Rise of Tiamat - Intro

[jmucchiello]

OOC: I was expecting the TWO to arrive where the THREE are before continuing. The THREE have been on the road for a couple days together. We don't have much left to talk about unless there's someone else to interact with.

 

[mips42]

Dumos to this point has been attempting to appear smaller than he naturally is (By hunching his back and bending his knees) but now straightens, inclines his head so that his ashen horns are mostly upright and peers down at the woman. "You talk in circles when a straight line would better serve all of us. If we are needed at Chimera Village, wherever that may be, why were we summoned to this place and not there. Furthermore, if our true destination is Waterdeep, why go to this village? There are too many things here that do not make sense, woman." Dumos with quickly and quietly use Thaumaturgy to make his eyes glow a reddish-yellow. "I suggest you start making sense."

 

[billd91]

"Peace, Dumos. I do not think threats will serve us here. I do not fully understand what draws us, but I am content that here is but a stage on our journey elsewhere. Had we continued on the road, I have no doubt we would have still been on the way to Waterdeep," Robyn says in an effort to assuage Dumos's frustrations. "I too would hope that the soothsayer would speak more plainly, but that doesn't seem to be her way. I've rarely heard of one that makes unambiguous statements. It is usually a fog that the listener is forced to interpret on their own. We might as well accept the magical transport in the hope that it takes us someplace where our skills will be needed."

 

[Envisioner]

The oracle is not cowed in the slightest by Dumos; she simply smiles. "The seeds of the maple tree are carried by the wind, far from where the branch originally drops them. If you are meant to have been there, but first you are here, then that too may have been meant. Or it may simply have been happenstance; Destiny does not bother to control everything, or why would mortals ever have been granted free will? I lost a daughter many years ago, and I show less resentment toward the cosmos for taking my little girl away, than you are over a brief detour on your path to greater glories. I can see the mark of the Flaming Fist in both your past and your future; were I in your shoes, I wouldn't try to rush such a reunion."

 

[mips42]

"Hmph. Trees and Destiny. Again with the nonsense. I am done with this. Transport us if that is your aim. Otherwise, the flames and I will journey together, as we have before."

 

[Envisioner]

OOC: Sorry for the long delay guys; inspiration, like toilet paper, is in short supply these days. Also, small continuity gaffe on my part; in the Oracle's speeches to Dumos and Robin, she spoke of Chimera Village as if that was the actual name of the town, because I forgot that I had properly named the place.

Having quickly exhausted the possibilities of Armighast's pitiful marketplace, wherein seven gold is a fortune so vast that it's impossible to spend any of it, you are repeatedly directed to the forge of Ninuel Hartleigh. His is pretty much the only business in town that caters to the "adventurer economy", though even he is more often contracted by aristocrats looking for fancy ceremonial armors and the like. Located on a hill outside the village proper, the smithy has an outhouse tucked away in a copse of trees behind it, which a group less accustomed to woodlore would most likely never have spotted; the building itself is a solid red-brick edifice with a large open-air receiving area that contains the actual forge, as well as a series of very secure-looking chambers that presumably contain the less replaceable (and more portable) supplies needed for the arcane side of his business. Finding several apprentices laboring in the sweltering enclosure, you persuade one of them to go fetch the smith himself; she returns a few moments later with a tall, slender man wearing a leather apron over silk trousers, with nothing above the waist. His skin is the color of polished mahogany, and has not a hair upon it below the scalp, where long straight black tresses are slicked back with a pleasantly musky-smelling pomade.

Ninjuel opens his mouth to speak, and Dumos and Robyn are immediately teleported into the space between him and his other three visitors. The smith stands there with his mouth hanging open as the tiefling and half-elf momentarily adjust to their new surroundings, leaving the three humans little more combobulated than Hartleigh.

 

[billd91]

"I smell charcoal, hot metal, and sweat. We are either in the Spider Queen's torture boudoir or a smithy. And I sure hope it's the latter," Robyn says as he looks about at the assembled people. "Well, don't just stand there with your jaws agape, where are we? If that oracle sent us to the wrong smith, she'll have a debt to pay."

 

[jmucchiello]

"What are you talking about? What Oracle sent you?" Ana says. He had falls to the pommel of her sword but she does not draw it immediately.

 

[mips42]

Dumos moves as close to the forge as possible without actually being in the way of the smith.

 

[billd91]

"We met the oracle in Westwater in the wake of some kind of dragon attack. Her name was Qwynneth and she said we had an urgent appointment to keep with three other people at Ninuel Hartleigh's forge. That was about the most explicit information we could get out of her otherwise cryptic speech," Robyn shrugs. Seeing a bit of wariness, he adds, "But rest assured, we come peacefully, if somewhat abruptly."