Howling Night: Temple of Hinotheus

[InVinoVeritas]

GM: Okay, here's the situation. First, I've been caught up with a ton of crap in RL. I haven't been able to get to this site nearly as much as I'd like in the past couple weeks. Second, I've read the rest of the adventure, and to be honest, it's lacking. It says what the encounters are, and it's got excellent stat blocks, but doesn't give any details how one part flows into the next scene. So I've been wrestling with changing it or dumping it. What I'd like to do is push the game to a quick conclusion, get you guys some encounter XP, and let you get back into a game that works. So, if you want to quit, that's cool, but otherwise, I'll try to move things forward fast and furious enough to keep things interesting.

Nathan scans the girls and notices one that seems even more out of place than the others. She bites her lip as she hangs her head down. The color of her skin, the shape of her face... she's not from anywhere around here, and it's not entirely clear where she might be from. She definitely looks meek.

Bonita notes Nathan's choice. "Oh, yes, Mai Lin, she's a wonderful choice, not sure where she's from, but wherever it is, they have no morals. She'll do anything you ask of her. Anything." That last word dribbled out of her mouth in an indulgent bolus of disgust and pride.

"She'll be five gold, and you can use a free berth upstairs... Oh? She's for all of you? That'll be five each, then. Don't worry, she'll take it."

The rooms upstairs smell of rotten bodily fluids and cheap alchemical perfume. Indeed, the eerie stench of termites is the most pleasant odor to be found. The "berth" turns out to be a closet-sized space with a moth-fouled curtain and a rag on some hay. With a little searching you find an unused berth where the hay looks changed in the past week.

Mai Lin stays silent, her head never rising. She reflexively begins to strip, revealing a brand between her shoulderblades.

 

[HolyMan]

"Whoa missy none of that now," Darreo says from the doorway as he watches the hall his crossbow coming to hand. "Well we are in what now? Search a bit quietly? Find these pesh-heads and deal with them permanently."

[sblock=OOC] Sorry to hear about RL kicking you in the b*** IVV. I hate when it does it to me too. I was going to suggest a bar fight or something to get us kicked out, but if you have something better by all means roll with it.[/sblock]

 

[jkason]

Nathan Tchanlach, human sorcerer

"Hold on just a minute," Nathan says to Darreo. He wipes his hands down the front of his tunic, a gesture that washes away the grimy elements of his disguise and leaves him his normal clean-if-disheveled self.

"Mai Lin, was it?" he says with a soft smile, moving to the girl. "You don't have anything to worry about with us. We're looking for some friends, or for the men who might have hurt those friends. Perhaps, instead of what men usually take from you, we could ask for information on them? Does that seem fair?"

OOC: Diplomacy +6 Like I said before, I'm up for sticking it out for whatever you have planned, IVV. Sorry to hear about the RL stresses.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

"Whatever you want, sir." Mai Lin keeps her head lowered, and waits.

 

[jkason]

Nathan Tchanlach, human sorcerer

Nathan smiles gently and keeps his voice as calm and non-threatening as possible.

"Our friends are priests of Hinotheus," he explains. "The protector wolf, yes? They were trying to protect Venza from a new and more dangerous strain of pesh when they went missing. We're trying to find them, or the pesh dealers we fear they may have fallen afoul of. I expect you probably hear a lot, that folk probably make the mistake of discounting you. So, maybe you've heard about our friends, or the others we're looking for?"

 

[InVinoVeritas]

"The ones with squid tentacles make me take pesh before they take me. Two weeks ago, it was almost too much, and Bonita made them pay extra while I recovered."

Mai Lin looks up, forlornly. It's the first time she has raised her head, and she does so fearfully. "Does the protection of Hinotheus extend to slaves, too?"

 

[jkason]

Nathan Tchanlach, human sorcerer

"The ones with squid tentacles make me take pesh before they take me. Two weeks ago, it was almost too much, and Bonita made them pay extra while I recovered."

Nathan nods. "Squiddies it is," he says, nodding to the others.

Mai Lin looks up, forlornly. It's the first time she has raised her head, and she does so fearfully. "Does the protection of Hinotheus extend to slaves, too?"

Nathan stops himself just as he's ready to spout out vague thanks.


"I don't speak for gods," Nathan says, then stops a moment, turning slightly to his left, as if listening to someone who's not there.
Then he smiles slightly.

"So we don't disagree about everything," he mutters to the unseen voice. Then he returns his attention to Mai Lin.

"Whatever the gods may grant, my protection includes you," he assures the young woman.

[sblock=Question on Venzan Law]I couldn't find anything on the wiki, so it may not be established, but what are the laws of Venza in regards to slavery? Nathan's own nigh-slavery upbringing's going to make him disinclined to support the rights of a slaver in any case, but thought I should figure out if he's breaking the law or if the slavery itself is law-breaking?[/sblock]

 

[InVinoVeritas]

[sblock=Question on Venzan Law]I couldn't find anything on the wiki, so it may not be established, but what are the laws of Venza in regards to slavery? Nathan's own nigh-slavery upbringing's going to make him disinclined to support the rights of a slaver in any case, but thought I should figure out if he's breaking the law or if the slavery itself is law-breaking?[/sblock]

[sblock=answer]
Slavery is not legal in Venza.
[/sblock]

 

[SelcSilverhand]

Tahn taps his chin thoughtfully as he listens to the girl describe the tentacled creatures. There were so few possibilities as to what the creatures could be, and none of them good. Some were the stuff of nightmares.

"We will do all we can to aid you, girl. We will get you away from here safely.

Do these squid people stay here? Are there any here right now? Or do they keep their pesh here?"

 

[jkason]

Nathan Tchanlach, human sorcerer

"We will do all we can to aid you, girl. We will get you away from here safely.

Do these squid people stay here? Are there any here right now? Or do they keep their pesh here?"

"Well, we know there's one downstairs at the moment, but I hadn't thought that there might be a whole batch of them here. Wouldn't do to assault one of them just to get ambushed. And we can't get to him right now without Bonita seeing us come down. Unless we distracted Bonita."

Nathan furrows his brow a moment, thinking. He turns back to Mai Lin. "Bonita charged the men extra when they hurt you, yes? If we could make it look like we hurt you--only pretend, I promise now harm--do you suppose she'd be angry enough to come up here and confront us?"

To the others he proposes, "I might be able to come up with some reasonable facsimiles of bruises and / or cuts using my little friends to do some judicious coloring. It might be enough to get Bonita up here to chastise whichever one of us wants to take the blame. While she's at that, the rest of us might try subduing our tattooed friend downstairs."