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Ptolus - Campaign Journal
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<blockquote data-quote="Jeremy" data-source="post: 3920087" data-attributes="member: 4036"><p>Voss was still wandering around the Minstrel wearing the drow scalps on his belt, never mind T'lan's instructions not to do so while representing him; it's not like there is anything labeling them as drow and thus somehow exonerating him for wandering around displaying the remains of humanoids whose heads he hacked off. But in any case, Voss is Voss and no one is going to change him. I overheard him saying something to Telith about buying or renting a table just for us that he could paint, this doesn't seem like a bad idea to me and the notoriety would be nice but the proprietor looked like she was about to pop a vein.</p><p></p><p>Meagan showed up again in a particularly confrontational mood which ended up costing Voss half of his share of our impending delve as he tried to put her in her place and she reminded him that her place was dictated by being the only one who knew where we were going. It would turn out later that it was a good thing we worded things the way we did. I'm starting to sound very callous, but I'll get to that in a moment. Gloria showed up later, she had tried to doll herself up and I tried to show her a good time, but it's really not her thing. We should just get suited up and enter a melee for fun, she's much more at home encased in a full set of steel than wrapped in frippery. Sasha, the battle mage from Jenna's team, showed up as well later, but he was pretty beat up. Apparently they took some heavy blows in some place called Ra' Torchansie from two different factions of drow, and worse, Jenna wasn't able to heal the wounds they were taking. Apparently she and Glibber are both laid up at St. Gustave's with Father Fabitor looking over them.</p><p></p><p>Sasha got wasted and Voss proved pretty adept at playing along and feeding him half truths to get him talking about T'lan. One of the more interesting details to come out was that in the time Sasha had been working with T'lan there had been a girl several times that had behaved in an unusually familiar way with him. Even more telling was that he had seen this girl willingly take a crossbow bolt in the shoulder from T'lan before leaving the Taurus compound which you may remember is how Meagan came back to us after gathering reconnaissance for us. Riley and I both eagerly sought some way to use this information to our advantage or at least for our entertainment. But before the conversation could go much further Gloria and Meagan returned having gathered their things to set off.</p><p></p><p>Meagan had been ruthlessly picking on Gloria all night the way only a pretty girl can belittle an ugly one. Gloria is an interesting woman in the dichotomy of her raw power and battle prowess versus the shattered and insecure woman her over muscular and battle scarred form has made her. Unfortunately upon Meagan's return she was even more brutal and despite several warnings pushed Gloria way too far. She upended the table and easily grabbed and slammed the surprised little rogue against a wall but after she had said her piece and Riley had started to calm her down Meagan went way over the line and disemboweled the amazonian warrior. I rushed to her side and caught her even as Rayth's magic saved her life. Voss flipped into the fray in a dashing show and read Meagan's intent as lethal. He brought to bear a huge quillioned sword but over extended himself and was stabbed by Meagan's quick riposte through the hand deep into the bone. With nothing more I could do to help Gloria and Rayth aiding her as best he could, I drew steel and swung with intent to kill, though the rogue narrowly deflected my powerful blow. Voss fired off a barrage of the apparently animate manticor spikes that comprised the hilt of his weapon only to have not only his attacks dodged but another vicious wound from Meagan, this one nearly fatal.</p><p></p><p>The tide turned as Riley caught Meagan off guard and pummeled her with magically conjured stone which created an opening for me to use the Emerald Razor technique that cleft the rogue from clavicle to hip. It was at this point that the real Meagan returned to the inn and with infuriating aplomb stated that her doppelganger looked nothing like her. Our attacker melted and evaporated into a black puddle identifying it as one of the shadow clones used by chaos cults in the city. Damn. Almost went a week without an attempt on our lives.</p><p></p><p>I was furious and had no outlet for my emotion so I started drinking heavily, eventually the absurdity of the situation and maybe the alcohol ended up making the entire state of affairs hilarious to me and I ended the night in pretty high spirits. Behold the power of beer, nothing enough of it can't fix.</p><p></p><p>The next morning Gloria and I awoke like clockwork as only soldiers do and set right back to working out the kinks. Her power needs to be tempered by balance but perhaps I can teach her that. We had breakfast with Sasha and Meagan before setting out into the Undercity. T'lan arrived too having finished the magical cloaks with the symbol of his House on them that he had promised us. Apparently they're going to make traveling a luxury that campaigners would scoff at, but I certainly am not going to turn it down. Voss dug into T'lan at every opportunity again and was still wearing the scalps right in front of him, I knew exactly what was coming having seen it before, but didn't think to warn the others. In a particularly fatal mistake Voss 'agreed' to remove the scalps by simultaneously interrupting T'lan, insulting him, and I think telling him to shut his mouth. I had time to lift my plate out of the way before T'lan's hideous wing-like appendages erupted and impaled Voss leaving him to bleed out on his breakfast. Riley and Rayth took the brutal attack fairly well, I'm glad I had told them about this side of Voss and T'lan's relationship, Meagan wasn't perturbed at all, Gloria unfortunately was completely blindsided.</p><p></p><p>I tried to explain as quickly, quietly, and efficiently as I could but a wrinkle in my position was revealed when T'lan indicated he had no intention of returning Voss to life this time as he had tired of his disrespect and goading and did not see him ever changing. Fortunately the others and I were successful in negotiating T'lan's resurrection of Voss under the understanding he would not be permitted to accompany us any further or represent T'lan. Just glad to give him another chance, we accepted. Voss however did not and the spell failed. A rather gruesome <em>speak with dead</em> later and Voss's corpse made it very clear he wasn't interested in continuing to be treated as such. Only Voss, or Voss's corpse as the case may be, could say such things with a straight face.</p><p></p><p>T'lan again explained his motives and goals in classically blunt fashion enumerating again how we were valuable assets but not irreplaceable should we fail to live up to the rather basic requests of honor he has of us. It's always nice to know that your boss has your back, but doesn't particularly have a problem with killing you either should you be in the way of his plans. But the offer to walk away also gives us enough ability to step back and remind ourselves that we are doing important work. Even if it is with the corpse of our friend on the breakfast table.</p><p></p><p>Is it perverse of me to find the memory of Voss's corpse bad mouthing of T'lan from beyond the grave cut short by T'lan's abrupt reaction of ending the spell in disgust so greatly amusing? Good journey to you Voss. May you find thick skinned companions in the afterlife that can appreciate your caustic wit.</p><p></p><p>Having heard and had illustrated in such detail the stakes of working for House Windsong, Gloria though hard for some time and must be as crazy as I am because she pledged herself fully in service to T'lan. She followed all the forms of such a pledge to an extent none of us had and I must say I admire her courage in doing so, foolhardy as it may yet prove to be. While T'lan was in one of his brutally honest and totally forthcoming moods I decided it would be a fun time to bring up his relationship with Meagan thus revealing both that she was a plant in our midst of his and to Meagan that we had already learned of her duplicity. The look on her face was priceless though the reason for the looks that passed between Riley and Rayth were somewhat less clear to me. Apparently something happened last night while I was making merry that I am as yet still unaware of.</p><p></p><p>But never the less, we've got a damsel in distress and it's time we got to rescuing her.</p><p></p><p>****</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jeremy, post: 3920087, member: 4036"] Voss was still wandering around the Minstrel wearing the drow scalps on his belt, never mind T'lan's instructions not to do so while representing him; it's not like there is anything labeling them as drow and thus somehow exonerating him for wandering around displaying the remains of humanoids whose heads he hacked off. But in any case, Voss is Voss and no one is going to change him. I overheard him saying something to Telith about buying or renting a table just for us that he could paint, this doesn't seem like a bad idea to me and the notoriety would be nice but the proprietor looked like she was about to pop a vein. Meagan showed up again in a particularly confrontational mood which ended up costing Voss half of his share of our impending delve as he tried to put her in her place and she reminded him that her place was dictated by being the only one who knew where we were going. It would turn out later that it was a good thing we worded things the way we did. I'm starting to sound very callous, but I'll get to that in a moment. Gloria showed up later, she had tried to doll herself up and I tried to show her a good time, but it's really not her thing. We should just get suited up and enter a melee for fun, she's much more at home encased in a full set of steel than wrapped in frippery. Sasha, the battle mage from Jenna's team, showed up as well later, but he was pretty beat up. Apparently they took some heavy blows in some place called Ra' Torchansie from two different factions of drow, and worse, Jenna wasn't able to heal the wounds they were taking. Apparently she and Glibber are both laid up at St. Gustave's with Father Fabitor looking over them. Sasha got wasted and Voss proved pretty adept at playing along and feeding him half truths to get him talking about T'lan. One of the more interesting details to come out was that in the time Sasha had been working with T'lan there had been a girl several times that had behaved in an unusually familiar way with him. Even more telling was that he had seen this girl willingly take a crossbow bolt in the shoulder from T'lan before leaving the Taurus compound which you may remember is how Meagan came back to us after gathering reconnaissance for us. Riley and I both eagerly sought some way to use this information to our advantage or at least for our entertainment. But before the conversation could go much further Gloria and Meagan returned having gathered their things to set off. Meagan had been ruthlessly picking on Gloria all night the way only a pretty girl can belittle an ugly one. Gloria is an interesting woman in the dichotomy of her raw power and battle prowess versus the shattered and insecure woman her over muscular and battle scarred form has made her. Unfortunately upon Meagan's return she was even more brutal and despite several warnings pushed Gloria way too far. She upended the table and easily grabbed and slammed the surprised little rogue against a wall but after she had said her piece and Riley had started to calm her down Meagan went way over the line and disemboweled the amazonian warrior. I rushed to her side and caught her even as Rayth's magic saved her life. Voss flipped into the fray in a dashing show and read Meagan's intent as lethal. He brought to bear a huge quillioned sword but over extended himself and was stabbed by Meagan's quick riposte through the hand deep into the bone. With nothing more I could do to help Gloria and Rayth aiding her as best he could, I drew steel and swung with intent to kill, though the rogue narrowly deflected my powerful blow. Voss fired off a barrage of the apparently animate manticor spikes that comprised the hilt of his weapon only to have not only his attacks dodged but another vicious wound from Meagan, this one nearly fatal. The tide turned as Riley caught Meagan off guard and pummeled her with magically conjured stone which created an opening for me to use the Emerald Razor technique that cleft the rogue from clavicle to hip. It was at this point that the real Meagan returned to the inn and with infuriating aplomb stated that her doppelganger looked nothing like her. Our attacker melted and evaporated into a black puddle identifying it as one of the shadow clones used by chaos cults in the city. Damn. Almost went a week without an attempt on our lives. I was furious and had no outlet for my emotion so I started drinking heavily, eventually the absurdity of the situation and maybe the alcohol ended up making the entire state of affairs hilarious to me and I ended the night in pretty high spirits. Behold the power of beer, nothing enough of it can't fix. The next morning Gloria and I awoke like clockwork as only soldiers do and set right back to working out the kinks. Her power needs to be tempered by balance but perhaps I can teach her that. We had breakfast with Sasha and Meagan before setting out into the Undercity. T'lan arrived too having finished the magical cloaks with the symbol of his House on them that he had promised us. Apparently they're going to make traveling a luxury that campaigners would scoff at, but I certainly am not going to turn it down. Voss dug into T'lan at every opportunity again and was still wearing the scalps right in front of him, I knew exactly what was coming having seen it before, but didn't think to warn the others. In a particularly fatal mistake Voss 'agreed' to remove the scalps by simultaneously interrupting T'lan, insulting him, and I think telling him to shut his mouth. I had time to lift my plate out of the way before T'lan's hideous wing-like appendages erupted and impaled Voss leaving him to bleed out on his breakfast. Riley and Rayth took the brutal attack fairly well, I'm glad I had told them about this side of Voss and T'lan's relationship, Meagan wasn't perturbed at all, Gloria unfortunately was completely blindsided. I tried to explain as quickly, quietly, and efficiently as I could but a wrinkle in my position was revealed when T'lan indicated he had no intention of returning Voss to life this time as he had tired of his disrespect and goading and did not see him ever changing. Fortunately the others and I were successful in negotiating T'lan's resurrection of Voss under the understanding he would not be permitted to accompany us any further or represent T'lan. Just glad to give him another chance, we accepted. Voss however did not and the spell failed. A rather gruesome [I]speak with dead[/I] later and Voss's corpse made it very clear he wasn't interested in continuing to be treated as such. Only Voss, or Voss's corpse as the case may be, could say such things with a straight face. T'lan again explained his motives and goals in classically blunt fashion enumerating again how we were valuable assets but not irreplaceable should we fail to live up to the rather basic requests of honor he has of us. It's always nice to know that your boss has your back, but doesn't particularly have a problem with killing you either should you be in the way of his plans. But the offer to walk away also gives us enough ability to step back and remind ourselves that we are doing important work. Even if it is with the corpse of our friend on the breakfast table. Is it perverse of me to find the memory of Voss's corpse bad mouthing of T'lan from beyond the grave cut short by T'lan's abrupt reaction of ending the spell in disgust so greatly amusing? Good journey to you Voss. May you find thick skinned companions in the afterlife that can appreciate your caustic wit. Having heard and had illustrated in such detail the stakes of working for House Windsong, Gloria though hard for some time and must be as crazy as I am because she pledged herself fully in service to T'lan. She followed all the forms of such a pledge to an extent none of us had and I must say I admire her courage in doing so, foolhardy as it may yet prove to be. While T'lan was in one of his brutally honest and totally forthcoming moods I decided it would be a fun time to bring up his relationship with Meagan thus revealing both that she was a plant in our midst of his and to Meagan that we had already learned of her duplicity. The look on her face was priceless though the reason for the looks that passed between Riley and Rayth were somewhat less clear to me. Apparently something happened last night while I was making merry that I am as yet still unaware of. But never the less, we've got a damsel in distress and it's time we got to rescuing her. **** [/QUOTE]
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