Is'Merith - Campaign Thread

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Alejandro sits up, his pet mouse taking up residence on his head.

"Woah, there, Dead-Eye. She isn't Dalia, Dalia's a Bloodrow. Now, Archibald tells me that Nora has moved to the undercity, and that she has...changed". His voice breaks a little but he recovers.

"More than that, she isn't the only one. Sounds like some kind of nest of were rats is being brought together. Our happy convict friend told us that someone - maybe Nora, maybe someone else - was seen and heard to say she "wouldn't do that". This makes me think it's not voluntary. Like an army of conscripts. Conscrats. Werescripts. Whatever".

He rubs his temples.

"If your brother is behind this he will be at the centre of things. Which sounds like a trip undercity. Way down deep. Past even the places I know."

He stands. Crosses to his companions. He extends a hand to Tro'leera.

"Doctor."

He bows to Mina.

"M'lady".

He looks at everyone, jaws clenching.

"Are we ready to find out what's gathering beneath our sleeping heads, beneath the churches and the schoolyards? Before it's too late?"

[sblock=In the silence, a single squeak] "Um, the cheese is where, exactly?[/sblock]

 

[Matthan]

Daedarai’s voice shifts as he begins to clip words in anger, “Fair? I don’t care about fair or about her past. We all have a past. I work with the Thieves’ Guild. I don’t expect spotless histories, and to be frank, it does not matter to me about Mina’s history with Silverfrosts or Bloodrows or however many noble houses get sucked into this drama. I care that she held back information that could have gotten us killed.”

His voice softens as he looks at Shen, “Yesterday, I watched you nearly die, Shen. You almost died on a mission that I took us on. I ignored the rumors of sand goblins and didn’t prepare us properly. You almost paid the price for my mistake.” He looks at the faces of each individual on his team, “It could have been any of you. When we’re together, I’m responsible to make sure that we all come home alive. I failed you all in the mines. I refuse to fail again. There is no secret that I would place above any of your lives and that is exactly what Mina did to us this morning.”

The elf faces the noble woman and points aggressively at her as he speaks, “You didn’t have to tell us your history to tell us what you knew of the Red Death. You could have told us just enough to warn us what we might be facing in Peer’At. You could have let us prepare. Instead, you were content to keep your silence and let us march to our deaths. How many of us would have died pursuing Nora if Alejandro had not attacked Tro’leera? I didn’t even have a weapon that could hurt a were-beast this morning. Can you imagine the carnage if we had stumbled onto a nest of were-rats unprepared?” His eyes soften from anger to pleading as his voice cracks slightly with hurt, “Was your secret worth us marching to our deaths?”

He coughs and blinks as he wheels back around to face the others, speaking with a frantic tempo, “Past all that, why exactly should we upset at the Silverfrosts? If Tro’leera is right and he has managed to create something that enhances a person’s abilities permanently with no side effects, the only thing we should be trying to do is steal it for ourselves and profit from it. At that point, this alchemical solution is no more evil than a wizard casting a spell to make someone stronger. We don’t murder mages for that. Is it because it might be used for war? New weapons are made all the time. Should the person who first managed to bring steel from iron been hanged? Should the first mage to discover how to hurl balls of fire been killed? What is evil about something that makes people stronger? Honestly, if Tro’leera is right about the lack of side effects, it sounds like something everyone should have.”

“Why should her brother be killed? Is it because he was ambitious enough to remove his rivals? If that’s the bar, I’m afraid we’ll have to slaughter our own guild next. We’re not even sure exactly what happened to all the other Silverfrosts since Tro’leera only heard rumors. Rumors that, by the way, are exactly the kind of rumors you would spread if you wanted to work on something in secret. Perhaps Mina will deign us worthy of telling us that part of her story. Is it because his ambitions might lead to war? We don’t even know what he would be fighting for or against? What if he seeks to better people’s lives or root out the FAS? We all know that there is something wrong in our city. What if his plan is to gather the strength needed to fix it?”

“The only inclination we have of this man’s evil is rumors that could have been planted to obfuscate a plan and Alejandro’s suspicion of forced slavery. If he is a slaver preying on the people of this city, than by all means, let’s remove him from the situation.” His frantic pace stops as he catches his breath. He raises his hand to cover his face and pinches his temples lightly before curling his hand into a fist in front of his mouth.

He takes a deep breath and picks back up with a calmer voice, “Listen, I’m still willing to save Nora. I want to save everyone possible who is infected with the Red Death.” He turns to Mina, “Mina, I am sorry for my anger. I know what it is like to want to hide your past.” He smiles slightly, “Listen, if you ever hear of a woman named Bethriele, run away because she’ll probably want to kill you for working with me. But, I have to know that the people on this team care for the lives of each other. When I don’t have all the information that I need, I can’t mitigate the danger. Lives will be lost or ruined. Whatever we have started to build here amongst ourselves will be shattered. I’ve seen that. I’ve lived through it. If you know of something that will put our lives in danger, I need to know that you will share it. If your brother is a danger to others, I need to know why and how. If I am going to be a part of assassinating a noble of the city, I have to know what I’m getting into. I have to know what he has done to deserve this sentence.”

“Give me that. Tell me the truth of what we face and I will march to the depths of the earth to fight it beside you.”

 

[pathfinderq1]

Mina kept her head bowed for a few moments, while the others spoke- it seemed obvious that she was trying to choose her words with care. When Daedarai reached a stopping point, she spoke up again, her voice once more tinged with emotion...

"I will lay out the pieces, and I will leave you, all of you, to decide what type of picture you make of them. To start, I had not met Tro'Leera before we went into the mines, and I had no idea what his project entailed, or how my House was involved. There is much that I have not told of my past, though your Guildmaster knows most of it- and one reason I did not explain before is that, until a few minutes ago, I would have believed that it would be more dangerous for you to have this information, more dangerous both for you and for me. To those in the noble Houses, I am believed to be dead already."

"My name is Yasmina, of House Silverfrost. I was the third daughter, and the youngest child of the generation- if you have any knowledge of how the Houses rule this city, that should tell you that I was, for the most part, entirely superfluous, not even needed for an alliance marriage. But my House had not remained in power for so long by wasting resources. By my father's directive I had a number of rather unusual tutors- in time I might have been a valuable spy, or even an assassin, and the basic training in these areas served me well when things... well, more on that later. It seems likely that I was not my father's only secret project- and as he didn't tell them about me, he didn't tell me about them. Unfortunately, my older brother had a bit of excess ambition- he was not the eldest, but he would have had a very privileged position in time- but that was not enough. And to make matters worse, he had friends among some of the other Houses, who stoked the fires of his ambitions, and provided assistance in return for favors in the future. The Bloodrows were one such family- perhaps they knew nothing of how they themselves had been taken, or perhaps they did know, and this was some twisted plot; I don't know if we can ever know how deep those machinations go. Whatever the cause, my brother arranged for a precise series of incidents- my father, my eldest brother the rightful heir, a number of loyal or inconvenient family retainers... In short, a tidy little bloodbath. I might have been spared- as far as he knew I was a flighty ornamental trinket; perhaps I could have been married off to one of his friends. Instead, I fled, for I would have no part of it. One of my tutors, gods rest her soul, taught me the knowledge that let me contact the Guild, and I was able to barter my skills and my knowledge for a position, an apprenticeship if you will."

"I would have wanted to bring my brother to justice one way or another- someday; I'm not even sure I would have wanted him dead- just punished. But I had no idea just how far he had gone, just how many things he was up to. From what Tro'leera says, his misdeeds have gone beyond simple ambition and greed- and now I think that death might be too little punishment for my dear brother. The very ideas of what he has been up to sicken me- it is not simply some kind of disease let loose, or the idea of some kind of private army of enhanced soldiers. It is the idea that his plans, and those of the other Houses, are so casual with the lives of those around them, from the highest to the lowest, at every level of this city and this society. And it is not just my brother who must pay- but he stands at the head of the line... Is that enough information for now, or do you have any other specific questions that I might answer?"

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Alejandro's face morphs into Mina's appearance. Then Daederai, then Shen, Isaac, Tro'leera, and finally, ridiculously, Archibald's.

"We are your family now. And I", here his face reverts to normal, "look after my family."

[sblock=Minor Illusion] ...is what he casts to do this, hopefully doable by the rules[/sblock]

 

[Matthan]

“I’ve never troubled myself with the lives of nobles. The only thing I ever needed to know was how to copy their seals. I suppose my naïve hope was that they would keep their machinations and maneuverings to themselves and leave the common people alone. That was obviously foolish. If the corruption that infects our city runs so deep in the noble houses that it threatens to harm the rest of us, then that infection must be cleaned out. It certainly seems that your brother is the most pressing issue to be dealt with. Whether we can use the cure for our own advantage or not, we certainly cannot allow your brother to use it to destroy what little hope exists in Peer’At.”

“I have no family to speak of. There is no one that would care if I die today except for how it might impact a balance sheet somewhere. I’m not sure I even know how to be a family, but I will say this to all of you. As we stand together, I will share your fights. I will celebrate your victories and mourn your losses. I hope that I can count on each of you to do the same for me, and,” he pauses for a moment smiling, “occasionally forgive an irrational outburst or two.”

Turning to Alejandro, “We will save Nora,” then to Mina, “put a stop to your brother,” and to Isaac, “and find a way to make a profit somewhere along the venture. With that said, how do we proceed? Tro’leera, how do we fight and help those infected with the disease?”

 

[Macv12]

From her spot on the floor, Shen raises one hand to draw attention to herself. "Speakin' for myself here. No way, no how, am I taking rat-man juice. Muckin' around against nature like that just gets you more Tro'leeras." She briefly doffs her hat and holds it to her chest toward the half-elf, with a polite, "no offense." She returns her hat. "Safer to kick every trace of the curse out of 'em. They won't miss their super-smellin' powers when some other crazy attack hits and they're not all turnin' into wolves."

She shrugs. "But I'm just a bodyguard. Wherever you..." - she pauses, realizing that she doesn't just mean that for Daedarai anymore - "...any of you end up, I'll be there. Guess I'm joining the revolution." Shen flinches, remembering something, and starts parting down the pouches and folds of her clothing, eventually finding a piece of paper folded up and tucked into her pants, under her shirt: the papers that identified her as a foreigner and outlined her legal permissions. Would these still be valid if she killed the government?

 

[Sezarious]

Alejandro's face morphs into Mina's appearance. Then Daederai, then Shen, Isaac, Tro'leera, and finally, ridiculously, Archibald's.

"We are your family now. And I", here his face reverts to normal, "look after my family."

[sblock=Minor Illusion] ...is what he casts to do this, hopefully doable by the rules[/sblock]

[sblock=OOC]I'll allow it, but the illusion is probably really obviously an illusion, like you're conjuring a hologram that looks like it's made from watercolours, or some really obvious giveaway like a level of transparency.[/sblock]

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

[MENTION=6792106]Sezarious[/MENTION] fine by me!

 

[Sezarious]

Tro'Leera's knuckles go white with the awkwardness of Daedarai's outburst, relieved when Shen cuts in to try and cool his nerves, he then responds.

"Daedarai, though it is theoretically possible to apply my cure to you, it would be somewhat unethical for me to provide you with said enhancements. I cannot be sure you would not potentially suffer from long term side effects, such as shortened lifespan from a wererats poor respiratory system and a number of other health issues. Yes, I'm confident in the current cure doing what it needs to do, but diseases often do horrible unseen damage over time. The cure works, but needs refinement for those who want a healthy and fulfilling life. That said, seeing as you may eventually find vials of the stuff when infiltrating House Silverfrost..." He sighs, "The choice is yours and I'd rather make sure it was done right if you intend to infect yourself." He crosses his arms and looks Daedarai in the eyes, a frank expression on his face.

At the end of Alejandro's speech and the squeak from Archibald, he stands and grabs a piece of cheese from a platter on the table, handing it to the gnome before getting ready to continue. He pauses momentarily at the gnomes expression at Tro'Leera understanding Archibald. He shrugs slightly "I got the gist of it, you know, wererat..."

He quietens again as Daedarai fires up, then pales with sadness at Mina's words. "It all confuses me more. I always thought your father was a good man Miss Mina. I was so terribly surprised when the incident occurred and I had been angry at your whole family since then. Your brother, I only met him that one time, but, he was so much colder than your father. It frightened me somewhat, but I was unsure if it may have simply been his way as a noble. Though your father lied to me about where the modified virus came from, I'm no longer sure if his intentions were malicious now... I guess we may never know"

He sadly turns his head to Daedarai. "I'm sorry for the trouble my secret has caused you. It was... Foolish. To stop this, we need more information, we still don't know why the strain was released in the first place. We DO know that those who turn may or may not bite one or two people before running off. We know that they have gone somewhere under the city..." He pauses staring in front of him, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. "It's not the most efficient way to spread the disease... Quite controlled actually. The best way to spread it would be from top-down, with 'biters' infecting everyone that gets in their way on their descent... Hmm. It's subtler this way"

He looks back up at Daedarai, "the population of Is'Merith is somewhere around four hundred thousand what with its tiered suburbs and multi-level towers for housing. His aim is not likely a total takeover. I'm sorry, but I don't know how to stop this. I'm a doctor, not really much of a tactician, but I always say that if you're ever in doubt, find more information first. In fact", he turns to Alejandro with sad eyes. "I'd nearly visit the inner city first, maybe find out more about why the red death is down in Peer'At first before going after Nora. It just doesn't make sense and there might even be information that is crucial, AND, if she IS infected, she's not getting killed anytime soon. Wererats are pretty damn tough..."

 

[Matthan]

Daedarai nodded slightly throughout Tro'leera's speech. His emotions were raw. They had been ever since he had been placed as head of this cell. A stray thought crossed his mind, “I wonder if that is why so many of the senior members are so detached and calculating. Maybe that's the only way to survive this life.”

Shaking himself from the thought, he gestured towards the alchemist, “Thank you, Tro'leera. I think you've seen to the heart of the matter, and let me assure you that your concerns do not fall on deaf ears. We need intelligence to understand the scope of what we are facing in order to make a plan to counter it. It seems that has just moved to the top of our to-do list.” He turns with a slight smirk to Alejandro, “I promise we will find the time to beat that gang of half-orcs senseless. Maybe to blow off some steam after we get a handle on this and bring Nora home.”

“The one thing that concerns me is how do we deal with any infected people we meet? I believe after our friend's incident at breakfast we all have equipped ourselves with weaponry that can hurt a were-rat, but these are innocent people that are just infected with a disease. Tro'leera, is there anyway to subdue them peacefully? Do they have other weaknesses besides silver? I'm also not sure about leaving Nora. She is important to you, Alejandro, so it should be your decision. Do you want us to risk violence to bring her here and get her cured, or should we wait until we have a better handle on the situation?”

The wheels of his mind started to turn more quickly as he spoke and he turned back towards Tro'leera, “Excuse me, friend, but a thought just struck me. How much cure do you have stored and how quickly can you produce more? Also, how quickly does it work on an infected person? More specifically, does it act fast enough that we might be able to weaponize your cure? Perhaps, lacing silvered arrows with it like a poison or coating our weapons with it.”