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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CanadienneBacon" data-source="post: 2819736" data-attributes="member: 11146">We lost several pages of roleplay due to a database crash at EN World. The above text, from my own originating post and a small portion of the first page of our IC thread, was kindly recovered by the players and myself. I have taken the liberty of condensing the players' original first-page posts and creating a narrative out the material I had on hand. I have tried to edit everyone's comments as little as possible and to remain true, in those instances where editing was necessary to make the content fit an appropriate paragraph format, to the essence of the players' words.What follows below is a condensed re-cap of the action and actions of the players lost to the database outtage.Ardyth arrived at Desydra's Playhouse well before the appointed start time of Spider's Rest.  Accosted by the lusty eyes of the tiefling clerk out front the playhouse who was sweeping refuse from the front of the building, Ardyth entered the playhouse to scout out the building well in advance of the gathering.  Half an hour before the appointed meeting time, a team of duergars--armed and armored to the teeth--scuttled into the playhouse and seated themselves up front, in the center of the third row.  Perhaps some fifteen minutes before Spider's Rest, a throng of folk and all manner of Underdark creatures began to filter into the playhouse.  Lyssa, still half drunk, Zarra, Hael, Prixo, K'yorl, and Blite all took seats scattered throughout the ampitheatre.  Prixo selected a seat in the back row closest the playhouse's foyer and exit.  K'yorl seated herself along the far wall in the back.  Blite sauntered in nearly at the end and seated himself near in the middle rows.  Lyssa and Zarra, having already formed a partial bond, paired up and seated themselves somewhat near Ardyth.After waiting a nigh unbearable half an hour, the crowd, several hundred strong, began to grow restless and impatient.  Not too far akin to the cramped environment at the Barracks, the heat inside the ampitheatre generated by so many packed in so tightly soon became overwhelming to the lesser races.  Just at the point when voices were about to rise in anger, a drow priestess--rumored by the astonished voices of several in the crowd to be Tierak Morcane--appeared with a flash and a pop center stage on the ampitheatre's pit floor.  The drowess was soon accompanied by a squad of eight drow guardsmen bearing the insignia of House Morcane.  In a flowingly smooth and generous voice, the drowess proclaimed that her guests must be thirsty from their long wait.  Wererats semi-human in form were commanded to serve those assembled in the audience Calimshan ambermead, a rare and costly aperitif normally sampled by noble families in Faerun's southern reaches.  The drink was alternately cautiously, non-chalantly, and greedily accepted by the crowd.K'yorl, having cast detect poison on the ambermead, readily found the beverage to be impure and refrained from tasting its delicacies.  Zarra, drow herself and long used to the intricacies of politics, likewise refrained from drinking the ambermead.  Following Zarra's lead, Lyssa looked with longing at the tiny glass cup containing the golden-hued beverage rumored to be worth thrice its weight in platinum, but did not drink.  Hael, shrugging and not caring either way whether the ambermead was brimming with poison, readily tossed his down his throat and found that while the aperitif was at first an ecstacy in itself it soon burned a hole in his gut broader than the Great Rift.  When the ratlings came round to offer Blite his thimble of ambermead, the minotaur successfully reached out to grasp the miniscule cup but in the process of doing so inadvertently startled the wererat serving him.  The ratling scuttled backward and in his haste to flee the huge minotaur, dropped its tray of ambermead.  A mad scramble quickly ensued for a three-row radius in all directions as members of the audience dashed in to collect what they could of the dropped distillation.  A kuo-toa, either daring or half-mad, crawled on all fours to lap up the ambermead pooled on the playhouse floor.  When the crowd discovered the kuo-toa's breach, the piteable creature was shortly pummeled and kicked to a violent death.  One of the duergar to arrive shortly after Ardyth began to sense the crowd's unrest and stood to make his way hastily to the foyer and exit doors.  The duergar instead tripped on the fallen kuo-toa's slippery innards and fell to the stone steps of the ampitheatre, his lips and mouth an ashen white before his head even hit the floor.  K'yorl, from the corner of the arena-style seating, stood up and declared in a loud voice, "POISONED!"  K'yorl's declaration, accompanied by the crowd's realization that the duergar had indeed died of poison of one variety or another, soon began scrabbling over one another to reach the exit doors up top the arena.  A mass riot ensued.  The drowess, a wickedly pleased smile on her lips, moved to stand behind her crescent ring of drow guardsmen down on the pit floor.  Lyssa, Zarra, K'yorl, Blite, Hael, Ardyth, and Prixo were wise enough not to join in the stampede but to move out of the crowd's way and stood against the walls (or, in Lyssa's case, fluttering just above reach) of the playhouse.  When the crowd had at last dispersed and those who suffered the poison's ravaging effects were either dead or slumped unconscious, the drowess again came forward, this time to commence the quorum.  Declaring that the poisoned ambermead had been the quickest way to divest those worthy from those unfit for the long and arduous journey ahead, the drowess called for volunteers.  A bare 35 members of the original audience of several hundred remained in the ampitheatre and conscious by the time the drowess made her declaration.  Of these 35, eight volunteered and were selected:  Alex the surface-dwelling human of the drowess's own guard, Hael, K'yorl, Zarra, Lyssa, Prixo, Ardyth, and Blite.Satisfied that her task was complete, the drowess turned face and, her persimmon silk robes fluttering behind her, exited through the pit floor's right side door.  Alex, who no doubt had greatly displeased his mistress by volunteering, was left behind with the remaining seven drow guardsment to clean up the mess in the playhouse.  Wearily shedding his leather cap helmet and doffing the House Morcane armor, Alex turned to address the new team.  "I expect you'll have questions.  I've been afforded some small measure of detail by Mistress Morcane, which I shall share with you.  I warn you, though.  I'm no leader in this expedition so don't expect such from me."Post at will.  If anything was posted over the weekend just before EN World crashed, I didn't see it and will need you to please re-post it to the best of your ability.  Thanks, and thanks too for your patience.</blockquote>

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