D&D 5E [D&D 5e] Planescape - In Through the Out Door

[Quickleaf]

For a moment Shandrizar is quiet, looking Rusty up and down, then taking an uncomfortable sidelong look to the side. Had it just said "Primus"? Was this actually a rogue modron? Had he seriously been carrying an intellectual conversation with a construct? If so, this transformation had more dire repercussions than just a loss of magic! Or had this wizard-in-a-construct-suit thoroughly outwitted him? Either prospect was disconcerting.

Clearing his throat, Shandrizar speaks up, "Yes, well these things happen. No use getting bent out of shape over it. That...ah...that wasn't the royal 'we' you've been using, was it? You mean 'we' as Primus?" The Spellbook seems unaware of his little puns that just slide into his speech effortlessly. He pauses again, considering. "Here's a question, rust bucket: If we are all Rusty, then is Rusty Primus?"

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Rusty staggers back a bit, completely taken off guard for a moment, "Rusty is...We are...no. No! We are Rusty. Primus...is...Primus. We...Rusty...we...Rusty..." A strange moan escapes from its insides and it starts to shake, almost as if it is sobbing. "We...are...not...Rusty. Rusty...is...one. Rusty...is...alone."

 

[Queenie]

"--that's an astute question," he starts to answer, but at that moment another song begins to play, and another hush falls over the Jilted Planes.

The man in the Hawaiian shirt pulls up a chair from a neighbouring table and sits down, as if his legs lack the strength to carry him. He leans in and whispers to Liliana, smoke and whiskey on his breath. "Who is he? How'd you find him?"

Lili shrugs her small shoulders. "I am not really sure who he is. We only met our new friends about as long ago as it takes a leaf to fall from the tallest Sycamore Tree twice over. He says his name is Pi-cay-une. Strange name, that is. I didn't know what he was, or, is. He found us in an ally not far from here." She leaned closer to the whiskey soaked man. "I have to admit, I do not prefer to have some sort of undead creature following us around. We fairies love life and light and, well, being dead is just about as far away from life as one can get."

 

[Quickleaf]

The spellbook's vellum head bobs this way and that watching the multiple stages of Rusty's reaction. His brows widen when he realzies the construct has become upset. So it was a construct after all, but with a glimmer of self-awareness!

"Easy, easy, don't pop a gasket! I see... Yesterday you knew the perfection of ultimate order, and today you are separated, experiencing mortal solitude for the first time. Poor machine. Let's get some libations in you...er, what do you drink, Rusty?"

And to think Shandrizar had confused Rusty for a mage in disguise! All these words written over his face must have been confounding his sense of reason.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

"Drink?"

Rusty had apparently not noticed the consumption going around it. It watched as one of the fleshy things it had encountered poured liquid into its mouth. The action seemed a bit pointless to Rusty as it looked at its not fleshy body.

"No...drink."

 

[CanadienneBacon]

[section]Picayune wrapped up his dirge and put away Ole Bess. Tired after his interlude with Shard, he left off hovering mid-air and came to rest beneath the table, where he made a study of everyone's footwear.[/section]

OOC: I don't know about ya'll, but I'm ready for some adventure.

 

[Unsung]

OOC: As you wish.

The same rapturous unbroken silence pours over the room. The bariaur barmaid locks eyes with Oz, and suddenly presses forward for a kiss. The bartender leans his rag on the bar, staring wistfully into space as the ancient tavern cat tiptoes across the bar in front of him. The card-players look down at the table in front of them like it's some unreachable thing, the cards and coins as unreachable as wishes in the bottom of a well. The crowd of smiths and tanners at the back of the hall. face the apparently empty space where the music ushers forth, with hangdog parishioner looks, like a bunch of small-town sinners who've just been served with a Sunday sermon, on lessons that they never should've forgotten.

Then, just like that, the song comes to an ends. Just like that, and the spell is broken.

"Not a dry eye in the house." The chair creaks back on the wooden floor. The man in the Hawaiian shirt gets to his feet. His weathered face is clouded with emotion. "...Okay, so that there was some...Randy Newman, I think. Picayune. That's your name, right? Isn't it? Talk to me, Picayune. Tell me where you know these songs from, tell me how I just happen to be passing by, and here you are playing Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, some song I haven't heard in over...eleven years, in some basement bar in the City of Doors. Tell me," he breathes out raggedly, "tell me how we get back."

 

[Pembinasa]

Nodding courteously to the guardswoman, Graydon faded back into the taverngoers toward the group- but with a curl of his fingers, never quite made it there. It was more amusing by far to see how ridiculous Shandrizar would get trying to outwit a creature with an empty head, or how Eurid would espouse a doctrine of pessimism- though why people claiming life was torment didn't bother leaving it, Graydon surely didn't know.

The music ringing out again (while the satyr had his mind on other matters, no less, though it didn't sound anything like Fae music in the first place) got him moving, coming in close enough to pay attention to what the ridiculous fellow in the ridiculous shirt was saying-

"Why don't you start by introducing yourself this time? It's usually thought to be more polite, and you do come asking quite a few favours." Graydon wasn't entirely sure himself why he'd stepped in, but that desperate pushing seemed more conducive to shoving someone away than accomplishing anything. Give both sides a buffer, and they each might be better off? Something like that, he hoped; it would be a terrible shame for the man to drive off what he was so urgent for.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

[section]Ain't no rest fo' da weary. Picayune's ears couldn't help but prick and prick hard when Hawaiian Shirt started name dropping Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Hell, the fact that Hawaiian Shirt was even wearing a Hawaiian shirt was curious in and of itself. Picayune stuck his head out from under the table and took a good hard look at the man. Well, hidey-ho, moth'a f-cker. What we got here? When Hawaiian Shirt mentioned Randy Newman, the other shoe dropped. Picayune shot out from under the table and zoomed in front of Hawaiian Shirt, got right up in his grille.[/section]

OOC: Casting message at Hawaiian Shirt. "First of all, Mr. Big Britches, we don' truck wit no Randy Newman 'round here. Two-bit, no-talent, SOB. Hell, he ain't even from Nawlins!" Picayune leaned in. Incorporeal spittle flew from his mouth. He continued, incensed. "Second, how'd you'd know my name?" Picayune poked Hawaiian Shirt in the chest, then leaned backward, away. "Shi-it, I don' recall tellin' you nuttin'. Fancy pants a-hole."

 

[Unsung]

"Whoa, whoa, whoaa." Hawaiian Joe holds up his hands in a let's-make-peace gesture. When he talks, it's over a throat full of gravel and smoke. "You're the one playing the song. Sail Away, '72 album of the same name? No harm meant, man, honest. Nobody around here trucks with Randy Newman. First time in well over a decade I met someone who knew who the hell Randy Newman even was. So he's a marble-mouthed piano-plinker, right? S'fair. Not here to argue, really I'm not." He stands back from the table, but then stands his ground. "As to how I got your name, all's I asked was who was playing, and I was told. Been a long while since I've had the pleasure of hearing some genuine blues. Live in person, at least."