To Con the Con-man

[HolyMan]

This is a low level game that is linked to my Off to War campaign. And as I have to be at work in 6 hours I am not going to do much but get the ball rolling and hope the two starting PC's can RP for a day or two.

Anyone wishing to join in with their own 1st lvl PC please feel free to pm me for now I will post links tomorrow night.

Ok [MENTION=99953]Zerith[/MENTION] and [MENTION=93196]Axel[/MENTION] this will be your game and it should run till Key to Victory is over and help you level up enough to catch some of the players on that group.

HM

 

[HolyMan]

The dwarf stares at the young nobleman a long moment. His bushy eyebrows turned down to help with the scowl on his face.

"Guess'n ye don't tink ye are in hot water do ya boy?" Martomum asks but continues on like he doesn't exspect or want an answer.

"Dat mage don't do ye or the gnolls a favor just den. He might just 'ad sealed theirs and your doom. Alden! Alden!" the dwarf's voice booms. "Where is dat lazy guid fir no ting man. Alden!" Martomum shouts once more.

[sblock=Axel] Please post up a description of your character answering the dwarfs call. You were assigned to this duty as it is considered the lowest of the low. You have been a messenger mostly as you have a mount and make the trip fast between camps. I will brief you more when I figure out more. [/sblock]

 

[Zerith]

[sblock=Silence broken!] Monologue Mode: ON!!! XD [/sblock]

Truthfully, Alexander knew that how Dellex left could have gone far better. And while he was tempted to also cover his nose in some manner, he did not; it could be seen as a sign of weakness…. And he would have to get use to the stench sooner or later; he thought of it as getting use to the smell of horses, all, over, again.
After dismounting while Dellex left, Alexander neared the dwarf and entered the shade of the tree; he held the reins of his horse while he aproched, he did not pout it past the Gnolls to take it and eat it if he left it unattended just yet.
He walked up to Martomum until he was almost looming over the dwarf, it was not so much Alexander choosing to impose, but Alexander was tall for a human and Martomum was, well, a dwarf; then again the dwarf was at ease around Gnolls that made Alexander look short, and so Alexander could only assume raw size was about as intimidating to Martomum as it was to himself. So he considered it a nonissue.
[sblock=The tree] in the thread this Is continuing from Martomum was in the shadow of a tree (along with several resting Gnolls) and I’me keeping that in mind with this post ^_^ [/sblock]


Then he and the dwarf had a bit of a stare down; it was much more literally for Alexander who stood at six feet three inches tall, or a full six four when he had his boots on; they were comfortably padded.
Alexander was rather at ease: his black and golden hair (that formed into feather like locks came black out of the roots, made a golden vee shape, as in most feather patterns and then turned strat back to clack without any gradation.) framed his face and casted a shadow over his face, in addition to the shadow that the tree was casting onto both him and the dwarf. The only features that priced the shadow were his eyes, or more accurately his golden inner irises that gave off a metallic glint.
One could feel his content smugness through his gaze as if he was giving off some kind of demented monologue.


Martomum then talked to Alexander and called for his aid, or so Alexander assumed.
And the truth was Alexander had a not so slight addition to language; and being able to talk to someone in their native language at the drop of a hat; that was something he was prideful in.
“Yah, I can zee he just uzed me as a chezz piece to bump you about; but do tell, about how far did you punt hiz Familiar to make him, zomeone who’ I don’t think is ztupid, foolizhly remove a commander that is rezpected by des troops for a loud mouth vho he haz juzt meet?” Alex began in Dwarven while rising a questioning brow as he grinned and briefly glanced in the direction Dellex left.
Martomum likely noticed that, while Alexander fully grasped the basics of Dwarven, and likely understood it fully, he either picked up an agonizingly heavy accent with distant influences from his teacher when he learned the language or something else to that effect.

“It seems a bit Daft to change a command while the only seen quality in the new, inexperienced, commander is being able to, literally bark orders and get regulars to march off in a fit.” Alexander then commented in common; the dwarf was going to learn the long winded way that whenever the conversation was in Alexander’s hands, it stayed there until he stopped throttling it, and to remove the need of Martomum asking if Alexander could even speak Gnoll he simply continued in it “And yet, he saw fit to replace thee with me at first opportunity; I sense political jockeying at work… and only a few possible ways for it to play out in his favor.” Alexander yapped, very onwards smugly at the tail end


Still not giving Martomum a chance to reply Alexander Monologged onwards in Dwarven “Und do tell me alzo, vhat vaz him, Moondancer, doing vith vound in das camp?” Changing laugages yet again Alexander decided to give the dwarf a chance to speak and spoke what little he would untill the dwarf had time to answer.
[FONT=&quot]“The day just gets more and more interesting; and there might be more left to happen, but I must admit, if I am to not make the Gnolls see me as a pawn to be ate I will be needing some wisdom from you.” Alexander ended, again in common, and gave Martomum a chance to, finally, take it all in and reply.[/FONT]

 

[Axel]

Sensing a break in this newcomer's wall of sound, a dirty and tired looking man of average height steps forward. Perhaps once, in better days, he could have been considered good looking. His brown hair looks in desperate need of a cut, and his beard was suffering from severe 5 o'clock shadow. He is dressed in the standard-issue soldier's gear: leather armour, boots, backpack and weapons. Keen, green eyes look out from beneath his untidy mop, studying the expensive and foppish clothes of the newcomer.

Without taking his eyes from this odd looking, and quite clearly multi-lingual stranger, Alden butts in "Yes boss? Something up?"

 

[Zerith]

Given the man’s manner and response Alexander assumed he was Alden, Martomum's aid(or so he assumed any ways), the man was dirty to say the least, at least to Alexander’s eyes; while he could not claim to easily see something sneaking up on him, even from the front, he was able to examine things that he knew were there very well.
With the smell of wet Gnoll around him growing he was tempted to just start expending arcane energy left and right and clean the entire camp right then and there; but as he found out earlier Gnoll’s were superstitious of arcane magic: getting an entire camp of Gnolls, that he was in the middle of, riled up for such a petty concern really was not something he needed to do; his nose protested all the same. Doing what any sane man would; he started breathing in through the mouth and exhaling out through the nose so that he would only have to smell his, polluted, lungs.

getting back to the newcomer , who he assumed did not smell much better than the Gnolls; his sense of smell was not so keen that he could tell just how bad anything smelt when he was in such a stink unless it had a pleasant smell to it, like that of citrus. He would have at lest zapped the filth of the comer but he still did not know just how easy it was to rile up the Gnolls, and antagonizing them through someone they have a working rapport with was not something he dared to do just yet.
All the same, Alexander thought, hopped, Martomum had maintained a neutral odor, not that he could tell or even that it mattered while they were surrounded by such, noticeable, solders…
while he knew it was not a real priority, he did have a growing pipe dream of getting them all to bath, but to them, it might have been a good smell… Alexander very much wanted to know just what he could expect from the Gnolls, but to add further questions after asking two before Martomum had the chance to reply would just be rude; being rude to the dwarf when the dwarf had nothing to lose, and perhaps something to gain, buy not helping him went Alexander would have to be foolish to do so.

This mad his mind real back around to Dellex: Alexander knew, or at least thought, the wizard was smart, but this was just foolish of him.
Alexander was the hire apparent of one of Pesh’s most prestigious houses; sending him to the Gnolls blind would ether avail him nothing save the removal of Martomum from its command or getting, as the Dwarf told the wizard, get the young noble, him, killed. Liked by the king or note, sending Alexander into a war party of Gnolls could be a very large risk for whatever the wizard was planning. As it stood all the nobles who took interest in the fledgling barony were looking at Duke Bairan and tolerating the war hero. Having them stop looking at the bear and examine Dellex with a fine toothed come after getting one of Pesh’s most powerful, and by far the most paranoid, counts would at best gravely wound the barony’s ability to barrow affordably from other provinces.

As a new barony without much time to fill its coffers for a war effort while at the fringes of Pesh, and with what he gauged as well equipped ‘regular’ troops Alexander could see only a few possibilities.
- The Barony was fueled by Duke Bairan’s own personal treasury that was built up as he and Dellex adventured. This would be stop gap at best: the taratory had just been tamed, and Alexander could not see it producing enough income though taxes and other revenue that the bear could harvest to brake even with a large fielded army very soon, and between wages and initale equipment he did not think Bairan’s personal coffers could last long enough for the war to finish, even more so given the Duke’s reputation with the barony’s people.


-The Barony was running up a dept or otherwise being funded by the more established provinces through their nobles: while he could not see most liking a common born as a duke, Alexander knew most were damned smart enough to at lest found the bear enough to maintain an army during a war: keep the ‘hero’ on the front lines; then he will either motivate and inspire Pesh’s army in the region against their foe or he would get himself killed and become a rallying cry for all the solders in pesh, perhaps even the rest of the five kingdoms.
A win for the nobles either way: but it would still be unwise for Dellex to do something that could case the nobles to change their tone; once favorable loans can be changed after all.

-King Haspen, along with the barony’s lands, has fed it a treasury to get it off the ground, and might even be renewing it; king or not, if Dellex got the remaining hair of one of Pesh’s most prized provinces killed through negligence he could get Bairan’s Barony openly called a blight on the kingdom. And then Heaspen could be antagonizing the majority of his kingdom’s nobles by propping up the barony.

It was likely a bit of each, but all the same, there simply could not be enough infrastructure for the barony to hold up its own weight just yet; and Dellex would have to know that.
Meaning one of five things

-Dellex saw the Martomum as such a threat to whatever the wizard was planning that he simply had to remove the dwarf from the Gnolls and back into the irregular’s camp were he could keep the dwarf in constant check
-Dellex knew for certen the Gnells would not kill the Gnolls, and that Alexander would not antagonize them into doing anything rash, given Dellex’s manner towards the Gnolls Alexander thought this was unlikely.
-Dellex’s endgame was removed from the continued existence of the barony and it was just a handy tool for the present.
-Dellex knew of some wealth the provinces have that could make the barony self sufficient far sooner than Alexander figures it could be.
-Dellex is just plain foolish, short sighted, and stupid.

Alexander figured the latter was the least likely, but the other four were rather interesting to him all the same. he likes these games and the Wizard's was big, he could feel it.

[sblock=OoC] Fodder post :3
you said EXP was gotten through posts, right? XD
Now imagine how large this post could have gotten if Alex actually did something other then breath? :3[/sblock]

 

[HolyMan]

Martomum turns from the talkative Alexander to address Alden. "Aye, ye be needed. Seems dem gnolls gots a new leader and I am ta be going back to the human camp. Since ye be an irregular and under me orders even more knows, I be needed ye ta stay 'ere and..." He looks to Alex and his expression doesn't change and if possible is even more serious. "...babysit."

"I'm going back ta dae camp, ye needs ta stay 'ere and be messenger tween both even more now."

With that the dwarf looks back to Alex. " 'Ave anyting else tae say afore I go? Or is ye word limits fer tae day used up?"

[sblock=OOC] Just a note yes you earn XP by posting but they are not based on length but on content. You need to stay in character as well as show character growth when you believe it will occur. A post that helps show your characters demeanor or gives a good description of the way they are acting now. A post need not be talking between characters and NPCs the best post are those that give me insight to your character's mood/thinking on a situation. Or can be a flash back that adds to their background and explains why they act the way they do.

And also the XP formula I use sets a min/max XP per post based on your lvl so length is really not a factor. [/sblock]

 

[Axel]

"Really?" was all Alden could blurt out. Inwardly cursing himself at such a gauche and stupid comment, he decided on feigned politeness as the best way out of the situation.

"I can't say it's been a pleasure Martomum, given the circumstances. Good luck though, whatever the future holds for you. I think you'll need it." Alden added a bow, and mocked doffing his non-existent hat.

So, a teenaged noble that can bark like the dog-men is in charge now? Think of the possibilities man!! Alden's spirits were soaring, for the first time since arriving at the camp.
[sblock=OOC]
I will write Alden's private thoughts in coloured italics. His verbal offerings will be in normal coloured font. Descriptions and the like in normal white font.
[/sblock]

 

[HolyMan]

"Aye really!" the dwarf snaps, "An a nay ye be corrupt'n 'em. I needs ye tae keep yer head clear and on dae mission we 'ave tae do."

Martomum watches as Alden seems confused and he rolls his eyes skyward. "Ye is suppose tae be look'n fir Tharivol, members? Half-elf twit who is a miss'n an a dae say is needed fir dae fight wit deem knife-ears."

 

[Zerith]

[sblock=OoC]I like making large posts though, also, when I need to make essays that are at least so long, being to drop a few pages on a whim is handy
That said, good to know :3

…Also, Alex is thinking Alden is a twige to be bent about his pinky finger because of that remark, XD
[Note: Alex places the most value on the most recent events, meaning this outlook might change very soon ^_^][/sblock]

Alexander chuckled lightly to himself as Alden spoke, he was tempted to make a bet with himself over which was ‘really’ simpler, this man or the dog men. But alas he still needed to question the dwarf while he was there.
'I'll have to antagonize Alden latter after Martomum is gone...' Alexander cackled to himself, the day, aside from the smell, relay was geting better and better as far as he was considered.

Alexander looked down at Martomum, still smiling smugly; he was trying to decide if the dwarf was just being forgetful or was trying to avoid the questions. It was also interesting that the dwarf did not take interest in that he could speak dwarven or any of his questions. But the Dwarf did ask him if he had anything left to say, and it would be rude not to answer.
Alexander’s smile turned to a grin and tweaked to the side and turned devious; his glistening teeth, along with his golden inner irises, pierced the shadow that was still obscuring his face.

“well,” Alexander started while rising both hands to either side of his face, palm open and facing Martomum with his fingers pointing upwards before he secured his third and fourth fingers against his thumbs, leaving only his index and middle fingers still stretched upwards. “only” Alexander continued while making the two sets of two fingers contract, once before and once after, he spoke the word mockingly. He was going to fulfill the meaning of the word but perhaps trample the general meaning.
Without even allowing enough time for his hands to fall down Alexander perked his head up, dispelling the shadow that hid it and steamed onwards.

“that I would like to Know how much weight you would think my word will have with them, can they be expected to charge and or disengage as ordered. What could I do to make them respect me as they seem to do you. Which Gnolls hold a position over that of mere scout or warrior; what do these individuals look like and were can they be found. What would you figure would win, one of these Gnolls or a Treyloran Elf. What side do you figure would win between a group of ten Gnolls and a group of ten Elves. Do these Gnolls see deception, guile and trickery as a virtue, a sin or are they simply indifferent to it. What is their mindset on battle, do they think it is best to die honorably in battle, to simply survive, to win nomatter the means needed, or maybe something else. Just how easily can the enemy brake them in combat.” Alexander nonchalantly prattled before his brow flared with chirping whimsy
“Would they bother bathing if they were asked or just laugh.” he commented before going back to the rest of his monologue without breaking stride but with more spring in his words.

“What mission could have caused the Gnoll Moondancer to receive a wound and walk into the irregular camp. How many Gnolls are presently deployed else were, were are they, and what are their missions. How many Gnolls are presently in the camp. How logistically self sufficient are they. What to they hate. What do they like. What do they fear. What do they laugh at.” Alexander continued while his grin widened and became mischievous before tilting his face back downwards, the shadow again engulfing his face. “I want to know why you are looking for a half-elf. I Want to know why Dellex seems to loath you so much. I want to know what could cause the wizard to act on what seem like whims. I want to know a great many things! I want to know why Dellex has structured the command structure of the army so centralized, I want to know why he has deemed slow witted solders of higher quality to much rarer specialty troops that can think on their feet and call bluffs, I want to know why he has apparently forbid any with the ability to question from the regular camp, I want to know why he thinks sending an unproven young lord into the middle of a camp of beast men to lead them is wise, in short I want to know I want to know all there is to know about the command, past, present, and future." Alexander prattled on and on and finally seemed to end still grinning at Martomum; the young lord did not seem to think he was in any kind of real danger just yet; from what he figured he would have at least days before anything drastic might happen.

With a gleaming smug smirk Aleanxder finnaly said his peace “But the real question here is: how much do you care to share with a young upstart of a noble wet eared brat who's ego is far too large for the breeches of a mountain?” he asked Martomum with a slight attempt at humor. Knowledge was power, and where he was, Alexander needed power; the dwarf, from the impression he gained from Moondancer, had power to burn, but how much of that power could be, or even would be, he did not yet know. Worst case, as Alexnder figured, for the next day or so at least; would be that Martomum would regain the command, and Alexander would not have to smell the mass of them constantly any more.

 

[Axel]

"Errr, yes boss." Alden was pleased to actually be taken into the dwarf's confidences about his goals for the gnolls. To date, everything he knew had been pieced together from eavesdropping, rumours and relaying orders from one camp to another.

Addressing the newcomer directly, and offering his right hand "Alden Jahl, messenger extraodinaire and general dogsbody." Glancing at the nearby Gnolls and flashing a smile he added "Not...errr....as literal as some around here though."

"I can point out Wet-nose, Poo-breath and Scar-face later. They seem to boss the others around the best. I don't know - or care - what they call themselves, but the names fit. You'll see." Alden flashed his smile again. This new lord (Lord didn't seem to sit squarely on his shoulders yet) could either be the best or the worst thing to happen during his time in the army. He was determined to make it the former.

"Now, in my opinion, half of our problem in finding this half-elf is that the dog-men can't get close enough to any likely hiding places to actually find him without a full blown lynch mob of farmers forming. The other half is that I don't think he wants to be found..."