[LPF] Ryall's Estate

[Systole]

Daylily uproots a young tomato plant, taps most of the dirt off the roots, and begins chewing on it as he ambles over toward Quioan. After frowning a moment at the footprints, he pulls the stalk out of his mouth and announces, "Is track goings to sunset ... to west." Then he adds grudgingly, "The seeing was not so bad for you."


When the two farmers begin shouting at each other, Daylily looks on with mild disinterest. While it's good to see these Easterners finally showing a bit of backbone, two peasants swinging wildly at each other isn't likely to be all that exciting to watch. On the other hand, it's the most interesting thing happening at the moment. Having concluded thusly, Daylily yawns and waits for the brawl to commence with a foot and a half of tomato stalk hanging out of his mouth.

 

[jbear]

Relic looks up suddenly, startled, peering around himself wildly from left to right for a moment as though looking for someone. He calms as a look of understanding comes across his face. He looks around more closely as if struggling to see where the voices arguing is coming from precisely.

Once he pin points the loud argument underway, Relic quickly replants the half eaten carrot back into the soft garden earth, wiping any orange bits that might be tangled in his bushy beard and quickly hustles over towards the two farmers, nodding as if the appearance of the Rogue suddenly made sense.

Ah! Mr Rogue! Just the person I was hoping to speak to about the disappearing house! The Wind favours us it seems despite the treachery and trickery both you good men have suffered.

He steps in between them, laying a hand gently on the Rogue's shoulder and guiding him away from Dane. He whispers harshly back at Dane over his other shoulder:

Dane, why don't you take a moment to calm down. Need I remind you that I had already told you a third party could be involved, and the Rogue completely innocent?


He then continues calmy talking to the Rogue:

Now, Mr Rogue, your aquaintance, or colleague even, Mr Ryall has hired us to investigate the mystery of his disappearing house. As difficult as it may seem, although you need only look with your own two eyes sitting there in your head, the house has been disappeared again. Master Scorchsong, an able wizard has discovered the house has been changed from one shape to another to be moved. And Master Daylilly has found tracks leading off towards the sunset. So, dear Rogue, unfortunately, it seems you have suffered the same trickery as Mr Ryall, and have been caught in the same mystery of the disappearing house.

So, please try to remain calm, and as we resolve the mystery we will attempt to aid you retrieve the money you paid to the cheeky imp that sold you Mr Ryall's house.

Now, that we're all friends, working together, I do have two questions, Mr Rogue ... Firstly, who sold you the house? Tell me everything you can about the sale and the salesman, every last detail, Mr Rogue, as the smallest detail could give us the clue we need. Secondly, Are those your tracks heading West?

OOC: Wow, so that didn't go too well. Relic ducks and scrambles away if they begin fighting. He will threaten that the group will withdraw their offer of helping either of the men if they don't stop fighting, and that they can find the cursed house themselves. Make the relevant roll for me if needed (can't do any worse than me!). If that doesn't work he pretends to grow furious and pretends to be casting a spell of Infinite Painful Death on the two farmers (Bluff). If nothing else works, he casts Sleep on them.

 

[Qik]

OOC: If they don't calm down at these words, I'm going to try screaming at them via message in draconic - the disembodied sound of dragon speech might be enough to scare/confuse them for a moment or two. I'll wait to see if Relic's words (and not his charm ) are enough to settle them down, if if they aren't, and nobody else takes action, I'm going to jump in with that.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Kazanto cleans her hands off as best she can, encloses something in her palm, rears up, and heads over to the two men.

"Gentlemen, please... We all want the same thing right now... A house is missing, and we want to find it. Whoever took it from us can pay us all for their trickery."

As she speaks, a flickering red light appears to grow from inside. "We do not want a 戦... er, fight."

 

[jkason]

The old man's words just seem to inflame the large peasant, and the usually-timid Ryall seems similarly unimpressed by Relic. Roug shoves Ryall to the ground. It might just be the angle of the near-setting sun, but the man's face takes on a deep, angry red cast. And unlike Ryall was at the inn, Roug seems unfazed by the merfolk's appearance or speech.

"How stupid do you think I am?" Roug yells. "You want me to believe some big magicky person stole my little hut? Big muscles don't mean I got a little head."

"Well, you'd have to be stupid to think I could afford ta do it myself, now wouldn't you?" Ryall yells back. "An' if I didn't have your house first, then how come I got a key?" he says, producing his key on the leather thong around his neck.

"That's a fake and you know it. I got the key right here," Roug yells, pulling his key from a belt pouch. For a moment, it looks like the two of them might start fencing with the keys.

[sblock=Quioan]Technically, knowledge on humanoids is a Know: Local check, but since the basic size isn't especially difficult, I don't think it breaks anything to say Quioan's confident it was a medium humanoid. No gnomes or halflings involved. And there's only one of them so far as he can tell.[/sblock]

[sblock=Hlaalin, Daylily, and Kazanto]Despite the hectic argument taking place before you, movement above the treeline to the west catches your eye. It's easy to miss with the drooping sun behind them, but a quartet of birds of prey is flying toward the clearing, about 100 feet away at present. They aren't simply coasting on air currents, but seem to be making a direct line for you. A very fast line.[/sblock]

GM: Initiative rolls everyone. You're currently in a surprise round, during which Hlaalin, Daylily, and Kazanto can act.

 

[maquise]

Hlaalen whips out a volatile cocktail, in case those birds get too close.

Ready an action:
Throw bomb at first bird to get within 20 feet.

 

[Qik]

Surprised at how quickly the situation has escalated, Quioan takes off into a sprint towards the pair as soon as he sees the big man react unfavorably to Relic's attempt at talking him down. And here I thought I was the one with limited diplomatic skills - looks like the old dog also has some rust on his social graces. As he sprints towards the two, he sends a message out to his colleagues: "don't harm the man if you can swing it - we need him to get to the bottom of this mess."

[sblock=Actions]Initiative (are we doing it individually now?) 1d20+5=21

Once I get within range, I'm going to cast color spray using my arcane bond (will save, DC 13) on the man. I don't mind catching Dane within it as well; I'd like to avoid catching anyone else, but if it's not possible, I'll cast away, and hope for the best. If I manage to incapacitate the man, I'll tie him up, wait until he revives, and go from there.[/sblock]

OOC: Edit: I can't for the life of me stop it from breaking the text up into two parts - sorry.

 

[jbear]

OOC: whoa, you're going to throw a molatov cocktail at them? ... and I thought I had inflamed the situation! I thought we were doing group initiatives and first to post?

Relic's eyes nearly burst from his head when he sees the Alchemist pull out a flaming cocktail. He raises his arms up defensively thinking he is about to set the two farmers alight.

Don't kill them! Don't kill them!!!!!

 

[Systole]

Daylily can't believe his luck. "Incoming dinners! Here birdy-birdies!" he shouts.

OOC: Daylily's action is a bit conditional. Assuming the birds are still at range or doing swoop attacks, his action will be to draw his sling and let one fly at whichever bird looks tastiest. Range increment of the sling is 50 ft. If the birds have already engaged in melee by the time he acts, his actions will probably change up. EDIT: D4 is sling damage. Keep forgetting to add tags.

 

[jkason]

[sblock=Actions]Initiative (are we doing it individually now?) 1d20+5=21[/sblock]

GM: I'm still doing individual initiative until the end of the first round of any combat (or, practically, until all the npc combatants have acted). Up until then, one or more combatants are still flat-footed, which has a significant enough impact that I don't want to shortchange it. Once the second round starts, it'll be cyclical for pc's / opponents. I hope that doesn't make things too confusing.