[Eberron] The Forgotten Forge

This is the IC thread for my Eberron PbP.

The OOC thread can be found here.
The RG thread can be found here.

The current roster of players is:
1. Rawhide, Male Shifter Barbarian 1 (Ashy)
2. Khashana, Female Kalashtar Psion/Telepath 1 (IdentityCrisis)
3. Flawed, Warforged Transmuter 1 (Knight Otu)
4. Gannon Relstorf, Human Clr1 of the Traveler (MadMaxim)
5. Plonk, Gnome Art1 (Krug)

Best,
Nick

Part One: Death in the Upper City

Wir, 13th Sypheros 998 YK
Ext. Sharn's Upper City -- Night

A hard rain falls from the sky, broken only occasionally by a crash of thunder and some lightning. At your feet, small pools of water gather on the wood and stone of the walkways of Sharn's upper city. These paths dart and wind around the city's towers, creating an intricate web. Water slides off the towers and down to the lower city in sheets, nearly flooding the city below and making it all but impossible to see more than a few feet in front of you. A few everbright lanterns, nearly useless in the fog and rain, cast shadowy webs across the walkways.

[Spot checks]

Gannon, Flawed:
OOC: Your business in the upper city is completely up to you -- whatever you choose will be worked into the story. If you would like to know any of the other characters, you may, otherwise I will assume that you are total strangers that happen, by chance, to be in the wrong right same place at the same time. Whatever the case, please indicate your business in the upper city in your first post. Possible reasons for being there could include visits to the marketplaces, Morgrave University, the University of Wynarn, just poking around, and even being just plain lost.

Plonk covered his head with his hands. His cap was soggy and hunk limp like a dead mushroom. That darn watch merchant Nagbul has probably gone off and got himself drunk again!, he thought. He wishes for a dry spot to warm his toes by a warm fire, smoking a pipe filled with nice, thick weed. He pressed on, hoping the metal bits he had on him would not rust.

As Gannon walked across the many walkways of Sharn's upper city, he wondered what information he might be able to gather at the Morgrave University. They had to have something on the many ruins of Xen'drik and the powerful artifacts that lay buried in the continent's soil. As he crossed another walkway, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A person actually jumped off the nearby walkway! Did he or she just commit suicide!? Lightning struck and in the small amount of time that everything was bathed in light, Gannon saw a man falling to the ground. He drew his morningstar from his belt and hurried over to investigate the matter. What do you have in store for me this time, Traveler? he wondered...

Grambo, goblin trashcatcher of the highest order, cursed and spat at the merciless deluge. He hated rain almost as much as he hated his job and he hated his job quite a bit indeed. One would think that a goblin so small could not generate such heated venom within his miniscule frame, and yet he did...

Still, he had many little mouthes to feed, and so he plodded on and on, night after night driving his garbage wagon. He started early in the afternoon, whipping his beasts to a frenzied pace, driving them ever up the soaring towers of Sharn...

...collecting the trash of those affluent beings that resided there...

Once his load was full, he would go down, down, down into the bowels of the city; dump his load and then begin anew. Day after day the same mindless, endless, boring, smelly and terribly awful job.

How he hated it...
How he hated the rain...
Grambo drove onward, heading down, down, down...

The goblin cursed as his wagon hit something in the road, an upturned paver most likely, sloshing some of the trash out of his wagon onto the street. Goblin curses filled the rainy night as the wagon contined to roll away.

Apparently, Grambo hated bumps in the road as well.

Something stirred in a large pile of the garabage on the side of the road. Then, something groaned a deep, growling groan. Then, the something crawled out of the pile of trash. In a way, it looked human - barely. In a way, it looked like something more bestial and feral; something that belonged in a place utterly unlike Sharn. The thing coughed - a guttural, rough sound - and spat out the remains of what it had been eating.

Apparently, it was full, or at least the fall from the wagon had disturbed its dining.

The creature blinked, wiping away some soiled piece of something or another that was stuck in the corner of its eye, and looked around, taking in its surroundings...

Failed. Again. Flawed walked along the upper city after another unsuccessful - and expensive - training session, another failed attempt to unleash the potential Jhaeren had seen in it.

Does it even exist? Flawed though. Inevitably, its memory turned to the first day of its existance - bashing away at the sword after finding out where its flaw lied. A strange sensation - anguish, Jhaeren had called it - ran through its body, even where no connections existed. How that could be, Flawed had never understood, and Jhaeren's explanations did not help.

Then, Flawed noticed a strange scene through the rain - illuminated by a lightning - a person, lying on the bridge, and another one, apparently climbing over the rail. Curiousity arose in Flawed, and it moved closer.

Rawhide: The goblin sighs when he sees you and starts to pick up the garbage around you. He seems wary, but generally nonplussed.

Rawhide, Plonk, Khashana: As you move through the rain, you notice a small commotion -- a warforged and a human have both rushed over to one side of the bridge connecting Dalannan Tower and the Kelsa Spire. The human has a morningstar in his hand, and they seem to be inspecting something.

Flawed, Gannon: Rain and blood pool around the body of an old man, his chest riddled with stab wounds. The corpse clutches a leather satchel in his left hand -- the satchel slowly begins to soak up blood and water off the stone...


[Listen checks]

Rawhide, Khashana:
Gannon:

Plonk rushes over to see what's up. He shoves the people around him to get some space. "Get away! What-the.." says Plonk. When he sees the old man, his eyes widen. Plonk looks at the satchel and at the others. He casts a cursory glance at the Warforged, just to inspect the hardware...

The garbage-heaped creature (which turns out to be a terribly dirty shifter) twitches its ears and growls low in its throat. It crouches low to the ground, sniffing the air and then bounds over to the bridge, but heads north of the others. Once it arrives, the shifter looks over the railing of the bridge, trying to determine the source of the noise that caught its attention.

Gannon looks around and sees that the incident has drawn others to the scene. A gnome has just run past him to inspect the corpse of the man and has now taken a keen interest in the warforged standing next to him. He must be a tinker of some sort, but we don't have time for this now, Gannon thinks. He hears something beneath the bridge and suddenly the jump makes sense. The person is hiding under the bridge! It's going to ambush us!, he thinks. "Be careful, people, the murderer is still around! Brace yourselves!" he yells as he fastens his shield to his left arm.