The issue of the Oddcog
All in all, the opera seems to be a big success though not everyone in the audience seems to have completely grasped the meaning of the story. Carlyle congratulates Auryn on this perfect premiere, even if she's a bit skeptical herself, finding flaws in her performance where no one else would see them.
She explains that she's still far from the levels of Navras or even Vekesh and even asked herself whether she'd disgraced these two great artists with her mediocre art. After all, Navras managed to have a whole audience in tears before he disappeared, she says. Carlyle tells her that, while in his opinion, this is all pretty much nonsense, she could try to watch the audience's responses more closely next time and try to figure out what works for them and what doesn't. He himself is no tearful man, so crying at a performance is not in his usual repertoire, even if he found her songs touching.
(She's totally projecting the lack of understanding onto herself and her performance. Also she's a bit pricked that this damn Carlyle obviously didn't realize that she took inspiration from his own character and made that big of a statement in front of everyone.
Well... I guess he did realize it indeed but didn't know how to handle it.)
Some time later, we receive an emergency call from Slate where we're asked to come to the capital immediately as they just got more information on Tinker Oddcog's whereabouts. So we take Chief inspector Delft and our luggage and teleport to Slate where we're already expected and brought to Torfield Palace. This time, we partake in a more official council meeting with Price-Hill, Harkover Lee and King Aodhan.
Lee starts the meeting by handing out copies of a newspaper article from Ber, written by reporter Melissa Amarie. She writes that Bruse Shantus recently employed a strange person named Tinker Oddcog as head of his arms development team, a mechanic with dubious reputation. She finds this troubling news indeed as there are rumors that this Oddcog was involved in building the ginormous metal colossus that threatened to devastate Flint a few weeks ago.
We find these news to be pretty surprising and Lee snarkily reminds both Delft and Price-Hill that it is kind of embarrassing to find that some young half-orc is doing a better job at gathering critical information than the RHC. Both men seem embarrassed indeed and admit that they couldn't find any trace of said engineer. Fortunately, it seems as if the Danorans got the memo only recently as well as the Lux Profectusque left for Ber and arrived in Seobriga two days ago.
We guess that this means Lya Jierre will be involved in finding Tinker Oddcog as well and that her presence in Seobriga might complicate things a lot. Especially as we don't know whether she's trying to find Tinker Oddcog for the Danorans or for the Obscurati. So King Aodhan asks us to find out more about Lya's motives, assess the situation in Seobriga and try to question the gnome ourselves. After all, getting more information on Borne and how to stop him is critical.
Regarding Lya, we discuss whether keeping good relations to her and Danor should have priority during this mission or whether it'd be more important to get Tinker's information at any cost. King Aodhan seems to trust our diplomatic instincts in this case, but he's leaning a bit towards getting our hands on Oddcog. He also mentions that we're free to parley with Bruse Shantus and may offer him good deals should he be willing to hand over the gnome. Still we should try to not rub the whole Ob story under his nose right now.
Price-Hill has some older information on Tinker Oddcog as well and it turns out that this guy had originally tried to get a job as chief engineer of the Slate Subway system. He didn't get the appointment though and strange accidents happened afterward, so the whole project got cancelled eventually.
(during all these talks Carlyle pretty much always dryly spoke of “the Oddcog” or “his Oddcog” regarding Shantus which made the situation utterly hilarious. In the end, both Tiz and me ended up laughing loudly whenever he returned the subject to the gnome.)
In terms of Shantus and getting the Bruse's ear, Harkover Lee warns us that the minotaur is kind of eccentric and doesn't like giving audiences. So while he might seem to be accessible while being at his summer court, he prefers watching games to governance. Which is why getting an audience with the Bruse usually includes a long waiting time. What's making matters worse is the fact that the Bruse has come under pressure lately as he's on bad terms with his former companion, Cavallo de Guerra who he might see as a rival to his rightful claim on beran authority. On top of this, the gnolls to the south are (still? Again?) in open rebellion against the government. Oh and did he mention that we may not use our standard diplomatic channels because the official ambassador of Risur died recently and his position is still vacant?
The latter fact is bad news indeed as we have very little knowledge of beran politics (our aliases Amira and Hector Fernandez had no political background at all) and we really need someone to introduce us to the court. So we discuss our options and come up with three names: Pemberton, Brakken Heffanita and Francis Fordren.
Pemberton may be the easy choice as he's basically a Risuri and helped us with the Mad King debacle, plus he has shown interest of expanding to or investing in Ber. Still we barely know him and he's a businessman, so he'll need some incentive to help us.
Heffanita brings the benefits of being from Ber and also being known as a diplomat. We know him quite well and we helped his niece, Wolmi, so he might be easily swayed to help us out. Still, we already used his family's contacts excessively and don't wish to pile on too much debt with a foreign diplomat who may or may not have his very own agenda.
And then there's Fordren, who already established contacts in Ber and may be eccentric enough to help us out simply because a certain Eladrin asks him for help – something that would be very surprising and therefore exciting. Still, he's... Fordren and Auryn would only agree to this plan if he was the best choice.
So we decide that Heffanita might be the best option after all and also agree that the Bruse might be interested in a bunch of colorful newcomers to his court. Newcomers, which include a deva (a rare sight in Ber), an eladrin women (again, rare), and a faerie dragon (cute miniature tyrant?). We also decide to take Margit and Burton with us, as the goblin will stick out very little compared to us and Margit is... well, she's our dear, reliable Margit.
All in all, the opera seems to be a big success though not everyone in the audience seems to have completely grasped the meaning of the story. Carlyle congratulates Auryn on this perfect premiere, even if she's a bit skeptical herself, finding flaws in her performance where no one else would see them.
She explains that she's still far from the levels of Navras or even Vekesh and even asked herself whether she'd disgraced these two great artists with her mediocre art. After all, Navras managed to have a whole audience in tears before he disappeared, she says. Carlyle tells her that, while in his opinion, this is all pretty much nonsense, she could try to watch the audience's responses more closely next time and try to figure out what works for them and what doesn't. He himself is no tearful man, so crying at a performance is not in his usual repertoire, even if he found her songs touching.
(She's totally projecting the lack of understanding onto herself and her performance. Also she's a bit pricked that this damn Carlyle obviously didn't realize that she took inspiration from his own character and made that big of a statement in front of everyone.
Well... I guess he did realize it indeed but didn't know how to handle it.)
Some time later, we receive an emergency call from Slate where we're asked to come to the capital immediately as they just got more information on Tinker Oddcog's whereabouts. So we take Chief inspector Delft and our luggage and teleport to Slate where we're already expected and brought to Torfield Palace. This time, we partake in a more official council meeting with Price-Hill, Harkover Lee and King Aodhan.
Lee starts the meeting by handing out copies of a newspaper article from Ber, written by reporter Melissa Amarie. She writes that Bruse Shantus recently employed a strange person named Tinker Oddcog as head of his arms development team, a mechanic with dubious reputation. She finds this troubling news indeed as there are rumors that this Oddcog was involved in building the ginormous metal colossus that threatened to devastate Flint a few weeks ago.
We find these news to be pretty surprising and Lee snarkily reminds both Delft and Price-Hill that it is kind of embarrassing to find that some young half-orc is doing a better job at gathering critical information than the RHC. Both men seem embarrassed indeed and admit that they couldn't find any trace of said engineer. Fortunately, it seems as if the Danorans got the memo only recently as well as the Lux Profectusque left for Ber and arrived in Seobriga two days ago.
We guess that this means Lya Jierre will be involved in finding Tinker Oddcog as well and that her presence in Seobriga might complicate things a lot. Especially as we don't know whether she's trying to find Tinker Oddcog for the Danorans or for the Obscurati. So King Aodhan asks us to find out more about Lya's motives, assess the situation in Seobriga and try to question the gnome ourselves. After all, getting more information on Borne and how to stop him is critical.
Regarding Lya, we discuss whether keeping good relations to her and Danor should have priority during this mission or whether it'd be more important to get Tinker's information at any cost. King Aodhan seems to trust our diplomatic instincts in this case, but he's leaning a bit towards getting our hands on Oddcog. He also mentions that we're free to parley with Bruse Shantus and may offer him good deals should he be willing to hand over the gnome. Still we should try to not rub the whole Ob story under his nose right now.
Price-Hill has some older information on Tinker Oddcog as well and it turns out that this guy had originally tried to get a job as chief engineer of the Slate Subway system. He didn't get the appointment though and strange accidents happened afterward, so the whole project got cancelled eventually.
(during all these talks Carlyle pretty much always dryly spoke of “the Oddcog” or “his Oddcog” regarding Shantus which made the situation utterly hilarious. In the end, both Tiz and me ended up laughing loudly whenever he returned the subject to the gnome.)
In terms of Shantus and getting the Bruse's ear, Harkover Lee warns us that the minotaur is kind of eccentric and doesn't like giving audiences. So while he might seem to be accessible while being at his summer court, he prefers watching games to governance. Which is why getting an audience with the Bruse usually includes a long waiting time. What's making matters worse is the fact that the Bruse has come under pressure lately as he's on bad terms with his former companion, Cavallo de Guerra who he might see as a rival to his rightful claim on beran authority. On top of this, the gnolls to the south are (still? Again?) in open rebellion against the government. Oh and did he mention that we may not use our standard diplomatic channels because the official ambassador of Risur died recently and his position is still vacant?
The latter fact is bad news indeed as we have very little knowledge of beran politics (our aliases Amira and Hector Fernandez had no political background at all) and we really need someone to introduce us to the court. So we discuss our options and come up with three names: Pemberton, Brakken Heffanita and Francis Fordren.
Pemberton may be the easy choice as he's basically a Risuri and helped us with the Mad King debacle, plus he has shown interest of expanding to or investing in Ber. Still we barely know him and he's a businessman, so he'll need some incentive to help us.
Heffanita brings the benefits of being from Ber and also being known as a diplomat. We know him quite well and we helped his niece, Wolmi, so he might be easily swayed to help us out. Still, we already used his family's contacts excessively and don't wish to pile on too much debt with a foreign diplomat who may or may not have his very own agenda.
And then there's Fordren, who already established contacts in Ber and may be eccentric enough to help us out simply because a certain Eladrin asks him for help – something that would be very surprising and therefore exciting. Still, he's... Fordren and Auryn would only agree to this plan if he was the best choice.
So we decide that Heffanita might be the best option after all and also agree that the Bruse might be interested in a bunch of colorful newcomers to his court. Newcomers, which include a deva (a rare sight in Ber), an eladrin women (again, rare), and a faerie dragon (cute miniature tyrant?). We also decide to take Margit and Burton with us, as the goblin will stick out very little compared to us and Margit is... well, she's our dear, reliable Margit.