Tavern - City of Orussus, The Red Dragon Inn 2010-17

[Scott DeWar]

got an idea.

initiative

initative winner rolls str check ->subtract penalty = sets dc

initiative loser rolls str check incurs penalty tries to beat dc above

waddaya think?

 

[Rhydius]

OOC: Honestly, that's a bit complicated. Why not set the DC at 10 and raise it by 2 for each subsequent check, e.g., 10, 12, 14, as long as it takes to finish the opposed strength checks? The other problem I see with the endurance checks is the possibility that both of us could fail one. For that I propose that whoever has the most winning strength checks simply wins that match.

 

[Scott DeWar]

I am thinking, not ignoring, just so you know!

 

[Rhydius]

OOC: All's well. I was debating on creating a thread so we could talk out the mechanics for arm wrestling matches, but since it seems to be just you and me in here at the moment I wonder to myself if it's really necessary.

 

[Trouvere]

The tavern door slams open and a halfling woman bursts in in a flurry of red skirts. She's tall for a halfling, though slightly plump, but the main impression she gives is of extreme irritation.

"Keldar!" she snaps, pointing at the human standing at the bar toying with his wine goblet. He leaps half out of his skin, and quickly runs his hand through – or just above – his hair. His splendid chainmail loses its lustre and becomes rather ordinary leather armour, though the golden star he wears as a cloak clasp remains. And suddenly he is holding a jaunty three-cornered hat.

"Ah. Um. This is a surprise," he says, and darts one swift longing glance at the stairs. Instead he moves from the bar and arranges himself casually at a table with an arm draped over the back of his chair, the picture of a man demonstrating insouciance.

"Do you know what - " she begins, but Keldar holds up a finger and points to Joe's famous notice on the wall. She fixes him with an icy stare, then turns to address the room at large, smiling ever so sweetly.

"I am Miss Rollfar Lightpurse." She considers for a moment. "Advocate and counsellor." She considers further. "And associate of one Keldar. Hludovech. Warbray."

"Heh, that's... that's not my middle name," Keldar assures the room at large. "I don't know where she got that from."

"Keldar!" His head snaps back around. Rollfar takes a seat at his table and leans forward. "Do you know what I've been doing for the last month?" Keldar bites a lip. "I've been to Fallon," she says.

"Have you?" Keldar asks. "That's funny, because I was just - "

"You said you were going to Grenton! You said you'd be two weeks. You said - "

"I did go to Grenton. Something came up. I had to go straight on to Fallon, as it happens."

"Can you catch a ship to Fallon from Grenton, as it happens?" asks Rollfar, extremely rhetorically.

"Ah." Keldar's mouth hangs open. "Not as such, what with the river running somewhere else entirely. I did come back through Orussus. It was... it was Tarag's fault! He wouldn't hear of waiting. Or I'd have let you know, of course."

"I found out. I pay attention. I take an interest. You took Captain Cregle's Lake Jane."

"I did not! He jumped overboard!" says Keldar indignantly.

Rollfar winces. "You know what, I don't even want to know!" She gets up and storms out.

"That went well," says Keldar Hludovech Warbray to the air.

 

[Scott DeWar]

The surprise arrival of Rollfar causes the fighter to lose concentration and Rydius has a chance to slam the gripped hands home.

 

[Trouvere]

And a few minutes later, Rollfar Lightpurse storms back in, this time carrying an adventurer's pack, complete with weapons strapped to its sides, which she plunks down on Keldar's table.

"I'm not finished, Keldar," she says. "I sold nearly everything I own, I even sold Spelding Row! I bought a crossbow, and - "

"It's a very nice one," says Keldar. "Darkwood?"

"Yes, darkwood! And a darkwood spear."

"Who uses a spear!?" Keldar asks.

"Me, in about two seconds, if you don't shut up," Rollfar says. For the first time, she looks uncomfortable. "One evening," she continues, in a lower voice, "a few days after you left, I was staring into the fire. I pictured, far out on the lake, two ships, Lake Jane and another. There were dead bodies in shrouds and scorch marks on the other's deck. It gave me a bad feeling."

"But that happened, Rolli," says Keldar. She shivers ever so slightly. He sings in a clear tenor: "A hundred miles from Fallon, upon Lake Kithsul broad, Was fought a mighty battle, with spell and shield and sword - ah, perhaps later."

"Yes. Much. And then, I saw you above the city among the rocks, just four of you, with a maimed man with no fingers! He was horrible."

"We called him 'Shields'," says Keldar. "I told you what you see is - "

"No, it's coincidence, nothing more," Rollfar says uneasily. She takes refuge in indignation. "But I knew you were in trouble – you nearly always are. So I went to find you, or help you, or save you, before you had your fingers chopped off, and when I got there, do you know what I found? People talking about you in the squares and the taverns! The toast of the city! Made a Marshal of Fallon!"

Keldar strokes the golden star affixed to his breast, with the feigned modesty that says, oh, this old thing? Rollfar goes to slap his hand away, but Keldar catches hers and gives it a gentle squeeze. She tries to pull away, but he doesn't let her.

"And you'd left already! I spoke to a fat man at the docks who was very glad you were gone and even more frightened you'd come back."

Keldar smirks at that, and Rollfar glares again, but her anger is nearly spent. "And so I took ship back for Orussus. What a journey, for no reason! And here you are, sitting around idly, drinking... drinking what?" She snatches Keldar's goblet with her free hand, and sips from it. She makes a face. "Saltwater wine? Again?"

Keldar shrugs. For some reason, her manner softens, and she takes a seat beside him. "How are the Ironforge-Millers?" he asks.

"Shut up, Keldar," Rollfar replies, and they sit there, hand in hand.

 

[Rhydius]

Neither Rhydius, nor the red-haired man, appear to remember that they are still engaged in a small test of strength. The wager forgotten for a moment as they watch the arrival, and the apparent confrontation. Rhydius, stunned, but mostly just glad that he's not the object of the halfling's ire, attempts to disentangle his hand so that he might finish off his ale, and realizes that the northerner has gotten as lost in the proceedings as himself. He looks at the wagered copers, then back at the man seated bofore him, and says, "I suppose we should call this one a draw."

 

[Scott DeWar]

Ja. says the northerner in as soft a voice possible-not wanting to get the attention of the hot headed halfling.

 

[Trouvere]

Rollfar comes to a decision. "Anyway, and you don't deserve this, and I don't know why I bothered, but this is yours. Well, most of it." She rummages in her backpack and produces a bulging coin purse. "Thirty dozen dragons. No small amount."

"What's this?" asks Keldar. "I can't take your Spelding Row money."

"No, it's not that," Rollfar tells him. "I took along all the manuscripts and managed to sell the publishing rights for the complete works of, ahem, Barry Lakeward."

"Who is very reclusive now that his days of derring-do are done, and allows only me to act as his literary agent," says Keldar.

"I shall continue to believe that," says Rollfar with a small smile. "There are very impressive gnomish printing facilities in Fallon, and a weekly booksellers' market. The Lakewards proved more popular than stepladders in a halfling cherry orchard. It seems Fallon delights in at least as many misguided fluff-brained young girls as Orussus."

"That's not who reads Barry Lakeward!" Keldar splutters. "Young men stifled in their everyday lives who yearn for tales of swashbuckling adventure, that's who reads them, that's who they're aimed at!"

"Mmm... Not quite in the bullseye, then, dear," says Rollfar.

Keldar sits and fumes. "There is another Lakeward I can let you have," he says at length. "Ink hardly dry. It's called 'A Bleak Reward – Barry Lakeward and the Paladins' Betrayal.'"

"Keldar?" Rollfar asks softly.

Keldar's eyes turn empty and grey. "They've... they've left me, Rolli," he says.

"Oh, Keldar," Rollfar sighs. She leans in and rests her head against his arm.

"All of them. Galwynn and Rapture took my ship on the say-so of some priest of Halina. They didn't even leave a note. Fimble stayed with his parents. I've not seen Tommy in weeks. Maybe he's decided to go learn from Thyrin, but that's not a trip I'll make again soon. And Tarag ran out on us in Fallon, and now he's skipped town! His shop is boarded up. Can't say I'm surprised – there was always something not quite right about him. But I thought... I thought we were a family."

"Oh, no. I'm sorry, Keldar," Rollfar says.

"Tarag was like one of those uncles you have to keep a close eye on, of course. But now there's just me."

Rollfar says, with hurt in her voice, "And me. I've never left you."

"I always come back," Keldar says. "But you're helping out the smallfolk, and busy with Spelding Row and Drunken Halfling, while I want to be out doing good deeds. I mean, not that what you do isn't - " he stammers into silence.

Surprisingly, Rollfar lets that pass. "I've handed off most of that," she says. "I told you, I bought a crossbow."

Keldar laughs. "That certainly makes you an adventurer. You get free board and lodging here, you know."

"Everybody knows that," Rollfar says.

"You'll need armour," Keldar says. "We can't all be as nimble as Keldar Light on his Feet Warbray. That's my middle name."

"Of course it is."

"One of them. It's a Warbrayvian tradition," Keldar says. He puts his arm around Rollfar's shoulder, leans back to look at the ceiling and sighs.