(Casual D&D IV) A Knight for a Pawn
- Thread starter Guilt Puppy
- Start date
Guilt Puppy
First Post
In the time intervening...
Cariel and the travellers part ways on the road to Valsport. When they reach the long, sloping port city, night has fallen, and a dense fog with it.
They cross paths with a beggar at the front gates; he begins to follow them, and Xiao slinks back to follow them in return. Eventually the beggar is cornered, detected to be undead, and recognized as the seer they had met once before. He begs, asks a few loose questions about their quest. Fendric bids him off with a few coin; in return, the Cleric hears his death foretold. It is to come from the sea. The seer frames it as a sacrifice.
They find Anders Peltram in the Grey Inn, offer him the letter. He accepts it, although he seems to bear an odd mix of ill will and old friendship toward Thedoric, which he extends at first to the bearers of his message. While the others discuss their own affairs at the far table, Fendric approaches Peltram on the subject further; when he mentions the name Exantrius, Peltram recounts that the fables of the knight were among Thedoric's childhood favorites.
Beyond that, Peltram refutes, with seeming confidence, any involvement by Thedoric in the wars to the east. He claims that there's a good deal of information (courtesy of black market lenders, mind you) indicating that a woman called Vera the Masked sponsors and commands these mercenary legions from her pirate stronghold in the islands southeast of Dalmar. Oliver recalls the seer's warning, at this.
As this conversation concludes and the travellers eat their rewarding evening meal, a thank-you gift courtesy of the tavern-owner Peltram, Shavah is out around town, looking for sign of the men of Cuthbert whose services she had cried loan of from Aramil Kethett in Despia. When she returns, she announces that she will be parting ways come morning, returning to Bethel to fight alongside her bannered kin. While these intentions are not news, exactly, they still catch her companions by surprise; their own quest has offered distraction, for one, and for another it is always difficult to recognize such partings as real, to believe them. Especially when one has become accustomed. Blood spilled, it is said, earns swift custom.
(XP:
Fendric: 1750
Oliver: 1500
Nurthk: 1450
Xiao: 1450
Raven: 1150
Cylantro: 1050)
(Will get a new thread going tomorrow eve, hopefully. If there's anything you want to do before morning in Valsport, post.)
Cariel and the travellers part ways on the road to Valsport. When they reach the long, sloping port city, night has fallen, and a dense fog with it.
They cross paths with a beggar at the front gates; he begins to follow them, and Xiao slinks back to follow them in return. Eventually the beggar is cornered, detected to be undead, and recognized as the seer they had met once before. He begs, asks a few loose questions about their quest. Fendric bids him off with a few coin; in return, the Cleric hears his death foretold. It is to come from the sea. The seer frames it as a sacrifice.
They find Anders Peltram in the Grey Inn, offer him the letter. He accepts it, although he seems to bear an odd mix of ill will and old friendship toward Thedoric, which he extends at first to the bearers of his message. While the others discuss their own affairs at the far table, Fendric approaches Peltram on the subject further; when he mentions the name Exantrius, Peltram recounts that the fables of the knight were among Thedoric's childhood favorites.
Beyond that, Peltram refutes, with seeming confidence, any involvement by Thedoric in the wars to the east. He claims that there's a good deal of information (courtesy of black market lenders, mind you) indicating that a woman called Vera the Masked sponsors and commands these mercenary legions from her pirate stronghold in the islands southeast of Dalmar. Oliver recalls the seer's warning, at this.
As this conversation concludes and the travellers eat their rewarding evening meal, a thank-you gift courtesy of the tavern-owner Peltram, Shavah is out around town, looking for sign of the men of Cuthbert whose services she had cried loan of from Aramil Kethett in Despia. When she returns, she announces that she will be parting ways come morning, returning to Bethel to fight alongside her bannered kin. While these intentions are not news, exactly, they still catch her companions by surprise; their own quest has offered distraction, for one, and for another it is always difficult to recognize such partings as real, to believe them. Especially when one has become accustomed. Blood spilled, it is said, earns swift custom.
(XP:
Fendric: 1750
Oliver: 1500
Nurthk: 1450
Xiao: 1450
Raven: 1150
Cylantro: 1050)
(Will get a new thread going tomorrow eve, hopefully. If there's anything you want to do before morning in Valsport, post.)
Guilt Puppy
First Post
(Game on hold pending Morrus' final word on possible more recent archives. Consult the OOC thread for updates.)
Raven sits quietly in the tavern, watching the customers leave one by one. He drinks perhaps a few beers too many, staring melancholicly in his beer. He smokes his pipe, thinking about past adventures.
He bids Shavah farewell, looking her in the eye and then clasps her forearm in the warrior style. "Don't get killed out there, Shavah. If you're in trouble, get out and send word to the Priest of Farlangh, The Far Wanderer. They'll find me, and I'll come." He gives her a wry smile: "You Paladins never know how to set up a proper guerilla war, anyway. You need a man of lesser scrupules, like me. Just keep 'em busy. We'll be back."
He sits, and watches her leave.
Later that night, in the light of the dying fire, he starts humming and quitly sings a song while nursing the last beer.
"Well I'm sitting on a windowsill, blowing my horn
Nobody's up except the moon and me,
And a lazy old tomcat on a midnight spree
All that you left me was a melody.
Rosie, why do you evade? Rosie,
how can I persuade? Rosie...
And the moon's all up, full and big,
apricot tips in an indigo sky,
And I've been loving you, Rosie,
since the day I was born
And I'll love you, Rosie 'til the day I die.
Rosie, why do you evade? Rosie,
how can I persuade? Rosie...
Rosie, why do you evade? Rosie,
how can I persuade? Rosie...
And I'm sitting on a windowsill, blowing my horn
Nobody's up except the moon and me,
And a lazy old tomcat on a midnight spree
All that you left me was a melody.
Rosie, why do you evade?
Rosie, how can I persuade? Rosie..."
( Another Tom Waits song)
He bids Shavah farewell, looking her in the eye and then clasps her forearm in the warrior style. "Don't get killed out there, Shavah. If you're in trouble, get out and send word to the Priest of Farlangh, The Far Wanderer. They'll find me, and I'll come." He gives her a wry smile: "You Paladins never know how to set up a proper guerilla war, anyway. You need a man of lesser scrupules, like me. Just keep 'em busy. We'll be back."
He sits, and watches her leave.
Later that night, in the light of the dying fire, he starts humming and quitly sings a song while nursing the last beer.
"Well I'm sitting on a windowsill, blowing my horn
Nobody's up except the moon and me,
And a lazy old tomcat on a midnight spree
All that you left me was a melody.
Rosie, why do you evade? Rosie,
how can I persuade? Rosie...
And the moon's all up, full and big,
apricot tips in an indigo sky,
And I've been loving you, Rosie,
since the day I was born
And I'll love you, Rosie 'til the day I die.
Rosie, why do you evade? Rosie,
how can I persuade? Rosie...
Rosie, why do you evade? Rosie,
how can I persuade? Rosie...
And I'm sitting on a windowsill, blowing my horn
Nobody's up except the moon and me,
And a lazy old tomcat on a midnight spree
All that you left me was a melody.
Rosie, why do you evade?
Rosie, how can I persuade? Rosie..."
( Another Tom Waits song)
Guilt Puppy
First Post
"I hope you shall," she says, her smile a matching wry. "If only to see what sort of war we paladins can really fight." She clasps his forearm back, giving a hard tug, and nods her respect.
...
Come morning, Shavah is there to meet up again briefly. She has, bundled carefully, the maps that Aerda has made. (Tourne, Bethel, Tourne, Continental)
"I suppose I don't get to tend to these any more," she says, offering them to the first taker. "And Fendric... You may know this already, but when I was marking out my route last night, I checked over yours as well. If the map is correct, and if I measured correct, riding around the coast will more than double the time it takes to get to Daershut. Fifteen days, by my count, instead of six if you cut across the sea. Maybe even five; I was counting the boat at the speed of horses, but you might find ships faster than that."
She shrugs a not-my-business shrug, then continues as though it were her business.
"I know what the seer said, but I don't know what his word is worth. Ten days, though... " She doubles her shrug, looking away. "I don't doubt your judgment, Fendric. I just wanted to make sure you hadn't overlooked anything."
doghead
thotd
Xiao sweeps Shavah up in another crushing hug goodbye. He grins merrily at her obvious discomfort.
"Xiao will help too. After we finish delivery of messages."
He takes, unless anyone objects the, now slightly crushed maps. Bowing deeply, he steps aside leaving the paladin finish saying goodbye to the others.
When things settle down, Xiao spreads the maps out on the table and tries to find where they are now. When he has done so, he proceeds to work backwards, trying to retrace his journey since arriving on these shores.
"So," he says eventually, looking at Fendric. "Do we make challenge of the sea?"
"Xiao will help too. After we finish delivery of messages."
He takes, unless anyone objects the, now slightly crushed maps. Bowing deeply, he steps aside leaving the paladin finish saying goodbye to the others.
When things settle down, Xiao spreads the maps out on the table and tries to find where they are now. When he has done so, he proceeds to work backwards, trying to retrace his journey since arriving on these shores.
"So," he says eventually, looking at Fendric. "Do we make challenge of the sea?"
Sparky
Registered User
Oliver shuffles into the common room and finds the others speaking with Shavah. He moves over to them and clasps Shavah's hand again. "You'll be missed, girl."
He nods at Shavah's words but adds his own, "Aye, that's true. But trouble at sea is worse than trouble on land. The sea is hostile even to those who haven't earned its ire. Not that I put any stock in that old rotter's words." He makes to spit but refrains yet again at a hard look from Fendric.
"Not to mention that I think the horses would rather walk - even carrying our sorry carcasses - than be cooped up in a ship's hold." He worries the inside of his lower lip in his teeth. Least, I would, that's for certain.
He nods at Shavah's words but adds his own, "Aye, that's true. But trouble at sea is worse than trouble on land. The sea is hostile even to those who haven't earned its ire. Not that I put any stock in that old rotter's words." He makes to spit but refrains yet again at a hard look from Fendric.
"Not to mention that I think the horses would rather walk - even carrying our sorry carcasses - than be cooped up in a ship's hold." He worries the inside of his lower lip in his teeth. Least, I would, that's for certain.
dpdx
Explorer
Shavah said:
Oliver said:
"Today, we ride for the city where we met Sir Cariel. It has ships for the north. If by then any of you still feel that the sea route is our wisest choice, I will cast an augury upon that subject.Xiao said:
Is this agreeable to us all?"
Hiritus buttresses Fendric's argument with a stern facial expression.
doghead
thotd
Xiao Yu, male human monk.
Xiao smiles, pleased that a decision has been taken.
"Then we are go," says the traveller, unable to hide his enthusiasm at the prospect. Xiao carefullly tucks the maps into his bag before slinging it over his shoulder. He grabs his staff and jambs his hat on his head.
"Ready," he announces cheerfully.
Xiao smiles, pleased that a decision has been taken.
"Then we are go," says the traveller, unable to hide his enthusiasm at the prospect. Xiao carefullly tucks the maps into his bag before slinging it over his shoulder. He grabs his staff and jambs his hat on his head.
"Ready," he announces cheerfully.
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