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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 4161932" data-attributes="member: 1210">Brelana, VarBaron Lillamere of House Drelvin looks up as one of his messengers enters his study. His hands keep working without pause, the quill gripped in his long fingers never hesitating. “Yes?” he asks.“Beg your pardon, m’lord, but- well- I think there’s someone here you should talk to.”“Oh?” the baron inquires, his eyebrow arching.“Aye.” The lad, only recently sworn to service before Lillamere, licks his lips nervously. He has seen enough to have an inkling of the mountain-shattering powers that his lord can bring to bear... but he is new enough in Lillamere’s service not to know how he responds to uncomfortable news.“Go on,” Lillamere says with a smile. It’s just the right tone, the right gesture, to put the young man at ease. Such is the power of the eldritch liege’s charisma that he could evoke nearly any reaction he wanted from someone with a few words and an expression.The messenger begins to speak more freely. “He’s a whaler, m’lord, from a ship that plies... plied the western seas. He says his ship was destroyed. The poor wretched fool washed up near the coast and immediately worked his way upriver, to you.”“A whaler,” Lillamere exclaimed in dismay.* “What destroyed his ship?”“He says,” the young man answers, “cannibals.”Lillamere shifts his gaze to the large regional map on the wall. Brelana, of course, is on the continent of Dorhaus, the westernmost portion of the local region of Cydra. Further west, a large array of isles is marked as the “Cannibal Isles,” but to the best of Lillamere’s knowledge, that part of the map is a vague assumption. Clearly, at least some of the information on it holds some truth, but- how much?Still, the map shows a lot of islands. Enough that, if they were a single land mass, they would be as large as Dorhaus.“Show him in,” commands Baron Lillamere.A few moments later, a wretched-looking man in threadbare clothes that are nearly as much patch as original clothing comes in, escorted by the messenger. Baron Lillamere greets the man very graciously and sends orders for new clothes to be provided for him. Then Lillamere asks for the man’s story.The whaler tells the tail of how he was sailing on his ship in the waters several hundred miles west of Dorhaus, in the open sea, looking for prey. (Lillamere’s face remains neutral.) But then, a group of cannibals came out of the sea, overtook their vessel, took several prisoners for food and set the whaler alight. They were much further east than they had ever been encountered before- and in unusually great numbers, too. As the survivors managed to break away from the cannibals, their ship burned around them until finally they had to jump into the waters to save themselves from burning with it. Clinging to driftwood, the terrified sailors that yet lived watched as a huge concentration of cannibals emerged from the glittering miles of sea ahead. Slowly more and more became visible, until they filled the sea for as far as the whalers could see.“Fortunately, a powerful current stole me away in the night, before they overtook us. I am sure they consumed the others.” The whaler shudders. “There were far more of them than I had ever seen, and they were much further east than I’d ever seen, either. They’re coming this way.”Baron Lillamere nods decisively. “Thank you. First of all, I appreciate your bringing this to me. Second of all, I’d like to offer you a job. You’ll make much more money than you did killing whales, and you’ll be doing much better work.” But one way or another, you are done whaling.***Blaze is poking around where he probably shouldn’t, but he isn’t too worried about it. He is invisible and nearly undetectable, and you only get in trouble if you’re caught.He’s poking around Malford’s castle. But, despite his precautions, he is caught very quickly- by some kind of fey creature. It’s invisible too, but it seems to be aware of him- somehow- and it’s aware of it when he tries to pull off a concealed charm person on one of the gate guards. It warns him off, and after a few more frustrating attempts to sneak past it, Blazier finally retreats, telling himself that it’s time for breakfast anyway.And breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s when the party assembles to discuss their next move, fuel up on food and power up with those spells that last all day. By the time he reaches the Three Rubies, which has gotten quite rich on our heroes’ patronage alone, Blaze has worked up quite an appetite. Fortunately, the Three Rubies has an excellent chef, and breakfast smells like all that he could have expected. Gerontius, Alcar and Chakar are already there, chatting about some tournament that the monk is in. Blaze joins them and begins to eat from the trays of breakfast before them, but before he can much, a few adventurer groupies have come in and join them. Moments later, Sybele and “Emperor” Thrush walk in, chattering about political crap.By the time Blaze is on his second helping of eggs, pretty much everyone is there: Bahgerah, Sybele, Thrush, Blaze, Lillamere, Chakar, JJ, Alcar, Gerontius and Wankerman. There is some general small talk for a while, and then the party gets to discussing what is on their collective plate. There are empires to build, of course, both Forinthian (under Thrush) and Strogassian (under Wankerman). Baron Lillamere suggests that the cannibals may be an imminent threat. Bile Mountain is still waiting for our heroes’ full attention. There are the Angels of the Apocalypse to contend with, at some point. The party still does not know the outcome of the battle between Galador and Vandreu (Lillamere attempts to scry Vandreu as a lark, but to no avail). JJ points out that he might have something coming to him in a will. Master Control...Alcar approaches Thrush about granting Gorel its independence. “No way!” Thrush exclaims. “I’m sorry, Alcar, but right now I’m trying to rally all the influence and power I can to make my bid to take over a reality. I have to show that I will be strong. I can’t afford to let anything go. But back me, and I’ll give your people as much autonomy as I can.”“No,” Alcar retorts. “That’s not good enough. Forinthia needs to give up Gorel. We can fight you if we need to.”“Neither of us wants that,” Thrush says. “Look, I am not in a position to do anything about it yet anyway. Help me get there, and then we’ll see what we can do. You’re an elf- be patient! Give me time to consolidate my power, and I’ll do everything I can for your people.”Neither of them is fully satisfied. Ah, politics. ***When the party finally comes to a consensus, Acheron is first, to find out what JJ gets from the will. Meanwhile, Chakar leaves to continue fighting in his tournament.The Law Offices of Blizzake and Mandrake is a rusty metal shack on a massive cube floating through the space of the strange battleground plane. Blizzake is a green abishai and Mandrake is a barbazu, but they seem to be focused on their duties as executors of the will rather than on our heroes’ role in overthrowing Law throughout the cosmos. Though they are nervous about dealing with devils, the party does so- Alcar even going so far as to shake Blizzake’s hand.Nazar-Nagulin was the name of the individual that bequeathed something unto JJ in his will. The devils gladly hand over the will and indicate the section pertaining to JJ.The demislaad reads: “To Jibber Junior, a fine-sounding demislaad, I leave my magic boots, along with the obligation to retrieve them from the thrice-damned chaos abomination that stole them from me. It dwells somewhere on the astral plane, and along with the obligation, I give you the means. Go get it, boy! And best of luck. Don’t let it steal your stuff, it’s tricky!”JJ feels a powerful geas try to settle on him, but thankfully, he got mind blanked over breakfast. “Hey!” he exclaims, glaring at the two diabolic attorneys. “That’s not very nice!”Quizzically, Blizzake asks, “What?”“Never mind,” JJ answers. It must have been in the will itself, he thinks. Then he sends to the rest of the party over the telepathic link that binds them together. There’s nothing for us here. It’s another quest. We already have several.***Chakar’s next foe is a half-elven woman named Haya File. He bests her with almost no effort at all. Grugo the Legs was much better, he thinks. I must be careful not to become overconfident. To some degree, the skill of my opponent is a matter of luck. The first rounds were paired randomly, and the victor advances each round. It is possible that I could meet a worthy opponent at any stage of the tournament.Chakar meditates between bouts. Soon enough it is the final bout- Chakar against a Valonian orc named Greth Boneblade. The audience is very rowdy; they have been watching fights all day, and are very much ready for a good finale. They get what they want. Greth roars and screams profanity at Chakar before the match starts. “I’ll eat your c**k!” the orc roars. “Take your strength! RROARRRGHH!!!!”The fight is brutal. Greth is not as good of a fighter as Chakar, but he is strong and committed. Chakar turns his strength against him and gets him in a lock he cannot escape to score the first point of the match. But then Greth rushes in with startling speed and digs his steely fingers into Chakar’s neck, dragging him down and pinning him. They battle long and hard, twisting back and forth, until finally Chakar loops an arm around Greth’s neck. He begins to squeeze the breath out of the orc, but Greth slams his entire body down onto the ground on the dwarf. Chakar lets out a great Whooof!!, and the Boneblade orc is upon him-Pinning him.The crowd roars as the orc roars triumphantly. Chakar rises and bows to the orc. “Well fought,” he says. The orc grins. “You, too!” it says in a surprisingly civilized voice. The two shake hands, and then Chakar leaves the tourney grounds, reflecting on racial tolerance.Next Time: Our heroes left (at least) one thing off of their list- Chaos Worms!*Note that in Cydra, the average whale has an intelligence score of 16. They are sentient, and “sages of the seas,” yet many creatures still hunt them for food and/or resources. (Locathah are similarly hunted imc.) The ethics of hunting sentient creatures is an interesting subtext that Cydra has explored, or at least touched upon, on a couple of occasions (including this one; we had some OOC chatter about the legal and ethical status of whaling in Cydra between bursts of roleplaying in this encounter).</blockquote>

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