CH. 4: False Gods

[JadedDM]

Gregeddin (Masked Dragon Inn, courtyard) [9:20 AM]
Gregeddin's words seem to calm the two down, and they become more receptive to him. They look him up and down and seem impressed after noticing his leather armor and the beautiful Solamnic blade at his side.

While they are doing so, Gregeddin in turn gets a better look at the pair, as well.

Both men appear to be in their late 20s or early 30s, although more likely the elf is three times that old, if not more. The human is a pudgy man with deep tanned skin from long hours in the sun and short red hair. Worry eyes line his eyes beady brown eyes. His clothes are simple, but well made and obviously tailored for his size, suggesting he is no refugee or simple farmer--at least, not anymore. He is wearing a silver ring on his ring finger of his right hand and every now and again he unconsciously starts to rub at it.

The elf is quite the contrast. He stands tall and lean with pale skin and long black hair. He has a hawk-like nose and his eyes, violet, seem sharp and penetrating. His clothes are even finer in make than the human's, including a green cloak with gold trim and a silk shirt.

"You are not a refugee," the elf notes. "And you carry a blade and wear armor. A mercenary or adventurer, perhaps? Well, stranger, what is your proposal then? A cut of our profits in exchange for drumming up new business?"

Tulbas (Mad Marvin's) [8:45 AM]
Unable to see Kynaston anywhere, Tulbas half-drags, half-carries his uncle to the herbalist he knew about--an old human named Mad Marvin by the locals.

Mad Marvin was, as any resident of Haven will tell you, quite mad. He and his wife, Agatha, would often take long sojourns into the nearby forests to scavenge for herbs and plants. They would also sometimes catch animals to dissect and some claimed they used blood magic on stormy nights in a secret lab in their cellar, performing dark arts to dark gods or sacrificing small children who refused to eat their vegetables.

In truth, Mad Marvin was simply an herbalist and apothecary. He was rather eccentric, but largely harmless. He often sells some of his herbs to Raetmal, so Tulbas has met him and Agatha before. And despite all of the rumors about him, whenever someone had a fever or had a wound become infected, they often went straight to Mad Marvin for help regardless.

When Tulbas knocks on the door, it is Agatha who opens it. An old woman with grey hair, she was always kind to Tulbas and would often give him sweets when she'd see him. She seems pleased to see him, but her face turns to surprise when she sees the blood on his hands and robes, then notices the unconscious Raetmal. "Get him inside, hurry," she says. "Marvin! Marvin, we have a patient!" she calls behind her.

Once Raetmal is brought inside and set on the couch, Marvin steps out from the back. He stops short at the sight of Raetmal and Tulbas, caught off guard. "Bless my soul, what happened?" he asks, hobbling over as quickly as he can. "Aggie, bring me some needle and thread, alcohol and some poultices."

Their home is simple and ill-kept. Cobwebs hang in most corners and the whole place smells undeniably like old people. There's a shelf full of books, covered in dust, on one wall. On another is a shelf full of jars with various herbs, plants and other strange sights inside. One jar seems to have eyeballs suspended in some kind of fluid. Another has small frogs, also frozen in a thick fluid.

Darga (Herbalist Street) [9:45 AM]
Darga hurries down to Herbalist Street, searching for some sign of where Tulbas might have gone. The mageware shop was down at the end of the street, and that seemed the most likely place. But he had just been there, and the place was locked up. As he ponders this, he notices a splotch of red on the ground in front of him. It appears to be blood. A little more appears a few feet ahead of it. And a third splotch a few feet ahead of that one...

==========

(OOC: Gregeddin's CHA is 17...makes him difficult to dislike!

Not sure if Haahqae went with Tulbas or not, so I'll leave that up to Haahque.)

[mgbevan]

Nodding in agreement with the elf's words "Perhaps" He replies, adding, "Although it depends on how big you wish to dream. We all still have many years left to live, can you say the lifestyle of hopping from town to town would suit you both forever?"

He continues in a cooing tone, "It's clear you have earned some success despite these hard times," Gesturing to their wares, "and that is to be admired gentlemen, so would you be persuaded to stay in town and gain a little more? Just think, depending on the exact nature of your product of course, of a regular customer base habitualising your product into their daily lives. Of people that clung so tightly to something out of desperation they would nay tolerate a bad word against it, a fortress of belief impenetrable by logic or reason."

Gregeddin sighs dreamily into the sky, apparently enjoying the vision of the devout customers. He fixes the pair with a stare and coldly adds, "I know where to find desperate people."

____________________________________________________
OOC: The steel tongued bard doing what he does best

[djhyland]

Darga follows the trail of blood down the street and looks at each building carefully. The pair of kender indicated that this was a street of herbalists, but he supposes that not every building could be an herbalist's shop. But he imagines that the reason the elf boy--if that's who it truly is!--took his uncle down this street is to find a healer of some sort. Hence, he keeps a lookout for a likely building. While the strange symbols and shapes that others use to write are useless to him--like most of his kind, he can't read--he supposes that an herbalist or healer might advertise his or her building in other ways...perhaps a sign with plants or a mortar and pestle or similar.

[Haahque]

Tulbas (Mad Marvin's) [8:45 AM]
Once Raetmal is brought inside and set on the couch, Marvin steps out from the back. He stops short at the sight of Raetmal and Tulbas, caught off guard. "Bless my soul, what happened?"

"That's what I've been asking all along! They won't even tell me what they fought, or if it was interesting. They're all like 'go find someone in this crowd of people taller then you', yeah right. Maybe if I was the hill giant I'd have a chance. What if they fought a dark and powerful mage? How else would I know to go looking for his memoirs except for them telling me as such. Perhaps it was an assassin and we need to know to move on to the next town? But the real question is why do you have a jar of eyes over there? Is that part of some ritual?"

Haahqae, having helped get Raetmal on the couch, wanders over to poke at the interesting items and to examine the dust covered books closer.

[JadedDM]

Gregeddin (Masked Dragon Inn, courtyard) [9:20 AM]
"This isn't a good idea," the human mutters. "This city is a big powder keg, waiting to go off...already one riot, what if there's another?"

The elf, however, is more receptive. "Nobody ever made any profit without taking risks, Barten." He looks to Gregeddin. "Desperate is good, but wealthy and desperate is better. It's hard to make money off refugees who barely have any coin at all. So are these desperate people of yours copperless or not?"

Darga (Herbalist Street) [9:45 AM]
Darga follows the blood trail right up to the front door of a dilapidated looking building. Whether it was damaged recently in the riot or just left to neglect over time isn't entirely clear. There is a sign out front that depicts a leaf dropping into a mortar, which is a good sign. A better sign is the blood trail stops right at the stoop by the front door, which certainly indicates this is where they went.

Tulbas and Haahqae (Mad Marvin's) [8:45 AM]
Marvin ignores Haahqae's rambling and questions, as he intently starts to work on Raetmal's wounds. Agatha instead responds to them. "Ritual? Nonsense. We've collected them over the years from patients we lost. The more you know and study the body--and its parts--the better you can understand how to heal it. You should see the skeleton we have in the back room."

[mgbevan]

"They are poor" Gregeddin concedes slowly, "However, they are inside the walls and many in number at least."

He pauses to consider the human's words. "Well, to address your concerns, Barten, I know that one of these people has just come into a significant amount of wealth through a recent trade. Perhaps you would feel more comfortable being involved in a chain of purchases, thereby distancing yourself and your colleague from the customer dealing end, should any negative repercussions ever come about."

[Haahque]

"So you seek knowledge? In that regards we are the same then. Oooh a skeleton in the back? Canniseeit? Canniseeitplease? What kind of skeleton is it? Is it human, dwarf, elf, goblin? Maybe it's better, maybe it's a displacer beast skeleton, or even a dragon skeleton."

[BishGada]

Tulbas, concerned, looks at Marvin's eyes and answers his tone almost breaking, "Marvin! He had teleported himself in the midst of the marketplace. He was conscious for few moments before he collapsed. I don't know who attacked him but he was stabbed in his guts, I think he suffered some magical attacks too. Can I be of any help? I have some healing skills myself. Should I bring medical supplies from the mageware?" Tulbas asks Marvin, obviously anxious to be useful.

[djhyland]

Darga follows the blood up to the door. Encouraged by such a promising sign, he steps up and knocks hesitantly on the door.

(OOC: Seeing as how Darga's action takes place much later than Tulbas' and Haahqae's, I'm all right sitting out of the action until they catch up to him!)

[JadedDM]

Gregeddin (Masked Dragon Inn, courtyard) [9:20 AM]
"You're proposing some kind of middle man?" asks the elf. "That might cut into our profits, though."

Tulbas and Haahqae (Mad Marvin's) [9:45 AM]
"Just let me work," Marvin says. "I have everything I need."

While Tulbas sits by anxiously, Haahqae is far more interested in a tour. Agatha shows him around, but keeps a very close eye on him, as if he were the proverbial kender in a porcelain shop. The skeleton, sadly, is just that of a human. But it is complete. "One of our patients that didn't make it," explains Agatha. "Taught us a lot about the human body."

Marvin may be a surgeon and apothecary, but Agatha, it turns out, is something of a taxidermist. There are a number of stuffed animals in the back. All of them look very much alive, except for the fact they are entirely motionless. There are squirrels, rats, racoons, rabbits and even a badger.

The books, all written in Common, were written by both Marvin and Agatha. They detail all of their findings over the decades on anatomy, disease, herbalism and so forth.

After an hour of intense work, Marvin finally stands up and wipes the sweat from his brow. "There. I've done everything I can. All that remains is to let his body heal and pray to the gods that he survives. If he does, it will be several days before he'll be up and walking about again, though."

Suddenly, there's a knock at the door. "Another one? It's not even lunch yet." He goes to open the door.

Darga (Herbalist Street) [9:45 AM]
Darga doesn't have to wait long. The door opens to reveal an old man with receding white hair, an unkempt white beard and mustache and spectacles on his nose. His hands are covered in blood, and there's blood on his clothes, as well. "Yes?" he asks. "Hmm, nasty wounds you have there, master dwarf," he says, adjusting his glasses. "You look like you've been in a rather nasty fight."

[mgbevan]

"Exactly!" Gregeddin responds emphatically, "The deficit on your margins will be outweighed by the increase in quantity! As long as you've got the product, dare to dream a little bigger they always say."

[BishGada]

As soon as Marvin finishes his work, Tulbas gets up and goes to his uncle. He puts one hand on his uncle shoulder and strokes his hair gently with the other. Flooded with emotions that like waves come and go, he looks up to the door when the knock is heard. He sees Darga, recognition doesn't fail him but he is too confused to say something or even guess why is he here.

[Haahque]

Haahqae is never short of questions, and having someone give him a tour only feeds his desire for knowledge. "Nice skeleton, I haven't seen such a complete one in years. Can you reanimate it? With this many patients only one of them didn't make it? I'd say that's a good track record. How long did it take you two to write all of these books? Are they a culmination of your life's efforts? Do you have any procedures which extend the life of the patient? Have you treated many gnomes? What does this do? Are gnomes similar to other races in terms of physique and medicine? Why do elves live so long? Does your healing power come from divine power somewhere?"

When Darga appears at the door Haahqae somehow seems to remember about his encounter this morning, "Oh Darga, good, just the dwarf I wanted to see. Now Tulbas hasn't yet told me if he'll help me or not, but there happens to be this hill giant outside terrorizing the refugees. I met this man in the Steel Tankard, he said he tried to take on this giant, but he's just one man so he went to the Tankard to find help. That's why he sent me to round up a bunch of my heroic friends like you."

[djhyland]

Darga stands speechless on the doorstep, his hand still raised as if ready to knock again. Unsure what to do when confronted by a man covered in blood, realization dawns on him after a moment. He stammers, "No, I'm don' need fixin' myself. But I heard that a friend o' mine got hurt, an' I heard that ya might be helpin' him. Is th'elf gonna be okay?"

But before the man can tell him of his patient's condition, Haahqae's barrage of questions serve to further confuse Darga. In reply, he can at first only manage, "...Heroic?" But then he frowns and looks at Haahqae as if he's grown a second head. "I dunno what ya got in mind, but we got bigger things ta worry 'bout. Like th'elf boy's uncle. I reckon that's why he ain't worried 'bout helpin' ya jes' yet."

[Haahque]

"Oh no need to worry 'bout him. He's got the best herbalist on this side of town helping him. If anyone can help him, it'd be this guy, just look at all those books he wrote. Besides, healers usually tell me to shut up and come back when the patient's better so it's best not disturb them."