A little while back we started a facebook series called "Miri Monday". We wrote the story, and drew random cards from The Miri week by week. People following Precious Cargo Games on facebook used the emoji reactions to vote for the direction of the story. This is the result of everyones choices, all in one place!
Part 1: Light Fingers
You leave the market square, all the loot you’ve pilfered from merchants and other shoppers heavy in your pockets. It’s been a profitable day, a few hours work stealing from the rich able to keep you well fed and well dressed for weeks. Right as you step onto the street that leads to your lair, you hear people yelling from the market. It seems that someone out there finally noticed their wallet is a little light.
You Chose: Use your knowledge of the streets to escape.
Part 2: Stepping In it
Right when you’re sure you’ve slipped away, an evening street light flickers on, with you directly underneath it. As you adjust your eyes to the blinding light, you see two figures talking, one of them pointing directly at you.
“OI! GET BACK HERE!”
Shouts and whistles sound as you sprint down the alley. You jump over a mound of noxious garbage and apologize to the merchant selling wilted cabbages when you knock his cart and wares into the street. Looking back over your shoulder the angry red face of a VERY large officer is much closer than you’d like.
The pack on your back thumps you while you run, heavy with the small banded box in it. The coins and loose jewelry you stole was by reflex, this was the real score of the day. You don’t know what’s in it, all you know is that some of the most wealthy patrons of the city had been seen going to the nondescript store you’ve been casing for weeks. All of them had bid and pleaded for the box, and that was good enough reason as any to steal it
“You really stepped in it this time, didn’t you?” Your fox companion chides you while darting along the eaves above, moving ahead to scout the path and keep you from getting boxed in by the other officers you can hear joining the chase from other streets.
You smirk, “Yes, I sure did, but it’s time to put an end to this.”
You Chose: Keeping on this path will take you to the outskirts of the merchant square. The Burrow is there, and you pay the guild dues for times like this.
Part 3: Bringing the Fun to Badjer
Storefronts and well lit homes turn into warehouses and hovels as you race ahead of the law officers chasing you. Now that you’re back in your own territory you slow down, staying just within sight of your pursuit to draw them deeper though narrow alleys and twisted streets you’ve lived on most your life.
“Over here!” The fox yips out just before you run past what you’re looking for, three slashes that look like a large animal took a swipe out of the brickwork.
“I bet it’s really hard to run fast with all those bribes in your pockets!” You laugh at the curses and promises of capture that ring out behind you, the law falling for the bait and staying on your trail as you lead them to a spot reserved for times like this.
They catch you in a dead end, your back against an old brick wall covered in fliers and advertisements long expired. “Well well well, finally caught us a street rat! Hand over the box and we’ll make sure you get the nice prison cell!”
Your answer is an unsettling grin, matching the one the fox at your feet makes as its fur bristles and it bares its teeth.
“How about this? YOU leave now and your families see you in one piece again?” A third voice speaks up, making the officers realize this isn’t their trap.
What even you thought was a pile of discarded rags rises into the air, the rags a patchwork cloak draped over the shoulders of Badjer, leader of the thieves guild. He’s not physically threatening, barely as tall as you and all boney joints and gangly limbs. It’s his ability to know what he shouldn’t, every whisper and secret in the city somehow coming back to him to be used for leverage or power. He picks up his staff, said to be the lockbar from the prison cell the one time he was captured. “I believe it’s time for you blue boys to head home.” The night air is filled with agreement and other threats when Badjer speaks up, letting the guards know who’s really the ones surrounded.
You catch his eyes flick over your bag, eyeing up the weight and lumps in your pack and mentally attaching a price tag for his help.
While the thieves and lawmen stare each other down, you have a few moments to weigh your options.
You Chose: Money can always be a solution, and you still have the loose coin and jewels you stole. Throwing them out into the alley might cause enough mayhem for you to escape and see why this box is so important.
Part 4: 23 Skadoo
While Badjer and the law curse and glare at each other, you start moving along the wall trying to get some distance between you and everyone involved. Your stomach grumbles, thinking of the weeks of gruel you would be eating as you throw all your earnings away.
“HEY! MONEY! SCATTER!”
The fox and you scream out in unison as your pouch of coins and jewelry fly through the air. At the apex of your throw the knots you loosened come undone, cascading your purloined loot all along the alley.
Before the first coin hits the ground, thieves are jumping from the roofs while less than scrupulous officers dase past their coworkers.
“Dangnabit you fools! Stop her!” Badjer yells and tries to get control of your peers as he swings at you, narrowly missing as you duck under his staff while it flashes through the air.
Jumping over trashbins, then on the backs of crooks, and then off the head of a very angry and red faced constable finds you at the other end of the alley and free to make your exit!
“Have fun Badjer!” You laugh as you bolt down the street, leaving others to deal with the mayhem of your actions.
Finally, you’re safe in the cozy warren of an apartment you call home. Sliding home the many locks on the door, you and the fox sit down in the middle of the room, placing the box down between you both.
“Well, I’m not the one with thumbs.” The fox grumbles as it curls up, resting its chin on its long tufted tail as it waits for you to get to work.
“Alright already! Sheesh!” Using your picks and tools of the trade you finesse the large padlock open, as always loving the satisfying THUNK a lock makes as it opens. Now it’s time to find out why everyone wants this box so much! You and the fox lean forward as you open the lid, revealing…
You Chose: An Omen
Part 5: Faulks is Alive?!
“Great. A fancy key. Since you can’t eat it, and no one would buy it, I’m going to sleep.” The fox does just that, curling up and falling asleep in your lap.
You’ve seen a key just like this the few times you were caught stealing as a child. It’s a skeleton key used by the city guards to open and lock dungeon cells, dark iron and worn by use. The fancy bit is the carved handle of the key, made to look like a fox grinning ear to ear.
This is the last thing you notice before everything around you vanishes, your vision blinded by a searing white light.
There’s a jail cell. You know it to be in Commerce Tower, the tallest structure in the city.
Chains clink and your vision moves to a ratty moldy pile of straw, the only bedding for the prisoner.
You recognize the scar on the back of his neck. You gave him that scar when you hit him with a rock for stealing your last piece of candy on your seventh birthday.
It’s Faulks.
Your brother is alive.
The vision vanishes at the same time the back of your hand bounces off the floor when you collapse. The key crumbles, now a handful of rough sand.
“My brother is still alive.”“Hey, I’m trying to sleep!” The fox yelps as he’s knocked out of your lap, quick to hop back into your lap and glare up at you for the audacity of moving while you’re used as furniture.
The fox freezes, its bright red eyes locked on you now. “But Badjer showed everyone the body. I smelled him, it was Faulks.”
“I know what I saw. He’s locked up in Commerce Tower!”
You Chose: Investigate the brother's gravesite, just to be sure.
Part 6: A False Tomb Leads to Real Answers
“I don’t think a weird “key vision” is enough to go on to think Faulks is alive, or go graverobbing when the whole city is looking for you.” The fox says again as you sprint from shadow to shadow.
Only the richest of the rich get eternal rest in the famous gardens and mausoleum within city limits. Faulks was given a pauper’s funeral past city limits, and that was only because you pulled a knife when Badjer suggested dumping the body into the sewer before the city guard could find it.
“Either stand guard, or help dig.” It’s the only six words you’ve spoken since leaving your home, and your tone sends the fox slinking off to give you some time to yourself.
Hours later your shovel hits a coffin, your hands tingling from the shock of impact. You kick as much of the dark loamy earth out of the way that you can and raise the shovel over your head, driving it down again.
“People call it “waking the dead” for a reason! Keep it down!” The fox hisses from on top of the dirt mound you’ve created, only it’s brilliant eyes visible in the light of your candle.
“Faulks used to, I mean, he does say idioms are for AHHH!” The second strike tears through the coffin, and everything else beneath your feet when it doesn’t meet any resistance. You fall as the bottom of the grave crumbles out from under your feet.
You’re sitting on the floor of a large tunnel, the dirt that followed you down softening your fall onto the bricks beneath you.
“I’m not coming down there if a zombie got you!” The fox yips from his perch before scrambling down to join you when no groans or requests for brains answer him.
“Look, there’s no bones or gross stuff. There was never a body in the coffin!” You light a lantern from your bag of tricks and shine it above you. “The grave has a false bottom. They must have opened it from the outside and dropped Faulks out of it!” You’re already running off down the tunnel, the fox dashing to catch up.
You and the fox reach the end of the tunnel, stopped by the very strong looking wooden door and its variety of locks. Dead center of the door is a crest burned into the wood, a tower above two bars of gold. The mark of Commerce Tower.
“There’s no way we’re getting through that door without a plan, help, or luck. We’ll probably need all three, and a LOT of each.” The fox mumbles, trying to speak and look under the bottom of the door at the same time.
“Badjer also has some answering to do. I refuse to believe the entire guild was behind this.” You tug at the bars, the door immobile as the stone around it...
You Chose: Bring Badjer to justice, guild style.
Part 7: A New Leader Rises!
You curse as you leave, unprepared to get past the door between you and your long lost brother. The fox hops off your shoulders as you climb out of the hole, shaking itself to dislodge dirt and dust from its fur. “What do we do now?”
“We make Badjer pay.”
Three Days Later
“I’m glad you got my message Badjer. Like I said, I can’t dodge the guild and the guards at the same time.”
“That’s true, even your luck has to run out at some point. I’m upset that you got enough of my friends arrested that I had to get involved. The fates have a cruel sense of humor if this is where you throw yourself at my mercy.” Badjer scuffs his foot in the dirt, standing at the foot of Faulk’s restored grave.
“I hope you have as much mercy as thugs you brought, I wasn’t expecting a crowd.” You move from behind Faulk’s gravestone, hands out and open to show peace.
Badjer pulls his coat tighter around him against the chill wind. “Well my friends wanted to come along and make sure you behave. So, what do you offer to pay your debt for leading a garrison to The Burrow? You betrayed guild trust and disobeyed an order to stay out of the merchant’s quarter.”
You grin, the full moon making your teeth look feral . The fox slinks between you and Badjer, its grin matching yours. “Your life for the truth, Badjer. Admit you’re not our rightful leader and leave the city forever, and I’ll let you live.”
The gathered goons laugh as Badjer spits on Faulk’s grave, taking steps forward to glare down at you. “Is that so? If I’m not the leader, then who is?”
“MY BROTHER!” Years of fury and abandonment fuel your howl as you push into his chest, shoving and making him fall on top of the grave.
You were never a good artist, but glueing dirt to canvas is easy enough.The gathered thieves draw their weapons and stop, some crying out as their leader seems to fall straight through the ground.
“He never beat Faulks for the right to lead, he betrayed him and us to the city!” You drop a match, lighting the oil at your feet to illuminate the ring around the grave and reveal the tunnel below.
The crowd gathers at the flames. “Hey! There’s bricks down there! That’s not a trap, it’s a tunnel!” A torch is dropped down into the hole, revealing the bricks and Badjer getting to his feet.
“I’LL KILL YOU FOR THIS!” Badjer leaps and grabs you by the ankle, pulling you down into the tunnel with him.
“Beatrix!” The fox yells your name as you vanish into the hole.
You kick free and roll, using the momentum to spring to your feet. “Like hell you will! You don’t have city guards to help you ambush me Badjer! You couldn’t beat Faulks and you can’t beat me!” You surprise Badjer by throwing a punch, well too far away to come anywhere near connecting with it.
Surprise grows as the glove flies off your hand, dragging a weighted chain with it. His staff is knocked from his hand, skittering along the bricks and out of the torchlight.
Badjer charges before you can draw the gloved chain back, hitting you hard enough to make your vision swim when your head smacks against the wall.
Thieves that followed you down pull you both apart, the ones holding Badjer kicking his feet out and bringing him to his knees.
You shake yourself free and spit in Badjer’s face, He curses your name and lunges against the men holding him. “A sharp knife and a quick knife is too good for you Badjer! As Faulks is alive, and I’m his second, I’m the boss of The Burrow!” You turn in place, locking eyes with every person there. “If anyone has a problem with that I accept any challenges. Otherwise, we have work to do.”
“What work...Boss?”
“I’m glad you asked. We have things to steal, and a brother to save. Tie this traitor up and meet at the Burrow. I have a plan…”
Whoa, leaving on a cliffhanger?!
Have an idea on what happened next? Leave a comment!
Which Aspect we should do next?
