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<blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 7586104" data-attributes="member: 6816692"><p><strong>To the summer court</strong></p><p></p><p>We soon reunite with Brakken in the embassy and ask him to accompany us to the summer court despite what happened earlier. We tell him about this mysterious Joe Pena guy who might be either targeting us specifically or anyone interested in Tinker Oddcog in general. Brakken replies that he hadn't heard of this name before, so he might either be a foreign agent or someone who got added to the Bruse's paycheck only recently.</p><p></p><p>As the summer court is a few days of travel from Seobriga, we buy some horses and ride. The road leads us through a really beautiful countryside full of vineyards (a truly pleasant sight for Carlyle) and finally to an ancient forest. There, we suddenly hear the distant stomping of multiple hooves. A quick glance through our spyglass reveals that we're being approached by a stampede of giant goats, followed by a flock of (medium sized) flying pterodactyls.</p><p></p><p>We don't wish to commit senseless slaughter of beran wildlife, so we decide to hide behind one of the massive trees. To prevent parts of the stampede from approaching our tree, Carlyle also places an illusion in front of the tree which makes it seem like it is lit with fire. The plan seem to work smoothly as the goats and pterodactyls avoid the burning tree. We then spot the reason for the two stampedes as two tyrannosaurs appear behind the fleeing animals, seemingly hungry for fresh goat. The carnivorous dinosaurs appear a bit irritated by the burning tree, but decide to ignore it in the end and continue to chase their prey. </p><p></p><p>As if that all hasn't been weird enough, we then see an equally irritated half-orc following the tyrannosaur's trail. A closer look at this guy reveals that he is none else but one of the two personal bodyguards of Lya Jierre we've met on Axis Island. So we leave or fiery hideout to approach the man and ask him what the heck he might be doing here.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, the guy isn't really here for the talks as we're immediately attacked by swings of his massive shockwave-gavel. During his mad attacks, he throws curses at us and accuses us of burning down an orphanage full of innocent kids. Carlyle dodges his shockwaves while we both try to argue that we don't wish to fight him and wouldn't even think of harming orphans. After all, we just risked our lives to lure a massive adamantine titan out of Flint. </p><p></p><p>Bit by bit, the still raging Merton Goncala spills out that his mistress, Lya Jierre, just told him a few minutes ago that we are dangerous, heartless criminals who deserve to be killed. Which sounds completely nuts since we're in the middle of a long forest road to the summer court with no Lya Jierre in sight. Merton slowly realizes that something about his perception is quite not right and we use this cognitive dissonance to convince him to lower his weapon. Auryn carefully explains that she's quite sure that someone messed up his memories, something we've seen recently with agents from Crisillyir. She then dispels the strongest of the confusing magics lingering in Merton's mind, but states that someone would have to go deeper to set his memories straight. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(She avoided to mention that this sort of memory-altering is totally in her own repertoire as she didn't wish to open up another can of worms. Sorry, Merton.)</span></p><p></p><p>We talk a bit to the now less-confused Merton, who now understands that something wasn't right and still isn't right. He does remember speaking to a shadowy, orcish looking figure named Joe Pena though. Being good allies to Lya, we offer Merton to accompany us to the summer court and back to Lya's tent. </p><p></p><p>It takes us quite a while to finally arrive at the huge area of the Bruse's summer court. We are surprised to see such a tremendous amount of tents which make the fields looks like one giant fair ground. Brakken leads the way to the secretary of registration who handles all the visitor's issues. The guy seems pretty organized and allocates an uninhabited tent plus a personal servant named Korken to our group. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(We had a good laugh at the puns resulting from the fact that "Korken" simply means "cork" in German.)</span></p><p></p><p>After we dropped our baggage in the tent's storage, we escort Merton Goncala to Lya Jierre's tent. Fortunately, the half-orc still remembers the correct path through this jungle of courtiers and petitioners. On our way, we coincidentally come across a tent bearing the Fordren Industries sigil. To our surprise, Francis Fordren is sitting in front of said tent where he's roasting marshmallows with an orcish looking business partner. This whole scene appears totally bizarre, but we're polite enough to exchange a short welcome phrase. </p><p></p><p>“Well, he's always been quite the eccentric...” Auryn whispers as soon as we're outside of the man's hearing range while Carlyle takes one last turn to signal the gleefully munching industrialist that he's got an eye on him.</p><p></p><p>We soon arrive at Lya's tent where an annoyed looking half-elf wearing a large tattoo is looking curiously at Merton's entourage. We ask the guy who calls himself Rush Munchhausen to talk to Lya Jierre as we just found her second bodyguard under strange circumstances and would like to return him safely to his employer. Rush seems pretty much amused by Merton's mishap, asks for Lya and leads us inside. </p><p></p><p>Said Lya Jierre seems quite glad to see Merton returned to her without any scratch when we tell her what happened after we dodged the stampede. We explain that Merton's memories got most likely altered by a powerful spell we cannot dispel without possibly harming his psyche, so we decided to bring him back to her, who might have more resources available. Lya takes Merton to another compartment, exchanges some whispers with another person who appears to cast a silence on their part of the tent. </p><p></p><p>It takes a while and Lya returns, seemingly relieved that dear Merton is alright. We hint that his attacks at us had been quite forceful and furious which is why Mr. Goncala can call himself lucky to have clashed with people like us who can quickly identify a muddled mind. Other agents might have just taken him for an aggressive opponent and struck him down. We then explain that there have been other agents indeed who had been put under a similar spell as well. So we ask Lya whether someone might have tried to attack her in a similar manner during her supposed search for Tinker Oddcog. </p><p></p><p>Lya is a bit surprised when we mention the gnome, but confirms that Oddcog is indeed the reason why she's here, too. She hadn't been subject to attacks though and hasn't heard of the name Joe Pena before. We ask her about the status of her audience request as we've heard that getting one is quite the tricky task, but she's unusually hushed about this topic. She agrees that getting an audience with Bruse Shantus isn't easy though. </p><p></p><p>We then try to convince her that both of our teams are here for the same reason: to get information from this Tinker Oddcog so we might understand more about the construction of this Colossus who's currently walking through the Dreaming. So we'd like to propose joining forces and sharing information with her as both Danor and Risur are surely eager to know whether Borne got any weaknesses or how he could be disassembled. And doing a joint venture mission right now would be a huge step towards a lasting peace on top of that. </p><p></p><p>Lya gets even more reserved in reaction to our proposal. She states that she's got her orders and that she cannot disobey them. We add that Sovereign Han Jierre will surely be still interested in forging a common future with Risur, so questioning Tinker Oddcog while the other party is present will surely be no problem for two nations growing together, right? That's at least King Aodhan's, her still-fiancee's stance on this subject, we explain. On top of that, we fear that the emergence and threat of Borne has caused and will continue to cause an arms race between the nations, a race which could threaten to ignite a worldwide conflict. </p><p></p><p>As Lya refuses to open up even the tiniest bits to our proposals, Carlyle sighs and addresses her in all of his bluntest honesty:</p><p></p><p>“Listen, we're not forced to offer you these obvious signs of our goodwill. We're personally interested in a lasting peace and we respect you as the intelligent person you are. So of course, you don't have to ally with us. But I'd at least take our offer into serious consideration and to do so soon as we've been quite successful in terms of getting crucial information in the past. Fighting on your own won't yield better results.” </p><p></p><p>We then bid ourselves farewell and leave a note directing to our own tent at court. After leaving Lya's tent, we're both pretty surprised by her buttoned-up demeanor after we got along pretty well in the past and she hadn't been shy about stating her interests either. So we guess that the Sovereign might not be as serious about Lya's plans for peace after all. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(That talk with Lya was quite the bummer and we were pretty sure that she was under some serious pressure to get Tinker exclusively. We just hoped that the reason behind all that was domestic danoran politics and not some Obs mingling for she'd been seriously shocked after witnessing Borne's rampage and learning that the Obs had been behind all this. Oh how little did we know...)</span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p>After our not-so successful talks with the Danorans, we take a stroll to the playgrounds of the court to watch a game of archery. The last two contestants are a half-giant and what appears to be a half-dragon (or a dragonborn with a very strong draconic bloodline) who are heavily drunk and quite bad at hitting their mark. The rest of the crowd is busy drinking as well, so we guess the whole “competition” is nothing but an alibi event for binge drinking. </p><p></p><p>“Not what I'd expected. The competitors in the husband's selections had much more skill and finesse. It was a whole different level.” Auryn says while sounding quite disappointed. </p><p></p><p>“The...what?” asks Carlyle, his eyes wide open with bewilderment. </p><p></p><p>“The competitors. Men who competed to be chosen as an esteemed husband. Some of their feats are quite legendary. Did you know that there had been an extraordinary archer who managed to pierce a fish's eye with a ricochet?” </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(A cookie for those who get the reference <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> )</span></p><p></p><p>“Isn't this... tradition both archaic and... degrading for the participants?”</p><p></p><p>Now it is Auryn who's looking seemingly confused at Carlyle.</p><p></p><p>“Why would it? It is like sports. Followed by tests of wits, discipline and performance. And it is a great honor to be chosen.” </p><p></p><p>“What would you say if they'd let you and your cousins compete for the hand of a legendary warrior like, say, Asrabey?”</p><p></p><p>“Don't be absurd. Why would there be any reason for doing so?” Auryn answers, totally not seeing any equivalency here. So Carlyle just shrugs it off and adds that he, at least, would never act as a competitor in such an event. Now Auryn grins in response as she finally catches his train of thoughts. She understands that this would be a strange situation indeed and adds that there's really no need for him to be subjected to such a challenge.</p><p></p><p>We continue our stroll and are soon approached by a gnoll in colorful robes who takes interest in our faerie dragon colleague. He nods his head with a grin and introduces himself as Pardo, the minister of rebellion, who is pleased to be in the presence of the small brethren of the most majestic draco nobilis. He hasn't seen any creature like Flying Spark before, so Auryn takes this as a pretext for explaining the similarities of the ecology of the Faerie Dragon and the Eladrin as a result of being close to or living in the Dreaming. </p><p></p><p>“...so as you can see, the Dragon Tyrants of old are indeed related to a Faerie Dragon like our colleague Flying Spark.”</p><p></p><p>“Fascinating. Trrruly fascinating. I hope you pay your master the rrrrespect he deserrrves” says Pardo before he bows to Flying Spark and excuses himself. </p><p></p><p>Needless to say that Flying Spark is all over the moon while we try to get as much distance between the strange gnoll and the Faerie Dragon. We really don't wish to cause a diplomatic scandal by having our fellow agent taken away and revered as a dragon god or so. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(“Risuri agent taking over rebellious dragon cult” really wouldn't be the best of headlines...) </span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lylandra, post: 7586104, member: 6816692"] [b]To the summer court[/b] We soon reunite with Brakken in the embassy and ask him to accompany us to the summer court despite what happened earlier. We tell him about this mysterious Joe Pena guy who might be either targeting us specifically or anyone interested in Tinker Oddcog in general. Brakken replies that he hadn't heard of this name before, so he might either be a foreign agent or someone who got added to the Bruse's paycheck only recently. As the summer court is a few days of travel from Seobriga, we buy some horses and ride. The road leads us through a really beautiful countryside full of vineyards (a truly pleasant sight for Carlyle) and finally to an ancient forest. There, we suddenly hear the distant stomping of multiple hooves. A quick glance through our spyglass reveals that we're being approached by a stampede of giant goats, followed by a flock of (medium sized) flying pterodactyls. We don't wish to commit senseless slaughter of beran wildlife, so we decide to hide behind one of the massive trees. To prevent parts of the stampede from approaching our tree, Carlyle also places an illusion in front of the tree which makes it seem like it is lit with fire. The plan seem to work smoothly as the goats and pterodactyls avoid the burning tree. We then spot the reason for the two stampedes as two tyrannosaurs appear behind the fleeing animals, seemingly hungry for fresh goat. The carnivorous dinosaurs appear a bit irritated by the burning tree, but decide to ignore it in the end and continue to chase their prey. As if that all hasn't been weird enough, we then see an equally irritated half-orc following the tyrannosaur's trail. A closer look at this guy reveals that he is none else but one of the two personal bodyguards of Lya Jierre we've met on Axis Island. So we leave or fiery hideout to approach the man and ask him what the heck he might be doing here. Unfortunately, the guy isn't really here for the talks as we're immediately attacked by swings of his massive shockwave-gavel. During his mad attacks, he throws curses at us and accuses us of burning down an orphanage full of innocent kids. Carlyle dodges his shockwaves while we both try to argue that we don't wish to fight him and wouldn't even think of harming orphans. After all, we just risked our lives to lure a massive adamantine titan out of Flint. Bit by bit, the still raging Merton Goncala spills out that his mistress, Lya Jierre, just told him a few minutes ago that we are dangerous, heartless criminals who deserve to be killed. Which sounds completely nuts since we're in the middle of a long forest road to the summer court with no Lya Jierre in sight. Merton slowly realizes that something about his perception is quite not right and we use this cognitive dissonance to convince him to lower his weapon. Auryn carefully explains that she's quite sure that someone messed up his memories, something we've seen recently with agents from Crisillyir. She then dispels the strongest of the confusing magics lingering in Merton's mind, but states that someone would have to go deeper to set his memories straight. [COLOR="#008000"](She avoided to mention that this sort of memory-altering is totally in her own repertoire as she didn't wish to open up another can of worms. Sorry, Merton.)[/COLOR] We talk a bit to the now less-confused Merton, who now understands that something wasn't right and still isn't right. He does remember speaking to a shadowy, orcish looking figure named Joe Pena though. Being good allies to Lya, we offer Merton to accompany us to the summer court and back to Lya's tent. It takes us quite a while to finally arrive at the huge area of the Bruse's summer court. We are surprised to see such a tremendous amount of tents which make the fields looks like one giant fair ground. Brakken leads the way to the secretary of registration who handles all the visitor's issues. The guy seems pretty organized and allocates an uninhabited tent plus a personal servant named Korken to our group. [COLOR="#008000"](We had a good laugh at the puns resulting from the fact that "Korken" simply means "cork" in German.)[/COLOR] After we dropped our baggage in the tent's storage, we escort Merton Goncala to Lya Jierre's tent. Fortunately, the half-orc still remembers the correct path through this jungle of courtiers and petitioners. On our way, we coincidentally come across a tent bearing the Fordren Industries sigil. To our surprise, Francis Fordren is sitting in front of said tent where he's roasting marshmallows with an orcish looking business partner. This whole scene appears totally bizarre, but we're polite enough to exchange a short welcome phrase. “Well, he's always been quite the eccentric...” Auryn whispers as soon as we're outside of the man's hearing range while Carlyle takes one last turn to signal the gleefully munching industrialist that he's got an eye on him. We soon arrive at Lya's tent where an annoyed looking half-elf wearing a large tattoo is looking curiously at Merton's entourage. We ask the guy who calls himself Rush Munchhausen to talk to Lya Jierre as we just found her second bodyguard under strange circumstances and would like to return him safely to his employer. Rush seems pretty much amused by Merton's mishap, asks for Lya and leads us inside. Said Lya Jierre seems quite glad to see Merton returned to her without any scratch when we tell her what happened after we dodged the stampede. We explain that Merton's memories got most likely altered by a powerful spell we cannot dispel without possibly harming his psyche, so we decided to bring him back to her, who might have more resources available. Lya takes Merton to another compartment, exchanges some whispers with another person who appears to cast a silence on their part of the tent. It takes a while and Lya returns, seemingly relieved that dear Merton is alright. We hint that his attacks at us had been quite forceful and furious which is why Mr. Goncala can call himself lucky to have clashed with people like us who can quickly identify a muddled mind. Other agents might have just taken him for an aggressive opponent and struck him down. We then explain that there have been other agents indeed who had been put under a similar spell as well. So we ask Lya whether someone might have tried to attack her in a similar manner during her supposed search for Tinker Oddcog. Lya is a bit surprised when we mention the gnome, but confirms that Oddcog is indeed the reason why she's here, too. She hadn't been subject to attacks though and hasn't heard of the name Joe Pena before. We ask her about the status of her audience request as we've heard that getting one is quite the tricky task, but she's unusually hushed about this topic. She agrees that getting an audience with Bruse Shantus isn't easy though. We then try to convince her that both of our teams are here for the same reason: to get information from this Tinker Oddcog so we might understand more about the construction of this Colossus who's currently walking through the Dreaming. So we'd like to propose joining forces and sharing information with her as both Danor and Risur are surely eager to know whether Borne got any weaknesses or how he could be disassembled. And doing a joint venture mission right now would be a huge step towards a lasting peace on top of that. Lya gets even more reserved in reaction to our proposal. She states that she's got her orders and that she cannot disobey them. We add that Sovereign Han Jierre will surely be still interested in forging a common future with Risur, so questioning Tinker Oddcog while the other party is present will surely be no problem for two nations growing together, right? That's at least King Aodhan's, her still-fiancee's stance on this subject, we explain. On top of that, we fear that the emergence and threat of Borne has caused and will continue to cause an arms race between the nations, a race which could threaten to ignite a worldwide conflict. As Lya refuses to open up even the tiniest bits to our proposals, Carlyle sighs and addresses her in all of his bluntest honesty: “Listen, we're not forced to offer you these obvious signs of our goodwill. We're personally interested in a lasting peace and we respect you as the intelligent person you are. So of course, you don't have to ally with us. But I'd at least take our offer into serious consideration and to do so soon as we've been quite successful in terms of getting crucial information in the past. Fighting on your own won't yield better results.” We then bid ourselves farewell and leave a note directing to our own tent at court. After leaving Lya's tent, we're both pretty surprised by her buttoned-up demeanor after we got along pretty well in the past and she hadn't been shy about stating her interests either. So we guess that the Sovereign might not be as serious about Lya's plans for peace after all. [COLOR="#008000"](That talk with Lya was quite the bummer and we were pretty sure that she was under some serious pressure to get Tinker exclusively. We just hoped that the reason behind all that was domestic danoran politics and not some Obs mingling for she'd been seriously shocked after witnessing Borne's rampage and learning that the Obs had been behind all this. Oh how little did we know...) [/COLOR] After our not-so successful talks with the Danorans, we take a stroll to the playgrounds of the court to watch a game of archery. The last two contestants are a half-giant and what appears to be a half-dragon (or a dragonborn with a very strong draconic bloodline) who are heavily drunk and quite bad at hitting their mark. The rest of the crowd is busy drinking as well, so we guess the whole “competition” is nothing but an alibi event for binge drinking. “Not what I'd expected. The competitors in the husband's selections had much more skill and finesse. It was a whole different level.” Auryn says while sounding quite disappointed. “The...what?” asks Carlyle, his eyes wide open with bewilderment. “The competitors. Men who competed to be chosen as an esteemed husband. Some of their feats are quite legendary. Did you know that there had been an extraordinary archer who managed to pierce a fish's eye with a ricochet?” [COLOR="#008000"](A cookie for those who get the reference :) )[/COLOR] “Isn't this... tradition both archaic and... degrading for the participants?” Now it is Auryn who's looking seemingly confused at Carlyle. “Why would it? It is like sports. Followed by tests of wits, discipline and performance. And it is a great honor to be chosen.” “What would you say if they'd let you and your cousins compete for the hand of a legendary warrior like, say, Asrabey?” “Don't be absurd. Why would there be any reason for doing so?” Auryn answers, totally not seeing any equivalency here. So Carlyle just shrugs it off and adds that he, at least, would never act as a competitor in such an event. Now Auryn grins in response as she finally catches his train of thoughts. She understands that this would be a strange situation indeed and adds that there's really no need for him to be subjected to such a challenge. We continue our stroll and are soon approached by a gnoll in colorful robes who takes interest in our faerie dragon colleague. He nods his head with a grin and introduces himself as Pardo, the minister of rebellion, who is pleased to be in the presence of the small brethren of the most majestic draco nobilis. He hasn't seen any creature like Flying Spark before, so Auryn takes this as a pretext for explaining the similarities of the ecology of the Faerie Dragon and the Eladrin as a result of being close to or living in the Dreaming. “...so as you can see, the Dragon Tyrants of old are indeed related to a Faerie Dragon like our colleague Flying Spark.” “Fascinating. Trrruly fascinating. I hope you pay your master the rrrrespect he deserrrves” says Pardo before he bows to Flying Spark and excuses himself. Needless to say that Flying Spark is all over the moon while we try to get as much distance between the strange gnoll and the Faerie Dragon. We really don't wish to cause a diplomatic scandal by having our fellow agent taken away and revered as a dragon god or so. [COLOR="#008000"](“Risuri agent taking over rebellious dragon cult” really wouldn't be the best of headlines...) [/COLOR] [/QUOTE]
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