Tomboys and Troublemakers pt 3

[bramblefoot]

jasmine: the peddler ***** his head for a second, as if considering something. He then pulls a small crudely cut cube out of an inside pocket of his jacket. "tis a strange cube i picked up along my travels. call it a gold. if'n your looking for something for the chillins, may i suggest this set of knucklebone dice? It's good for the aspiring gambler. These I can't part with for less than five gold"

wighard: marius will take the drink. "i can, but a sweetened pot is guaranteed to keep my trap shut" there is the unspoken unless someone sweetens it more, then my trap comes unstuck he will take a sip. "shall we begin negotiations sir? im all ears"

bertelis: you have a weird dream about a yodeling beastman with a banjo singing be prepared

bruno: jasmine seems to be taking her sweet time with the peddler. gonna wait or shop?

[farothel]

Bruno will wait for Jasmine, but check out the stalls around for anything they might need while she's busy. And if he doesn't immediately finds the stuff they need, he will ask around so he knows where to go when Jasmine is done with her shopping.

[dojango]

Jasmine acts shocked, and retorts, "They are good, devout children! Not... gamblers! Come back when ya have some nice sacred relics!" and she turns and stalks away in a huff. Rejoining Bruno, she tells him, "Let's jes' buy up all the powder in town if'n we can. No gimmicks gonna save us, just gunpowder an' steel. Preferably the former."

[farothel]

"I doubt that they have powder here," Bruno said, "and if you want some, I still have a stash.
I'm not using it as much as I thought I would. But first, we need to get some healing stuff. I've got an address we can go for that stuff. We can get the other stuff after that."

He would lead Jasmine to an apothecary that he had gotten the address of on the market. There he would haggle for some healing potions.

[wilphe]

"shall we begin negotiations sir? im all ears"

Cheers

I wouldn't be so crass as to insult you with mere money. I mean I know it helps, but information and stories are truly valuable

I am however unfortunately literal minded and obtuse, and my education left me little time to appreciate the arts, so I have difficulty piercing finely crafted layered metaphors to the truth within

So if there is anything you wish to tell us about Mousillon, please speak plainly and then I can speak on a subject of your choice

[bramblefoot]

wighard: Marius smiles, and perks up "shall we trade stories? i have one from a compatriot that is about a swamp hag with iron nails. they sang and played bawdy music all night, until the witch let him go with his life and a new aptitude for music" he quirks his mouth "she took some of his sanity, but its a fair trade to not end up eaten, neh?" he will wait for wighard to tell a story

bruno and jasmine: either there is no powder to be had, or everyone is tight-lipped and no one will sell to you.

[farothel]

For Bruno the powder is not as much a problem as all the other supplies. So he goes to an apothecary that was supposed to have what they needed for some healing potions or salves and then the more mundane supplies.

Spoiler: OOC

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I'm not sure how much of these thing Bramble wants to give us (if any) so I'm leaving that open (as well as the price, although I can haggle for that). The mundane supplies I assume we can get without too much problems.

[wilphe]

Schlapp gets up, shakes, and then plods over to be petted before lying at Wighard's feet

Then let me tell you the story of the beast of Westvein; the poor hospitality of its Lord, how I met Shclapp and how the Company gained two members and lost another

[bramblefoot]

wighard: Marius perks up "do you mind if i take notes for a ballad?" he asks, clearly waiting for your permission

the shoppers: in a small curio store, youd find a small fist-sized leather rock in a leather glove, a trio of inky marbles, and a serpent with weird inscriptions down the outside

the man at the counter will let out a small gibber, and point out the objects with a small rhyme. Hes clearly mad as a snake, but he still has his other faculties about him

"Secrets, secrets, dark and deep,
In their shadows, mysteries keep.
Whispers of truth, hidden from sight,
Bathed in the cloak of the endless night.

Beware the allure of the hidden unknown,
For in its depths, seeds of chaos are sown.
Yet within these veils, wisdom may lie,
A treasure trove beneath the starry sky.

So tread softly in the realm of secrets untold,
For what is uncovered may be more than gold.
In the dance of shadows, truths may creep,
Secrets, secrets, dark and deep."

bertelis: gimme your montage of waking up

[wilphe]

Wighard smiles

Of course, I thought that was what we were here for.


He will relate the story with accuracy, but leave off any mention of what happened on the barge before and after there and tone down the awfulness of Lord Armata's library.

And, of course, he himself is but the humble companion and supporter to the real heroes

[dojango]

Jasmine picks up the serpent horn and says to Bruno, "Honestly it don't matter if it's magic or whatever as long as that thing thinks it is, right? We can use it as bait to draw it away from it's lair and maybe away from you know who while we send him in another direction."

[MrAbdiel]

Hours pass. Early afternoon turns into evening, and Bertelis' blissful, tipsy slumber entangled with La Vipère Noire du L'Anguille becomes groggy wakefulness, and a pleasant wave of remembrance of what had preceded that sleep. But drawing himself up, he finds he is alone in the loft. He sits there for a moment, letting his senses crawl back into him; considering what he has done, and if he has the right to feel good about it. One of Regine's little floral hair-ties had fallen into his lap as he sat, and he beheld it in his palm with bleary affection.

Regine was a peasant - or rather, unbound from any lord's land, she was a vagrant. There was no law against their tryst - if anything, there was far too much winking encouragement of such dalliances from lords to their sons. But he was also the leader of the Companions (a fiction he intermittently allowed himself to believe) and she a recent inductee. Had he coerced her in some way that didn't come to his mind immediately? No, his memory played the event differently - his curling inward to his own miseries, her patient forbearance of this insufferable quality and diligent conjuration of his passion with nearness, and bright admiring eyes, and eagerness. She had not been coerced, and he had not been seduced, and it had been good. So it was alright to feel good about it. Wasn't it? Regine wasn't the kind of woman to be fainty and brokenhearted after. Perhaps the rest of the companions might not ever know.

Perhaps it could happen again.

The troubling possibility that la petite mort may also bring about la petite vie bubbles to his mind, dampening his wandering affections for a spell. What would that mean? A noble would classically cut contact, deny paternity publicly, support mother and child quietly to buy her silence. That wouldn't work for many reasons - premier among them that Bertelis did not consider himself so crass. No; if there was a child, then he would marry her. Marrying a common woman would be a terrible blow to reputation for most lords. But so what? He was a knight-banneret specifically tasked with ending the practise of exploiting common women this way in the fief of Saulx. If anything, marrying a common woman demonstrated dedication to that cause. He would answer to the king, but the king was unlikely to be struck with outrage. He had trusted the knight with forbidden knowledge and was clearly not a shallow man. He would understand, too, that there was hardly a long line of nobles seeking to send their daughters to marry lords in Mousillon. He could tell the king of Regine's participation freeing the captive L'Anguillan lord and fighting the Sarls - he could easily elevate her status, or atleast extend a peculiar toleration to her common blood. Yes; he would marry her, if a child was in the mix. Perhaps marriage would agree with her - though he expected it would take more than the mantle of wifedom to make an honest woman out of Regine Lacroix.

He pulled on his trousers and jerkin, treated himself to a splash of water from his flagging waterskin, and stepped out into the cool of the evening, then back into the inn. At the report that Regine had come back and left again, he was dismayed but not deterred. It was a small town, around the lighthouse's base; she could hardly have gone far.

He could in no way have been prepared for what he found. The townies ringed around the scene beneath the belltower; a smear of blood, and a constellation of broken glass. Stunned to numbness, he leaned down to pick up the neck of the bottle of sweet cognac Regine had brought with her to his bed. It was somehow mostly intact, though the bulb of the bottle had smashed into tiny fragments that one local was diligently sweeping up even now.

"Poor girl. Climbed up drunk, and must've fallen off," one gossiping lady told another. "So young, too. So young and pretty. Shame. Morr's mercy on her soul."

As the knight stood in silence, his heart as heavy and dull as a cannonball in his chest, another townie came with a pail of water and splashed it on the blood, turning the smear into puddle of pale pink. The next pail scattered it further. By tomorrow, there might be no sign at all that Regine Lacroix had died here.

Back in the stable, he carefully wrapped the bottleneck and the scrunchie in a wad of cloth thick enough that no damage might be done to or by either, and placed it carefully in Rainier's left saddlebag with his other sentimental tokens. Then he lay down in the hay, curled himself into as tight a creature as his frame would permit, and wept like a child.

[farothel]

"If our companion can see if something is magical, so probably can a vampire, being a creature of foul magic," Bruno said, "so I think we best make sure that we get the real deal. So, good merchant, what do these things do and what do you want for them?"

[bramblefoot]

The company of the burning slug will set out towards mousillon. everbody please gimme your first opinion as the cordon sanitaire approaches, and two men on horses meet you, flying brettonian colors

[wilphe]

Wighard is trying to avoid looking like he is in a sombre mood, but Regine's death has affected him. He wonders if he would have the strength to do that in a similar situation, especially as how all his instinct and training would be to employ every scrap of knowledge and power to cure himself and he is not sure that failing in that would leave him with the capacity to act so decisively.

Mostly though he is worried about how Beretelis is taking it, that afternoon together should have been good for him. Albeit its not really the sort of thing he can prescribe, nor is it the sort of thing he has experience of with his own relationships having never progressed to that level of intimacy.

He briefly thinks of Deanna and mumbles an apology If your name is in my mouth today I can only apologise

Kwolf picks up the riders before anyone else, though he is not that worried. They are mostly there to stop people and things getting out, not people getting in

[farothel]

Without the horses, they had to walk the entire trip, something he hadn't done in quite some time and his plate armour was heavy. However, he did wear it because you could never know what was going to happen. When he was informed about the approaching people, he made sure the device on his shield was clearly visible, but he kept his sword in its scabbard for now.

When they were closer, Bruno would step forward and announce the group, first Bertelis as a Bretonnian noble, then himself and then the others.
"We are on a mission from Turris Vigilans," he said in his accented Bretonnian, "and request passage to finish this mission as quickly as possible."

[LarsWester]

It was an especially sullen Gimgroth that plodded along the path with the Company of the Burning Slug. The death of Regine, a woman he had not had the pleasure of getting to know deeply, was dwarfed by his grief of leaving Beatrice in the care of others. No matter how much sense it made Gimgroth felt deep down that he was betraying the memory of Beatrice's father by once again leaving the girl in the care of others. With his head buried into his chest he was one of the last to notice the approaching horsemen. As they rode up he shook his shield into place and rested his warhammer over his shoulder as he waited for the more well spoken of the company to make the proper introductions.

[dojango]

Jasmine is oddly cheerful as they head, once more, into certain danger. When she had heard about Regine's accident, her investigatory nature had kicked in. Although the locals had very quickly moved to clean up the body and the evidence, a sensible precaution so close to the cursed lands of Mousillion, she had noted that the 'accident' theory was extremely unlikely. "The brightest flame burns so quickly" was all that she had said, and went back to packing away and stowing their gear. And so it was with a light heart and a heavy pack that she spotted the oncoming patrol. She wrapped her crude mask over her face and nose a little more tightly and said to the others, "remember, give them at least six feet o' space! It'll keep the miasma from spreadin'."

[MrAbdiel]

Bertelis trudges along with the group. He has offered minimal prayers, in the morning; responds to questions when probed; but he is in one of his gloomier moods. It's unclear whether it is the result of Reginé's passing or if it is his regular... idiosyncrasy numbing him to that particular loss.

Spoiler: OOC:

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I'm making some geographical assumptions here, that we have to...

- Cross the Cordon Sanitaire around the dock
- Cross the main branch of the river Grismerie that divides Bordeleaux and Mousillon
- Hoof it to the southern gates of Mousillon and then get our bearings

Correct me if I'm wrong. I have an idea of how this approach """Should""" go in my head but it's your story Bramble and if you want to smooth past some elements or simplify the geography or whatnot that's up to you!

Bertelis is content for Bruno to do the most of his speaking, but backs up the Talabeclander's words.

"It is as he says. I am Sir Bertelis, Knight Banneret of Saulx; my lands lie over the river. Is there a jetty with reliable rivermen to which you can point us?"

[bramblefoot]

the two men will approach. both are veterans, with the scars to prove it "what business do you have with mousillon?" the first one says, but the second shushes him. "my knight banneret, how can we help?" he queries, dropping a healthy bow from horseback. "information is sparse, but it's quiet as a tomb. Nobody in or out afaik. Havent seen bo-diddly of any mutant activity"

is there anything you wish to ask them? The first one is rather grim and dour, while the second is younger and more chatty

ooc: the riverboats are small, so its likely to take several trips across and add delays, dracoleech activity is moderate, but there is a pesky one that has a taste for boats

[MrAbdiel]

Bertelis nods. He's not sure what to make of the suggestion that no one has been going in or out - it's not an attractive destination at the best of times, and presumably these guards are not keeping track of the smuggling vessels sneaking into the city's port proper in the dead of night.

"No word of strange visitors in earlier weeks - perhaps a wild looking dwarf, or a man with the dark skin one does not expect north of the Arabyan gulf?"

[bramblefoot]

the chattier one nods "we saw him with that crazy dwarf guy. shirtless, big double bitted axe, tattoos up the wazoo. the dark-skinned man was a real hardcase, extremely talented with a rapier. He had a small mule loaded with provisions, and a barrel over its withers."

[wilphe]

Well the last dracoleach that crossed our path nearly died of embarrassment. Don't know if that is good or bad

[MrAbdiel]

A less morose Bertelis might have invited Wighard not to tempt Ranald by saying such things out loud. But this is the Morose Bertelis; he remains sullen.

"Alright. We shall hire some jettymen to take us across; two or three boats, I suppose. We ought get underway."

[bramblefoot]

alvight, so ze crossing goes smoothly, and you're on the other bank of the grismerie. The city of mousillon hangs in the air like a bad tankard of ale, practically oozing miasma

do as thou wilt.

[wilphe]

Wighard arranges the shuttling of personnel across the river, pairing up melee and ranged like a high stakes game of Wolf-Rabbit-Cabbage and once out of earshot of the ferrymen begins serous conversation

Ok, did we have an elaborate plan or we just going to hit these *******s as hard and fast as we can? If so which one first?

[MrAbdiel]

Bertelis looks likely surprised - the failure of a Dracoleech to attack is a suspicious failure of poor fortune to assail them. He checks the buckles of his fine leathers, then takes the scabbarded Company Blade from his belt to offer to Bruno.

"If we require the relic spear from the vampire to put the chaos knight down for good, it makes sense to see the Red Knight first... and I would see my brother freed as soon as possible." He unfurls the map they were given, and gestures to its content...

Spoiler: Map:

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Some ideas for you to disrupt and dismay us are included in Bertelis' ramble to follow, Bramble. As always, feel free to do as much or as little with this as you want.

The Red Knight reportedly lairs at the Old Cemetry, 8. The Chaos knight reportedly lairs near the North Gate, 12.

Everything on the northside of the big river beyond the immediate docks is Lost Town; scary, marshy, overrun by gangs, heretics, and the most desperate folk living amongst them. South of the river are the 'normal' citizens of Mousillon, if such a thing can be said to exist; a theoretically orderly if still rough, cursed, and befouled place to be.

"First we pass through the South Gate, which is a shanty town. They are unlikely to trouble us unless we look vulnerable, and we are a formidible troupe."

"From there we must cross over to the Bridge Quarter - I would expect an extortive toll, since those who want water from the well by the chapel must cross over this way."

"Once in the Bridge Quarter, we have out best chance to fight the hunter and the dwarf. This is the sinkhole of vice - brothels, gambling dens, fighting pits, taverns are the least impious places in the district. But it is also where travellers will find lodging - as might we, if we are forced. But I hope it does not come to that..."

"Once we have made contact with them - or given up seeking them - we must cross to the north side of the river and follow it west to The Docks on the north bank. This whole area is, I am given to understand, orderly enough as the docks are Mousillon's only means of profit from cargo... especially illicit kinds. The gangs run this area. They are what passes for law, here. I am told the three biggest Sang'Argent - run by old Tilean pirates out of the Damoiselle Vert; the Ecorcheurs from the ruined lighthouse; and the Garde Cimetiere, who once thrived plundering the cemetry... but if the Red Knight has moved in, they likely have been displaced or destroyed. Or... made to serve. These gangs are mere men, but they are numerous and dangerous, and they are not our targets."

"But my hope is that we can find lodging in the Temple of Manaan. They must be used to turning away those seeking lodging, but I am initiated now into Manaan's mysteries, so perhaps they will permit us to base from there. Especially since we seek the Spear of Manaan's return. I have be told that the temple of Manaan is the best kept, and least harassed building in the city - even the gangs, smugglers, and slavers fear Manaan's wrath. All but the Red Knight, it seems."

[wilphe]

Bridge quarter sounds fine

We aren't going to be safe anywhere and you don't want to tread mud through the Temple, literally or figuratively

[farothel]

"Are you sure," Bruno said, as Bertelis offered him the blade, "you're a better fighter with it than I am."

[LarsWester]

Gimgroth claps Bruno on the elbow. Ah Bruno that may be but sadly Bertelis is fate forbidden to bear it against this foe. If you'll recall our charge and foretelling from the Damsel back in the Lighthouse forbade Bertelis from participation in this fight. The dwarf also asks a question of the Bretonian Knight. You mentioning possibly fighting the dwarf and hunter within the confines of the Bridge Quarter have our plans changed? I thought we wished to locate and interrogate, possibly ally ourselves with the pair.
I think we should look for lodging in the Bridge Quarter tonight but if the toll is as extravagant as Sir Bertelis expects than I would hesitate to pay it nightly to sleep in a dangerous locale. Might be better for future nights to seek out someplace to rest among the docks district if the Temple seems struck from the options available.