CH. 8: Proving Worth

[JadedDM]

Haahqae, Tulbas, Arulia, Gobax, Felran and Ne-Chanz (Deserted Building)
Gregeddin sighs and throws up his hands. "Fine, then. I wash my hands of the whole mess. It's a lost cause. I'll go alert the church and someone else should escort Tulbas back to Magnus. The rest of you can do what you like, but it's almost curfew time so unless you have a permit to be out, I suggest you go straight home before time runs out."

Kendra Greylock (Old Fort)
"No," says the priestess. "But any good devoted of Takhisis knows an opportunity when one sees it. I'll contact you when I have your first assignment. Until then, just keep your eyes and ears open for anything of interest to report, and try and get closer to the captain if you can."

Shima Longfoot (High Hand Inn)
Shima checks to see if any messages were left to him, but finds there are none. He then heads up to his room. After a thorough search, he finds nothing amiss. He then heads back down to wait for the gnome, but as Raena told him Haahqae stays at the Steel Tankard, there's no real reason to expect him to ever show up here, at the High Hand.

[Chris1234]

Shima Longfoot (High Hand Inn)
Having paid for the night at the High Hand, Shima is reticent to waste the cash.
He thinks, ~I will keep that silver piece from the montain dwarf and throw if at her when she gets hers. Anyway, she thinks I'm thick alrady, so it might flush out if she's got someone watching me.~
After half an hour, Shima looks for the baramn to ask, "Are there other (other) dwarves staying here? Maybe a nice hairy female one? If I can make an 'acquaintance','" he winks, "I'm sure we could spend alot in the bar."

[HorizonsDream]

Kendra narrows her eyes at the priestess, but there isn't much she can do about this situation other than trying to kill the priestess. Doing that within the city wasn't going to work out well. "This army will destroy itself from within if this is how it works," she mutters as she turns from the woman. It was time to go home.

[BishGada]

"Don't go for the church yet. They missed the Belzorites lair for few weeks, nothing will happen in one more night. Belzor forces are badly hurt and all he can do is lick his wounds. I don't believe he can call reinforcement over night." Tulbas looks at the Haaque and considers offering he would stay to silently track Belzor but then just shakes his head. "Can you please quickly check the other chest Gobax was talking about?" Assuming Haaque did went Tulbas asks the rest, "And you, do you agree to hunt down the two women who endanger us? If so, let's move on. Every second counts. The only thing I can add is that we might consider leave here a spy to track what Belzor does, but it is so dangerous I wouldn't expect anyone to volunteer."

[djhyland]

Arulia nods. "The less time we spend here, the better chance we have of catching Xyleena and Yvette. Where do you suppose they might go?" She turns to Haahqae. "If you're the one in charge here, where did you find those two?"

[JadedDM]

Haahqae, Tulbas, Arulia, Gobax, Felran and Ne-Chanz (Deserted Building)
"I suspect they're long gone by now," Gregeddin points out. "Even if you know where to look, we're all badly wounded and exhausted. The trail won't be any colder in the morning. I'll bring Tulbas home," he says, turning to the young elf. "Magnus won't be happy if you run off and get yourself killed or captured again right after we rescued you. He doesn't seem like the type of person I'd want to displease."

Kendra Greylock (Old Fort)
Kendra returns home without further incident. Some day it had turned out to be. She had seen Sadron for what may well be the last time ever, she was wounded and tired and sore, she had failed to stop the army from marching on Qualinesti or even slowing down and now to compound matters, she was an unwilling pawn of the church. On the bright side, at least she doesn't have to march on the elves and she did kill four more draconians.

(OOC: Unless you want to play scene with Norris or something, it looks like this scene is done. Let me know.)

Shima Longfoot (High Hand Inn)
"There are two other dwarves with rooms here," says the elderly plainswoman who owns the place. "But I cannot give you their names and rooms. That would violate customer privacy. I'm sure you wouldn't want me to give your name and room number to anyone who walks in. But if you like, I can take a message for them the next time they check in."

[Chris1234]

Shima Longfoot (High Hand Inn)
"I fuly understand," Shima replies, "It's a good thing. Anyway, thank you for the offer, but I think I'll wait to see them face to face. Good night."
He heads off to bed, intending to relocate, kit and all, to the other. shoddier place tomorrow.

[BishGada]

"Magnus thinks I might be dead?" Tulbas asks considering his options. 'Maybe this is opportunity to get away from his grip. The others could say the gore in the sacrifice room is himself and he would be free. But then the protection from the Red Army will be gone.' he shakes his head. "Look Gregeddin. I'm responsible for my own actions. And just that you know I could manage quiet well without your rescue attempt. In fact I made them believe I'm willing to join them and worked with them on their agenda, and then you came, mumbled something about the church, surrendered my name and that was the reason they tortured me and wanted me dead. So calm down please and don't go to Magnus until I decide I want to return to this murderer!" He says with clutch teeth, barely able to restrain his rage. He turns to Haaque, "Could you track these two quickly enough? Maybe they stumbled upon more traps such as Gobax said he saw. If not we can cut our loses and check the other chest and then prepare to the battle with Belzor here. I don't see anyone that will stop us according to your report."

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(OOC: The rage aimed at Magnus, not Gregeddin/Haaque.
No comments about the previous post suggestion to leave someone here to track Belzor actions?)

[djhyland]

With a sigh, Arulia finally agrees with Greggedin. "Maybe you're right. Maybe the best thing is to go home and regroup in the morning. Let us find this other chest, like this elf says, and hope that Xyleena and Yvette ran into difficulties in escaping. If nothing else, I say we meet tomorrow at the High Hand. After the night to recover, maybe we'll have a better idea of what to do from here."

[Haahque]

Haahqae's torn to indecision by the situation. He doesn't want to get the church involved. They're going to be messy and not leave anything that he was hoping to acquire in these halls. But at the same time, with Belzor was just as powerful as Magnus. Magnus is scary. Like really, really scary. Maybe he'd be able to muster the courage to fight him on a good day, but these past couple of days seemed to be quickly been going from bad to worse.

"I guess I should check out that chest." Haahqae finally decides, half-heartedly. "Maybe there will be something in there that our more honest companions can take away with them."

(Check the chest for traps, attempt to open the chest)

[JadedDM]

Haahqae, Tulbas, Arulia, Gobax, Felran and Ne-Chanz (Deserted Building)
Gregeddin pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Fine, do whatever you want, Tulbas. Just remember that going off on your own half-cocked is what you got you in this mess to begin with."

Haahqae searches the chest carefully for six minutes, but finds no evidence of any traps on it. Satisfied, he pops it open. Inside are some books and scrolls. A quick perusal of them shows that they seem to be instructions on how to create histachii and yuanti. The books contain no spells themselves, simply the rituals, components and which spells are needed to create the abominations.

=========

Haahqae checks the chest for traps [TN 25%] (1d100): 17, pass. He finds no traps.

Shima Longfoot (High Hand Inn)
Shima heads up to his room, double checks his gear is intact, then crawls into bed. Thus ends his first day in Haven. It seems things will be much more difficult for him than he had first imagined. However, there may yet be opportunities to be found within the city. Time will tell. For now, he can only hope tomorrow will prove more fruitful.

(OOC: End scene.)

[TristenC]

What's all that stuff?

[BishGada]

"Did you kill all the cultists or left some just knocked out?" Tulbas asks Gregeddin while waiting for Haaque to finish his search. When the content of the chest is explained Tulbas says, "So let's go after the women. In any case it's on the way home."

[djhyland]

Arulia inspects the contents of the chest with a sinking feeling in her heart. Now that the fighting seems to be over, the reality of what she's done becomes clear. She's been away all day without her family knowing where she is--not that they'd approve if they did know!--and she'll be returning home battered and bruised and with her good cloak torn to shreds. Before the two women had made off with the treasure they'd found, she would have had a good justification for her state. But now, with nothing of worth in this chest, she'd be going home to face the questioning and concern empty-handed.

Feeling the same dread that she'd known as a misbehaving child about to face the judgement of her parents, Arulia sighs. "There's nothing left to do here tonight. Let's go home and figure out what to do come the morning."

[Haahque]

"Unfortunately, it doesn't look like these are all that valuable. A bunch of books and scrolls, and not even magical ones at that. They do however appear to be an interesting read, so we can split them up amongst anyone interested. I for one wouldn't mind holding on to some for reading in my spare time."