Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="htetickrt" data-source="post: 1473129" data-attributes="member: 16534">Interrogation I Dobi scuffs his boots on the ground, silently cursing himself for not playing a larger role in the earlier combat. Resigning himself to greater levels of risk in the future, and seeing the situation well in hand, the halfling decides to introduce himself to Calla, much to the groans of Quid and others who have seen this display too many times. Doffing his feathered broad-brimmed hat with a circular flourish, he exclaims, "Sir Dobius of Elderberry, Knight-errant of Cormyr and Senior Interlocuter for His Majesty's and Her Regency's Foreign Service, pleased to be at your service. I do hope you are quite alright." Dobi attempts to kiss Calla's hand as he kneels to the ground, doing his best to ignore Andy and her naked form that lies suggestively on the ground, threatening to give his brain fits. "Though if you'd please, we'd like to know how you came to be in these circumstances," he concludes. Quid, being a bit more practical, cuts in with, "I'd suggest continuing this interrogation in a safer locale, and unless Rhien can bust out another one of those mass heal dealies, perhaps we should head back to town for the night? I can teleport about half of us back. The lighter half, anyway." Rhien answers slowly, "I could once more, but that would nearly exhaust the power of my gloves for many days. If that is the desire of the party I will do this, but I personally would advise retreating elsewhere to heal, and make a fresh start of things tomorrow. I'd be happy to keep a watch on the crypt entrance to help ensure no more raids occur while we are away.” Seeing that Calla is too stunned by the recent events to give a response to his greeting, Dobi requests and is granted an enchanted mithril shirt. This leads him to launch into a yarn that was oft repeated when he was young, about a reckless halfling who got hold of a ring of invisibility and went off to make lots of mischief. In any case, that halfling had an elven mithril shirt, or a meeth-ril shirt as they called it. He ends his story abruptly when threatened with copyright infringement by the ever-lawful Khail. While this is taking place, Trella curtly addresses the waiting drow, responding to their earlier question. In crisp Elven, Trella replies, "No, but my staff is." She flashes her bloody teeth and leaves talking with the drow to someone who can resist the urge to beat them into chunky salsa. The druid begins counting her injuries, stopping after six wounds. Before backing off to perform some healing on herself, she points at the newly reincarnated Andy and says, "Put some clothes on her. Or something." Her voice is equal parts suppressed pain and composed leadership. Andy inspects her new body in a state of disbelief and shock. Finally, she manages, "Whoa, I'm a chick? Whoa." She does not move or say much else for several moments, but she does ask if anyone has a mirror so she can "check out the new booty." No one offers one, as most are too busy studiously ignoring her antics. On orders from Trella, Rhien moves to destroy certain offensive items carried by the vanquished drow. The fervor with which he does so increases markedly as he watches his friends freely dispense healing. Satisfied, Trella approaches Calla, and offers a curt introduction of her own after Dobi is done with his. "Hi. I'm Trella. You're welcome." She adds a knowing smile to the third sentence that connotes a softening of her otherwise tough tone. Calla, however, remains silent, nervously watching her odd saviors. Recalling his own time in a body that was not his own, Kyree regards Andy empathically. When Andy sees the archer looking her way, she asks plainly, "Whaddaya think of the body?" It is difficult to tell if she's serious or if this is some bizarre defense mechanism brought on by shock, but she apparently expects an answer from Kyree, repeating the question when he does not immediately answer, and raising her chest for his benefit as emphasis of her need of an evaluation. Nearby, Trella contemplates beating Andy into paste. Kyree, understanding Andy's confusion, merely says, "Very nice." Andy runs over and hugs Kyree, new tears glistening in her brown eyes. "It is nice, isn't it? I always wanted to have a nice body to play with." Trella is nearly apoplectic, her flushed face adding a demonic cast to the bloody half-elf. For his part, Kyree merely looks uncomfortable. Danek watches the whole display in shock, clearly distressed by Andy's situation on multiple levels. When Andy hefts her assets, the barbarian's mouth pops open. Then she looks away and gets back to the business of healing people without a word. Cerridwin joins her, closing some of Lenara’s wounds with a song; Andy whispers, “Sweet.” Trella mutters, "Just when I thought he hit rock bottom, he starts digging…." Andy ignores her, instead starting to hum something about her being “still Andy from the block,” as she digs into the drow’s clothing, displaying in her choices what is in her mind a keen fashion sense. When she has finished dressing in a manner that manages only to cover select portions of her anatomy, she struts around the room, asking to be called "A-Lo" as a way of differentiating her old and new selves. During her circuit she runs into Quid. The Waukeenar takes Andy aside and offers him/her/it her counseling services. “At times of traumatic change like these, people often find it helps to have someone to talk to. Waukeen can help. And since you are such a friend, I'll only charge you 50 gold an hour.” Andy seems disinterested during the talk. At the end of it, Andy asks Quid, "Hey, uh, I've got a question. What do you girls do when you get that, uh, not so fresh feeling? The answer isn't gonna cost me fifty gold 'cause I'll just ask somebody else if that's the case. I mean, I feel fresh now, but what about when I don't?" Her question sounds earnest, and her eyes are full of concern. Quid nearly gives in to a fit of giggles, but manages barely to maintain her professional composure. "Well Andy, I could explain, but its only possible to do so in soft lighting while walking on a beach. I'm sorry. Was there anything else you'd like to ask me?" Andy is disappointed but does not press the point. "Nah, you're off the hook for now. Until we find a beach, at least." The monk decides she is not yet satisfied with her new look, and retreats to “perfect” it. Quid moves off to catalogue the treasure, after discussing with Kai and Trella the possibility of a brief shopping trip. The sorceress opts to deal with the captured drow first. Sitting down a safe distance from them, Kai says to the drow, "You are gracious to agree to negotiations. I apologize for the delay. Let us begin. What are the aims you hoped to achieve by ambush?" The drow look confused. "The aims should be clear. You were coming to kill us, so we tried to kill you first." Kai frowns. "Our first objective was to free your prisoner. As you cannot hope to kill us now, what are your current aims?" The drow look even more confused. One chuckles. "Not dying would be a good start." Kai smiles. "Excellent! That gives us a place to begin. For our part, we would like information about the recent drow raids on the town of Daggerdale." The drow respond, "We have nothing to do with any raids." Kai inclines her head with the faintest suggestion of sarcasm. "But do you know anything of them?" The dark elves chuckle. "I know you're probably unhappy about them." Kai purses her lips. "You say you would like not to die?" she inquires slowly. If the drow are affected by this threat, they make no indication. "Yes." "Then we require more information. If you know such raids occurred, you know who carried them out." A drow smirks. "I didn't say I knew anything about them. I just figured you wouldn't like them. You know, being all noble and all." Kai thinks about this for a while, meanwhile checking the veracity of this story with the drow she has dominated. Finding that they have lied about nothing so far, she probes further to find if they did know about the raids. Discovering that they did not know about the raids, but had known that drow had been passing by in the caverns near them, she decides that any other useful information is likelier to be had from the dominated dark elf, despite her slight distaste for the mental coercion involved. Accordingly, she changes the subject. "Where did you acquire your prisoner?" The drow looks around. "About five feet from you." Kai asks, "What did you do to her companions?" The drow smirks again, placing a delicate hand on his chest. "Me? Nothing." At this point, Calla spits at the ground. "Drow scum. Their damned demon lackeys did the deed." Hearing this, Kai raises her eyebrows at the drow. "Which demon lackeys were those?" He smirks again. "Who can keep track?" "Surely you can name any others currently in your service." He snorts. "What does it matter? Judging from the sound outside, you killed them all anyway." "Including the ones responsible for the deaths of this halfling's companions?" "Are there any alive in the outer two caverns?" Kai considers all this. "What's your purpose in having all these caverns staffed in such a welcoming manner?" The drow look at Kai like she's stupid. "Um... Not dying?" Kai returns the look. "Who are you expecting?" He responds, "Information for information, dearie. What are you doing here?" Kai returns coolly, "We also are attempting not to die. On this point, perhaps we are at an impasse. What lies further down these caverns?" He responds, "More caverns. What are you planning to do to the ones who carried out the raids, should you find them?" Kai replies carefully, "We have not discussed the issue amongst ourselves yet. We have not yet enough information about the raids' purpose." Upon a pause on his part, she adds, "Why do you want to know?" He responds quickly, "Because our interests might be aligned in this regard." As he does not continue, she nods and asks, "How so?" He replies, "That depends. What are you planning to do with the raiders?" "I have told you that we don't have enough information. Clearly we want to stop the raids." He thinks for a long moment, and then says, "If this can only be accomplished through the deaths of everyone involved, are you willing to do that?" Kai thinks this over in turn. "If that is indeed the only way, then truly we would be willing. We are aware, however, that it might be beyond our means, and would seek another solution. For instance, the chain of command that led to the raids would be one place to start, rather than mass slaughter." He nods. "Good enough. Killing the chain of command would suit us just fine." Trella listens, with various degrees of interest, to the series of peculiar and truly bizarre exchanges. Pulling Kai aside out of earshot of the drow, but not too far, she says, "No alliances with drow ever benefit anyone but the drow. They're telling the truth, fine, I believe them. It sounds to me like we've stumbled into some underdark power struggle. I doubt our boys in Daggerdale will be real happy if we tell them we left any drow down here, and I don't think that's a great idea anyway given the way these jerks have a tendency to ambush the surface when it suits them. If you want to release these guys as killing them presents a moral dilemma, okay, but I think we should find our own answers elsewhere." After some thought, she says, "See if this is some kind of house against house turf war." Pausing, Trella gets a sour look on her face. "On second thought, I don't really care one way or another, but they might so ask anyway." Kyree offers, "We can always tie them to a tree...."* Kai listens to Trella, stifles a chuckle at Kyree's remark, and returns to her questioning. The drow smirks at her. "Have a nice discussion?" one asks snidely. Kai's fake smile belongs on a game show. "Surely. But I'd rather talk about you. Why do you want the raiders dead?" The drow's face hardens. "Why does it matter? We're evil, right?" Kai presses, "Is it some inter-house turf war?" "In a manner of speaking." "And what manner would that be?" "A loose one." "Care to enlighten us?" "Not particularly." "What if we said it was necessary for our cooperation?" "I'd say you were lying. I'd say you would fight the raiders regardless of what I say." One drow turns to the other, their fingers moving rapidly in a silent speech. The other says, "But there's no harm in telling you, is there? After all, you can always pull out the information from our weak-willed companion, can't you?" Kai says nothing, drumming her fingers lightly against the ground. After a sufficiently long pause, one of the drow speaks again. "Very well, maintain your facade. We are drow of Lolth, loyal to her always. We have little need to raid your pathetic surface dwellings; they are simply beneath us. The raiders follow the White Banshee, Kiaransalee. They were...lucky...and managed to take control of our ancestral home, Szith Morcane. We are House Morcane, and we will take it back." Kai nods. "We must verify that your enemies are indeed the raiders. Why does the Banshee order the raids?" The drow scowl. "How should we know? As we said, we're not involved." Dobi is still in some sort of denial, and is willfully ignoring the new Andy. Fortunately, the interchange between Kai and the drow reminds him that he does indeed speak elvish. Before addressing the drow, Dobi says to the huddle, "I feel 'tis best to pursue this while limiting bloodshed to the drow to only when necessary. I have known drow that can be quite honorable. Perhaps, if we could get to the root cause of this internecine dispute, we may be able to resolve the raids without having to personally cleanse the underdark of all its denizens, and instead root out the perpetrators. "In any case, we still need information out of them. I want to play good cop if someone wants to help me out…." *Tying to a tree was the proposed solution of a priest of Lathander that Khail's player earlier ran.  When it was pointed out to him that this was more inhumane than simply killing the bad guy, he offerred to put food next to him.  We still find this funny years later.To be continued shortly....</blockquote>

Verification