It was a fascinating group of individuals that Wiz had found himself working with. He had seen the blind woman, Stella, around town before as she sold her goods in or near the same places that he performed, but he had always written her off; thought of her as nothing more than a blind beggar hawking goods for someone else. How wrong he had been! She had some fascinating Skills, and while she was keeping them to herself for the moment, Wiz was sure that he could convince her to tutor him sooner or later, or his name wasn’t Theodore Watterson.
It normally wasn’t Theodore Watterson, but today he had an important role to play. Wiz was no stranger to the seedier side of city life, but even he was impressed by just how creative Robert and his friend were when it came to handling the obstacles that came up in the course of their planning. Most of the thugs that Wiz knew weren’t good for much more than applying increasing violence to a problem, but his companions seemed to be determined to find other ways of solving a problem if at all possible. Wiz didn’t mind that. It was far easier on his conscience, for one, and it also greatly reduced the possibility of pricey medical bills or painful retaliatory attacks.
Wiz’s hip twinged as he remembered the last time plans went awry, but pushed it out of his mind, leaning harder onto the dilapidated cane he was using as a prop. Out of everyone working together on making this heist a reality, he was the best suited towards acting as a public distraction, not only because he was relatively anonymous compared to Themis or Jim, but also due to his prodigious talent in acting and showmanship. He could put on a disguise and be someone else, convincingly enough to make this crazy idea work, at least his part of it. The dangerous part, actually stealing things, would be up to Jim.
Casually, Wiz opened the door to the seedy, smoke-filled bar. The bartender turned to look at him, but he was the only one. This was the kind of place that the customers knew to mind their own business, and it was something that Wiz was going to turn against them. None of them were paying attention as he used [Prestidigitation] to silently and instantly move a set of small objects into the shadowed corners of the bar. Now committed to his course of action, Wiz leaned over to the bartender who had walked up next to him and murmured softly.
“Oi’ve got sommat that needs sharin. Der’s a bounty hunter settin fire to your places, hoping to smoke out a smuggler, or so she says.” It pained Wiz to lower his pattern of speech into something this incomprehensible, but it did help sell his current disguise as a beggar.
“Oh really?” The bartender asked skeptically. “How exactly did you find this out?”
“Well she seemed roight pissed when she kicked me out of me alley. Said she wanted to find herself a smuggler, not kill half the homeless people in the city. Last I saw she was getting sparks from ‘er firestarter. Should be able to see the smoke if you look outside, or you will soon enough. I just figgered some people might want to know who’s to blame.”
It was all true. Themis was running around Dirint right now, setting small fires and roughing up the low-level thugs she could find, doing her best to portray herself as a desperate person with nothing to lose. The fires were more carefully positioned than they first appeared, but Wiz and Themis’s tracking abilities had managed to find enough dens of ill repute that no upstanding citizens would be harmed by these antics.
The bartender didn't’ take Wiz at his word, and walked around the bar, making his way to the front door. Opening it up he stood outside, his eyes easily taking in the thin trails of smoke beginning to rise from across the city.
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Wiz’s [Sense of Timing] kicked in, pulling on everything he knew and could extrapolate and letting him know that it was time to start the next part of this act. A whispered word under his breath was all it took. The smoke bombs he had placed earlier had been covered in a strange solution capable of eating through untreated wood, and were now appropriately positioned in the basement. They suddenly burst into life, spewing forth constant streams of smoke without carrying the actual risk that a real fire would cause. A magician’s life was smoke and mirrors, sometimes more literally than others.
“Look! Smoke from the basement! She’s here, setting fire to the place!” He screeched Forcing the other people in the bar to stop their own conversations and pay attention to him. The already hazy atmosphere in the place helped disguise it at first, but the smoke seeping through cracks in the floorboard was already noticeable, and was getting thicker with every passing second.
The reaction was immediate. Wiz hurriedly stepped to the side as the panicked mass of people inside made a rush towards the exit, hardly caring about anyone else as they pushed and shoved their way out of the place. The bartender, meanwhile, managed to squeeze his way back inside the place. Instead of running off to get the Ferrymen like Wiz had been expecting, or even summoning someone to run and tell them for him, the somewhat portly man instead reached under the bar. He broke open a container of some sort, before speaking slowly and clearly.
“My bar is under attack by a bounty hunter, she’s setting fire everywhere. I need help now!”
Once he was finished with his message he let the item drop, where it shattered completely on the ground. Wiz felt as a sudden burst of wind flew past him, magically altered to carry the man’s message to someone, and whistled silently. That was a better safety measure than he had been expecting, and a more expensive one as well. The ferrymen guarding the warehouse would soon know all about the fires, and the sheer cost of the message would guarantee that they would respond.
Wiz took a second while the bartender was distracted to lock the door leading down to the basement. He had chosen this place to target not just because he already knew of the bartender’s connection to the Ferrymen, but also because he had visited the place in the past, and had known both its layout and the fact that it was one of the few places to have a basement, given the difficulties of underground construction in a seaside city. The quality of construction meant that it wasn’t at risk of taking serious damage from the smoke bombs, and the basement would slow down anyone attempting to put the fire out. Not only was it harder to get into, but a fire in an enclosed space was far tricker than the same flames out in the open. The smoke down there would be blinding, and if the fire was real the heat would reach levels it couldn’t out in the open where it could disperse more easily. A simple warming spell on the metal handle of the door was the final piece of the illusion, convincing anyone who touched it that the other side must be scorching hot.
His work finished, Wiz hobbled down a nearby alley, making sure no one saw him before he removed his disguise. Themis and Snozzy would be breaking off from their arson spree to go help Jim at the warehouse with any of the guards who stayed behind. Having Theodore Watterson play a bigger role in things would be suspicious, but Wiz could easily play a part himself, both fueling the public attention on this crazy day and providing himself with a reasonable alibi. His mind made up, Wiz snuck his way over to a nearby square he occasionally performed at. There was a shop nearby that Themis had torched, a front for the smugglers, and Wiz carefully positioned himself so that he was perfectly framed by the still billowing fumes. A few people were already working on carrying water from the canal over to douse the flames, but most of the people present were content to simply watch the spectacle.
As he prepared to launch one of his standard routines, Wiz hoped that his new teammates were having just as much luck with their roles as he did.