CH. 7: The Viper's Nest

[BishGada]

"Stop!" Tulbas calls. "I did not lie. I told you the only people I know I could think can fit your description! And it's true Magnus wears black. Haven't I said he usually doesn't wear fancy cloth?" Tulbas argues. "Look, I'm willing to help and I'm better capable than those priests you have in the back room. I've some experience in the arcane as well as in herbalism. I understand your goals and will follow them. Maybe the people who were looking for me were not who I thought, but I can still be useful both with the serum preparation and in capturing those who look for me. They were not priests of Takhisis and a goblin who serves at high rank? I doubt that a lot. Those who are at high ranks are humans or draconians. This three were probably mercenaries and they are motivated by greed alone. They serve the high bidder. So they probably won't bring here the church as it will cost them all treasure they believe they can find. You can use me as bait and once they come to catch me, for whatever reason they have in mind, you can ambush them. Until that time I can continue helping with the serum."

[djhyland]

Arulia frowns unhappily. "It probably is bad," she admits. "But if we don't, someone else surely will. If we do it, at least we'll be able to help with the money." Not liking her rationalization, she adds, mostly to convince herself, "We do need the money. Mother lost her job today."

Arulia's frown deepens at Camilla's argument. "You do know that the army probably won't make a distinction between the Qualinesti and people like me, don't you? But yes, they'll probably use them against the Qualinesti. They've already used them against us, after all."

(OOC: Arulia will go to the merchant district and go to the armorsmith first. Once there, she'll ask to speak to the owner, or at least whoever is in charge of hiring.)

[spyguy1503]

Ne-Chanz asks the waiter for some chicken. (Or the equivalent)

[JadedDM]

Haahqae (Masked Dragon Inn, second floor)
Ismene listens to Haahqae's offer and considers. "Me? I don't know...I wasn't that much help against the giant, really. And I don't really want to get involved with any more cults. I feel dumb enough letting myself be suckered by Darewind," she says with a frown. "On the other hand, my funds are running low and I could use the steel."

She picks up Arcane and starts to pet her absently. "What exactly would be expected of me?" she asks.

Kendra Greylock (Old Keep)
"I hope your mentor was better than the Holy Guard then," Mouna says. "They didn't really impress me too much." The two leave the inn and head for the Old Keep up on the hill in the center of town. Kendra had not been here since she quit the Holy Guard a couple of weeks ago. The place was now being used as a barracks for the army and it was hardly recognizable to Kendra. Instead of a handful of Holy Guard, the place was filled to the brim with soldiers--mostly draconians, but some goblins, too.

In the courtyard, Kendra saw a squadron of ogres training with massive axes. She saw goblins practicing archery on worg-back. There were also many Baaz attacking training dummies with long swords. "As you can see, the army is very inclusive. All races are welcome, regardless of background," Mouna says.

She leads Kendra to a series of weapon racks lining up against a wall and gestures to them. Just about any and every weapon one can think of can be found here, including long swords. "Go ahead, pick what you want. Now...for your opponent. How confident are you? Goblin? Baaz? Kapak? Or maybe...you think you could hold your own against me?" she asks with a grin.

Tulbas Erogund (Unknown location)
Belzor looks down at Tulbas. "Even if I believed you, the ssserum is not a priority now. A ssserum that can transssform elvesss would only work on you. There are no other elvesss in the cccity, ssso it would be a wassste of time and resssourcccesss. Our priority now isss to defend thisss placcce and buy time to evacuate. If you truly believe in our caussse, you will cooperate with the priessstsss. Take him!"

This time, the Histachii grab Tulbas and drag him off regardless of anything he says. They bring him to the storage room and lock him inside, alone. Things weren't looking too good at this point. But at least he still had his life, which means there was still hope he could escape or be rescued.

Arulia Seroth (Osred's Armor Shop)
The two girls appear overcome with worry at the revelation that their mother lost her job. Cassilda especially looks like she might burst into tears, but she manages to keep her emotions in check.

The three sullenly begin the walk to the merchant district. As usual, they are stopped at each checkpoint, but thankfully nobody harasses or gives Arulia or the girls a hard time.

Reaching the armorer's shop, they head inside. The master armorer is a big, burly man with a shock of red hair and violet eyes. There are also half a dozen apprentices and a couple of overseers working the forge, banging out new suits of chain mail, plate mail and everything in between.

"Aye, I'm Osred, the master armorer here...the only one in the city," he says with a haughty tone, crossing his arms over his barrel chest. "Make it quick, I have a lot of orders to fill and no time for little girls come to make eyes at my young apprentices."

Grubnick (Masked Dragon Inn, common area)
The barmaid leaves and returns a short time later carrying a mug of ale. "That'll be a silver piece," she says.

Felran and Ne-Chanz (High Hand Inn, Common room)
The barlad brings Ne-Chanz a plate of roasted chicken with his water. "That'll be 5 silver pieces," he says.

[TristenC]

Grubnick pays with a smile and sips his drink.

[Haahque]

Although Haahqae doesn't know that much about Ismene and her previous combat experiance, he has seen her cast a couple spells before and he knows quite a bit about the illusion school of magic, so he draws a few conclusions about what she's capable of.

"I think we all feel a little bad about being suckered by Darewind. He seemed so authentic, a little scary sometimes, but someone who wasn't afraid to show off his healing powers for the good of the people. Or at least that's what it seemed, before we found out otherwise. This cult is different though. We're not supposed to join it, we're supposed to deal with it."

"I think that means we were supposed to wipe them out. I don't know how necessary that is, but I would like to extract Tulbas, so that means we should either go in by stealth or by force. I heard that goblin who healed me talking about finding a couple people who can wield swords to help out, if he can do that then I'm sure we'd have enough force to fight the cult even if stealth proves futile."

"You could be extremely valuable no matter how we want to play it. Maybe we want to stealth inside and rescue him, picking up any loot on the way. If we did this you could turn many of us invisible and we could slip inside unnoticed. If you know the knock spell we might not need to worry about stealing keys for the doors.

If we wanted to fight you could blind the enemy archers. I can say from experience they have at least one very nasty archer in their ranks, possibly more. Or you could cast Hypnotic Pattern against their melee troops. I'm pretty sure most of their creatures are weak willed, so it should be pretty effective."

[HorizonsDream]

Kendra took her pick of a couple of long swords, and then turned to face Monna. "I know that I can take on goblins," she says. "I might be able to take on a draconian, but I don't know anything about them. I might be confident, but I'm not quite confident enough to take you on yet."

[JadedDM]

Haahqae (Masked Dragon Inn, second floor)
Ismene considers Haahqae's plan. "Well, I don't know the Knock spell, but...I do have a way that will let me bypass locked doors. And maybe this can help make up for my mistake in supporting Darewind." She puts Arcane down and nods. "Okay, I'll help. Hey, you know quite a bit about magic, considering how much our people dislike it," she points out.

Kendra Greylock (Old Keep)
Mouna grins and then puts her fingers to her mouth and gives a sharp whistle. "Hey, Tez!"

A Baaz draconian, just like the one she fought down in the mines, walks up. Mouna wordlessly gestures to the weapon rack, and the Baaz picks up a long sword and a small shield. The creature is about the same height as Kendra, perhaps a few inches shorter. But his chest is barrel shaped, suggesting he's quite strong.

"Let's see how you do against Tez here. Don't worry about holding back, the clerics can heal anything too serious," Mouna says.

Grubnick (Masked Dragon Inn, common area)
Grubnick spends 1 silver piece and the barmaid walks away.

[HorizonsDream]

Kendra wasn't use to the swords that she was using as they weren't hers, but she just has to prove her skills. ~All right,~ she says to herself as she faces Tez. ~He probably uses his strength more than anything,~ she thinks to herself as she starts to circle the Baaz. ~Which means I'm probably quicker.~ She looks for an opening before she quickly moves in to attack.

Int Roll, Hit Rolls (5, 16, 13)

[Haahque]

"That you, you're the greatest!" Haahqae steps forward and embraces Ismene, to quickly back off and add more timidly. "I, hope it was OK for me to do that."

"Yes indeed I know a lot about magic, I find it really very interesting you know. Untold amounts of power just beyond our grasp. I don't think that magic has to be separate from technology either, maybe if I found some mages we could make machines that rival, well, anything really. It would be amazing! Who knows what we could accomplish? Wagons that go invisible and drive themselves? Catapults that could throw fireballs behind castle walls?"

"And illusions are the most interesting of all magics. Us gnomes can do things that other races can't even imagine is possible. If we combined these technologies with illusions, other races would not only know if what we do is possible, but if it is real, which adds yet another lair of misdirection and subtlety to what we can do. The implications are really quite astonishing when you think about it. I really wonder why more gnomes don't researchmagicpossibilities while theymaketheir inventions. Even iftheycan't cast magic theycould find someone who canandworktogther on the invention to create something wonderfulandnew."

[chese780]

"Well, I'm going to go find some way to deal with the money issue," Felran says to Ne-Chanz, "But first, I need to pack some rations, I seem to have run out."

*Walk up to the bar, or whatever this one has, and ask for the price of whatever can be used as rations (The storable kind)*

[JadedDM]

Haahqae (Masked Dragon Inn, second floor)
Haahqae moves to Ismene and embraces her. She smells faintly of honey, gum and old parchment. And also, ferret. She stands rigid, surprised by his sudden action. Then she gently but firmly extracts herself from his grasp, laughing a bit nervously. "You almost sound like my old teachers at the Thaumaturgy Guild," she says. The Thaumaturgy Guild was one of many in Mt. Nevermind, but the only one focused on magic. They didn't teach magic, as that was frowned upon. Rather, it deals with finding ways to either use magic as an energy source to power technology or finding ways to replace magic with suitable contraptions. "Although I think they would be horrified at the idea of combining magic with technology as equals."

She smooths out her robes. "Everyone back home thinks magic is useless, and especially illusions. I never thought I'd meet another gnome who didn't turn up their nose at sorcery," she admits. "Maybe I misjudged you." She shakes her head as if to clear it. "Anyway, is there a place and time I should meet you to save your friend? I'll need to gather my gear and prepare my spells."

Kendra Greylock (Old Keep)
Kendra wasn't wearing her armor and these weren't her swords. She imagined her elven blade would be even more useful. Still, she was a skilled warrior on her own. She quickly moves toward Tez, expecting him to be slow. He surprised her by moving quite quickly, slashing right at her neck as she came forward.

Kendra quickly drops down to her knees so the blade flies over her head, then rolls forward, coming up behind the Baaz. She stands and turns, slashing with her blade and cutting a nasty gash across the draconian's side. Such a blow would likely have finished a soft, fleshy human, but Tez's bronze scales kept the weapon from cutting too deep. Kendra then slashes with her second blade, but the baaz throws up his shield, blocking it. The two struggle, sword against shield, for a few moments.

Mouna watches on, saying nothing and betraying no emotion.

A number of soldiers, draconian and goblin alike, begin to move toward the fight to watch. Soon, they have attracted a decent sized crowd. Tez looks around at his newfound audience. With a snarl, he throws his weight forward, forcing Kendra to disengage and take a few steps back. Ignoring the wound, he returns to a fighting stance, this time keeping a closer watch on her. He would not underestimate her again.

=======

Initiative
Kendra (1d10+5): 5+5 = 10
Tez (1d10+5): 2+5 = 7

Round 1!

Tez swings his long sword at Kendra [TN 12] (1d20): 3, miss.
Kendra swings her primary long sword at Tez with great skill (+1 hit/+2 dmg) and strength (+1 dmg) [TN 15] (1d20+1): 16+1 = 17, hit for (1d8+3): 3+3 = 6 damage. Tez is now moderately wounded. She then swings her secondary long sword at Tez with great skill (+1 hit/+2 dmg) and strength (+1 dmg) [TN 15] (1d20+1): 13+1 = 14, bare miss.

(OOC: Actions and Initiative for Round 2?)

Felran and Ne-Chanz (High Hand Inn, Common room)
While the barlad waits for Ne-Chanz's payment, Felran heads over to the bar to speak with the elderly plainswoman behind it. "Prices have gone up since the tax hike," she informs him. "It costs 12 steel for a week's worth of dry rations. One day's worth is 2 steel." Although more expensive than ordinary food, dry rations pretty much last forever, never spoiling.

[spyguy1503]

Ne-Chanz pays the waiter. "Thank you." he says, digging in. "Rations we need, yes"

[HorizonsDream]

Kendra glances at the growing crowd from the corner of her eye, and smiles lightly towards Tez. She had drawn first blood, but the battle wasn't over yet. The crowd didn't bother her much, so she circled the draconian once again. ~He is more prepared now,~ she thought to herself. That made weaknesses hard to find, but she eventually found one and went for it.

Inti Roll, Hit Rolls (6, 2, 3, 2)

[BishGada]

"Hear me just this once then!" Tulbas tries again before being dragged away. "Let me help Leota. I'm quite useful at battles as your people learnt the previous night. I pledge my service to you. Let me work under her command and you won't regret it."

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(OOC: If Belzor let Tulbas "help" defending the place, he will cooperate with Leota but will ask to have his book to study the spells for today, otherwise he will search the storage room (which is not where he was previously kept, right?)