Savra moves to the corner set aside for a bard and takes a seat. She pulls out her lute and starts to play a soft and soothing song.

performance: 16

The song is soothing, but brings to mind great deeds and thoughts of good days long past. The music fills the lounge, lifting spirits at thoughts of an adventure to come.

David orders a beer and takes a seat to watch the performance.

At the conclusion of the bard's song, David claps loudly.

"That's great, sing us another!"

Jafar arrives third, let into the same VIP lounge as David and Gin to find David clapping for Gin's performance, He isn't sure who anybody is as of yet and does not see the tiefling anywhere.

David notices the new arrival and takes note that they're a tiefling, but because they aren't Vansic, David returns his attention to the performer.

Jafar slips into a corner booth where he can keep an eye on the whole room and waits to see what happens.

"By all means." Savra says with a smile, bowing slightly in response to the clapping. She brushes her auburn hair behind an ear as she starts to play another song. This one is more of an epic saga, lots of notes of adventure and daring escapes.

Performance: 21

Quote from DragonDenn >>

"By all means." Savra says with a smile, bowing slightly in response to the clapping. She brushes her auburn hair behind an ear as she starts to play another song. This one is more of an epic saga, lots of notes of adventure and daring escapes.

Performance: 10

  Her music is off this time though, as she glances up when the tiefling enters, thinking it was their host for the meeting, but it was not, causing her to miss several notes and have to catch herself and start the refrain over again.

When Phineas arrives, a large spread has been laid out for the three other people that are there. There is more than enough food for the four of them...for 3 times that many, really. But it does not look like the tiefling has recruited anybody else, or shown up for the meal himself. It is during this meal that the four compare notes on how they came to be here, although they are a long way from trusting each other. Still, there is something uniting about the commonalities of their stories and the atmosphere during the second half of the meal becomes fractionally more relaxed.

"To those who do not know," says the tiefling as he enters the VIP lounge, setting down a heavy bag and removing a long, light brown coat. "I am Garrol Vansic. In here, we can speak freely. The White Flamingo is one of the few places in Foxshadow beyond the reach of Curtis Dron."

A touch of venom laces the final words of Garrol Vansic. It is barely perceptible but that venom is undoubtedly malicious. Vansic's reputation is well known. But he is not a killer. He is known to pay back those who try to cross him swiftly and, often, with great humiliation.

"I know this because the White Flamingo is mine and mine alone. All of the staff are hand-picked by me and we screen the clientele constantly for Dron's insidious influence. There is no safer place than here."

Vansic slumps into a chair, picking at the green grapes on the table of food barely within reach. "I have never liked Dron," the tiefling says between bites. "Not since I stepped off the river boat. The White Flamingo was the first place I stopped, you know. This was obviously before I owned the joint but he was here when I walked in the door, fresh-faced and ambitious. And I hated him from minute one."

Garrol is full of anxious energy and he stands and paces around the lounge as he narrates. "I realized too late on the nature of his growing success, otherwise I would have gotten in his way long ago," he says, meeting the eyes of everyone in his audience in turn. "But that worked to my advantage once I had decided to do something about it. You see, I had steered clear of the man until last year. So when I finally joined his inner circle with a clever little scheme to topple his little empire..."

A sneer curls on the tiefling's lips briefly, but he covers this up by popping the last of his grapes into his mouth. "...he did not know me or remember me. Except by reputation, you understand. But me personally....no, he didn't know me from a dockhand. My plan was nearly perfect for that reason, except for Guyard Loum."

Again, a flash of something...regret? pain?...slides across the man's face. He hides it quickly. Loum is one of Dron's lieutenants. But Guyard isn't vicious the way that Dron is. I saw him as the weak link in Dron's armor. I was wrong."

Vansic hesitates in his story and a brief silence falls on the five of them. He is deciding something and eventually he reaches a conclusion and proceeds. "Loum tipped my hand to Dron. He didn't know everything but he knew enough and Curtis Dron found out that I probably could not be trusted. For my suspected betrayal, I received the Silver Scar."

The tiefling reveals the scar high on the left side of his neck near to his jaw. It is almost perfectly round and a lighter shade of skin than his crimson red. It is almost pink, actually, with subtle definition on the scar in the mirror image of the head side of a silver coin.

"Dron is a thug, although he rarely kills," Vansic says, but looks meaningfully towards Phineas. "Dron is a master of control. He looks for the value...to him...in every person, in every situation. He sucks dry those who cannot maintain his thirst for more and owns everyone else."

Vansic's anxious energy subsides and he plops into his chair again. He is sliding more into his element as he approaches the point. "Dron is a parasite. When he is done with Foxshadow, he will move on to bigger things than our fair city. I would be happy to see him go if not for the ruin he would leave behind. Besides, I wouldn't wish Curtis Dron on anyone."

Seeing the impatience in his audience, Vansic holds up his hands, placatingly. "I want to try again. I want to undo Curtis Dron and humiliate him in the process. I want him to never feel safe in Foxshadow again. I have a plan, or an inkling of one, but I can't try to do it alone. Dron has made sure of that. But this time we can go bigger. We have a backer. We have uniquely motivated and talented individuals. We have the perfect target."

A devious smile creeps onto Garrol's face. His eyes accept the smile as well, portraying true joy at the thought that entertains him. "Dron seemingly cares for nothing except money. And we will take his money, you can be sure. But my time in his organization has shown me that there actually is one thing that Curtis Dron truly prizes," Garrol Vansic says as he leans back. "Curtis was a daddy's boy. He loved his mother deeply. Both were cherished members of the Foxshadow community before their boy rose to power on their name. Sadly, his father, his mother, his two brothers, and his beloved uncle have all passed on. He visits them still three times a week at the Fox River Cemetery. Maybe he is desperate to please his dead parents, I don't know. Whatever the reason, his connection to them is real. It is personal. For that reason I aim to steal the Dron family mausoleum."

When Vansic finally enters, David only pauses in his grazing over the food, giving the tiefling a wave before continuing. As Vansic speaks, David nods agreement with his descriptions of Dron and gives a nasty smile when he mentions taking Dron's money. But when Vansic reveals his ultimate target, David begins choking on his food. Thumping his chest to help the food go down, David speaks.

"WHAT?! You want to steal a mausoleum?!?"

David looks to his fellow guests to see their reactions before looking back at Vansic. But the look of disbelief begins to fade over the next few moments as the idea sinks in, and David's creative problem-solving mind starts to mull over the difficulties of stealing an entire building.

"You know what, this could actually be fun."

David is now smiling, his brain still whizzing through all kinds of ideas involving teleportation, extradimensional spaces and interdimensional travel.

"This could be expensive though...this backer of yours, he rich? Like, really rich?"

A mausoleum.... Savra thinks as the tifling gets to the point of all of it. She considers this as she waits to see what the others have to say. It likely could be done, she had not thought of doing something like it before, but options come to mind as she thinks it over now.

"I would like to know more about this mysterious backer." She finally says to their host. "Seems there is going to be a lot of danger in this to all of us, and an unknown factor in it is only going to make that more of an issue."

Phineas is still dressed in his resplendent garments when he arrives at the White Flamingo. He walks with an determined confidence that betrayed the light footed bounce that Kenkus have when they walk. He approached the table with flourish, removing his brightly feathered cap with a deep bow as he introduces himself to the table. "Good evening my fine compatriots, I am Phineas Finchbeak! A more skilled Kenku you will not find in this realm. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

He sat and listened as the Tiefling spun his tale of revenge against the wicked Don Dron. Phineas sat upright, his back straight and his feathered fingers folded into a tent on which he rest his beak, he was still as he listened to the story and considered the plan. When Garrol finally revealed that he planned to steal an entire mausoleum his head tilted to the side, and small confused chirp emanated from within him.

After Savra asks about the mysterious backer, Phineas will chime in. "Yes who is this benefactor of yours that would support this scheme? What sort of nefarious motivations might he have upon the whole operation? Difficult to trust those which we do not know.... Can we be sure they are as committed to our cause?"

Garrol nods, lips pursed. "Yes, this part is...delicate," he says. "If there is anyone more aggrieved at Dron, it is the trail of women he has left in his wake."

Vansic sits up clasping his hands in thought. "I am very protective of our patron for this reason," he says. "She needs to keep herself separate from us. She does not bear the Silver Scar and has maintained her high social status and wealth, even in the wake of a brief relationship with Curtis Dron. Her scars are beneath the surface."

He seems to be stalling while he works out how much to reveal. "You will probably figure it out eventually but...well, if you know her identity, you must not communicate with her directly. We are tainted while she is free...at least in her lofty social circles. Trust me when I say that our cause is her cause and her part is to provide the funds we need. Our part is to pull off our collective revenge."

He still holds back, hesitant to reveal the identity. "You must promise to leave her alone. Or else you will have to figure it out yourself and live in distrust."

David sits forward to hear Vansic's answer and once he finishes David sits back in his chair.

"She's rich and wants revenge as much as us, that's good enough for me. I got no reason to make the life of another victim of Dron, any harder than it already is."

David grabs a plum from the table and takes a deep, juicy, bite, not at all concerned with his noisy eating habits. Still chewing on his mouthful of plum, David asks.

"So what's next? Where do we start?"

"I would have no intention of trying to contact this benifactor." Savra says with a nod of her head, understanding the hesitation. She considers things for a moment. "I will need to know who this is by the end of our work here, but I have enough now that I am at least satisfied." She settles back in her chair, smiling at the eating habits of those around the table.

"Yes, what is the first step of this plan of yours?" She asks after a moment. "How do we start down the road to our goal?"

Vansic nods in mild relief at their acceptance. "Her pockets are not endless...and we aim to turn a profit on this little venture, so I will be keeping the books for her. But we can rest assured we will have what we need to get this done. As for my plan," he says, his wicked smile returning. "I have thought about this a lot. It obviously depends on our pool of talents, but we have several ways to accomplish our goal. One..."

Garrol holds up a finger, slouching back into the chair. "We only make it seem like we have stolen his mausoleum. This could be an elaborate illusion or extreme social engineering....that's a complicated term for a convincing lie...that the world has no choice but to believe that someone has taken his family crypt. This method has the benefit of being the cheapest one but also perhaps the hardest to make convincing. Two..."

The tiefling holds up a second finger. "We literally steal the mausoleum...the whole building and everything inside. This is the ideal path in my mind. It will also be the costliest and the hardest to actually do. Nobody will doubt the results, however. Three..."

Vansic holds up a third finger. "We destroy the mausoleum and everything inside, convincing the world it has been stolen. Variants of this could be to steal everything inside first, which I think I would insist upon, and building a duplicate mausoleum to be revealed at another time. This will probably be somewhere in between the other options on cost and it will be the easiest to actually accomplish. It does have some risk of being found out as a fake heist. This is my least favorite option, personally. It is overly complicated and compromises on too many important elements for a good plan to work."

Garrol sits up again. "Whatever method we use, there has to be an element of...performance...to the caper. Curtis Dron needs to know that something is coming. He needs to wrong about what it is that is coming. And he needs to look like a fool when it is all over. This will require misdirection. I think he needs to believe he is going to robbed of something financially significant, such as one of his businesses or a pile of cash.  It will also need a con...I'm thinking a convincing new competitor. And finally it needs a showy reveal. This will be the piece where he is publicly embarrassed. It has to be in front of everyone important and influential above him, such as at a trial or a celebration in his honor. We will have to work out the details together. But before we choose the path we take, I need to hear what you think we can pull off."

"There is a fourth option, though falls about in the middle of what you are suggesting. Leave the place in tact, just make it absolutely unable for him to ever enter it again." Savra says with a nod. "I think actually taking the thing would be the most impressive, and, as you said, the most difficult. Destroying it just seems oafish and, frankly something you could hire a group of thugs to do for you."

"A performance sounds perfect for me." She adds on with a smile, brushing her auburn hair back behind an ear as she pats her lute case with her other hand. "The problem I see with letting him know it is coming though is that, whomever we put forward as our face, is likely to be under the gun from the start. Keeping safe, while pulling off this heist, is going to be hard when this place..." She gestures to the building around them. "Is the only place in town we are truly safe from him."

Jafar grins as Vansic lays out the options.  "I like the sound of option two.  Even better if we can make it appear as if the mausoleum is still there.  See how long we can keep up the ruse before he figures it out."

"I'm of the same mind," Vansic says. "But can we pull it off?"

"I think it can be done." Savra says with a nod. "With a combination of magic, money, and diversions, we can do it." She smiles as she looks around. "Seems like a fun little adventure, I'm in."

The Kenku bobs his head a bit as he ponders the magnificent ruse that Vansic has laid out before them. "I am partial to number two as well... but must we steal the entire mausoleum? This seems to be significantly more complicated than stealing just the contents inside of it, and heaven knows where we would put it."