At some point during the night, after he is a few cups deep, Samuel would play a few songs about a rapier wielding fighter adventuring around the world, slaying monsters and defending the innocent, breaking hearts along the way. The melody would be upbeat and happy, although the lyrics would be a little darker. 

After your supplies are procured, you find yourselves back in Zodge's office at Wyrm's Rock. You find the Captain much the same as you left him, poring over notes scattered atop a cluttered desk. He barely looks up as you all enter, though he does double take when he sees Remi and Samuel. Without looking up from his notes, he digs in a desk drawer to his right and pulls out a bottle of whiskey before setting it down on the desk, "Hair of the dog?" He flips through a few more pages of notes and finally looks up to you all, "I sent a contingent of Fists to secure and investigate the bathhouse. They confirmed what you mentioned finding below. That alone would be enough to warrant a formal investigation, but that in addition to Mortlock's statement justifies us to execute a raid upon the villa. I can spare a few men to cordon off the area while you all enter and mete swift justice. Thalamra and her reclusive son Thurstwell should be brought in alive, preferably, but if they resist they condemn themselves to whatever fate you see fit. After all, if they were innocent they would have no reason to resist an entirely lawful legal action would they?" Zodge smiles devilishly and winks before continuing, "My men will handle capturing the other son, Amrik. We know his usual haunts and I'm confident he'll come quietly. He's a snake but he isn't stupid enough to risk his neck unnecessarily." Zodge sits back in his chair and places his hands behind his head and boots upon the desk in his usual relaxing position, "That's about it. Oh, similar to before, eliminate anyone who gets in your way, and don’t worry about collateral damage. I doubt the house staff are loyal enough to the family to make any attempts to stop you, but if they do-" Zodge runs a thumb across his stubbly neck, "Otherwise they'd make great informants. The help hears all, as they say. Let's see, anything else? Oh, yes, I'm assigning another draftee to your squad. His name is..." Zodge sets his feet back on the floor and leans back over his desk as he begins sliding papers around. While he searches, the door to his office opens and a female Flaming Fist stands in the doorway, "Sir? The new draftee is here." Zodge looks up and says, "Perfect, send him in." The woman turns and motions for someone to enter. She has to step completely aside to allow the large figure to enter, her neck craned as she looks upward at the new draftee.

Shrek steps one foot into the doorway, and knocks his head squarely on the top of the door frame header.  Falling backwards, he tumbles to the ground with an enormous crash.  You can literally feel the floorboards rumble like an earthquake, violently shuddering as the giant's heft slams into the ground.  With a feline nimbleness, he quickly hops back up to his feet, and scrambles through the doorway...successfully this time, by ducking down as much as he can.  Once in the room, he unfurls back up to his enormous height (your thumb in the wind guess would be at least 7 feet tall...likely taller), and a sheepish grin appears on his otherwise pallid face.  Comically, he stands at attention, clearly a rookie not used to his new role.

"Reporting...errrr, Sir?  Shrek duty...ummm, errrrrr, Reporting?  Boss?"  he shouts.  Then, mutters a few choice curse words under his breath, before following up with "Shrek sir reporting duty!" with a loud shout again.

Within seconds of Shrek entering the room, your newly washed nostrils are assaulted by a swamp gas aroma.  Samuel especially, being of a more refined race, likely feels a wave of nausea oncoming.

Samuel takes a second gulp of whiskey from Zodge as Shrek enters. 

Remi says “Whoa, he’s a big chungus idn’t he?  The ground is shaking!”  The nimble rogue moves in the room to stay upwind and out of the way of the new arrival.  

Shrek, still standing at attention (or as much as he interprets attention to mean...he's an untrained rookie after all) curiously eyes the bottle of whiskey.  Within seconds, you notice a spot of drool starting to appear from the corner of his mouth, which starts to dribble down his chin.  100% of his two brain cells appear to be squarely concentrating on the bottle, oblivious to whatever else is going on in the room.

All - Captain Zodge frowns and says, "This... Ah..." He clears his throat and grabs the bottle, taking a swig before continuing, "This is Shrek. He will be joining you all on your endeavor." He stares at Shrek for a few moments, "Right. Well, you all had best be on your way. We want to strike fast and hard, don't give them time to destroy any evidence." He busies himself with moving papers around his desk until you all leave.

Damian knows the location of the Vanthampur villa and he leads you all there in the Upper City. Along the way, you notice more and more Flaming Fists mercenaries joining your entourage. By the time you reach the villa, the twenty or more Flaming Fists cordon off the area, pushing nosey neighbors back with mailed fists. You all are now within the grounds of the Vanthampur estate. What do you want to do?

Ankita looks in amazement as the new recruit tries to enter Zodge’s office.  At first she was excited when she saw him - she would have another on their team the same size as she!  But then with his entrance, does he not know how large he is?  Did he just grow?  Very intriguing, all of it.  

Then the drool… oh boy, she hopes he isn’t an alcoholic - she’s heard of those types and from what she can tell, she has been lucky that none are currently in her party.  She hears that their hair grows wildly when they are drunk and that their head can spin all the way around like an owl!  And that you do not want to be anywhere near them as they would rather hit you then talk to you.

She backs away very slowly, then stops herself, who is she to judge as she just met the man, and maybe he has a drooling problem?  “Uh, the name is Ankita, nice to meet you.”

On the hike over to the villa, Shrek was a little too eager to integrate himself in with his new teammates. Almost like a puppy dog, he tried to suss out who the leader of the team was by jumping around between individual conversations, listening in. This quickly overwhelmed his meager intelligence and short attention span. By the time they arrived at the villa, he was visibly sweating due to the stress he worked himself up with.

It took a hot minute for him to realize that they arrived. Finally shutting his big fat mouth, he peers up in awe at the villa. “Shrek deliver mail to home like this before. Should Shrek knock on door for fake delivery?  Surprise good plan?”

“I don’t mean to be rude eh…Shrek was it? But if there is talking to be done, perhaps Damian or myself should be doing it. We have a certain way with words. Our entourage should secure the area, ensuring none escape. Our group should enter, not alerting them to our affiliation with The Flaming Fist until absolutely necessary. We can lie our way through the gates, allowing us quicker access to the home within. I do like the idea though. Pick up some large box and bring it with us.” 

“Agreed Samuel.”  Ankita smiles wanly at Shrek, “I’ll talk with the Flaming Fist to ask them to make sure all openings into the house are covered to ensure no one escapes.”  She heads to the one that appears to be the leader of the group and asks them to take care of that as they head into the house.

Shrek attempts to pick up Ankita, before embarrassingly misunderstanding what the plan of action actually entailed. He pulls a long rope out of his backpack, wraps it around a boulder he manages to scrounge up from the roadside, and ties a neat bow on top (making the boulder look like it’s a wrapped package). Lifting the boulder onto his shoulder, he dutifully follows Samuel up to the villa.

As Ankita walks off to talk to the Fists after being accosted by Shrek, she shakes her head, “That’s a new one, how am I a large box?  He’s definitely going to make our lives more interesting.”

All - The Fists are in place and know their orders. The villa is yours.

“Should we investigate that smaller building first or go straight to the door with our ruse?”

“Should we look in the gate house first?  I could crack it open and we could peek before taking on the main house.”

“Let’s do that, the Fist have the house covered currently.  You take a quick peek, we’ve got your back.”

Putting his game face on as they approach the side building, Shrek strains to listen through the expansive doorway to see if he can hear anything (or anyone) on the inside.

Perception: 13

Remi sneaks over the the northeast to the presumed gate house, moving along the wall and peers in the first window, then moves to the door and gently tests to see if it is locked.  He looks in the window for any movement, listens for any sound.  

Perception : 23 

Stealth : 23 

Shrek & Remi - You hear the sound of metal tapping on metal and the nicker of horses coming from beyond the doors.