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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 454273" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chinese Take-outChapter 35, “The Auction Preview”, September 19, 1018, 9:00 AM:Over breakfast, those who had gone to the auction and/or preview relate what they had observed.  The entire group, with the exception of Serita, decides to go to the afternoon preview of the “Servants to Own” action.  Serita decides to teleport back to Shosun to check on Timothy and the gem auction back there.  Once at the auction house, they are given the rules to the preview.   As with the preview the day before, the lots are presented in six different rooms, where potential bidders are allowed to examine the products one table at a time.   Whereas this auction is of sentient creatures, there are additional rules.   The servants will be on the stage in each room, with guards behind them.  There will also be a three-person panel of “observers”, including a cleric and a mage, at a table before each servant lot.  Bidders examining the servants must seek prior permission from the observers before talking to, touching or casting spells upon the servants as part of their examination.  Talking to servants must be in a language known to at least one observer, and the speaker must clearly enunciate their words.   Any violation of the rules will result in the table being barred from the auction, with the forfeiture of their table deposit.  The group agrees to abide to these terms, and enters the building.The party splits into two groups.  One group is comprised of Aradyn, Cassie, Fiona, Hiroshi, Lannon and Narg who spend the remainder of the preview uneventfully observing the servants from the chairs in each room, opting to not directly interact with the servants (as the players of these characters were not present at the game).The group of Duegar, Kim-Sung, Lono, Mark, Mojo and Toshiro decide to check out the six lots in numerical order.   This proves to be a mistake, as the servants in lot one are comprised of the attractive and scantily clad Polynesian females, which Lono decides to closely observe from the front row.  “I’m surprised you’re not up there with him” Mark comments to Mojo.   “I only have my eyes on one beautiful lady tonight,” he replies, looking towards Kim.   Lono continues his boorish behavior, making a complete jackass out of himself.  He is hardly alone, however, as there are several dozen more potential bidders present acting just like him.   The group decides to leave him in this room as they go to check out the other lots (not that they really have a choice).  Lono tells the others not to worry, that he will examine this lot closely for them.  They move onto the room with lot two.  This consists of twelve people, six human, six non-humans, all attired in plan gray tunics.   The humans consist of a middle-aged male, standing protectively beside a young human female.  Three of the other humans are strong looking men, apparently fighter types.  The sixth is thinner, with a neatly cropped orange beard.   The other six consist of a male dwarf fighter; a male half-elf fighter.  The half-elf looks youthful, but with prematurely gray hair; a male elf, a female elf; and two gnomes, one younger the other middle-aged.   The group decides that they wish to talk to these people, and get a number.  They are informed that five bidder tables are ahead of them, so decide to move on to the next room and come back.  The next lot consists of fifteen Vikings, fourteen male and one female.   One thing of interest, pointed out by an auction house employee, is that only the female requires a collar that the others are her sworn protectors, who will do whatever is asked provided that she is not harmed.  The group decides that they also wish to talk to these people, and get a number.  Duegar suggests as a strategy that they shoot and kill the girl, which will cause the others to become enraged and create a commotion, during which they can free the Hengeyokai.   Mojo comments “Oh, great plan, and then we spend the rest of our lives in prison.”  “Hey, we could make it look like an accident,” Duegar replies.  “I’ll make YOU look like an accident,” is Mojo’s response.Moving on to the next room, the fifth lot is comprised of twenty monsters of five different races: two hill giants; five orcs; five half-orcs; two hobgoblins; and six goblins.  Mojo comments that they can skip conversing with this particular group.   “But we could buy them and use them for slaves,” comments Duegar.   Mojo answers “If we want to be with a bunch of shabby, smelly, right-wing agitators we’ll just hang out with our own ship’s crew.”They return to the room with lot two, as they are next in line to examine the merchandise.  They approach the observers, Duegar explaining that he wishes to speak to the dwarf in dwarvish.  The dwarf, a red bearded male with big sad looking eyes, steps forward when commanded to.  Duegar introduces himself.  The man does not respond until Duegar directly asks for his name, being told  “Gritt Red Fire-sword, Red to my friends, which you’re not.”  Taken aback, Duegar comments “That was rude.”  “You’re one to talk about manners,” comments the dwarf, “A dwarf who deals in slaves, pathetic.”  Duegar gestures to the observers, trying to indicate that he can’t freely speak, but the other dwarf does not pick up on this.   Duegar asks how he came to be in his current predicament, to which the dwarf answers “Ask the old human, it’s his fault.”They decide to do just that, dismissing the dwarf, and asking that the older human step forward.   Mojo politely asks the man in common how they got to be there.   The man explains that he is a  businessman who is co-owner of a large shipbuilding firm   He was accompanying a large merchant ship being brought to sell at a distant port when pirates attacked the ship.   He, his daughter, three crew, and seven passengers were then captured and sold into slavery.  He says that they have been passed on twice since then to other slaver groups, winding up here.Mark finds something the man’s voice to be familiar, and asks where he is from.  He says that he is from  Lendore City, on Lendore Island, the largest island in the Spindrift Island Chain.  Mojo thanks him, and pulls his group back away from the front of the room.  Mojo says  “That sounds like a place I’ve heard of before.”  Mark answers “It should sound familiar.  That was where we  purchased our ship, the Silver Moon, thirteen years ago.  He is the man we bought it from.”   A brief discussion follows regarding the potential purchase of this group.  Of the current group in the Orient, the only ones who the man has met before are Mark, Narg and Serita, and it was clear that the man didn’t recognize Mark.  They decide to continue to talk to each member of this group, to deduce their character classes.   The man’s daughter is a bard and the three crewmembers are fighters.   Of the seven passengers; the human is a druid; the half-elf is a rather flamboyant fighter with many titles; the two gnomes are fighters; the dwarf is a fighter; the male elf is an archer/ranger; and the female elf is a cleric.They then go back to lot three, and speak to the Vikings.   Mojo asks to talk first, and begins to sing the Viking “Spam” chant, to which the Vikings all join in.    Next, Mark asks how they came to be in their current predicament.   Their spokesman explains how they were transporting their Chief’s daughter on a large ship across the arctic, when winter set in early, trapping the ship in the ice.   This wasn’t a disaster, as they managed to kill a few whales, providing them with meat to eat and oil to burn to get them through the winter.   A few months later, a large army of two thousand Mongols attacked them.  A fierce battle fell, resulting in thirty dead Vikings and over four hundred dead Mongols, but the superior numbers of the Mongols were too much.  The other fourteen Vikings, the girl’s honor guard, surrendered after negotiating with the Mongol leader for her safety.   “Well at least that got you to stop your blubbering,” comments Mojo.They then head into see lot five.   It is comprised of five Hengeyokai, all in their bipedal half-animal, half-human forms.    They consist of five different Hengeyokai sub-races: a female cat; a female falcon; a male fox; a male lynx; and a male rat.   Mojo asks the observers “What languages do they speak?”  He is told they only know the local language.  Turning to Kim, Mojo says “If you wouldn’t mind, could you please translate for us.”  “I would be happy to,” she answers.   Deciding to tempt fate, he then adds “And would you like to also go out to dinner with me tonight?”  She does not answer either positive or negative, so he continues.  He then proceeds to totally insert his foot in his mouth by saying “I know where I can get you a steak as big as a toilet seat.”  The shocked look on her face causes him to immediately remember that she is a Druid, and he tries to salvage it with “Did I say steak, I meant salad.”  She just shakes her head, and turns back towards the Hengeyokai, as a grin covers Duegar’s face.  They briefly talk to the cat Hengeyokai, asking if they wish to go back to their home.  She replies that of course they do, that should be obvious, but aren’t likely to happen anytime soon.”  It is clear that the cat took the question not as an inquiry but an insult (teasing them about their current state) so the party decides to quit while they are behind, and just wait until after the auction to talk to these creatures.As they move on to the next room Mojo tries once more to patch things up with Kim, saying “I didn’t mean any insult, I’m just an ignorant man.”  Duegar snorts.   Mojo then adds “I don’t understand this dwarf, he craves danger and excitement.”  They then get into a childish insult match, with Mojo calling Duegar a weirdo, and Duegar calling Mojo a fairy.  Duegar says “Your mother was a goblin.”  Mojo answers, “That’s not possible, as we would then have the same mother.”  Kim breaks them up by pointing out that there is still one more lot to look at.   As this was the group that Duegar was interested in, he says “Oh yeah, “ and charges into the room with the others behind him.The five half-minotaurs are in the room.  Four are male, and one female.   All but one of the males essentially look more human than past minotaurs encountered by the party, but with the head of a cow or bull.    The one exception is the nine-foot-tall leader, who has four arms and two sets of horns, more goat or ram like than that of a bull.  Duegar speaks to the leader, who appears to be surprisingly rather articulate and thoughtful.  He has a deep resonating James Earl Jones sounding voice.  He indicates that they are from a distant land, and implies that they were forced to flee from someone or something that was hunting them.  They came to this land, as one of their deities is of the Chinese pantheon, so they thought this would be a safe location for them.  Rather then safety, they were assumed to be monsters,  were captured and thrown into slavery.The preview ends, with Lono having to be dragged out of the building by the others.  Duegar again reiterates that the half-minotaurs is the lot to buy, with Lono insisting on getting the Polynesian babes.   “We don’t need them,” says Mark.  “And you call me the fairy?” Mojo mutters to Duegar.  “But we told out ship's crew that we would help to find them wives,”  Lono says, then adding “Of course, I would never ask anything of a crew member that I wouldn’t be willing to do myself.”  “Since when?” says ship crew member Toshiro.  “Since now,” answers Lono, “I’ve seen the light.”  “We all know what you’ve seen,” comments Kim.The discussion then revolves around the prospect of buying all of the lots.  Mojo takes the high moral ground, and makes a speech about “We can make a difference here.  We can free all of the slaves.”  Mark points out “They have these auctions every week. Giving these slavers all our money won’t stop anything.”  Mojo continues, stating “These people live in sin and wickedness, and we must not stand for it.”  The others conclude that he is still just trying to impress the girl, and ignore him.</blockquote>

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