[Risus] An Adventurer's Life for Me! IC

[Vertexx69]

The squat shiny suit of clockwork armor is absently shooing away the prodding hands of a bumpy chested humanoid that keeps trying to touch his various cogs and gears, while he apparently tries to carry on a conversation with the obviously magic shield floating beside him. The female looks like she is treating this like some kind of game as the chain bound arm occasionally lashes out at her while she tests the shiny shiny armor for any loose bits that she might be able to pry off. "...but as King Grommet* was saying, you just can't wander off without your arms like that, you might remember something you need them for once all that grey stuff stops oozing out of your ear holes."

His tinny laugh seems to mean he was either telling his... shield a joke, or maybe it said something funny in response? Maybe its telepathic? "King Grommet* knows, right? And you remember what it said after that? Thursdays, hilarious!" Another bout of metallic laughter like metal scraped over metal sets everyone's nerves on edge. The woman snatches back her hand as one of her fingernails gets crunched between a pair of perfectly meshed gears when he laughs.[sblock=OOC]* Whenever King Grommet (the mad) say his own name, a tiny set of metal arms hoist a gear up over his goggled helmet. The gear has many of its long, spindly teeth bent upward like a crown while a little four note royal tune plays on a brass horn from somewhere inside the echoy chest plate area. Then the arms fold away back down into the suit. This happens quite often as King Grommet speaks in the third person.[/sblock]

 

[Artur Hawkwing]

Another woman stands near the clockwork...thing...and his talking shield. She smirks as the attendant seems to so enjoy fondling the clockwork...um..armor. Her head turns, those entering seeing her from profile. Her hair brown, her complexion fair. Her head turns in a fluid, graceful motion. Her brown eyes don't hold attention as much as the frost blue stripe that begins above her right eyebrow and disappears over the crown of her head. She speaks, and there seems to be a delay before what she says is clear.

"It is about time, Rozzo. I was actually beginning to think of showing this want to be how the thieving game is done. Although the terrible jokes do a good job of helping me keep my distance."

She turns, her black cloak, light and airy, floating. She tosses it open in a grandiose expression of impatience. She is of average height for a human female. She wears black leather, pants with gray accents in all of the 'right' places. Calf height boots compliment the design. Matching top is almost a bikini style top, black leather with a hint of gray swirls, like cigarette smoke, floating across her chest. Studs circle the cups of the leather..garment...if you want to call it that, and form a line up the straps that disappear over her shoulders and behind her cloak. At her hip, slung across one shoulder, is a matching leather bag. Not quite a purse as one might imagine on a woman. Her stomach exposed parts are well muscled, obviously someone who works at keeping herself fit. She gives an appraising look to the new arrivals.

"This? This is the assembly of...miss matched hairbands that is going to do what that old coot wants? Oh, this will be good. Oh, hold still, honey. Let Risa get it.

The attendant of the clockwork whatcha-ma-jigger has managed to get the tip of her hair caught in a gear and is about to yank her scalp off trying to retrieve her hair. From the satchel at her hip, Risa pulls out a dagger and a comb. Within a moment, the other woman is free. Risa tosses her her dagger and comb into her satchel with a snort.

"And people wonder why the slut population is so high."

She takes a step back and looks back at Rozzo.

"If the two of you will kindly roll your tongues back into your heads and jam your eyes back into their sockets, Rozzo, can we get this party started?"

 

[Vertexx69]

The girl pestering the animated armor seem tickled at any kind of direct attention. But when the bit of hair is snipped free of the turning gears on the King's arm, it hits the ground with a mercurial splash and a portal opens silently behind her. The armor finally seems to notice the four people in the hall with him, and arbitrarily gives the girl that looks a little too similar to Risa a shove through the watery disc, she was completely unaware of. The portal snaps shut with a little pop of smoke, and the armor moves toward the group with heavy and clomping steps. "You now have the pleasure of addressing King Grommet* and his good friend Widget." He indicates his shield with a grand sweeping gesture, complete with steam hissing out of a row of vents on his back as he slightly bows, and waits for the others to introduce themselves...to his shield.

After a moment of nobody saying anything, he raises a mechanical eyebrow on a little arm set above his blue goggle lens. "Go ahead, Its okay he can hear you just fine." He adds expectantly.

 

[Mark Chance]

Rozzo laughs and says, "Well, that is interesting. Let's go look at the, er, merchandise, eh?"

The merchant walks down to the first arch and gestures. "This is Bonk."

In the smallish room on the other side of the arch is a legless, armless stone statue. The torso and head stand about five feet high, and is quite broad across the shoulders. It stands crookedly on the broken stubs of its half thighs.

"Bonk: Alert!" Rozzo says.

The statue jerks, its back straight, chin high, countenance set in a grim expression.

Rozzo explains, "Bonk is a gently used stone golem. It responds to simple commands. Sure, it might not look like much, but it gets around quick enough of those stubs, and its head butt is like a mule's kick."

He gestures to the next nearest arch. In the room beyond it are three small urns.

"And here's the coin golem. Its inert right now. What you do is this: separate the coins into different containers, such as these urns -- included in the price, mind you -- and leave them here and there for looters. When the last container is looted, all the coins rush together and turn back into the golem. Quite a nasty surprise for greedy intruders, eh?"

 

[Mlwells]

Aka lags behind a bit, grabbing hold of Marcus's shirt as he does. When he feels that the rest of the group is out of significant earshot range he whispers to his companion. "This is a new and unexpected, but wholly nice change of events that I most certainly never saw coming, but for some reason feels like I knew all along." His eyes dart to a fro and back and forth. "So which is more to your liking, the bondage afficiando or the spawned shrinking violet?"

 

[Artur Hawkwing]

Risa follows along. She gives a bit of a smirk at the stone golem, quirking an eyebrow at the stubs comment. She holds her tongue, though the glimmer of mischief in her eyes is rather difficult to see. The coin golem draws her interest, of course.

What if the coins aren't all in the same sack? If they were, as hard to imagine as it might be, split between two or more looters? And, would there be a way to control it? A control coin if you will?

As she speaks, her eyes move up and down, either appraising the urns or attempting to gauge the amount of coins that would fit into the vessels. Her interest is focused on the urns and answers provided to questions thereof, so she doesn't hear the whispered conversation a few steps away.

 

[Mark Chance]

"Ah!" says Rozzo. "An astute question, Risa. Indeed, there is a control item, specifically a ring. Also, the coin golem can be given a predetermined command, which it will carry out once activated."

As Rozzo speaks, Risa estimates that each urn could easily hold hundreds of coins, and the urns themselves appear extremely heavy and awkward to carry.

"Now, down here," Rozzo continues, "we have two other items of interest."

Through another arch is a large glass cube full of goo. Rozzo says, "In the glass enclosure is a creeping ooze. Quite deadly, but difficult to control and not terribly fast. It has a profound aversion to citrus. Even the smell of citrus will keep a creeping ooze from creeping. Its fee includes a bag full of limes."

The merchant gestures in the other direction. "And this is Garumble. Say 'Hello', Garumble."

Sitting on the floor is a powerfully muscled ogre. Like all ogres, he is quite large. Sitting down on the floor, he is still nearly as tall as Risa.

"Hello, Garumble," says the ogre in a gravelly voice.