The Quest of the Missing Quill

[JadedDM]

Gaheris rubs his chin, which has not been shaved yet today, so is looking a bit gruff. "I suppose tracking down the lost quill would be easier than finding another manticore then," he muses.

He looks around the room and sighs. "I suppose there's no point in searching the room for any clues. To say the crime scene has been disturbed would be...a bit of an understatement," he adds, gesturing to the big mess.

He looks to the mage. "Do you keep your door locked? It was wide open when we arrived. Oh, and what was your name? I don't think I caught that."

[HorizonsDream]

Jasmine was a little on the confused side as she was automatically volunteered, by a complete stranger, to find a missing quill. She watches as Zurgo picks up the mages mug, then watches him leave. She then looks to Gaheris, and to her surprise he is actually considering it! "Ugh," she says and shakes her head. She lets Gaheris deal with questioning the mage, and she follows after Zurgo. "Hey handsome," she says to Ishan in a flirty tone as she approaches the two of them. "You'll have to forgive whoever he is. He is kind of pushy. He just up and volunteered the lot of us to help some mage without even knowing our names."

[Vrindlevine]

Thinking quickly now that the conflict is done. Ishan decides this orc might just be on to something he puts his arm over the orcs shoulder remembering his name from when he booked his room, "I once knew an orc named Zurgo he went from being a mighty warrior to ringing bells for a living, if you don't want to end up like that you need a guide I know this country well only 3 Gold a week per person."

He watches a striking women approach him, watching her angry look at Zurgo he smiles back, "You should come along I find danger is far more palatable with beautiful women around, and if I'm not mistaken your a warrior we could always use more fighters, expeditions are very dangerous these days."

Well he converses with the woman he watches the drow from the corner of his eye, "It's ten for him." He mutters under his breath.

Perception on shady drow bard.

[Just_Ice]

Benjamin merely takes a seat from his dazedness, plucking strings as he pleases in a rhythmless but not unpleasant tune. He catches the vague gist of the conversation, if not all of it.

"Oh, do you point your finger at me, my good hero? I'd not been invited before your offer, but if I am being honest I was looking for an adventure myself. I have nary but six of the gold you ask of me, but I will promise you that you will need take no great care for yours truly. Rest at ease, I am less a fool than you might believe."

He hums a bit, still not chancing standing, and brandishes coin. "I will pay five up-front, and I will find a way to acquire five more. We musicians come in to and out of money quite rapidly, you see; but should I fail to pay you may exact the law and take from me my hand."

[mgbevan]

Kanock grumbles some thoughts to himself for a few moments. "Foul play you suspect eh? That's no good." With no original ideas of his own and a seemingly sensible course of action planned out, Kacnock's mind turned to the future. "Say if we find t one who took it. We gone do no harm to t man, woman or thing. Understand? Just find the Quill." He looks at each of the people in the room to gauge their comprehension. Hopefully none of them look too full of blood lust.

[keymeister16]

“that so?” he addressed Ishan. “the tale is told in reverse in the forest, he goes from a bell ringer at a temple and masters its art to become the one that smashed helmsdeep into oblivion, my father was obviously a fan of the myth,” he shifted to one side, as to include the others into his circle.

“though as partners in this lucrative venture, names may be handy. Zurgo, if it needs repeating,” the last part was spat with a flash of venom, as if he clearly hated doing just that.

“though your name I know not, it’s apparent enough you would be the one to ask about this mug being drugged,” he help the cup up.

[Haahque]

Mazzart’s Room (Zurgo, Jasmine, Gaheris, and Kanock)
Zurgo takes a look at the half drunk mug of tea on the wizard’s desk and takes a sniff, which apparently gives him enough information to take it with him. He gives the mage back a book he had picked up off the ground.

“Ah, here’s one that understands the power of magic. Well yes, if you find me the quill you can have that book, and more. Even if you just get a good lead for me I could loan you the book for a while.”

And Zurgo asks a few questions that Mazzart is inclined to answer. “I don’t even know if it was a thief yet. But I can tell you a bit about the tea. It’s Dragon Leaf tea which I’ve given Mazzart a supply of, so that he can have a maid prepare me a mug of it every day. I leave my door open while I work so she can bring me the tea without disturbing my studies. Last night…” he pauses, for a bit. “Oh drat, there was something else I wanted to say, but I can’t quite recall what it was.”

Receiving this information, Zurgo takes the wizard’s mug and leaves the room.

“My name? Why do you not know? I’m Mazzart the Magnificent! Mage extraordinaire, specialized in magical research. And every bit as good as those Order Mages those underworlders are so proud of.”

Jasmine, apparently disappointed with the events in this room, leaves the room to follow Zurgo into the common area.

“I don’t care what you do to anyone who may have stolen my quill. Kill them or leave them alive as you wish. Just find me a quill. Maybe you could even convince them to give it back? Threat of my wraith might intimidate a thief, no matter how skilled.”

Zurgo makes some more knowledge checks, results PM’d to him.


Inn Common Room (Ishan, Benjamin, Zurgo, Jasmine)
Zurgo finds Ishan and Benjamin next to the table with 4 imperial soldiers around it. One of the imperials, a man with a mace and small shield, has quite a large bruise on his face. Shortly after Zurgo gets there, Jasmine also arrives and joins the conversation.

While Zurgo, Ishan and Benjamin and Jasmine talk, the imperial soldiers right beside them look disinterested in the conversation, although they don’t strike up their own chat for a while.

Ishan makes a knowledge check, result PM’d to him.

[JadedDM]

Gaheris listens carefully and observes Mazzart as he speaks, but doesn't reply just yet. He goes over things in his head, and considers his options.

==========

(OOC: Gaheris would like to make a sense motive check on Mazzart, to sense if he's telling the truth about how powerful he is and if he's hiding anything from them. I'd also like to do a Local Knowledge check to see if Gaheris has ever heard of Mazzart, assuming he's local or famous enough to be known here.)

[HorizonsDream]

"Oh, I suppose some danger could be lurking around as we search for a rare quill," Jasmine says thoughtfully as she walks around Zurgo. She rests her arm upon Ishan's shoulder, and leans in a bit while focusing her gaze on the drow bard. "Oh, come on now," she says sweetly. "Give him a little bit of a break."

[Vrindlevine]

Ishan disentangles himself from the women. "I suppose I could knock it down to normal price for him but don't expect me to jump in any pits full of spiders."

It's 3 Each per day I have to prepare some things so make sure you have at least some idea which direction your going I don't do blind jobs.

Ishan is going to go outside and make some survival check for ingredients as well as some alchemy checks to prepare some supplies.

[mgbevan]

A tad annoyed by Mazzart's apparent apathy towards violence, Kanock slips in "Well I'll be t one to make sure none more nasty stuff happens. Not sure bout my detective work in this business mess though." With his stomach giving a small gurgle, he pats it away and declares his intent with, "Mm breakfast." and he makes his way into the common room for the first time today, sniffing out the likes of porridge as his first choice.

[Just_Ice]

After Ishan leaves, Benji rubs his eyes and nods to the human woman who'd coaxed him a discount. "Thank you, miss. I'm sure he'll think of my reduced price as a favor to you, but in general for drow it's a poor idea to haggle a high offer with a guide and a good one to be indebted to them."

"After all," he explains with a wave of his hand, "anyone who charges double an appropriate marked-up rate has little to fear or is a fool. Someone who is not a fool would see the opportunity to wring more money out of me and be less inclined to slit my throat out in the great wilderness. A fool would likely meet his end and I could re-collect my five gold, kept safe with someone less likely to be stolen from in the meanwhile. Zurgo there may know what I'm talking about."

He clears his throat and begins to play again, "My name is Benjamin, but call me whatever you'd like."

[HorizonsDream]

Jasmine watches as Ishan leaves, and giggles lightly before she turns her full attention onto the drow. "My pleasure," she says while walking over towards Benjamin. "If he had stayed, I'm sure I could have convinced him to not charge me at all. Oh well," she says with a small sigh and a shrug while sitting down. "The drow have a fearful reputation, but Benjamin isn't the sort of name that strikes fear into the hearts of men," she teases. "I'm Jasmine."

[Haahque]

Gaheris (Mazzart's Room)
"Umm, well err, good. While you guys are looking for the quill, thank you, I'll go look up some divination spells. I wonder if I can remember that detect magic with scry trick. The hard part is.." Mazzart trails off with his ramblings, pacing his room. You also notice something else for the first time. He has a golem patrolling his room, it was just around the corner, in the section of his room that you couldn't see before. Golems are not known for any sort of perceptive or cunning skills, but they don't sleep, and they can have enchantments placed on them to make them dangerous and unpredictable guards.

Ishan (Outside the Inn)
It looks like Ishan's been able to land a lucrative job, and thus he wants to be prepared for the journey to come. What type of guide would he be if he wasn't at least partially prepared for the poisons he's likely to encounter if they should run into spiders, goblins or drow?

He searches around the inn, finally finding a patch of holly around back, he might, however still be a bit drunk as he harvests the holly, damaging some of the plants beyond repair despite his usual finesse with such things. Or, perhaps it's the finesse he used to have, he hasn't really done that much gathering or alchemy in the last couple of years if it didn't pertain to making better beer or making beer better. Never the less, he does manage to obtain 2 good branches of holly while damaging the plant little enough that they should grow back in a few days.

He then proves that his alchemy skills are still intact as he distills the essence of the holly into a liquid that should help cure most known poisons.

Survival Check (1d20+5): 10, 2 holly found. holly patch depleted. (Depleted patches of alchemy herbs regrow in 3 days)
Ishan creates 2 weak curing potions (Requires: Alchemy 1, holly, weak curing recipe)

Zurgo, Jasmine, Benjamin, Kannock (Ichabodd Inn, common room)
Kannock leaves Gaheris in Mazzart's room and makes his way to the common area to find breakfast. This he's able to find easily enough, Ichabodd is handing out porridge and bread at the bar. He also notices a group standing and talking in one corner, including the half orc that volunteered them to find the quill, and the girl that he nearly ran into this morning. They appear to be talking to a drow with long white hair who is playing a lute.

While watching them he sees a slith sitting near them turn his head to retort "The drow don't have a fearful reputation." Alex says sharply, "They have a well desserved reputation of being cowardly backssstabberss who will kill defensselessss civilianss becausse it's easssy to do. On a fair battlefield there'ss nothing fearful about them."

Ichabodd also seems interested in this conversation, and walks over with a very different statement. "I couldn't help but notice you three are talking about helping Mazzart find something. I was wondering if you or Mazzart could also help me find something. I haven't seen Sara this morning, she's the maid that was supposed to give Mazzart his tea last night, so I was wondering if he saw her then, or if he knows where she could be."

[keymeister16]

"well, that suddenly made her VERY RELEVANT to our cause!" he exclaimed as he passed the mug off to benji "welcome to the cause, ask the wizard for your payment, this is the mug the maid delivered last night, was wondering if there was anything in there i missed. It was refined professionally, i'm wondering if it's blight-elf professionally.." he trailed off. "I'm going to check outside, see if anyone's seen sera since last night, specifically AFTER she took the mug up to the room," he asked-ordered the others.

without another word he raced outside to the stables next to the inn, searching the ground for the freshest set of single horse tracks. (Perception)