CB's Pathfinder Beta -- Burnt Offerings

Momentarily startled to discover that he's being spied upon, the wily collie quickly scoops up the heap of trinkets into his maw, turns and lopes off into the darkness away from the dying bonfire's revealing glow.[sblock=ooc]Sandstone will endeavor to loose Elyra as quickly as possible by turning several corners in quick succession. Knowing humans he'll be taking advantage of her lack of night vision, his ease in passing through tight spots due to his smaller size and his intimate familiarity with Sandpoint's layout and shortcuts to increase his chances of confounding his pursuer. Sometime after he's confident that he's given Elyra the slip, Sandstone will resume his planned activities as described while being more cautious to act in a typically canine manner as much as is possible.[/sblock]

Ambrus said:

Momentarily startled to discover that he's being spied upon, the wily collie quickly scoops up the heap of trinkets into his maw, turns and lopes off into the darkness away from the dying bonfire's revealing glow.

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Elyra watches the creature go, reluctantly deciding against trying to follow it. She turns and makes her way back to the boarding house, eyes warily searching the darkness against ambushes, goblin, human, or faux canine.

It fought the goblins, she thinks. It came back for the gold. It took the gold. It did not sniff the corpses when it thought no one was watching it -- Does it have a good sense of smell?

I have to sort this out before I leave Sandpoint, she concludes. I can't leave that thing sitting in the middle of a town full of people who don't know what it is. But how can I prove it's not a dog?

Her thoughts are jumbled as she makes her way home to a troubled sleep.

CanadienneBacon said:

Talashia watches as the mayor goes inside the town hall building across the street and the sheriff strides off down the byway, and chooses to haul off after the sheriff. Sheriff Hemlock turns around at Talashia's approach, and up close she can see that dark circles hang in bags under the sheriff's tired eyes. The sheriff frowns at Talashia's news that Father Tobyn's gravesite has been dug up and grunts in surprise. Scratching behind one ear while he thinks over Talashia's news, the sheriff grunts again then nods. "I'll send a team." Pausing, the sheriff looks hard at Talashia then adds, "You'll be in my office in the morning. The mayor will want to hear this from eye witnesses. Not a word to anyone else before then--town's already riled up enough as it is." Satisfied that Talashia's told him all he needs to know, the sheriff sighs and looks with no small degree of longing down the byway he'd been headed but instead turns around and heads back to the garrison, which he enters with the bang of a door.

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Feeling a little guilty over adding more to the sheriff's burden, Talashia makes her way back to the inn for some rest.

[sblock=Taran]After giving Elrya the slip--and Taran spies no more of her during the night--the rough collie checks the goblin bodies in front of the Sandpoint Cathedral and finds the usual assortment of shoddy-workmanship dogslicers. The corpse of the townswoman is gone from the festival square, but the goblins remain. Taran amasses three more coin pouches--more than he can reasonably carry when coupled with the take from the bonfire.

Seven coin pouches total, for a grand total of 70 newly minted gold coins. Please indicate how Taran wishes to go about moving the purses. I think three is a reasonable number to carry in his mouth, but that leaves four that he'll struggle to manipulate and move around. Let me know how Taran handles what he can't carry. Does he make trips? Does he attempt some other way of carrying the pouches? Does he bury the extra pouches he can't carry?

Just as he is done sorting through the dead goblins littering the festival square, Taran's activity is interrupted by the sound of two men approaching from the north. A pair of guardsmen armed with short swords and a lantern walk through the square in front of the Cathedral, but pay Sandstone little mind. One of the men grumbles something about "dogs eatin' them goblin guts, bleah!" but no one does anything to dislodge Sandstone from his work. The guardsmen round the far corner of the Cathedral and enter the Boneyard. When Taran finishes picking through the dead goblins and peeks round the edge of the Cathedral, he spies one of the men hauling the ladder up from the outside wall while the other man shovels dirt back into the empty grave. Naffer Vosk, the Cathedral groundskeeper, is no where in sight.

While padding up north Church Street beyond the Cathedral, Sandstone comes upon Gorvi the dungsweeper and a crew of rough-looking men (some with obvious orc heritage, others just drunkards or roughnecks) tossing dead goblin carcasses on the back of a horse-led wagon. The horse looks rather the worse for the wear and tired--each toss of a goblin body into the wagon shakes the load, causing the horse to snort and huff with displeasure. A couple of the carters share a flask of something between them when Gorvi's not looking. Gorvi spots Sandstone and bellows "Git, you gut-eating dog!"

Satisfied that the dungsweepers are doing their job (but perhaps a tinge disappointed that no more gold purses look to be forthcoming), Taran leaves off checking for dead goblins and instead quietly approaches the residences of his favored residents to try and determine whether they survived the attack unscathed. The Turandarok Academy is locked up tight and seems to have suffered no harm, and likewise the Rusty Dragon Inn bustles even at this late hour with patronage and seems unscathed. A detour to Tower street to check up on the venerable Sage Brodert Quink reveals drawn curtains and no candle burning in the window. Passing by the Curious Goblin bookshop to check on its proprietor Chask Haladan, and then finishing in the early morning with a visit to Risa's Place to see whether Madame is unharmed reveals nothing untoward that would lead Taran to suspect foul play.

With four or five hours left before sun-up, Taran curls up in a safe quiet spot to sleep adjacent to the garrison. [/sblock]

The rising of the morning sun behind a bank of fog smites the sky with wan gray rays. Dark clouds over the Hinterlands threaten rain, and the day promises to be dreary and perhaps wet. Folk make their way from their homes later than usual, and their footfalls are cautious and worried. The faces of the people do not break into the usual bevy smiles and "Good Days"; the townsfolk whisper and watch from behind partially-open doors and shuttered windows.

Let me know who attends the morning meeting with the sheriff and the mayor at the Sandpoint Garrison.

[sblock=CanadienneBacon]

CanadienneBacon said:

Please indicate how Taran wishes to go about moving the purses. I think three is a reasonable number to carry in his mouth, but that leaves four that he'll struggle to manipulate and move around.

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Sorry, I guess I should have clarified what the dog would do with the coin pouches once out of view. If they have thongs attached he'd simply hang each pouch around his neck. Otherwise, he'd carry each somewhere around his midsection by stringing them along the straps of his leather scale barding. Wherever he carries them he'd disguise each as a tuft of tawny fur, much as he does with his armor; an extension of his illusionary fur coat. A few furry bulges might look a little tumorous up close, but I figure nobody would notice in the dark anyway.

CanadienneBacon said:

Satisfied that the dungsweepers are doing their job (but perhaps a tinge disappointed that no more gold purses look to be forthcoming), Taran leaves off checking for dead goblins

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Actually, seeing the Dungsweepers at work, Sandstone will quickly duck away and redouble his effort so as to complete his goblin searching as quickly as he can before it's too late. The dungsweepers may not yet be aware of the carcass that's lying behind the Way North for instance; Sandstone would check it out quickly. He'd then go see if the one by the North Gate has been dealt with yet and, if possible, search it without being observed in the dark. Then he'd turn and go to investigate whether any of the many carcasses he'd seen littering Tower Street near the garrison had been collected yet and search those if they haven't.

Afterward, once he's searched all the goblin carcasses that he's aware of (or those he comes across accidentally during all this traveling about) he'll head back to Tower Street to lie in wait near Brodert's house so as to watch Junker's Edge. He's anxious to see whether Gorvi and his boys bother to search the rotting pile of goblins they've collected before disposing of them. If they don't and they simply toss them over Junker's Edge, then Sandstone will make a point of circling down to the junkyard below to finish his search of the carcasses. He might very well do that even if they do search the bodies; on the off chance that they missed something in the dark.

We're talking about gold here; a dragon is not going to stop until it's exhausted all opportunities to add wealth to its hoard.

In the end, once he's done his rounds for the night, Sandstone will pad down to the sandy point next to the harbor and skirt the lower cliffs, taking the opportunity to wash off the filth in the surf, on his way to his sea cave (with a possible detour to the Junkyard). At the cave, he'll unload all of the loot and hide it beneath some heavy rocks in a deep tidal pool before getting some rest.[/sblock]

CanadienneBacon said:

Let me know who attends the morning meeting with the sheriff and the mayor at the Sandpoint Garrison.

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Entering town near the harbor shortly after daybreak, the tawny colored collie pads over to the garrison square. Lying down in a shaded area within sight of the front steps, Sandstone waits patiently to see what transpires.

Elyra makes her way into the square, noting the dog's position but giving him no sign of her attention. She has brought her bow today, and her axe is tucked into her belt, perhaps not trusting to Sandpoint's seeming tranquility in the wake of the previous night's events.

OOC: Presumably she's arriving with Tac, but I didn't want to write his part.

Sivan

Having used the night for sleeping, Sivan is ready to attend the morning meeting, still wearing armor. (No, he doesn't sleep in it.)

Talashia appears at the meeting with her hair held up under a blue bonnet and wearing a turquoise and white dress that, while not formal or a 'party' dress, seems a bit on the nice side for gallivanting around cemeteries and goblin warrens.

Tac Abor, human rogue

As quiet and alert as Elyra is, Tac's just as spastic and distracted. He fidgets with his belt, first tucking his tunic in, then pulling it out, then tucking it in again. Likewise he keeps fussing with his hair, which he can't seem to manage to lay flat; each time he gets one tuft to lay down, a new one pops up. Finally he sighs and settles of 'slylishly tousled.'

"You know, I see the Sherriff and the Mayor around, but I've never actually spoken with them," he admits to his cousin nervously. "I mean, the chief engineer is usually the one who fields the government meetings and I'm not even sure I remember everything right. I had a dream with goblins last night, you see, and it's all strating to blur together a bit, so I'm hoping some of the rest of you are more clear-headed."

[sblock=Taran]Checking the goblin corpses remaining that he can find nets Taran another 40 gold. All the gold coins he finds are newly minted. Gorvi and his boys lead the horse and wagon laden with dead goblins to the cliff and proceed to dump the bodies over the cliff onto the beach at Junker's Edge. The tide takes the dead hunting dog and one goblin, but Taran checks the dead that remain and finds another carved wooden amulet in the shape of a bloated-belly female goblin with gross bodily distortions--much like the one he found on the warchanter by the bonfire, though admittedly stylized differently, as if a different artist did the carving. As far as getting the coin pouches back to his cave, what you describe works for me. I hadn't envisioned a particularly long cord on the leather pouches, but sticking the bundles under his armor would suffice.

This is a lot more activity than I realized you would have Taran undertake, however. The pursuit of gold, while entirely realistic for a young dragon, is going to cost Taran a night's sleep, with the result that he'll be fatigued on Day 2. Let me know if there is a game mechanic possessed by Taran that will spare him the effect/s of fatigue...I couldn't find one, but you know your character better than I do.[/sblock][imager]http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/6730/shalelu.jpg[/imager]

Talashia and Tac draw stares as they approach the Sandpoint Garrison, though for different reasons. Fishwives shake their head in disdain as Talashia passes, but the menfolk are more reasonable and eye her form in the brightly hued dress with appreciation. Tac's ruffled appearance draws snickers. Quite a number of townsfolk nod in respect at both Sivan and Elyra, both of whom--obviously well-armored and armed to the teeth--look more the part of hero.

After entering a comfortable office on the second floor, the group is met by Sheriff Hemlock and Mayor Deverin, who express their thanks. The Sheriff is his usual brusque self, but Mayor Deverin is genuinely grateful and greets everyone with a handshake and a round of thank yous. Both the Sheriff and the Mayor seem to size up each person who enters the Sheriff's office, looking with particular curiosity on Tac. The Mayor nods to herself then asks Tac, "I've seen you at work on our new Cathedral. Double thanks to you, young man. Did you hear the news that we'll host a second re-dedication ceremony this afternoon? After yesterday's fiasco, Father Zantus pressed me to see the dedication through." The Mayor pauses and tries an uncertain smile before continuing. "A gathering and a prayer might do some good to quell fear, at any rate. This evening, at sundown."

As the Sheriff and Mayor step to the side to allow everyone into the room, a third individual comes into view. Seated in a cushioned wooden chair on the far flank of what looks to be Sheriff Hemlock's desk is a female elf, clad in a style of light armor and a bow not unlike that sported by Elyra. The elf stands at the group's entrance and moves with graceful fluidity and a sense of purpose toward the gathering at the doorway. Sheriff Hemlock gestures to the elf, saying, "Shalelu Andosana, an...unofficial...member of Sandpoint's town guard." Mayor Deverin is quick to add an introduction, saying, "Sandpoint's newest crop of heroes," with a smile. "And, begging your pardon, but with the exception of young Tac here, I'm at a loss for your names. Perhaps you could each take a turn saying who you are?"