the kitchen was locked and barred, while the remaining bodies were moved into the Issaries temple and stripped of weapons and armour. They found two Disorder runes on the dead baboons and a Fertility rune on one of the dead dragon newts.

As thre night drew on, the two male heroes bedded down in the temple area while the girls slept upstairs. Rothgar managed to integrate one of the Disorder runes before falling asleep. In the morning the adventurers arose, only for Rothgar to discover that Gringle's crystal was missing...

What really happened - one of the female baboons on the roof took cover behind a chimney to avoid being shot by Zariah. It then decided to slip down the chimney into the kitchen, where Quilliam heard it descending, and lit the fire. The chimney has two flues, however, so the baboon used the second one to slide down into the living room, then unoccupied, and hide under the snooker table (!). Here it cowered until everything went quiet, whereupon it sneaked out. Despite having a sneak score of only 15% it made four consecutive rolls - one to sneak past Quilliam, one to filch the crystal from Rothgar, one to avoid waking Rothgar, and a final roll to sneak past Quilliam again. I was quite prepared to have it waken one of the duo, but given its amazing fortune, I allowed the result to stand.

The baboons have been left in a perilous situation, however; while the crystal has been recovered, they are down to the senior female, one adult female, a young male, and the current leader, who is badly wounded and must be carried. The bandits who they teamed up with have fled, after their primary warrior, the centaur Big Laugh, was slain along with two dragon newts.