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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    Default The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    A continuation of the Crimson Echo!

    With half of a new cast, because I guess we got picked up by another network for season two!?

    Dramatis Personae

    Spoiler: Our Heroes
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    Spoiler: Allies
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    Spoiler: Enemies
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    Spoiler: Important People
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    Spoiler: Of Korvosa
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    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Locations

    Spoiler: Korvosa
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    Spoiler: Map of Korvosa
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    Spoiler: Districts and Neighborhoods
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    Spoiler: East Shore and Gray
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    Spoiler: Midland
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    Spoiler: North Point
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    Spoiler: The Heights
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    Spoiler: Old Korvosa
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    Spoiler: South Shore
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    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Other Important Information
    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Act 1: Edge of Anarchy


    Prelude

    Theme Music

    Far beneath Castle Korvosa, a stone door that had remained shut for many years slowly ground open. This door was a secret one, flush with the wall it had been built into, and gave no sign that it even existed. Only one who knew where to look would be able to find it, and even that would prove useless were one not to also possess the door’s only key. A large iron key, bigger than a man’s fist, decorated in macabre fashion with screaming skulls and runes from some long-dead language. A key like the one now brandished in one hand by the woman who stood in the open doorway, illuminated only by the light of the candle that she held in her other hand.

    Queen Ileosa Arabasti stood in front of the open doorway for several long moments, nervously examining the room beyond. It was an intimidating sight, resembling a tomb rather than a hidden off-shoot of the treasure vault she currently stood in. Runes similar to the ones adorning her key skittered along every surface beyond the door, forming vaguely menacing patterns across the floor, walls, and ceiling. Save for the runes, the room itself was featureless except for the pedestal jutting up out of the floor at the exact center point of the room, the runes racing along its surface until they reached its peak, atop which sat a large stone coffer wrapped in thick iron chains, held in place by a screaming iron skull, a keyhole just barely visible at the back of its yawning mouth.

    Reaching out her magical senses to detect sources of magic in the room, Ileosa saw no immediate threat, as the room’s rune artwork was entirely defensive in nature, focused on suppressing whatever was inside the stone coffer – and despite that Ileosa could still faintly feel the presence of magic within it. There was no doubt whatever was inside, it was powerful – and that it was what she had come down here for. And despite that, still Ileosa hovered in the doorway, her fears holding her back – she was down here alone, with no one to stand between her and danger. If there was still some hidden trap within, if she was injured . . .

    Ileosa gathered up her frayed nerves and brought the memory of why she was down here at all to the forefront of her mind.

    Kneeling beside the bed of King Eodred Arabasti the Second, her head in his too-frail lap, tears staining the fur of the thick blanket separating them. Wishing there was something, anything, that she could do to make him stay at her side. She’d pay any price – her wealth, her youth, her very soul if it would mean they could be together again as they had been, not like this as every passing moment took her Eodred farther away from her. But such pacts only existed in fairy tales, and in reality there was no cure for old age, nothing else she could do but lie beside him as the spark of Eodred’s life flickered out.

    “Stay with me. Please

    She begged, and was rewarded with a shuddering groan as Eodred stirred.

    “Are you there my queen?” Came the hoarse whisper, at which point she lifted her head to look at her king’s withered face, and raised one hand to gently caress it.

    “Yes. I am here my love. Always.”

    To her surprise, with sudden strength Eodred reached up and grasped her hand. With his other trembling hand he fumbled the blankets aside and reached inside his robe to remove a key that had been hanging around his neck. A key that Ileosa had often seen hanging around Eodred’s neck, but never received an honest answer as to its purpose. An iron key decorated with macabre designs of screaming skulls and runes from a long-dead language. Eodred pressed the key into her outstretched hand, and then closed her hand around it with his last strength.

    “There . . . might be a way . . . for me to yet live. But it will require . . . breaking a promise I made long ago. And I am too weak . . . to go myself. You must . . . you must go down to the treasure vault . . . castle basement. At the back . . . behind the fourth brick from the top . . . seventh from the right . . . key. Go alone, take no one with you! Hurry . . .


    Ileosa had flown from her husband’s side that moment, and despite the strangeness of his request, she had done as asked. She had come down here alone, she had found the hidden keyhole at the back of the vault, and now that the item that could save Eodred’s life was in her sight, she hesitated? She would pay any price!

    Ileosa took a step into the rune-covered tomb, and then another, the iron key held in front of her like a shield. With growing determination to match her mounting sense of dread, Ileosa crossed the remaining distance to the pedestal, and once there, hesitated only a moment more before ramming the key home into the gaping mouth. There was a soft, raspy click, and then the key was torn out of Ileosa’s hand as it sank into the mouth, which closed around the key as gears groaned into motion. Ileosa jumped back, narrowly stifling a startled scream, although that scream died on her lips as she glanced up to check the ring on her hand that clenched the candle holder, only to see the emerald set into its face had gone completely dark. A magical ring that was part of a pair, its singular purpose was to inform its wearer of the condition of the one wearing its mate. And if the stone went as completely dark as hers was now, then it meant . . .

    “No . . . no no no no, please no!”

    Ileosa breathed, switching her grip on the candle holder from one hand to the other so that she could stare more easily at the ring’s gem – and more safely shake her hand, hoping to fix the magical fluke responsible for this news. But the stone remained dark no matter how vigorously she shook the ring, and Ileosa sank to her knees onto the merciless stone as the truth of it washed over her. She was too late . . . if only she had been faster, less afraid, maybe she could have done it. Ileosa’s vision blurred as hot tears began their race from the corners of her eyes, and it was a struggle to keep hold of the candle holder as her body was wracked with sobs.

    But sorrow turned to terror a moment later as the iron skull finally finished its meal, and with a final rattling click released its hold on the chains. Chains which flew away from the coffer, unfurling from where they had been tightly wrapped a moment before like a hunter’s snare. One such length of chain lashed across Ileosa’s hand, sending the candle holder tumbling out of her hand and plunging the room into total darkness. Wincing at the sudden stab of pain from her hand, Ileosa nonetheless crawled across the stone floor, flailing at the floor out in front of her with her other hand while clutching the wounded one to her chest. Where was it, where was it!? There! Ileosa’s fingers brushed against the length of the candle, and pain flared in her other hand as her outstretched fingers raked through still molten wax. But after another moment her fingers finally found a solid grip, and she drew her prize back to her, already stumbling over the necessary arcane words.

    One after another, sparks briefly appeared from her hands to illuminate the tomb for one brief moment before expiring – she couldn’t find the damn wick to light it again! And then suddenly she saw where the wick was, and reflexively lit it, before she realized that she only found the wick because she could see it. The room had slowly been filled with a dim light, coming from all of the warding runes throughout the room – but the brightest light by far now shone from the coffer, through the narrow slit between its lid and body.

    The glow of the coffer was hypnotic, and Ileosa slowly felt her terror, her sorrow fade away, to be replaced by a burning curiosity about what was inside. What had Eodred sent her down here to retrieve, with what had been essentially his dying breath? And why had he been convinced that it could save him? Pushing herself back up to her feet, Ileosa ran her fingers across the face of the lid, trying to find purchase with her fingers so she could lift it up. The stone coffer swung open at her touch of its own accord with a low hiss of grinding stone.

    Within the coffer was a crown, made of some twisted, jagged shards of black metal with pieces of . . . bone? . . . slid into metal sheaths along the rim. A mote of deep blue light floated above the crown, dancing and twirling in mesmerizing patterns within the coffer’s narrow confines. It ceased its pacing turns a moment later, hanging in place a moment before it shoot upwards – towards Ileosa’s face! The queen jerked her head back, but it was too late as light enveloped her.

    The bright light became searing as it poured into her eyes, her nose, her ears. She tried to move but found she could not, held immobile by the light as firmly as if by chains. She opened her mouth to scream, and the light poured itself into the new opening, choking her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe – she was drowning in the light. No. It was crushing her. And then just like that, the light winked out, the room plunging back into total darkness as the wards all went out and the candle again fell from Ileosa’s lifeless hands. She crumpled to the floor like a puppet with its strings having been cut, and as she fell her hand caught on the edge of the coffer, pulling it off of the pedestal. It shattered as it touched the floor, and the crown skittered across the floor, free at last.

    For what seemed like an age, Ileosa lied still on the floor, not moving, not making even a sound. But then she stirred, throwing a hand out to steady herself and push herself up onto her knees – and found the crown. Reflexively, she reached up and set the crown onto her head, adjusting its position to make sure it was firmly in place before wiping the tears from her face.

    “Everything will be alright.”

    Ileosa promised, and then got to her feet, leaving the tomb behind. She did not collect the extinguished candle on her way out.

    --------------------------------

    Theme Music

    In one corner of the upscale Three Rings tavern, the conspirators met for the final time. The tavern had been chosen as a meeting point for its dedication to discretion in regards to its clients’ privacy. It seemed unlikely, however, that the group’s privacy would be respected if it was known what they had met here so many times to discuss.

    “A toast to our future fortunes. Soon the roster will be dead, if he isn’t already, and then the henhouse will be ours.”

    Their leader declared, earning a murmur of approval and clinking of wine glasses. It was all so tedious and juvenile to the eldest member of the conspiracy, who had spent years bitterly wishing he was able to kill the king and topple the city’s monarchy. Well now he had finally done it, with the help of these others interested in regime change, and the accomplishment only tasted like ashes. Much like this piss weak wine he was drinking, and finished in one long swallow. Time to leave – let these sycophants bathe in their leader’s afterglow if they must, but he had better things to do with what time was left to him. As he rose to leave, of course the leader’s chief toady chose that moment to open his fat mouth.

    “Sulking back to your hole already? The night is young – you might as well enjoy the quiet while it lasts.”

    The punk was lucky that they’d never have to see each other again after this. Otherwise he might have learned the painful lesson of respecting his elders while picking the shards of this empty wineglass out of his neck. But attempting to murder one of his fellows would undoubtedly jeopardize his payment, and that was the only important thing left here.

    “I’d rather collect my, heh, “commission” and leave the playing with farm animals to younger men, Junior. The streets aren’t going to be very safe in a few hours, and I’d rather be safe aboard my ship as it arrives to take me away to the rest of my life as a very wealthy man someplace far away from here. Unless, of course, the plan wasn’t to kill just one old man.”

    All those assembled tensed at his bluntness, but their leader remained stone-faced, betraying nothing about what the real plan was for covering their tracks. Not for the first time was he grateful that he had arranged for some insurance ahead of time to prevent a double-cross. After a tense moment of locked eyes and everyone else holding their breath, the conspiracy’s leader produced a bulging purse and tossed it over to his side of the table. Cautiously, the old man picked up the top of the tied-shut bag with thumb and forefinger, and then let it drop back to the table – just in case there was something else in there instead of coins. But no, the rattling jiggle of coins was the only thing he heard as the bag smacked back down onto the table, and so he scooped the bag back up and shoved it into his shirt, giving an exaggerated bow to those assembled.

    “Pleasure doing business with you all. Hope I never see any of you again. Because if I do . . .”

    He let the threat of deploying his insurance hang in the air, but the leader’s face remained expressionless, until a disdainful hand waved a dismissal. He was free to go, released from service as if he was no more than a cheap porter, easily replaced and quickly forgotten. The gall of it made his blood boil, and yet he was seasoned enough to not do something rash and irrevocable, like he would have done in his youth. Some battles were not winnable, and some were not even worth fighting in the first place. He had his payment, and now it was time to leave and turn his thoughts to the future. However much of that he had left at this point, anyway.

    And so he left, leaving the conspirators to their trite little party on this last evening of peace. While he still half expected a knife to appear in his back at any moment, he nonetheless walked along the docks back towards his “hole”, breathing in the thin mist rising off of the Jeggare River. It would be the last time he would get to do that, for as soon as he collected his things from his stash, he was on the first boat leaving Korvosa. With any luck, the ship would be able to clear its moorings and be at sea before everything went to hell. But first, he had to deal with the ******* coming up behind him. He slowed his limping gait to a stop, reaching for the knife tucked at the small of his back, underneath his cloak, as the footsteps drew closer.

    “I don’t like being followed.”

    He announced, and then extended his offer to his pursuer.

    “So why don’t we skip to the end, where you **** off and I don’t give you a new mouth three inches below your old one.”



    Theme Music

    A dry chuckle that sounded like dead leaves scraping over the cobblestones was the only reply, and then came the whispered counteroffer.

    “So this is how the great Gaedren Lamm ends. A broken old man crawling off to die in safety and comfort, while his city changes hands from one parasite to the next, achieving nothing. And all he has to show for his life is the pittance doled out to him by his masters, a far cry from what he was promised. What he is owed.”

    Gaedren Lamm spun about on his good leg, producing the dagger from its hiding place as he snarled at the mocking interloper, who was little more than a silhouette a dozen feet back, concealed by the mists. If this was an assassin sent by his “masters”, he had bungled the job by announcing his presence. Or perhaps not, considering with his limp Gaedren didn’t have a prayer of escaping. Hoping to buy himself some time, Gaedren tried to keep the figure talking – and unleashing some of his simmering resentment felt good.

    “You don’t know **** about me or what this city owes me! And this “pittance” is more than enough for me to live the sort of life I was promised!”

    Again, a dry chuckle from the figure as it advanced closer. Now instead of a silhouette, it was a cowled figure – another few steps and Gaedren would have a clear throw of his knife at its head.

    “For as long as that life lasts. But then you will be gone. Forgotten. All your dreams and efforts for naught. Korvosa will go on without you, unchanged. Is that the result you fought for, sacrificed so much for, clung to these past thirty years?”

    The figure continued to draw closer, and as it loomed out of the mists, coming within six feet, Gaedren sneered and made his move.

    “This conversation bores me. But however long my life will be, at this point it’ll be longer than yours.”


    The knife scythed through the mist and night air, and yet when it flew perfectly into the darkness of the interloper’s cowl, the figure winked out of existence entirely. Lamm swore as he heard the soft plop of his knife continuing on into the Jeggare River beyond, the perfect throw wasted on some kind of illusion. The interloper’s voice chided him from all sides within the mist.

    “This doesn’t have to be how your story ends, Gaedren. I can provide you with the means to rewrite your ending. You can still do everything you wanted to do – what you were born to do. All you have to do is accept my invitation. Take some time to think about it if you must. Just know that you are short on time to change your fate. So what’s it going to be, Gaedren? Is your life going to end as a failure, or as the fire that will sweep Korvosa clean?”

    From the mist, a card fluttered out to land at his feet. Looking down to examine it, Gaedren saw that it was a Harrow card, much like one from the set he had stolen from that fortune teller bitch some time ago – oh, the irony.

    “Harrow, really? What’s next, you going to tell me that in addition to fame and fortune, I’ll find the woman of my dreams?”

    Gaedren taunted, but there was no reply from the mist – whoever he had been speaking with, they were gone now. Cautiously, Gaedren picked up the Harrow card, flipping it over to reveal that an address had been scratched onto the back. Apropos, given how ridiculous this whole night had been. And yet . . . the figure in the mist’s offer did hold some attraction. He had forgotten how fiercely that spark had burned in him, forgotten himself. He could always retire to Magnimar later, after things calmed down again. It couldn’t hurt to at least see what this lunatic was really offering him, right?

    But first, he was going to need more men – he was going to need a *lot* more men. Which wouldn’t be a problem, thanks to his newfound wealth. Gaedren set off down the street again, but this time his destination wasn’t home, but instead a few local watering holes he knew where the patrons didn’t ask questions, and were rather fond of money.
    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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  5. - Top - End - #5
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Stelio Kontos & Darvin

    Theme Song

    Having dealt with the guards, you all turn your attention to what they were guarding – the sewer entrance into Lamm’s latest Shudder den. Miz gives the door a swift check to ensure there are no more surprises waiting anyone who attempted to open the door, and upon finding none sets to work on the lock. After only a few moments of working on it with her set of tools, she steps back and nods to Silas, who takes the lead again, grasping the door with one hand while the other awkwardly cradles his falchion. Just as he moves to pull the door open, however, it happens again.

    Whatever bizarre shift in the universe pitched the four of you into a similar but different series of events following Eodred’s death in a similar but different Korvosa happened again. Only this time, instead of waking up in your world, it happens while you are awake, in the space of one heartbeat to the next. Silas and Miz blink out of existence without warning as your vision swims, replaced by three other figures – two halflings and a varisian man wearing the heraldry of the Order of the Nail. The disorientation continues as a pressure painfully builds up inside of your forehead, feeling for one intense moment as if your brain was pushing its way through your skull, before the pain mercifully fades as events and names to these three new faces flow into your mind.

    • Miz and Silas were still part of your circle, but personal concerns had pulled each of them away for now. There was also the fact that neither one had seemed to appreciate the idea of having to tolerate the presence of the Hellknight, an Armiger Gavin Dimir, who had showed up with Rhev, apparently assigned to the case by Field Marshall Kroft as a collaboration with the Order of the Nail on bringing Gaedren Lamm to justice. He had proven to be useful so far though, and deadly with that rapier of his, after skewering the fleeing wererat through the heart when it attempted to dash past him.
    • The beefier of the two halflings, Jakkin Longshanks, had shown up the night of Zellara’s Harrow reading, not drawn there by one of Zellara’s planted Harrow cards but instead apparently memories of doing so in another life. That certainly sounded familiar, and so the two of you along with Silas and Miz had raided Lamm’s Fishery base with similar success to the last time – Lamm got away aboard his repaired ship, and you spent the rest of the night dealing with the fallout of Eodred’s death. He’s been tagging along with your group ever since then, and has proven to be no less lethal with his fists in a fight than Miz. Case in point: pummeling the bed that had been animated in Andaisin’s house before kicking the splintered remnants down the stairs into the basement, triggering the broken stairs trap (rather than Dalen’s poor unfortunate summoned horse).
    • The last new member of your group, Atavian Goodbarrel, was like Dalen a former student of the Acadamae, who was adept at conjuration. He has a particularly strong bond with a creature known as Tallox, a hulking grey-skinned outsider who had thus far defied Dalen’s attempts at classification into one of the more common outsider races such as devil, daemon, or demon. The two of them had been introduced to the group by Field Marshall Kroft (technically just Atavian at the time – Tallox introduced himself later) as potential extra muscle while escorting Ambassador Andaisin to the castle, and then of course the queen’s handmaiden Elliana around the city. Tallox had given the poor girl quite the fright when he popped into existence inside the ambassador’s house, a fact which seemed to amuse the disturbing outsider greatly. Like Jakkin, Atavian eventually owned up to having memories from another world, although his memories were particularly disjointed and fragmented compared to yours. He seemed especially driven by them, however, as if he were attempting to outrun an impending catastrophe. Whatever he had seen, whatever world he had come from, it seemed to be an even darker world than this, and he was desperate to prevent those events from happening all over again.
    • Despite some mild differences due to the presence of these new traveling companions, events thus far had largely played out in the same manner as they had before. Lamm was still at large, Trinia was a guest of Queen Ileosa, Ambassador Andaisin still had many literal skeletons in her closet, and if not Queen Ileosa, then certainly her handmaiden Elliana was a staunch ally of the party. And you were all still about to break into a drug-producing laboratory of Lamm’s, hopefully to bring about an end to his growing Shudder empire.


    Captain Jak
    Theme Song

    It had certainly been an interesting couple of weeks. You had finally tracked down Gaedren Lamm with the help of some people and that weird ghost fortune teller, and got revenge for your sweetheart by literally beating the old coot’s head in. Then the king died and Korvosa went straight to the Hells, as everybody and their angry old dog (like the one you had punched out shortly before Lamm) came out of the woodwork to try and re-enact the Great Fire that nearly burned Korvosa to the ground a few hundred years ago. Here’s where the story gets really weird though – you remember all that and the events of the past several years leading up to that wild night, but that wasn’t the way it happened.

    No, you had never gotten together with that buxom barmaid, although you had flirted a time or two with each other – nothing wrong with that, but it had certainly never gone past that. Which also certainly made all those pleasant and intimate memories you had of her now rather awkward. But at least she was still alive, having never run afoul of Gaedren Lamm either, so that was a good trade-off really.

    Instead you had learned Gaedren Lamm’s name from a friend and fellow halfling of yours, an indentured servant of House Jeggare that had turned to Shiver as something to cling to. Only one bad dose of Shiver sold to him by that bastard Gaedren Lamm had left him first in a coma, and then crippled with a perpetual jitteriness in his hands - a common side effect of bad doses or repeat abuse, hence the name. That was when all of this had started, as when you jumped ship to track down the man responsible, you somehow already knew where you had to go.

    And so you showed up that one dark night at the fortune teller Zellara’s house, knowing right where it was and when to be there despite not getting a signed invitation on the back of a Harrow card this time around. Even the fortune teller had seemed confused by that one, but took it as a sign from Pharasma or something that you were meant to be here so there you were. Completely different group this time – playwright bard named Aliani, wizard shopkeep that went by the name of Dalen, a tiefling named Silas, and a ratfolk named Miz. The five of you had gone down to Lamm’s Fishery again, and again you had kicked the **** out of that mangy old dog Lamm’s associate Yargin kept around the place.

    But this, too, was different. Instead of killing Lamm he got away aboard that rickety old boat he had out back, only this time the boat was sea worthy enough to float down the river with him and several of his boys. You weren’t able to follow because you were all kept busy by the mercenary Lamm had left behind, some punk named Brendan who downed another vial of Lamm’s drugs. Only this wasn’t Shiver, this was a new drug Lamm was making now called Shudder, and true to the rumors on the street it gave Brendan legit magic powers. Of course, it also caused his right eye to burst and ooze black blood down the side of his face and drove him stark-raving mad, but for some idiots there was never any price too high for power.

    Anyway, after dealing with him, there was the little matter of the city collectively losing its mind over Eodred’s death all over again, and you and the others spent the rest of the night dealing with that. Including rescuing some lady friend of Aliani’s that had gotten kidnapped by a gang in a case of mistaken identity with her twin sister? Or something – any way, the poor lass had gotten carved up pretty bad by some nutter and had her face burned with acid, so it was looking pretty grim for her despite the rescue. After all that, the whole group pretty much holed up in Dalen’s home-turned-shop and waited for morning to come, along with the injured lady friend, her sister, and the dozen or so orphans Aliani insisted on taking care of from Lamm’s Fishery business.

    The next morning saw Dalen getting visitors, in the form of Field Marshall Kroft herself – apparently, he had pretty good connections for an Acadamae dropout. She had some work for the group that for whatever reason couldn’t be handled by her own guards – oh yeah the city was still clinging on the edge of civil collapse – which seemed simple enough on the surface: escort the ambassador of Cheliax from her private residence in Old Korvosa to the castle. The Field Marshall did have some help that she managed to scrape up, however, in the form of a fellow halfling named Atavian. A bit on the scrawny side, even for a halfling, but apparently he was some sort of arcanist too and had gone to Kroft to volunteer, so she was putting him to work by hoisting him off onto your group. You weren’t sure what good Atavian was going to be in a fight, but it turned out no open violence was necessary. Things weren’t quite as simple as they seemed though, as Lady Ambassador Andaisin of Cheliax immediately rubbed everyone the wrong way and just generally gave off an air of someone with dark secrets.

    Anyway, nothing went wrong (for once!) with the job, and you safely saw the ambassador to the castle, whereupon you got introduced to the Whore Queen herself, Queen Ileosa Arabasti, widow of the late (not so) great King Eodred. Surprisingly, the so-called Whore Queen was actually pretty nice, and not just to look at – she asked you all about your experiences in the city with the riots, requested that you escort her handmaiden around to quietly investigate some of the worst-hit areas, and listened intently when Aliani vented up a whole lot of pent-up frustration instead of having her bodyguard Sabrina Merrin throw Aliani out (possibly straight off the castle walls given some stories about how the nobility dealt with uppity commoners). She even had her personal doctor go back with Aliani to treat his friend of her injuries, fixing her right up.

    That seemed to generate enough good will from the group that collectively you all decided (begrudgingly, in some cases) to escort the queen’s handmaiden, an elf woman by the name of Elliana, around to several of the worst-hit areas of Korvosa. The tour itself featured a few unpleasant run-ins with Hellknights, Lamm’s men (calling themselves “Lamm’s Liberators” now, what a laugh), and one drunk guardsman who seemed to have a connection with Aliani and Silas based off of their reactions, but was relatively uneventful. At least, it was until Aliani floated the idea of breaking into the Ambassador of Cheliax’s house while she was away at the castle, evidentially expecting to find some evidence of wrong-doing.

    It seemed like a bad idea the whole way through, especially with the queen’s handpicked woman there, but somehow Elliana was convinced to go along with the plan and you broke into Ambassador Andaisin’s house. At which point the furniture came alive and tried to kill you all, including the ambassador’s four-poster bed. That was certainly a new experience – it’s not every day you get to hop up and down on a bed raining punches against the headboard until the entire bed snaps in two.

    After the furniture was all broken into submission, you discovered a secret door leading down into a basement. Concerned about a trap being set up on the stairs leading down, Dalen and Atavian debated the merits of one of them summoning a creature to walk down there. While they were busy debating, you dragged the remnants of Ambassador Andaisin’s fancy bed over to the stairs and kicked the damn thing down them, revealing that they were rigged to collapse as most of the stairway fell into a small pool of green slime. With the trap now definitively set off, it was easy enough for the group to climb down after making an improvised rope out of the bed sheets.

    Investigating the basement finally paid off what the group had suspected about the ambassador – she did indeed have dark secrets. Within the basement was a shrine to Urgathoa, and the bodies of a half dozen men – members of Lamm’s Liberators apparently. The bodies were important because as the group reached the basement floor those corpses became animated, attacking the group and attempting to force you all back into the pool of green slime.

    That was when Atavian finally got to show off his skill, summoning some sort of towering monstrosity of muscle and claws that sent Elliana screaming and cowering in fright after it appeared and ripped the zombie right next to her in half. The undead proved not to be a major inconvenience, but when the shrine to Urgathoa self-destructed, triggering a patch of oil that set the entire house above you ablaze – and summoned a giant fire elemental just for kicks – that was a good deal more serious. Fortunately, the ambassador had prepared her own escape from this fiery death trap via a secret door that led into the sewers, which the group availed themselves of while Silas fought a rearguard action against the elemental, the tiefling not especially bothered by even its intense flames.

    Unfortunately, while scandalous the worship of Urgathoa was not expressly illegal, and all of your actual evidence for such went up in literal smoke. Setting her own house to go up like that was certainly a *very* serious crime in Korvosa, but unfortunately would likewise be difficult to prove especially when any story would have to begin with “and so we broke into the ambassador’s private residence”. Yeah, and as usual the nobility played by different rules than the rest of you. At least Elliana now seemed convinced that Queen Ileosa’s good friend Ambassador Andaisin needed to go, and apparently she managed to convince the queen of that as well since Queen Ileosa had asked you all to continue to look into Lady Andaisin’s activities – discretely – not long after.

    On the way back to the castle you ran into a group of Hellknights who were conducting public executions of citizens they had caught in the riots. Maybe those unfortunates were actually guilty of something and maybe they weren’t, but they were certainly all about to die in a sadistic and bloody display by a trio of Hellknights while a crowd of people just watched. At least that seemed the way things were going until Elliana walked up and challenged the Hellknight’s legal authority to do this, and even seemed to be making some actual headway with her argument. Which is when *he* showed up to solve the problem in a much more direct way – the legendary vigilante and hero of the people Blackjack, swinging in from a nearby rooftop to declare that the Hellknights had failed Korvosa. He cut the people free and dueled the lead Hellknight, and all Hells broke loose at that point as Aliani and the others kept the lesser Hellknights busy while their prisoners fled. It was about that point when things really heated up, literally as the chief Hellknight detonated a Fireball spell in the middle of the crowd, presumably trying to kill Blackjack. Elliana got caught in the blast due to sheltering a child from the flames, but she was surprisingly unhurt by the magic. Good thing too, given the furious expression on Sabrina Merrin, the queen’s personal bodyguard, when you met her a short distance away from the castle after getting away from the Hellknights.

    After that, everyone sort of did their own thing with the party splitting up to tackle several problems at once. You looked in on your friend, and helped Aliani and Miz check out one of Lamm’s older drug dens. Apparently this was where the Shudder had been made initially before Lamm took over the business, and judging from the corpses left behind gave the previous creators a retirement shiv in the guts for their trouble. The lab had clearly been shut down and moved elsewhere, but there were still some disturbing things left behind, including some sort of magical sigil burned into the floor and a strange mass of alchemical goo that nearly devoured all three of you before you were able to get away from it and flee back down into the sewers.

    While you were dealing with that, Dalen, Silas, and Atavian were apparently checking up on one of Kroft’s lieutenants, who had gone undercover with a number of other corrupt guardsmen in an attempt to get a lead on Lamm. Apparently that plan of Kroft’s hadn’t gone well as the other guards discovered the man’s duplicity and were going to kill him before the others intervened and rescued him. There was also something about these guards running some sort of body disposal business on the side, hacking bodies up and distributing them out to the city’s desperate as “free meat”. Real piece of work that bunch were – too bad their ring leader Baldrago had managed to get away through the sewers while his buddies held the group off.

    Once everyone was back together, Aliani revealed to the group that he was part of some sort of secret society of revolutionaries, of which Gaedren Lamm was also a former member. Apparently the snake was trying to get Aliani’s group to throw their lot in with him, and Aliani wanted everyone at the meeting to testify about what a worm Lamm was. This everyone did happily, but things got rather dicey when Lamm showed up unannounced to argue his own side. There was some nonsense about Lamm apparently having a thing with Aliani’s mom back in the day, at least implying that he could be Aliani’s father. Whatever, you didn’t care about any of that, nor the fact that Lamm had somehow managed to talk a Hellknight into tagging along as his bodyguard – the old sack of ****te was right there in front of you, and you were going to take your shot. The only thing that ended up stopping you was Atavian’s beast – Tallox was its name, apparently – grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and holding you back while that old bastard laughed. The only good thing that came of the night was the fact that Lamm’s proposal got vetoed, so at least somebody in this city was willing to tell him to get bent.

    It was around this time that you all got invited back to the castle to have lunch with the queen, which was certainly a surreal experience. The food was nothing to get too excited about – just finger sandwiches really – but the manicured garden terrace you ate in was pretty impressive, and the queen brought gifts – one magic item for each of you, as thanks for escorting her handmaiden. The only sour note there was Ambassador Andaisin showing up to piss all over the mood, and leave the queen in tears over the suggestion that King Eodred had not died of natural causes, but instead had been murdered.

    This in turn led to a rather bizarre tangent about some painting that King Eodred had commissioned as an anniversary gift for Queen Ileosa, and the painter girl he had hired to create it. The group later brought you up to speed that in the previous world (although some of the details they mentioned didn’t quite line up with your memories either, so what the Hells – were there THREE worlds all mangled together now? MORE?), this painter – Trinia Sabor – had been framed for King Eodred’s murder, possibly by the queen herself. Which made things even more confusing when Silas blurted out that he knew where Miss Sabor was, and petitioned the queen to offer sanctuary to her until this conspiracy around King Eodred’s death could be unraveled. You could see why the others thought Queen Ileosa was behind the framing in the other world though, as she went cold when Trinia was brought up. But then when she saw Trinia’s half-finished work, which was just a picture of some stone bench from the garden you had just had lunch in, Queen Ileosa did an about-face and promised to offer shelter to the girl. Apparently the queen had just thought the king was back to his infamous polyamorous ways, but seeing the bench convinced her otherwise because it was from some intimate moment the two of them had shared together or something. For whatever reason that was enough proof for the queen, so Silas fetched the girl later that night and she wasn’t immediately thrown into the dungeons so maybe this would work out after all.

    More good news followed with an announcement from the queen that she had cut some sort of deal with the Hellknights, contracting them to patrol the roads leading from Korvosa to its various holdings out in the countryside and ensure order there, a large enough job that virtually all of the Hellknights would be required. That got all but a handful of them out of the city, the remainder staying behind to hunt down Lamm’s new pet Hellknight – apparently, they were taking his defection rather personally. That was all fine and dandy for you as you had all been seeing too many Hellknights lately, but unfortunately your luck wasn’t that good.

    The following day, the investigator Kroft had assigned to hunt down Lamm’s businesses and tendrils throughout the city – a man named Rhev, who apparently also had past dealings with Dalen and Aliani from that other world – showed up and asked the group if they would like to quietly bust up Lamm’s latest drug lab. This could possibly be even the new one Lamm had set up to produce Shudder, and rather than risk Lamm getting tipped off by any more dirty guardsmen, Kroft had requested all of you go with Rhev and secure the lab ahead of the guard. The catch was that the Order of the Nail had assigned one of their armigers remaining in the city, a man named Gavin Dimir, to hunting down the traitor Hellknight and had specifically requested that he be brought along to anything dealing with Gaedren Lamm. So rather than one babysitter in Kroft’s investigator, you had a bloody Hellknight tagging along too.

    Rather than let Lamm’s Rats slip out through the inevitable sewer exit, Dalen had recommended going into the place through the sewers to seal up that exit first. Not a terrible plan, although it had gone a bit sideways when the group encountered a pair of wererats Lamm had hired to guard that particular entrance. No matter – you, Miz, and Silas had worked over one of them while Tallox batted around the other one. When he managed to slip out of Tallox’s grip and make a run for it, Gavin was waiting for him, and the Hellknight armiger had pierced the wererat through the heart with his rapier. You had then made short work of the lock on the door, and your group was now ready to enter into the drug lab proper.

    THEChanger

    Theme Song

    As the wererat slides off of your rapier, with a little help from your boot, the contrasting and opposing voices echo in your head again. You had never suffered from such things before, even in the darkest moments within Longacre or during your training within the Order, but without warning your mind had became a battleground between these two. And with the voices came those strange false memories, memories of a different life, and a different path you had followed after Longacre. Was this the onset of madness, or simply some bizarre new test the Order was inflicting to test your loyalties?

    The first voice was no more than a soft but warm whisper, bringing to mind the image of a butterfly, touching down on your shoulder to offer its advice before fluttering away.

    “Protect the dreamers, the would-be heroes. You are one yourself, still.”

    The second voice was a ragged, grating howl that simultaneously froze and tore at your soul, threatening to overwhelm you with the image of an immense shadow towering over you, one cobalt blue light burning high above and skewering you with its gaze.

    “A seed of darkness lies in all life. It consumes, and consumes, and consumes all it touches. You, too, will consume everything in your path.”

    Focus. This was no time for the idle musings of madness, you were representing the Order of the Nail in front of outsiders on a mission of considerable importance. At least it certainly seemed important, given you were about to shut down Lamm’s latest drug lab, and hopefully the one producing this new drug of his, the so-called “Shiver”. Most of the Order hadn’t believed in the rumors that this drug could bestow magical powers upon those who drank it, but now you were not so sure with these new false memories or whatever they were.

    Unfortunately, you were not assaulting this lab with a unit of your fellow armigers, but instead adventurers and one of Kroft’s hand-picked investigators, as if her judgement in lackeys was sound! You had Queen Ileosa to thank for that, as she apparently favored this group of “problem solvers” while simultaneously commissioning the Order to fruitlessly expend all of its strength patrolling the kingdom’s borders, in a transparent attempt to banish the Order from Korvosa. Fortunately, Lictor DeVries had seen through this betrayal and left a small detachment behind to continue the hunt for the traitor Xerxes, who had apparently forsaken his oaths in favor of throwing his lot in with Lamm. That treachery had to be punished first, and with any luck you would be the one to carry out his sentence.

    So far, this group of adventurers hadn’t made a complete mess of things. The wizard Dalen had suggested approaching the lab from the inevitable sewer entrance, blocking it off to prevent any escape. A sensible plan, although it had nearly gone wrong after you encountered this pair of wererats guarding said sewer entrance. The group’s other arcanist Atavian also seemed competent, as he summoned a towering fiend that nearly ripped one of the wererats in two, but it slipped away and nearly escaped had it not unfortunately run straight onto your rapier instead. The other halfling besides Atavian - you think his name was Jakkin – had unlocked the door while the bard Aliani tended to the group’s minor injuries. Now all that had to be decided was who was going to go through the door first.

    SanguinePenguin

    Theme Song

    Today had began like any other since you summoned Tallox and discovered this uncanny sense of déjà vu – with a nightmare. It was always the same – you drifting away from a circle of light into darkness, while within the circle two figures fought. One figure kept its back to you the entire time, his features permanently obscured by a black cloak, while the other was unmistakably Queen Ileosa Arabasti, equally beautiful and terrible to behold in equal measure. The queen dueled with this cowled figured, their swords flashing back and forth almost faster than your ability to follow, and yet throughout Ileosa’s cold, cruel smile never wavered. Finally, inevitably, the cowled man is skewered through the heart with one final, almost bored thrust from Ileosa, before the queen turns her fathomless blue eyes onto you. Even as you fall away past the point where the circle of light has shrunk down to a mere candle-sized glow, the queen’s words follow you.

    “Run, coward, and flee as far as your feet may take you. But know that you will never be able to run far enough. Your world shall burn, and all shall quaver and fall before the Eternal Horror!”

    And then, as always, you awake in a cold sweat, uncertain of whether this dream was caused by your perpetual sense of dread since summoning Tallox or the source of it. You had been busy since then, ingratiating yourself with the city guard, waiting for a group of adventurers to catch Field Marshall Kroft’s eye. Your hard work eventually paid off as the day after King Eodred died you were contacted by the Field Marshall. But rather than anything of seeming import, she wanted you to escort the Ambassador of Cheliax, Lady Andaisin, from her private residence in Old Korvosa to the castle. She had apparently hired an entire group of adventurers – a playwright named Aliani Rose, a wizard named Dalen Rittle (you think you had met him a few times back at the Acadamae, although it was years ago so who knows?), a tiefling named Silas Rata’da, and a ratfolk known as Miz.

    It seemed like a rather benign mission given the chaos that happened throughout the city just the previous night, and you didn’t get a sense of familiarity with any of these adventurers Kroft wanted you to essentially baby-sit, but seeing Lady Andaisin triggered something. Like your dreams, it was only a phrase spoken in Andaisin’s voice, but even that was more than enough to chill your soul to the bone.

    "And at last they come, desperately seeking salvation, struggling to fight, willing to die, and all for something greater. But there is nothing greater. There is only death, and she comes for all."

    That non-sequitur memory bubbling up was enough to convince you that this was the right track, however. But if meeting Lady Ambassador Andaisin was chilling, then the follow-up meeting with Queen Ileosa herself was absolutely frigid. And yet . . . there was nothing of your dream in this young queen. She was polite and interested in speaking with the group, asking all of you in turn about your experiences in the city with the riots. Furthermore, she requested that you escort her handmaiden around to quietly investigate some of the worst-hit areas, and listened intently when Aliani vented up a whole lot of pent-up frustration regarding an injured friend, which prompted Queen Ileosa to have her personal doctor go back with Aliani to treat her.

    That seemed to generate enough good will from the group that collectively you all decided (begrudgingly, in some cases) to escort the queen’s handmaiden, an elf woman by the name of Elliana, around to several of the worst-hit areas of Korvosa. The tour itself featured a few unpleasant run-ins with Hellknights, Lamm’s men (calling themselves “Lamm’s Liberators”), and one drunk guardsman who seemed to have a connection with Aliani and Silas based off of their reactions, but was relatively uneventful. At least, it was until Aliani floated the idea of breaking into the Ambassador of Cheliax’s house while she was away at the castle, evidentially expecting to find some evidence of wrong-doing.

    It seemed like a bad idea the whole way through, especially with the queen’s handpicked woman there, but somehow Elliana was convinced to go along with the plan and you broke into Ambassador Andaisin’s house. At which point the furniture came alive and tried to kill you all, including the ambassador’s four-poster bed. You considered summoning Tallox, but while you mentally debated with him over whether fighting furniture of all things was a waste of his time, the rest of the party dispatched the animated woodwork.

    After the furniture was all broken into submission, you discovered a secret door leading down into a basement. Concerned about a trap being set up on the stairs leading down, you and Dalen debated the merits of one of them summoning a creature to walk down there. While you were busy debating, the hafling Jakkin dragged the remnants of Ambassador Andaisin’s fancy bed over to the stairs and kicked the damn thing down them, revealing that they were rigged to collapse as most of the stairway fell into a small pool of green slime. With the trap now definitively set off, it was easy enough for the group to climb down after making an improvised rope out of the bed sheets.

    Investigating the basement finally paid off what the group had suspected about the ambassador – she did indeed have dark secrets. Within the basement was a shrine to Urgathoa, and the bodies of a half dozen men – members of Lamm’s Liberators apparently. The bodies were important because as the group reached the basement floor those corpses became animated, attacking the group and attempting to force you all back into the pool of green slime.

    This was when you finally brought Tallox out to “play” as he called it, as he seemed to enjoy ripping ambulatory corpses in half. His sudden appearance unfortunately left Elliana screaming and cowering in fright after he appeared and ripped the zombie right next to her in half. Ultimately the undead proved not to be a major inconvenience, but when the shrine to Urgathoa self-destructed, triggering a patch of oil that set the entire house above you ablaze – and summoned a giant fire elemental just for kicks – that was a good deal more serious. Fortunately, the ambassador had prepared her own escape from this fiery death trap via a secret door that led into the sewers, which the group availed themselves of while Silas fought a rearguard action against the elemental, the tiefling not especially bothered by even its intense flames.

    Unfortunately, while scandalous the worship of Urgathoa was not expressly illegal, and all of your actual evidence for such went up in literal smoke. Setting her own house to go up like that was certainly a *very* serious crime in Korvosa, but unfortunately would likewise be difficult to prove especially when any story would have to begin with “and so we broke into the ambassador’s private residence”. However, Elliana now seemed convinced that Queen Ileosa’s good friend Ambassador Andaisin needed to go, and apparently she managed to convince the queen of that as well since Queen Ileosa had asked you all to continue to look into Lady Andaisin’s activities – discretely – not long after.

    On the way back to the castle you ran into a group of Hellknights who were conducting public executions of citizens they had caught in the riots. Maybe those unfortunates were actually guilty of something and maybe they weren’t, but they were certainly all about to die in a sadistic and bloody display by a trio of Hellknights while a crowd of people just watched. At least that seemed the way things were going until Elliana walked up and challenged the Hellknight’s legal authority to do this, and even seemed to be making some actual headway with her argument. Which is when *he* showed up to solve the problem in a much more direct way – the legendary vigilante and hero of the people Blackjack, swinging in from a nearby rooftop to declare that the Hellknights had failed Korvosa. He cut the people free and dueled the lead Hellknight, and all Hells broke loose at that point as Aliani and the others kept the lesser Hellknights busy while their prisoners fled. It was about that point when things really heated up, literally as the chief Hellknight detonated a Fireball spell in the middle of the crowd, presumably trying to kill Blackjack. Elliana got caught in the blast due to sheltering a child from the flames, but she was surprisingly unhurt by the magic. Good thing too, given the furious expression on Sabrina Merrin, the queen’s personal bodyguard, when you met her a short distance away from the castle after getting away from the Hellknights.

    After that, everyone sort of did their own thing with the party splitting up to tackle several problems at once. While Jakkin, Aliani, and Miz checked out one of Lamm’s older drug dens, you, Dalen, and Silas were given another job by Kroft to check up on one of Kroft’s lieutenants, who had gone undercover with a number of other corrupt guardsmen in an attempt to get a lead on Lamm. Again that dark sense of prophecy bumped up against your mind as you recalled the grim secret of the butchery the gang was operating out of – they were disposing of bodies on the side, by hacking them up and distributing them out to the city’s desperate as “free meat”. You managed to rescue Verik, but Baldrago, the apparently ringlander of the gang this go around had managed to get away through the sewers.

    Once everyone was back together, Aliani revealed to the group that he was part of some sort of secret society of revolutionaries, of which Gaedren Lamm was also a former member. Apparently he was trying to get Aliani’s group to throw their lot in with him, and Aliani wanted everyone at the meeting to testify about what a worm Lamm was. This everyone did happily, but things got rather dicey when Lamm showed up unannounced to argue his own side. There was some nonsense about Lamm apparently having a thing with Aliani’s mom back in the day, at least implying that he could be Aliani’s father. Things were about to explode into violence thanks to Jakkin, who clearly only wanted to punch Lamm in the face, consequences be damned, and that could not be allowed given the narrow confines of the room and the fact that Lamm had compromised a Hellknight, who was now serving as his bodyguard. Unfortunately the only way you could think of to prevent Jakkin from doing that was by summoning Tallox, who snatched the halfling brawler up by the scruff of the neck and holding him back while Lamm laughed. At least Lamm’s proposal got vetoed.

    It was around this time that you all got invited back to the castle to have lunch with the queen, which again was an unnerving experience given your dreams. And yet, again the queen was kind and respectful, gifting each member of the group with a magical item. The only sour note was Ambassador Andaisin showing up briefly, but not before causing the queen to break down over the suggestion that King Eodred had not died of natural causes, but instead had been murdered.

    This in turn led to a discussion about a painting that King Eodred had commissioned as an anniversary gift for Queen Ileosa, and the painter girl he had hired to create it. Again, this story all started to sound disturbingly familiar to you – the painter Trinia Sabor, framed for King Eodred’s murder, possibly by the queen herself. The story you knew got twisted, however, when Silas blurted out that he knew where Miss Sabor was, and petitioned the queen to offer sanctuary to her until this conspiracy around King Eodred’s death could be unraveled. Queen Ileosa went cold at the mention of her name, but then when she saw Trinia’s half-finished work, she did an abrupt about-face and promised to offer shelter to the girl. Apparently, the queen had just thought the king was back to his infamous polyamorous ways, but seeing this incomplete painting of a stone bench convinced her otherwise because it was from some intimate moment the two of them had shared together. This was apparently enough proof for the queen, so Silas fetched the girl later that night and she wasn’t immediately thrown into the dungeons so perhaps things would go differently than you expected.

    More good news followed with an announcement from the queen that she had cut some sort of deal with the Hellknights, contracting them to patrol the roads leading from Korvosa to its various holdings out in the countryside and ensure order there, a large enough job that virtually all of the Hellknights would be required. That got all but a handful of them out of the city, the remainder staying behind to hunt down Lamm’s new pet Hellknight – apparently, they were taking his defection rather personally.

    The following day, the investigator Kroft had assigned to hunt down Lamm’s businesses and tendrils throughout the city – a man named Rhev, who apparently also had past dealings with Dalen and Aliani from that other world – showed up and asked the group if they would like to quietly bust up Lamm’s latest drug lab. This could possibly be even the new one Lamm had set up to produce Shudder, and rather than risk Lamm getting tipped off by any more dirty guardsmen, Kroft had requested all of you go with Rhev and secure the lab ahead of the guard. The catch was that the Order of the Nail had assigned one of their armigers remaining in the city, a man named Gavin Dimir, to hunting down the traitor Hellknight and had specifically requested that he be brought along to anything dealing with Gaedren Lamm.

    Rather than let Lamm’s Rats slip out through the inevitable sewer exit, Dalen had recommended going into the place through the sewers to seal up that exit first. Not a terrible plan, although it had gone a bit sideways when the group encountered a pair of wererats Lamm had hired to guard that particular entrance. Jakkin, Miz, and Silas dealt with one of them while Tallox batted around the other one. When he managed to slip out of Tallox’s grip and make a run for it, Gavin was waiting for him, and the Hellknight armiger had pierced the wererat through the heart with his rapier. Jakkin had then made short work of the lock on the door, and your group was now ready to enter into the drug lab proper.
    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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  6. - Top - End - #6
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Jakkin absently rubs at the skinned knuckles of one hand before folding up his Anytool and hooking it back onto his bandolier. The lock had yielded to his persuasions, and it was time to get a move on.

    "I'll go in first, get the lay of the land?" he confirms, looking back and generally up at his predominantly larger companions. A fair assumption; while prone to being loud and in your face by nature, when he puts his mind to it the petite pugilist is the next best thing to a ghost. His bare feet don't even leave tracks on the dirty floor, somehow....

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Gavin flicked his rapier, letting the tainted blood splatter to the floor. The voices echoed in his head, and Gavin felt something shiver inside him. For a moment, his thoughts raced. False memories rattled in his mind, and the Armiger forced them down. Now was not the time. Now was not the time to think on the voice that sounded like a goddess he once gave praise to. He had a mission to complete, and a demon to put down.

    Taking a deep breath, the Armiger nodded to Jakkin, and took up position on the left of the door. "Right behind you, Mister Longshanks. Moving on your signal."
    Last edited by THEChanger; 2020-04-03 at 01:55 PM.
    ATTENTION ANYONE WHO I'M PLAYING WITH:
    No news is good news.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Aliani took a moment to straighten the brooch holding the shirt of his top together; as he did, a familiar wave of healing energy filled the room, closing the small cut on his face (and incidentally healing the others as well). He picked up the dagger he'd sent sailing well over its target and found himself examining it, as if hoping that there was some defect other than the throw itself that might have explained his failure. He found none, though he searched for it for quite some time.

    "Miz, do you mind trying the door?" he whispered cautiously, before hearing the telltale click of a lock. He turned back to face the group. "Well! That was fast, well d--"

    She was just gone -- strange, that, as he distinctly thought he had remembered casting a spell on her just a few moments prior. So was Silas for that matter. His head went to his temple, as if trying to ward off some sort of a headache or hangover. He scanned the room carefully, warily. Dalen was there, that at least made sense. The others, he vaguely remembered one way or another, though 'remembered' wasn't quite the right word. If this was a dream, he would wake up from it soon enough.

    "Right. Sorry. I just... I ... it doesn't matter. We're... yes. Yes, you lead, please, and well done on the door, um, Jakkin, yes?. I'll just... I'll be right behind you." Still seeming to try to get his bearings, he moved away from the door so everyone that mattered could take the positions they needed.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Daemon

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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Atavian looks in confusion at Aliani's fragmented speech. He looks with concern at the man, "are you alright, did you get hit in the head?"

    Tallox leaned against the wall while Jakkin picked the lock. He would have preferred to do it, but contented himself with cleaning werechunks and weregoo off her spinly sharp fingers and his cloak. "I don't see why you call dibs, mortal. If you dally and I trip over you..." he leaves the barely serious threat unsaid.

    Atavian looks to the door, "if at a glance it looks rough in there, I will haste us, so brace yourselves."

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    "Hit in the head? No, I don't think so... I wasn't knocked out again, was I?" Aliani replied, a bit crestfallen near the end of it. "I thought it was just a small cut, but I took care of it. I'm just having some memory issues, apparently. Again. Please, don't trouble yourself worrying about it. I'm sure it'll be fine."

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Dalen collected himself after the conflict. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, but right now the prevailing gut feeling was directly associated with the noxious mix of burning rats and raw sewage. As his halfling compatriot popped open the lock he set aside the original plan. Though he preferred the approach of sealing off the sewer escape and making the raid from the surface, he wasn't opposed to this sort of entry given the numbers they could bring to bear - provided someone else was going in first.

    "Lead on, good sir, I have your back," he ensures he has his wand at the ready before they proceed.

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    PirateGuy

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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    After a quick glance inside to confirm that there had been no one on the far side to raise an alarm – while effective, their assault had certainly not been quiet – Jakkin once more employs his Anytool to quickly jam the lock, sealing the door from easy escape.

    Should their quarry try to escape through this bolt hole, they were in for a rude surprise.

    "Let's be at it, then," the gruff little Halfling says, cracking his knuckles. "Their asses ain't going to kick themselves, aye?," Not waiting for his longer-legged compatriots to get started, he leads the way back towards the surface with the typically long, quick strides that carry him along at the same pace as his companions and earned him the sobriquet of 'Longshanks'.

  13. - Top - End - #13
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    With the sewer entrance blocked by Jakkin jamming the door's lock - a tactic that admittedly wouldn't stop someone with enough time and energy to kick the door down - the group returns back up to street level to hit the laboratory from its front entrance. As the group approaches the side alley that leads to the lab's business front entrance, they discover a new and unexpected snag. The alley is largely blocked off by a carriage that had been pulled in front of the alleyway, its driver slumped up in his chair as if asleep but his eyes still moving underneath his hat. Clearly a lookout of some sort, but he proved to be no match for Jakkin's sneaking expertise or Rhetoric's ability to fly about unnoticed in the city as just another bird.

    Hidden from casual sight by passerby on the street, a group of six men labored to smash through the reinforced iron door that served as the lab's front entrance. Two burly men took turns hammering out a beat against the door's surface, while three more worked together to force a prybar into the bending metal to weaken it further, while the last man held up a shield over the murderhole slot built into the door to prevent any arrow fire. The group was already most of the way through the door, and it was only a matter of seconds before the tortured door finally gave way and granted the six men admittance. This was no random smash and grab from a group of strung-out junkies, despite the brutal-force approach they were taking - these men were clearly professional breakers who had been hired to get into this laboratory. Who else had a beef with Lamm in the criminal world that would be willing to make such a move in broad daylight despite the precautions, however, was unknown. Likewise, whether or not there were any reinforcements waiting within the carriage for the way to be opened before pouring out to join the carnage, as the carriage's curtains were tightly pulled shut.

    "Well, this is certainly an unexpected development!"

    Rhev grumbles quietly, his mind clearly sifting through possible explanations for this.

    "Shall we go over there and ask these gentlemen for their names and what they're doing here, or hasten to return back to the sewers, and hope to catch any of Lamm's men that do manage to get flushed out by them, once they've circumvented their own door?"
    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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  14. - Top - End - #14
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Aliani pondered for a moment, before nodding to himself in apparent satisfaction at his own conclusion. "Both? Let them fight a bit, these fellows are certainly winding up for one. Whoever they are, they're doing us a favor, enemy of my enemy and all that -- and if we do have to fight them, at least they'll be softened up somewhat?"

    "And that time would let Mr. Rittle coax some information out of their lookout, in his own special way. One of you should go with him, just in case, and I believe Mr. Dimir might be especially well suited as his accompaniment, but otherwise, I say we wait and listen for the sound of battle dying down, then go inside and see what we find."
    Last edited by Stelio Kontos; 2020-04-10 at 08:06 AM.

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    As the mysterious second group of criminals came into view, Gavin's muscles tensed in expectation of sprinting forward and confronting them. Biting down on the inside of his cheek, Gavin resisted that urge - he was here to support, not to take charge, and if the little band of adventurers wanted to take things slow, then so would he.

    The Armiger nodded as Aliani outlined his thoughts at how to proceed, and drew his rapier. "I would be happy to serve as Mister Rittle's escort. I also happen to have a way with convincing people, though it isn't particularly special."
    ATTENTION ANYONE WHO I'M PLAYING WITH:
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Eying the carriage and its unknown contents, Jakkin grunts his agreement.

    "Better get at least a few of us back down to the bolthole," he advises, his gaze roaming over the structure in search of an alternate way in – a second level window, perhaps?

    "With all that racket they're making, the bloody bastards are giving fair warning that they're coming in. Lamm and his cronies might be desperate enough to batter their way through their exit door and rabbit into the sewers." The Halfling scowls, clearly not pleased with that particular possibility.

  17. - Top - End - #17
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    Daemon

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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Atavian looks to Tallox for a few seconds, then the two nod in succession. Atavian says to the others, "alright. We support this plan. Maybe we should go un-fasten the back door. If that eel Lamm is here, he will certainly flee if things go against him. It might make sense to move in and join the fray a bit into their... altercation. It could make the losing side view themselves as indebted to us for a timely rescue."

    "But we'll kill them, anyway," Tallox adds.

    "If it is Lamm's side, yes," the halfling corrects. Tallox says nothing in reply.

  18. - Top - End - #18
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    While the main group of interlopers continue to make progress against the locked front door of Lamm's drug lab, Gavin and Dalen quietly move in on the carriage.
    Although the lookout is keeping an eye on the street, he clearly is more concerned about guard patrols than two individuals, and his position up on the carriage looking asleep leaves him with several blind spots that Gavin and Dalen are able to exploit while closing in on the back of the carriage.
    From there, it's simply a matter of moving around the side of the carriage up to the front quickly before the guard can react.

    The lookout is further distracted by a quiet but urgent whistle from the alleyway - a signal that the group had broken through the door.
    There is a brief moment of panic for Gavin and Dalen as the carriage door facing the alleyway opens to disgorge four more members of this team, heavily armed and armored who charge into the alleyway to join their fellows inside the drug lab, from which the sounds of fighting are audible even at this distance.

    It seems that this leaves the lookout finally alone out in front, and while he is looking back towards the doorway Dalen moves up again and snags the man's arm with a polite, magically-induced suggestion to come have a word with him and his associates. Startled, the man pulls his arm away from the wizard and tells him to get lost (1 use of Beguiling Touch used and failed as the man rolls a Nat 19 on his Will save). It's at this point that Gavin makes himself useful by revealing himself, rapier point first, but he doesn't even have to say anything to the man as his heraldry does all the talking for him. The man pales and scrambles down from his seat atop the carriage, hands raised above his head. He does, of course, try to play coy at first, protesting that he was doing nothing wrong, he was just sitting here waiting for his master to get back from an errand at a nearby business, and nothing could be more innocent. A second use of charm magic from Dalen (I think you can continue to use Beguiling Touch on a target so long as combat doesn't break out, so we can assume he uses a second Touch unless you want a longer-term Charm in which case I do see he has a Charm Person spell as well, your choice which Dalen uses) is more successful - it's the rare target that can resist such magic for very long, and this man was certainly not that person.

    The lookout is then escorted back to the rest of the group, and seeing his situation (and perhaps some more persuasion, magical or otherwise) explains himself.

    "Alright, you folks don't want to get mixed up in this. I'm part of the Ironworks Hammers, a group of folk who'll do whatever kind of breaking you need done, if you've got the coin for it. We got hired by the King of Spiders himself to come in here and send a message to Gaedren Lamm that he doesn't control the drug trade in Korvosa; the King does. And that's a very bloody message we're supposed to be sending."

    The King of Spiders . . . Devargo Bravarsi, an infamous crime lord familiar to most members of the party, who can all call to mind memories of dealing with him in past lives if not the present world. Such business was rarely pleasant, although here it seemed, he was at least on the side against Lamm. That didn't mean, however, that his hired goons would appreciate you barging in on this squabble within the underworld. Then again, although barely audible here on the street outside, there is suddenly a pair cacophonous booms from within the drug lab, one immediately following the other, and the sounds of fighting from inside which had been slowing down come to an abrupt halt. It seems whichever side won, did so in a rather short and direct manner. You may have less time than expected to move in to deal with whoever was the winner.
    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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  19. - Top - End - #19
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Aliani's expression went from a slight smugness to concern to outright dismay as the explosions went off in the room. He hadn't expected the extra men, nor the probable explosives. Did they have more? Would it be a lost cause? He had no idea.

    "Fight, or follow them?" he asked uncertainly.

  20. - Top - End - #20
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Atavian turns to the charmed man, "did your people have the capacity to make those explosions?"

    Either way, we should move in," Tallox adds, stretching his claws and moving toward the entrance.

  21. - Top - End - #21
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    PirateGuy

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    Jakkin is already moving, his distintive rapid long strides carrying him toward the destroyed door.

    "Sounds like that was a bit more decisive than was expected," the bearded Halfling calls back over his shoulder. He clearly expects to duck in first and take a quick look around – and, arguably, he’s one of the best suited to taking cover from things that go ‘boom’, should it become necessary.

  22. - Top - End - #22
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    As soon as the explosions rock the air, Gavin dashes around the wagon, heading for the door at a full sprint. His training taking over, Gavin begins to shout to his companions. "Dalen, secure the driver! Atavian and Tallox, the sewers. Aliani, Jakkin, with me!"

    Bursting through the door, Gavin shouts into lab. "Attention! This is Gavin Dimir of the Order of the Nail! This compound is surrounded. By the authority of our holy order, you are ordered to kneel and surrender. Any who resist will be met with a swift execution!"

    Spoiler: OoC
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    ...Bluff?
    (1d20+9)[20]
    ATTENTION ANYONE WHO I'M PLAYING WITH:
    No news is good news.

  23. - Top - End - #23
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Dalen collects himself after the explosion. He rolls his eyes at the order, not at all wanting to be alone with a knave who could quite easily bludgeon him to death. He turns to the driver and casts a spell of sleep before ducking inside the building with his allies and hoping they hadn't gotten too knee deep in trouble without him.

    Spoiler: OOC
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    Sleep is a 1-round casting time, so the spell completes at the start of the next round. DC 18 will negates. Success or failure, Dalen is going in with his allies afterwards.
    Last edited by Darvin; 2020-04-20 at 03:30 AM.

  24. - Top - End - #24
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    As Gavin springs into action with a call for Dalen to remain behind with your newfound prisoner, Rhev steps forward to clap a firm hand down onto the man’s shoulder.

    “I’ll take care of this fellow – you hurry up and provide magical support. I suspect that they’re going to need it.”

    (Dalen does not need to use his Sleep spell if he does not wish to at this time. If you’d prefer that he use it to ensure the thug-for-hire doesn’t somehow overpower Rhev and escape, you are welcome to say that happens as well.)

    Gavin is the first person to enter through the smashed-in door, although the rest of the party is right behind him. What is waiting beyond the wreckage of the door is not one, but two slightly separate scenes of carnage. Immediately beyond the doorway is the service counter, around which two figures are slumped, one behind the counter and one in front of it. The one in front is slumped up against the wall to the right of the doorway, his chest a bloody mess of slash wounds and a repeating heavy crossbow still clutched in his hands. Devargo’s mercenaries were a bit more gentle with the second man behind the counter, who is crumpled up just behind it with a purple bruise across his jaw and his hands manacled behind his back, but seemed to be merely unconscious rather than dead.

    And then over by a back door opening to the stairs down to the basement is the second, far worse scene of carnage. Scattered amongst the battered bodies of Devargo’s entire mercenary force are the shards of the door, both wood and flesh tore apart by the twin explosions of magic power that had ripped through them as they were bunched up on the stairway down into the basement proper. Drifting up from the basement below are the sounds of frenzied movement – crates being opened and glass clicking – and voices, several raspy ones chattering amongst themselves in some tongue unknown to anyone in the group and one human voice weeping and pleading in terror.

    At the sound of Gavin’s loud announcement, there is a short pause in sound from below, and then comes a chorus of mad cackling before a voice calls up in heavily accented Common.

    “No no no, it is we who have you outnumbered and overpowered!”

    “Yes, yes! Come down, lackey of a lesser god! Come down and see for yourself!”

    Another voice interjects, followed by another bout of mad cackling, before a third adds its own opinion.

    “What’s a few more lives snuffed out today in the cruel machinations of destiny!?”

    Before a third bout of cackling can ensue, a fourth voice cuts in loudly over the others, speaking in that same disturbing, lilting language that you had heard before – the intents is clear if not the words, however, as all three voices immediately fall silent, and the sound of clicking glass resumes.

    Meanwhile, further down the street, Silas appears, hurriedly making his way onto the scene after attending to his personal business – “business” being the operative word here.

    You may make any final preparations you wish and determine the order that people will be carefully picking their way down the stairs over all the bodies scattered about on them. I will have a battle map set up with my next post where you will be able to place yourselves at the start of Round 1, and I imagine that we will be going rather shortly into combat, rather than parley.
    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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  25. - Top - End - #25
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    "Mr. Dimir, we shall speak later, please" Aliani said, a hint of disappointment and reproachment in his voice. "Until then, I'd rather suppose you're about to go diving down into that basement. Do try not to die, please? I pray this may help a bit."

    He brought his right hand to his collar, adjusting it and clearing his throat somewhat theatrically, while laying his other on Gavin's shoulder.

    "Warriors of man and nature share akin
    The fragile nature of their skin
    Of mighty armor they all bespoke
    Borne by the tall and mighty oak
    Though without bite, they did remark
    Upon the power of its bark
    ."


    As he finished his spell, Gavin's skin began to turn brown all over, crusting with thick mottled flakes of what appeared to be tree bark, though these didn't seem to impede his movement at all. "Good luck."

    Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the glimpse of his old tiefling friend and smiled broadly. Worlds colliding, it seemed. "Silas! It's about time! We could use another blade, I think."

    Spoiler: OOC
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    Casting Barkskin on Gavin (+2 natural AC for, well, long enough for this to be over I'd think).
    Will shuffle toward the basement opening enough to be able to take a 5 foot step to see down. But no, I'm not going first.

    For those of you new to the party, you can make a spellcraft roll if you want. It might give some insight into this bard fellow. We can talk about that in Discord.

  26. - Top - End - #26
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    Gavin looked down at his arm as the bark began to spread across his skin. His mind flitted briefly to a memory of another life, where a similar transformation took place.

    “Protect the dreamers, the would-be heroes. You are one yourself, still.”

    Shaking his head, Gavin shrugged the hand off his shoulder. "When we have finished our business here, Mister Rose, we can discuss as much as you like." The former guardsman lowered his voice, attempting to prevent it from traveling down the stairwell. "Our quarry believes they have the upper hand. We can afford to take our time at this point. These men were killed with a Sonic Blast spell. I've seen the effect once before. Brother Aster was a skilled cleric, we should be expecting at least one caster-"

    Gavin turned as the new arrival came into view, a scowl growing larger on his face. "An associate of yours, Mister Rose?"
    ATTENTION ANYONE WHO I'M PLAYING WITH:
    No news is good news.

  27. - Top - End - #27
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    "A friend" Aliani corrected simply.

  28. - Top - End - #28
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    "Just a friend?"

    The jovial inflection gave away the facetiousness of Silas' chiding. Once he arrived at everyone's feet he took a moment to pat some air into his chest.

    "But I don't think we've been informally introduced. Silas Rata'da, at your service. Here, my card!"

    The tiger-striped tiefling wrestled a card from beneath his breastplate, immediately displaying the front of it to Gavin and any other party memembers that might have been interested. Reading the card quickly surmised what possible business could have held up the cat man. 'Bi & Large, The Purrrfect Gentleman' However, before anyone could read further, he snagged the card back with a reflexive yelp.

    "Oop! That's not the right one. Not unless any of you...? Right, we're busy. Let me just..."

    He circled himself, padding down various pouches with his tail and hands alike. After a few more seconds of general baffoonery, he sighed audibly.

    "I must have left them in my other coat. Hells, I was rather proud of that one - I just had it printed. Bone paper with a Sillian type."

    Silas' eyes fogged with disappointment only briefly before he shook himself into focus. He quickly removed his falchion from its home and readied his mind for the likelyhood of violence. Though his next question named a friend, he asked it to anyone listening.

    "Aliani, what needs to be done?"
    ~ Piccadilly Pineapple

  29. - Top - End - #29
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    "Well, if it isn't one of my most dependable and trustworthy associates," Dalen jibes at Silas as he arrives, "you keep disappearing on me, and just when we need your skills to clean up this botched raid. But I think you'll agree that disappearing can be very useful for striking ahead," Dalen gives a slight flicker of illusion magic on his finger, hinting to the tiefling of the invisibility spell he has prepared.
    Last edited by Darvin; 2020-04-25 at 12:21 AM.

  30. - Top - End - #30
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    Default Re: The Crimson Echo IC - Season Two

    "I am sorry. I was just in a meeting with a client when I had the most delirious of headaches. Suddenly, there I am with a d... hrmm. There I am, holding my head from splitting apart, when I remembered we had planned to come here. Luckily my... vocabulary helped end the meeting quickly. Strangest thing that I would forget about tonight. I didn't quite have time to groom - too much hair, you see - so disappearing would be welcome."

    The tiefling tapped his head with a toothy grin.

    "I still have a bit of pain, but I should be fine as long as I don't see any mace-wielding bastards from one of our last outings. Gave more smarts than they had to give."
    Last edited by PiccadillyPi; 2020-04-25 at 05:24 PM.
    ~ Piccadilly Pineapple

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