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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haiiro" data-source="post: 1750570" data-attributes="member: 1891">Valic's StoryAs he told it, Valic was a handler and trainer of giants that had been fitted with "the iron spines." The spines made them calm or angry, and allowed the giants to be controlled with the right kind of whistle. He considered this to be a an art, although he allowed that it wasn't a perfect method of controlling the creatures.He revealed that he worked for a woman named Lassiter, though he had never seen her. The moment he blurted out her name, he appeared to regret it. With fear in his voice, he described Lassiter as riding on a barge that was completely shrouded in cloth -- and told the Follies that she "speaks inside his head." For the past three years, Lassiter had been bringing him and his fellow handlers giants and ogres to train.He and these two others -- Asdruc, who he described with some trepidation as "the dwarf with no face,&#34 and Leleeria Yane, an orc ranger of some sort -- trained the giants for weeks or months at a time. Once their training was complete, one of two things happened: either Lassiter returned to take them away (perhaps bringing new creatures with her), or she instructed Valic and the others to deliver them to a client. In this particular case, their client was Gurrom Lek -- a High City merchant prince in Selgaunt, whose guard faction is known as Gurrom's Wheels.In the last year, Valic, Asdruc and Leleeria had delivered giants to Gurrom six times. This time, Gurrom was supposed to meet them just after dark -- and Valic cringed as he told the Follies how angry Gurrom would be now that the giants had escaped. When they told him that the giants were all killed and Gurrom already knew about it, Valic became even more fearful.When asked who else bought his giants, Valic told the Follies that he had only had one other customer: a dark-skinned halfling in Saerloon. This halfling was always clad in chainmail, but apart from that Valic couldn't remember any other details -- and he never knew his name.Eager to please his captors, Valic told them that he also had a meeting with Asdruc that night. Whenever they arrived in Selgaunt, Asdruc disappeared into the city -- and returned with "his pets." Their meeting was to take place in their usual spot: a trio of piers called the Lamb's Feet, popular with small barges because they were close to Davisson Bridge. From there, the three handlers were to return to their base camp via the River Arkhen.</blockquote>

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