Tomboys and Troublemakers pt 3

[bramblefoot]

alright, so the party beds down in the laughing wanderer for the night (you know what this means, its dream sequence time)

regine, you dream of a tall woman sitting next to your bed and discussing the nature of vampirism at length. you awaken tired, and with a small bloodstain on the bedsheets by your neck. take a level of fatigue pls

tall vampire lady


bertelis: you have a dream visit from the red knight himself. tell me what he says, and gimme three weapon skill checks at flat while your at it

wighard: you have a dream visit from none other than ms cephelopod herself. tell me how it goes,

the rest of you sleep peacefully

[BananaPhone]

Regine Lacroix

One should develop a passion for learning. If they do, they will never cease to grow.

Or so the saying went.

When Regine had finished speaking with Bertelis and Jasmine, the knight clearly hiding further burdens that had been placed upon him - or had been invited onto his shoulders, Regine had speculated - the master thief had turned in for the night and slept within her own room as the emanation of the moon bathed the interior, watching over her like some silvery watchman. But as she drifted into slumber, Regine's mind became a canvas for the unexpected. Through the vaporous, eternal realm of Morpheus drew a tall, ethereal figure, languid yet elegant in refinement, the amorphous form slowly taking shape to present the pale, beautiful features of a woman who stood at a height equal to Regine herself, only her movements were somehow even more graceful. Dressed in an exotic finery that was plucked from centuries past, the regality of her commanding presence was fostered through her smile, above which sat two illuminated iris's that glowed with a piercing, malign intelligence.

"Child..." her voice indulgently soothing, almost possessed of its own minor echo. Each syllable was slowly delivered. Deliberately so.

"You are so far from the comfort of your little home. That such a tiny one as you could have traveled so far upon a road so long. Across ships. Prison islands. Deceiving champions. Intruding into these lands."

That smile again.

"Our interest has been..." she lifted up a gloved hand, long, claw-tipped fingers making a motion to seize a thrown ball, "caught."

The pale woman leaned forward, placing both elbows on the bed and cupping her chin with the triangle her intersecting hands made. Always those eyes boring into Regine's face, the thief unable to move, barely able to breath, compressed upon her mattress in immobility; paralysed but for her thumping heart as the scent of the blood-stained breath of the woman seeped into her nostrils.

"Like you, little one, the shadows are our friend. We were born into them. It is a long story, one I relish being able to tell. Though, truth be told, it started very poorly..."

What came forth was an echo of the millennia. A recounting of ancient history from dark, distant lands and the initiation of the parasitic race into a world whose domination they coveted. Born from blasphemy and cast into the fringes of every society into which they slithered, the bleak truth revealed itself to Regine's horrified mind and rendering it a prisoner within her own body. The transfixation of that gaze, those words, the unspeakable antiquity molded by a soul as black as night robbed her of any capacity to flee to flee the dark lady and that smile, the smile that leaned ever closer, lips parting across a row of white teeth punctuated by a pair of inch-long incisors grazing against Regine's neck.

In an instant Regine awoke with a shriek, drenched in a cold sweat. To her horror, she discovered a patch of blood on her sheets, a visceral reminder of the dream's intrusion into reality. Frantically, she scanned the room, her fingers trembling as she checked and rechecked the locks on her door, ensuring the window was sealed tight against the night.

Cowering in the corner, the once tall and formidable master thief clutched a knife in trembling hands, her fatigue evident in the hollowness of her eyes and the weariness etched across her face. Every creak and rustle outside the window heightened her anxiety. Regine endured the long hours until dawn, haunted by the vivid memories of the dreamlike visitation, its spectral tendrils lingering even in the waking world.

[MrAbdiel]

Two decrepit, wooden stands; a narrow pit of sand between them. Bertelis blinked as his mind resolved where he was. An arena?

No... A hastiludrome. In the royal box, overlooking the scene, two figures stood in silent witness and gazed down upon him. One green and decked in floridly graven armor, powerful and frightful but familiar to Bertelis through legend, and art, and a few terrible dreams. And beside him, a crimson parody; a knight in warped red plate with fluted, almost organic elements and eyes that burned like hellfire. This one, Bertelis knew already through legend and art too - the Red Duke, of Aquitaine; the hero whose banner the company had been carrying, a marker of the time before his terrible curse and his elevation to vampire monster, killed and killed again. The sight of that figure froze his blood - a killer who had carved a bloody path through grail knights and champions well beyond Bertelis' ambition, let alone his standing.

But a trumpet blasted somewhere, and at once he realized he was mounted, and the mystery steed beneath him launched him forward along the side of the dividing beam as the fourth and final figure of meeting blazed toward him in turn, before Bertelis even realized he had his lance in hand and faster than he could level it - the figure he had glimpsed in dreams chasing his father's wife through the woods of Athel Loren, and then again lording over his brother in captivity. His chain was lacquered red like his master's, though less ornate, less supernatural; and as the Red Knight's lance glanced hard on his shield in the pass, things began to make sense.

Bertelis had brought this doom on his family. When they pulled that tapestry from the sunken tomb in Reikland, and when he had insisted on bringing it back to Bretonnia as a relic, he had made an offense to the Red Duke, who did not care to be reminded of his glorious crusading past. Dead though he may be, he was not without power, and not without champions. The abduction of his mother-in-law, and of his brother, were efforts by this Red Knight to appease the will of the slain but meddling duke; leverage to be used against Bertelis to take back the tapestry. The Green Knight had intervened in mercy, and now the contest played one against the other; the Red Knight of Mousillon in service of the banished Duke, and the mad Hedgehog-Banneret of Bordeleaux under the sponsorship of the Lady's own Champion.

Steadying himself in the saddle and rounding for the second pass, when the trumpet blasted, Bertelis had his lance in hand and brought it to bear. But how heavy it felt in his hand! How leaden and strange, after all these weeks and months at sea and underground and in small engagements in tight spaces. When had he last used his lance? Back in the Empire? In a blur, the Red Knight's own weapon both jostled his aside in the clinch and burst hard against the Bordelan's shield, heaving him from the saddle to crash into the ground, rolling and wheezing. He fumbled for his sword, and then to his feet, just in time to rip it from its sheathe and parry the knight's downward, killing blow. But the weapon was not the rune-blazed blade Glod had made, but the plain, fractured steel of his father's sword. He felt the vampire's breath, cold and blood-scented, as the weapons strained against each other in the bind. He saw the cracks in his father's sword craze outward from the hilt, and finally shatter beneath the vampire's strength...

And then he was awake. Not awake and screaming; he didn't even sit bolt up right. His eyes snapped open, and the intensity of the fear of the dream crashed into the soporific disinterest of his unbalanced humors... and he stared at the ceiling until sunrise.

[wilphe]

Wighard isn't that surprised to find a voice in his head, neither is he that surprised by who it is.

Of course that's he's normalised this sort of thing might not be healthy.

And its probably not healthy to talk to other people about it

Still, he is on a pier by a shoreline he doesn't recognise, behind him are the burnt out remains of a village

The voice however he does recognise, though its still and small here

wighard?

Emma

There is an uncomfortably long pause before Wighard breaks it

How goes your quest for revenge?

those who bound me are long dead

those who used me afore you freed me

you are more likely to find them then me

So what have you been doing?

no one should suffer as i did

found a small norscan raiding party at sea

returning from some village in the north of your empire

with captives

they died too fast, but they died

Where are the captives?

safe

i spared some crew

i have an island for them


You are not taking them back home?

look around you

this was their home

there is nothing here

maybe distant relatives who resent them

or to be trafiked and exploited by those i cannot reach

So you are their parent now?

There is a disturbance at the end of the pier and Emma surfaces to regard Wighard unblinkingly

am i?

You have taken responsibility for their welfare, that makes you such

it does, does it not

I did not set out to be a parent, never the less I found Siobhan

Having them when they can already walk, talk, reason and feed themselves?

The best way

They both laugh, a bit

five hundred years

a thousand score days

i was imprisoned in that ship

i thought i had seen all of mortals

from their deepest cruelties to their compassion even in the worst of fates

yet i was wrong

What did you learn?

one of them

Yolande

girl of 12 summers

she thinks i was sent by your Sigmar to save them

Wighard thinks about it then drops the bomb

Weren't you?

NO

Sure about that?

i would know

I would not be so confidant

If I have learnt one thing from the last six months or so it is that gods have plans and plots and schemes themselves and that they may last many generations.

I had a Skaven living in head until Morr could take him to his Realm rather than the Skaven afterlife; happiest I have even seen him.

Also he seemed happy that I showed mercy to you

i do find you mortals fascinating

but

i did not finish my story

Sorry, pray continue

when i saw her

and her fellows

in relief and gratitude for their freedom

IT FELT GOOD

is this normal?

Yes

fascinating

A few of her tentacles twitch

i want more

And you want my help?

yes

Some questions please.

Does the Lord of Change or any of his followers still have any hold on you?

they left me to rot

Because you were weak and deserved to be enslaved

Exactly.

i have now been in the lands of mortals for long enough to be a native here

i doubt you could banish me if you tried

i know there is no place for me in the Realms of Chaos

Second question

Are you spreading mutation & madness by your mere presence or otherwise making the world a worse place just by existing?

i don't think so

Understand that I have to keep that under review

so you will help?

Yes

will your gods have me?

I cannot speak for them

I can try something though

He produces two candles and a blank piece of vellum, after some initial difficulty he lights both in the lantern on Emma's head and installs them there

That is the sort of thing that only works in dream logic because that's not a real fire in there

what did you do?

Both of those candles were blessed by a human god. The first was by Verena and the spell I used makes people more persuasive but only if they speak truthfully.

i see

You might need that a lot of you plan on persuading people not to kill you on sight

I don't know if it will work on you or for how long

the other?

Bears the mark of Shallya and prevents disease within it's area of illumination

and how does that help?

Helps you do good

Also I was interested to see if your intentions were pure because I think for a true servant of chaos that would be extremely painful

they are, beautiful?

That's a good sign


so they will have me as their servant?

Possibly, I may however have done something really blasphemous and get hit by multiple lightning bolt when I wake up

[wilphe]

Wighard wakes early, leaving Schlapp undisturbed at the foot of the bed as he washes and dress himself

The rest of the Company will find him installed in the common room of the inn at the same table and in the same seat he was in before having just finished a pile of fried courgette slices with a few eggs and a sausage or two

Kwolf is working on a sausage to the side and Schlapp is gnawing something under the table as Wighard assess who else might have had interesting experiences in Morr's domain

Well I hope you slept well, he eyes Regine and Bertelis

Bruno and I identified the sigil found on a few houses outside the walls.

It's not great news

But it might not be our problem

It is the mark of a particularly unpleasant Necromancer known as the Renderer.

But to explain further, I need to give you a primer on some medical history, and if you have a weak stomach you may wish to skip breakfast

Ok? Good

There are two main traditions of academic medicine, the first and oldest is derived from the works of the High Elf Gaelen. If you've heard about balancing the four humours, that comes straight from him. A lot of herbalism and focus on treating the body as a whole. Some of this is time tested and it works, some of it is tradition and some of it is symbolism that goes way too far.

However it is great if you are the sort of Physician who doesn't want to actually have to do anything invasive and icky like touch sick people, or cut them open.


The other regards the body as a machine, a great organic sophisticated machine far beyond the dreams of any engineer. But to understand it, you have to know how all the pieces fit together.

This is where problems start.


You can learn medicine the way I did, in the field. I learned anatomy by seeing broken people and how they were put back together. This is however unfashionable and university trained doctors would insist that real medicine has to be grounded in what they call science.


However I'm not interested in grand theories of everything I am interested in what works.

So I would rather listen and learn from the village midwife rather than explain to her at length that she's wrong accordingly to a bunch of pedantic hacks recycling book knowledge several generations removed from actual understanding


Anyway, that's one of the few legitimate ways to learn anatomy, because the Empire frowns on what would be the easiest way to learn - dissecting corpses.

This is deeply taboo, some ascribe this to Morr's influence, but that interdiction does not apply in Tilea where his cult is if anything stronger and what passes for the seat of his faith is located

But if you don't want to join the army and can't afford a trip to sunny Tilea you have other options.

One of the less talked about is to apprentice to an executioner and learn from taking the body apart. This does have the great advantage that it is legally acceptable to do things to a live person by way of torture that it would be the most heinous blasphemy to do to a dead one.

A few, zealous, witch hunters have been known to accuse their own interrogators of necromancy because they had yet to notice their subject had died during their ministrations

These tend to the ones that have trouble finding good staff

[wilphe]

The more obvious way is to take a fresh corpse and take it apart piece by piece to see how it all fitted together.

No medical school has ever been proven to be doing this

When discovered it is always a rogue element operating without sanction

Of course

Which is where all those "rumours" of being able to make good coin grave robbing come from

The problem here is threefold.

Firstly once you stop looking at patients as people needing to be cured but collections of parts needing to be taken apart something happens to you inside.

Secondly once you start down this road you are associating with the sort of highly unsavoury scum who think digging up other people's deceased love ones to make a few coin to be a brilliant business plan

Thirdly, the other customers of such people are real necromancers who are also interested in accumulating dead bodies.

And it is really easy to cross over, listening to that voice telling your that you are being held back, maybe you could even cure death itself but for those stupid superstitions preventing you from doing what needs to be done.

This is the path the Renderer took, but it is not where he finished


There is a final way, many of these people left notes and books detailing and illustrating what they had found.


Regardless of the ethics of how that information was obtained, it exists, and there could be no harm in using it right?

Well, unfortunately those books are written by crazy people losing their grip on reality, so they are deeply disturbing to read and of dubious veracity.


The Renderer? Well, he decided that the only way to truly discern how the body worked and how organs functioned was to work on live bodies. So he'd do things like cut someone's liver out and see how long it took them to die and what of.

If he is still around now, he is almost certainly no longer human

It may then be someone who has gotten hold of his notes and following in his path

Or it may be someone who had the bright idea to start using his sigil to scare people

[MrAbdiel]

Bertelis doesn't revel in the ghastly description of the Renderer's fall from professionalism. But he has been the recipient of grievous wounds enough times that he has learned a modicum of the craft mostly by osmosing some fragment of Wighard's skill performed upon him. That, and his morning malaise, insulate him against unbecoming reaction.

"It would make sense such a monstrous man would be interested in breaching the Lighthouse. Within is a library of Verenan works, including their stock of Tilean texts on medical matters, I am forced to assume. But the marks on the houses - what have they to do with any of this? If he intended to take the occupants alive and torture them, is it some kind of... signal for his ghastly servants? Is that the baying we heard outside - some necromantic monster driven desperate by inability to complete a task assigned to it by its master hiding beyond the river? If that's the case... maybe we hunt for traces of it how, in early light, before we cross over. If we can thwart a threat to the locals... I... would have a hard time not taking that opportunity."

[BananaPhone]

Regine Lacroix

Regine sat in silence at the following morning breakfast, her exhaustion evident in her pallid demeanour. Normally a flush and healthy looking woman, Regine's sunken eyes and drained image cut a different figure, as her normally smooth, dark hair was frayed around her head with minimal effort applied to straighten and groom it to personal standards that the thief typically accrued.

She remained quiet, eating her breakfast, seemingly transfixed by its contents as it was clear her mind was elsewhere.

[dojango]

"Such a monster would have no qualms in falling so low as to steal library books..." she says. "But if that were his true purpose he'da done it an' moved on with his life. If there's this... glyph stuff... bein' left around then it's bein' done for what the professor usedta call 'ritual purposes' but I like ta call 'magic bull****'. We can sniff around them ta see if there's anything that might hint as ta who put em up. Still, it might be a good idea ta have someone respectable suggest to the Deaconess that she should do a survey of the 'esoteric' collection ta make sure it's all there.

[wilphe]

Wighard looks at Bertelis sternly

This is not the Empire and you are not the only knight of Brettonia for a hundred leagues.

There are others, even those who have supped from the Grail who can handle this

You have duties to family and fief that no one else can discharge as well as you

You cannot keep acting like everything bad in the world is your personal chance to prove your worth

You are not a teenage knight errant anymore and you have proven your valour on several occasions.

Please

Rein it in

And focus, because its driving you crazy

His voice raises, not with anger but with firm "this is an intervention" energy

Then he is quiet again


That said, if whoever it is gets in our way or is in league with our enemies then fine we deal with them then.

Taal expected trouble here, so it seems it may be our fate anyway

And looks at Jasmine archly

Are you perhaps suggesting that you are not respectable?

Looks like a task for Bruno, I intend to annoy them with questions

[BananaPhone]

Regine Lacroix


"There were tales circulating L'Anguille, just rumors among the thieves guilds and lone operators..." Regine spoke up, face still staring at her warm porridge with sugar.

"Certain crypts, graveyards and mausoleums you were warned aga - " the thief's words were interrupted by a sudden, harsh cough. Drawing her fist to her mouth and turning her head away from the table, she sounded like she ha hacked up a lung, before turning herself back to her breakfast, an apologetic look across her pallid face.

"...apologies. Some places you were warned against trying to liberate of their many riches. Those whose eyes were too big for their stomachs tried anyway; they were not seen again. I recommended staying away from such places; there are fates worse than just death."

[MrAbdiel]

Bertelis receives Wighard's withering reprimand; and at its closure, he raises and hand and flaps it loosely. The action seems both to suggest the fanning away of an odour, but he does not contest the points raised, so they might be well enough taken.

When Regine offers her warning, Bertelis gives her a glance. In another mood, he might have picked up on the unusual pallor, or her break in personal confidence. In his present phlegmatism, he is reliably stolid, but not very perceptive.

"I might have thought some of those stories were overblown, once; but we have seen too many things now to doubt much of anything, except the exactitude of which cursed demesne is which, and where. We are making a habit of plunging into dark places and... coming up sometimes with diamonds in our teeth, but usually vindicated. Stay with us, and the monsters in the darkness will soon tell shivering stories about you, ma'amselle."

[bramblefoot]

bruno: here is your dream sequence.

As Baronet Richter wanders through the dense forest, the ancient trees whispering tales of ages past, a stirring in the underbrush heralds the presence of a mighty creature. From the foliage emerges a great brown bear, its fur glistening with dewdrops caught in the morning light.

Bruno's heart quickens as the bear approaches, its eyes conveying a wisdom beyond mortal understanding. Yet, instead of fear, a sense of calm washes over him, an inexplicable bond weaving between man and beast.

The great brown bear draws nearer, its massive form radiating a quiet strength. Without a hint of aggression, it lowers itself to meet Bruno at eye level, its gaze steady and reassuring. In that moment, the forest seems to hold its breath, as if bearing witness to a sacred communion.

With a gentle nuzzle, the bear nudges Bruno, its warm breath tickling his cheek. Then, in a gesture of profound affection, it leans forward and wraps its massive arms around him in a tender embrace. Bruno feels the embrace of Taal, the spirit of the wild, enveloping him with a sense of belonging and protection.

As the embrace lingers, the bear bestows upon Bruno a gift—a simple yet profound gesture. With a playful boop of its nose against Bruno's forehead, the bond between man and nature is sealed. In that fleeting moment, Bruno feels the pulse of the forest, the rhythm of life coursing through every leaf and branch.

As the great brown bear retreats into the depths of the forest, its presence lingering like a whisper on the wind, Bruno stands awestruck, his heart filled with gratitude and reverence. The encounter with Taal, in the form of the majestic bear, leaves an indelible mark on his soul, a reminder of the interconnectedness of all living things and the timeless wisdom of the wild.

take the gift of peace: spend a fortune point to speak first, before blades are drawn. against normal animals or people. this autosucceeds with a number of degrees equal to your fellowship. against chaos or notable foes, you must make a fellowship check against their WP to get through to them. note that slaughtering a notable enemy (unless he succeeds on his WP check) after this has been used will result in bad things happening.

[dojango]

Jasmine just shrugs when Wighard asks if she is respectable. "Depends on who ya ask, but havin' a title means ya don't haveta rely on reputation. Somethin' ta keep in mind."

[farothel]

Bruno wasn't sure what had happened, but he did know that being chosen by a god was something that came with great power, but also great responsibility. When he came to the common room for breakfast, he was still in his own thoughts about what happened while Wighard was explaining things. He didn't really follow, knowing that Wighard could explain things much better than he could. When he heard his name, he looked up.
"I can ask questions," he said, "but you are probably better at knowing which questions need to be asked, so we best have a bunch of them ready before we head to the Verenians. I can do the talking, you just have to guide me a bit as to what I need to talk about. Oh, and before we head into Moussillon, best make sure we have enough supplies. I'd rather not eat the food or drink the water in that place. Maybe even best to leave the horses here and all of our group who are not strictly needed. I've only heard rumours about Moussillon, but even discarding half of what I heard, it's not a nice place to visit."

[wilphe]

Sir Bertelis is noble born, he would remain such no matter what he did

Baronet Richter was elevated, he has had to prove himself on social battlefields no less dangerous for being bloodless - mostly and usually. If he was not worthy, well, its only a minor title, assassins are expensive but protagonists are cheap.

And I was breveted Magister, all that I am could be taken away in an instant, I hope not to give them any excuse.
#

I have to ask them probing questions about whether the lady the Shallyans would have me slay truly deserves death before I even think about finding her

I feel Bruno that you could share with them the knowledge of the Renderer, suggest they check their stacks. This might of course not be news to them

Ask what they can tell us of our adversaries and the whereabouts of Sir Bertelis' family, why the All-Father seems to be concerned about the city


Of course such knowledge is not free, so they might want something of us

[BananaPhone]

Regine Lacroix

The master thief remained quiet as she half focused on her breaky and half listened to the others. A part of her wanted to open up about the prior night, to confess on the nocturnal visitation she had received and the bleak possibilities of its consequences. Why had such a creature made itself known to her? Let alone share the history of their benighted existence if they didn't plan to advance towards a darker plan? Why just use her for a passing curiosity, a midnight snack, while also revelling their presence? A cynical part of the thief predicted the macabre answer, while the rest of her prayed to Morr that she was simply being toyed with by the arrogant lords of the night.

That blood that was on her sheets was evidence enough that she had been fed upon, that much was clear. But what was in a bite? Had the bloodletting transferred the curse to her, locking her on a path whose twisted end she could not escape, save for immediately throwing herself from the tallest tower? Or was conversion to their ranks a more labor-intensive process, requiring more than just a laceration from the fanged horrors, but also cooperation on her behalf in some black ritual? It troubled Regine that she could remember so little of the night. So few solid memories were retrievable when she tried to concentrate, and so it gave her no end of sinking concern that in her unconscious moments she may have participated in something...awful, something she would not agree to were her will her own. The lethargy in her bones, the nausea in her skull...she prayed that these were simply the companions of exhaustion rather than the initiation of a transformation taking place within her.

Exhaling, holding up some warm porridge within a wooden spoon, Regine peered at the sweet, nutritious mouthful and took it between her lips as she looked at the others. Could she trust them? Could she confess her visitor and deepest fear in the safety of their best efforts to help her? Or would their "help" take the form of salvaging what was left of her spirit?

They had been together for months now, almost half a year. In that time they had learned the art of sailing on the job, they had infiltrated sorcerous islands and battled the minions of Chaos side by side. They had braved false incriminations and further violence. They had endured, together, more than most crews in an entire lifetime...but would they help her with this? Bertelis with his honour and oaths may just as easily deduce that her body was damned beyond restoration, and that to save her soul he needed to hack her head from her shoulders. She could see Wighard viewing her with a new scientific curiosity, her soon to be unliving body an endless source of material for vivisections and anatomical diagrams, his own personal safety guaranteed by the magical power her wore like a mantle. The others, Bruno and Jasmine, they might simply give her a few days to clear off, or join Bertelis in the belief that the only way to be sure was with the kiss of steel and tongues of fire.

Swallowing down her porridge, Regine kept her thoughts to herself and decided against any revelatory disclosure until she could be certain of what was happening to her. Maybe she was overthinking it, and she really had just been a mortal victim of a cruel joke, one who should at least count her blessing that she was still among the living. Or perhaps her past had finally caught up with her. A decade of thievery, gambling, smuggling, extortion, deception and lies, Ranald had abandoned her to the judgement of fate, and this was its punishment for a life misspent.

Exhaling, Regine scraped the bottom of her bowl to draw the final traces of porridge to her mouth, before washing it down with warm milk.

[dojango]

"Yeah all ya gotta do is tell them ta do an inventory of the 'esoteric' collection. That's what they call tha books that ain't for general knowledge. That's e-s-o-t-e-r-i-c. Make sure ya say that, not 'erotic' cause that's a whole nother issue."

[farothel]

"I'm sure I can do some negotiation on the price, should there be any," Bruno said. While Brettonian knights might not sully their hands with commercial affairs, Imperial nobles didn't have such problems and Bruno certainly not. While finishing his breakfast, he kept going over questions in his head, refining them as he things about the information they need, the people they most likely will be talking to and other such things that might be important.
"Lets dress up a bit," he said, "to make a good first impression."

[BananaPhone]

Regine Lacroix


Sitting there, staring into space, then blinking hard and shaking her head, Regine swallows before speaking.

"Give me an hour, please," her voice softer, more whispery than her usual confidence, "I will accompany you to ensure that you are not - " she coughed hard into her closed fist, inhaling wheezingly, composing herself, swallowing, "to ensure that you are not swindled, monsieur."

Should no one stop her, the thief pushed herself and her seat away from the table before standing to leave. She was shuffle back to her bed and fall asleep immediately upon her head touching the pillow...after another coughing fit.

OOC:
Resting for an hour to remove her level of fatigue.

[bramblefoot]

regine: after your one hour nap, you can tell your hearing has sharpened significantly. you can hear a strange dub dub noise in your ears, and you can smell a strange odor of iron. on the side table is a small locket. wdyd?

bertelis bruno, and wighard. gimme the plan for the scholar peeps. whos going where, whos asking what etc

jasmine and gimgroth: what are you two doing?

(1d100)[59]

[BananaPhone]

Regine Lacroix

When she awoke after her hour-long nap, the thief was thankful that at least the nausea had left her head. Her body felt its usual spry self, though upon sitting up on her bed, feet on the wooden floor, she blinked her eyes and peered around her room - things just seemed sharper.

Then she noticed the locket.

Snapping her head around towards her door and then towards the mirror as that vulnerable sensation crept back into her muscles, Regine stood up as if expecting an attack. Exhaling, pursing her lips, she reached out and picked the locket up, inspected it, and, once she was sure it was not some sort of small, poisonous trap, opened it.

[farothel]

Bruno called his valet and headed back upstairs to get dressed, choosing his good clothes in the group's colours. When he got back down, he would take his rapier and main gauche with him, leaving his armour and other weapons at the inn for now. He didn't expect to fight, but he wanted to be ready should there be a need. And it complemented his outfit anyway.
"Okay, ready to go," he said.

When they arrived at the temple, he would introduce himself and his companions and announced that they had some question for the head priestess.

[wilphe]

Wighard doesn't really have a dress-down option, so will go as normal, albeit leaving bow and quiver at the Inn.

[dojango]

Jasmine is going to scout around the spots where the mysterious symbol appeared and look for footprints and other clues; try to see how the symbols were put on the doors, what material it's made of, that sort of thing.

[wilphe]

Then I will send Schlapp with you

[bramblefoot]

regine: youd get a small charcoal picture and a riddle

I am born in shadows, yet thirst for the light.
From veins, I draw sustenance, in the darkest of night.
Once mortal, now kin, with the pale moon above,
I am the whisper of eternity, the embrace of love.

What am I, dear fledgling, as you join our fold?
A seeker of the darkness, a tale yet untold.
In veins, our secrets lie, in shadows, we thrive,
Welcome to the dance of the undead, where we truly come alive.



the party going to the verenans: everyone toss me a random d100 roll, and adjudicate it. lower is always better

jasmine: just a leetle clarification. the marks are all on the varying farmhouses outside turris vigilans, sure yoiu wanna go out there and see it alone?

[BananaPhone]

Regine Lacroix


The Master Thief felt a knot coiling within her stomach as she red the ghastly poem, a sink feeling compressing upon her shoulders as if to direct her into the grave opening up before her. Looking about her room once more, as if she were able to spot the intruder, Regine pursed her lips, swallowed and exhaled. She wanted to throw the locket away - to open the window and toss it henceforth, along with a few screamed obscenities. But she did not.

Tucking the charcoal picture away, shaking her head as if hoping whoever left the note could witness her consternation, Regine gathered several things, including her weapons, and departed, heading down to join the others, rucksack over her shoulder, along with her crossbow.

"Apologies for keeping you all waiting, monsieur's!" came her reply, before she joined the others on the trip to the Verena temple.

[dojango]

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Rather than split up the party, she'll tag along to the Verenean temple with the group, (1d100)[16]

[LarsWester]

Having slept in and missing breakfast with the rest of the Order of the Slug Gimgroth heard about the group's departing for the Venerans and hastily ready himself to accompany the troupe. Deciding it best to wear his armor with his shield strapped to his back and hammer swinging at his belt the dwarf fell in line behind Wighard.
There's a small matter I wish to broach with you Master Wighard. Beatrix is quite talented with telling a tale or singing a song but I wonder if you or perhaps Siobhan could provide some form of education for the lass. She was raised in a tavern not a boarding school. I believe with the proper education in her letters and manners she could yet serve as minstrel or bard in some noble house.
What say you could you find the time to teach the ways of reading and writing?