Emral takes a long, long, looooooooong pull at the Earl Grey in his cup, listening to the negotiations going on. His respect for Drivan increases throughout the contest of words, but soon the time comes for his own points.
Excellent tea. Emral smacks his lips and takes a deep breath in through his nose, looking out over the arena. My thanks, Mr. Pinch. I do mean that, as I'm sure any telepath you have in your service can likely tell you.
I also must have you know that no one in this party means you any kind of disrespect in these negotiations. We are honored to fight in the TURTLEDOME! against your prize fighters, and look forward to the glory that comes with participating in these matches.
Our concerns are that we as adventurers have certain... expectations from battles such as this, that often include surprise gratuities: hidden treasure, or the goods left behind by foes such as weapons and armor that can be resold to fund our operations. Normal adventures for a patron come with the expectation of rewards beyond the initial paycheck, and in a very real way this is how we can afford to go on as mercenaries or scholars. As such, and again meaning no offense, the request of 600 gold for a group such as this is a somewhat conservative figure, as minor magical items we might come across could easily cost upwards of 700 gold each. Not mentioning what several of them spread among the group of us would total. In the interests of respecting your establishment and your generous offer of an opportunity for us, of course.
Emral spares a glance to the rest of the group, then takes another long pull from the tea cup. Mmm, again, excellent. Would your maidservant be around still? I fear I'm just about done this glass. How did you convince such a gem to enter into your service, by the way? I'm under the impression that Mariliths are fantastic warriors, of epic proportions when it comes to swordplay. Certainly enough to draw a crowd, if she stayed in her natural form curing a fight of course. If I had any idea they were as good at making tea as they are with their swordplay, I would have gone into Conjuration/Summoning instead of battlemagic! he chuckles.
[sblock=party] Yeah, we can totally earn more than 600gp on the road with the level 1 treasure packets of magic items. (as a GM, I know this sort of thing)
Mr. Pinch knows the score, it's good to let him know we're also aware of it. We as a party won't be getting loot! This is an arena battle, so unless there are magic items hidden around the arena, we need all that money to add up to whatever we're going to get for the next battle.
Likewise, make sure we're not selling ourselves into slavery. And please don't insult the Oni/higher level NPC!
I'm going to be writing papers for the next couple of days. Then I have exams. I'll be totally done and back to obnoxious numbers of posts by Friday Morning. Until then, I'll maybe write on and off. Seriously, wish I had more free time this week for this encounter! GM: you're killing me!
also: I don't know how to make the rolls, or I would. Anyone know how? [/sblock]
Besides, I'm anxious to see what 4E combat looks like.[/sblock]
