“Flee? Why?” Wolfgang looked surprised “We just brought back the ancient music!”


    “This is exactly why.” The Hobgoblin answered “It’s pure chaos in the city. Fellow Greenskins came back from the concert early, and told everyone, how excellent the new music was. Then the pre-bands arrived, and started playing Mythrill everywhere! The not-Guildmaster tried to suppress the playing and send the bands to the mines for re-education, but half of the officers resisted in the face of how awesome… ehmmm… excellent the music was. That was when the fighting started. He then sent the army in, which for a part sided with the mythrillheads too."


    “Mythrillheads? But that is the band''s name! Why do they call themselves such?"


    “Probably because they are followers of the most excellent band there is, playing the most excellent music ever!” Mini learned the Greenskinian terms very fast “Can I be a mythrillhead too? Mythrill is the best!”


    Mythrillhead wasn’t a term, Prof would have applied to her. Crazyhead, airhead, feeding-on-other’s-blood-head, yes. Mythrillhead? No.


    “The Musician’s not-Guild is in uproar. Most of the Clay players sided with the old Goblin, along with the more conservative Granite bands. The rest of the Granites are in another faction, saying, mythrill isn''t excellent, but the not-Guildmaster wasn’t excellent in this case either, and should be sent for re-education. Mythrill should get a chance. Everyone is fighting everyone else! We heard, there was a not-Guild bounty on your heads. The three leaders are discussing making the bounty state official too."


    That was bad. A civil war caused by an innocent concert, and the Evil Overlord of Clay putting a bounty on the party’s head? Just because they knew the band and helped Wolfgang just a tiny bit? They had to flee?!? How would Prof be able to sell the gems? They were broke. Again.


    While Prof kept most of their valuables secure in his Girly Backpack of Holding, there was a lot of gear and stuff left at their lodgings. He wasn’t prepared to leave anything back, especially since they had no ready cash to replace anything. The gems were too valuable to just blow them on random gear. Most likely with an abysmal exchange rate.


    “The jewelry! We have still more than two hundred marks worth of jewelry in the store! We need to get them back!”


    “Forget to jewelry, Prof." Wolfgang said with a smirk "The jeweler is a Greenskin and so excellent to the customers. Even if you went back there in a hundred years, the money or the pieces would be returned to you or your next of kin. You won''t be able to get the baubles back in the middle of the night during a riot anyways."


    “All right.” Prof assumed a leadership position “We still need to get back to our lodgings, we have stuff there. Wolfgang, girls, do you need to go home too?”


    “Yes, I have important sheets and documents at home and a few heirlooms I don''t want to leave behind," Wolfgang said. Wilhelm, Theodor, and Adeltraut shook their heads.


    “We are good. Everything we need is right here.”


    “I don''t want to leave Saugarten," Sandra said "More likely, I can''t leave. I have to take care of my family first."


    The three pleasure providers sided with her, too.


    “We have a job and contracts. It wouldn’t be excellent to quit and leave. Not even for mythrill.”


    Prof brought up his Mental Map to check where they were and where they needed to go. In the last month, he was able to map Saugarten to a sufficient level, with the band member''s homes highlighted. Luckily, Sandra wasn''t living far from the brothel, where their background… decorations had to be dropped. Prof didn''t even contemplate sending four girls into a riot without an escort. Even so, they were left with three different places to get to, and each was far from the others. Getting to every place after each other in the middle of a riot looked impossible.


    “We will need to split the party.” Prof came to the obvious solution. “One group will escort the… escort girls back to their base of operations, the second will raid our compound and the third will liberate Wolfgang’s palace.”


    The way Prof formulated the tasks was much more exciting than “visit a brothel”, “get our stuff” and “get to Wolfgang’s flat”. At least he hoped so. Seeing the reactions, he failed. At least partly.


    “I will visit the brothel… I mean… escort these poor girls to their base of operations! I won''t be able to live with myself if they came to harm!" Mini was selfless as usual. Or she just wanted to have a bit of fun before leaving the city. Either way…


    “Good. At least do it in battle gear, not the stage clothes. Are you able to do it on your own? I would like to send Binky with the task force for the compound. Would he follow directions from others than you?”


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    “Yeah, I can do it without Binky. I’m awesome like that! Hey, can I riot a bit on the way back? Plundering, raping, setting fire to stuff, you know?”


    “No.”


    “Nope.”


    “Forget it.”


    “Aggravating the already dire situation would just play into the hand of the masterminds behind this uprising.”


    “Do you mean us?”


    “No, the not-Guildmaster!”


    “Spoilsports.”


    “All right. It is obvious, Wolfgang is on the team to liberate the palace…”


    “Stop with that, it’s not funny.”


    “Yeah, don’t try to look like a mercenary commander.”


    “I think it’s fine. It’s better than him whining.”


    Everyone was a critic nowadays. At least Mini had the Perk for that…


    “All right, all right. So, Wolfgang is going to his flat, are you three good in a fight?" Prof asked the three band members. Seeing them shaking their heads, Prof sighted. "The non-combatants should stay outside the city, then. Bianca, Sharpclaw, are you all right with taking Binky to our inn and getting our stuff? I will go with Wolfgang then. Will you be able to navigate the city?"


    “Yes, of course. It isn''t that big. Where we should meet up afterward?" Bianca asked. It was a good question. If the authorities wanted to arrest them, it was likely, they would erect roadblocks or checkpoints on the city limits. If the party wanted to flee to another city or country, they would have to pass the checkpoints – the authorities would have to guess, where the party wanted to go. Their guess was as good as Prof''s since he had no idea whatsoever, where to go. Not to the East, towards the Valley, that was sure.


    The safest idea was thus to meet up in the East, that was the least likely direction to go. On the other hand, if the authorities followed the same logic, the East would be the most likely direction, sporting the strongest checkpoint. Following that logic further, the party wouldn’t go East, so a strong roadblock there wouldn’t make sense, which would lead the party to travel East.


    That was true for every other direction too, unfortunately.


    “We meet up in the East. A few minutes outside the city limits, there was this monument. You can''t miss it." It was no use in overcomplicating and overthinking things. If there was a checkpoint there, they will figure out things.


    That whole train of thought of course assumed, that the medieval authorities had enough manpower – or whatever the politically correct designation for it was – in the middle of a city-wide riot to send a few squad wagons to every exit with hog-mounted guards roaming the gaps.


    The question remained, however, how to sneak into the city in the first place. Just openly walking up to the destinations probably wasn’t a good idea. While Prof deliberated the best way – using [Stealth], going over the roofs, flying or teleporting in, or any commonly used method – the other teams left, leaving only him and Wolfgang behind.


    “What are we waiting for?” the Orc finally asked


    “I’m thinking about the best way to enter the city and get to your flat. It has to be inconspicuous, secret, avoiding the people on the streets and the streets itself as far as possible.”


    “Use the sewers. That’s the only choice that fits your criteria.”


    “Saugarten has sewers?" Prof hasn''t realized it. Well, most people don''t think about where their wastewater went after flushing the toilet. As long as said water wasn''t fountaining up in other parts of their home, at least. Who cared, if it went into the canalization, a cesspit, or the neighbor''s home? The existence of sewers was mostly unknown and unnoticed, the absence of proper wastewater collection was a noticeable thing. Mostly for the folks living downstream from you.


    “Of course we have sewers! What do you think we do with all the water coming from indoor plumbing? Just pour it out into the streets? We aren''t dirt-dwelling dogs, who wallow in their own shit! Not even the most mis-bred lap swine would do that! We aren''t Pinkskins! No offense."


    “None taken." well, Wolfgang was right, most medieval societies on Earth didn''t bother with collecting wastewater, and just emptied the chamber pots out of the windows. They didn''t bother with washing themselves overly much, so the amount of wastewater to dispose of didn''t justify the costs to dig and maintain subterranean structures.


    “Say, what do you do with the collected wastewater?"


    “We just dump it into catchment basins, and use it to fertilize the fields. Same with our dead."


    “You dump corpses into the fields?!?”


    “Of course not! Dumping corpses wouldn''t be excellent. We cremate the dead, the family gets a plaque, and the ashes are scattered on the fields." Well, everyone had different customs about what to do with the dead. Some built huge stone structures, others just dumped them into holes, while others saved them to be raised in times of need. Scattering ashes to improve arable lands was just one possibility.


    “All right. Do you know, where we could enter the sewers?”


    “Let''s see. Usually, there are signs pointing to the nearest service entrance. If I remember correctly, there were signs at the crossroads up ahead. We should check it."


    Putting up signs pointing to service entrances was a Greenskin thing to do. If there were no signs, the maintenance crew would have to search for the entrance, and that wouldn’t be excellent. Or something like that. Maybe some relative of the leadership had a company, that produced signs, and the state supported independent contractors by buying otherwise unnecessary signs from him.


    Absolutely legit.


    Wolfgang was right in the end, there was a sign pointing to the sewers. This way it was indeed easier than to search for a hidden, secret entrance for hours or ask some low-life to point in the right direction. The greenskins were excellent this way.