Well, if nothing else, plying her trade was usually a good way to talk to people and hear a variety of rumors... alas, she didn't have the right setting, but she was pretty sure she could still manage an average session of work.
[dice=Profession (Fortune-Teller)]1d20 + 5
Saeri finds a few customers, but no one was interested in paying that well. Most took their readings in sullen silence.
"Mhm. So! Zat drink ..." Lu prods again. She wanted to share her theories about the goons, but gossip here and now didn't feel terrible healthy.
Well, it hadn't been her best showing - but yeesh, they could have a little enthusiasm for a normal reading, right? On the other hand, many people failed to appreciate the gravity of the knowledge revealed to them - to their detriment.
Seeing Lucrecia and Janus head for the bar for another drink after a first look around to see who was in the Happy Cow that night, Chaïa found a convenient place to wrap up her train of thought in her writing and warily moved to join them.
She was sure she was going to regret this, but if they were going to do this again tomorrow in a more inquisitive sort of way, finding out if there was any hope that she could fit in a bit better would be a good idea. There wasn’t much hope for delicate small talk and – just maybe – some lightest flirtation in a place like this, let alone serious talk about the Art. Chaïa hadn’t forgotten her mistake about the “wine” served here either.
Was it entirely naïve to hope that perhaps their spirits would be, by their very nature, considerably purer? Some aqua vitae?
As she waited to find out, she asked the others quietly, with a discreet nod in the direction of the branded men, “Any joy of it? Whatever that mark is, it’s not any mage’s that I can think of.”
"Hmph. Not much joy but a few percent of alcohol at least!" Lu grinned and raised her mug of *uh* liquid to greet Chaïa. Then she tried her best to be discreet and quiet without attracting the attention of the other bar patrons. "I zink zey are ze foremans hand-picked grunts."
"Aye. Grunts fits. No one higher-up in the chain of command would drink that piss they call ale here. I shouldn't have dragged you ladies here for a celebratory drink...I'll make good on that on another night, promise!", Janus whispers back. "Still, good to know they seem to be regulars here. You know, just in case..."
The explorers spent a few unedifying hours in the Happy Cow, trying to keep mastery of their gorge as the usual amusements take place. Knives are thrown. Men bet on dog fights. Fresh vomit and urine anoints the sawdust. The thugs take a keen interest in the fights, but don't really set themselves apart from the general run of two-legged vermin except in the wide berth they're given and the level of abuse regulars take from them.
They're glad to be out of the place, really.
"*Yawn* Let's get some sleep and we deal with ze pesky details tomorrow noh?" Lu stretched and then rubbed her back. "We'll visit ze temple and poke around to see if zere is anything about ze boy's business in town. With a bit of luck, maybe it's just ze temple."
"*Yawn* Let's get some sleep and we deal with ze pesky details tomorrow noh?" Lu stretched and then rubbed her back. "We'll visit ze temple and poke around to see if zere is anything about ze boy's business in town. With a bit of luck, maybe it's just ze temple."
The night passed quietly, aside from the usual sounds of distant brawls.
Chaïa woke up early, vague memories of unsettling dreams of the Cairn taunting her as they slipped away. She shuddered: the place was dangerous enough without her unconscious imagining it talking to her, through the whole mechanism and its monstrous inhabitants. Ugh. Elementals. And now they had grave-robbers to find.
She lounged a bit longer to gather energy for the day ahead, after having been battered and sliced about quite ferociously. Sometimes it did feel like the goddesses were trying to tell her something, but they hadn’t called her to Arvandor yet, so eventually Chaïa got up, feeling fairly hopeful about the morning. She prepared her spells for the day, and even some of the trickier new spells she had been thinking about looked promising. After reviewing the promised report for the Waterdhavians, making a last few adjustments here and there, and tidying up the last sections, she set out to find the others.
Saeri yawned a bit as she woke up, got dressed, and spent some time reading the cards to get a sense for how the day was likely to go. They could be obtuse at times, but oh well. Fortune-telling was vague for a reason - press too hard against fate and it tended to press back in unpleasant ways.
Lu enjoys a nice and restful nights sleep, snoozing happily through the noise. Upon waking up she got dressed, looked over her head and then headed out to find breakfast and/or the others. Hopefully both.
Janus trashed about in his sleep.
Another ruin explored...and none in the past had been that troublesome - except one. But he was no closer to learning about his sisters fate than he had been before.
It was only some elemental tomb of some ancient war, long forgotten or only passed on as a story...
Regardless, the fact he actually got to sleep in a bed meant he felt quite refreshed in the morning, despite the nightmares.
He got up, opened the window, and took a few deep breathes, letting the morning sun warm his face.
At least, they had plenty of things to do. Boredom was the worst...it gave one too much time to think and ponder. Getting dressed, he set out to fetch some breakfast and find the others.
"So!" Lu started when she found the others and something for breakfast. "How do we do zings - some discreet probing around first or just go and find ze waterhavian scrubs? Trying to not set foot in ze church of course ..."
"Hmm... Maybe we should ask around and see if anyone heard anything about them? With a bit of luck zey may even have met zeir untimely demise ... Oooh! Or started practicing ze dark arts so we get a good excuse to help them down zat road!"
"So!" Lu started when she found the others and something for breakfast. "How do we do zings - some discreet probing around first or just go and find ze waterhavian scrubs? Trying to not set foot in ze church of course ..."
"Hmm... Maybe we should ask around and see if anyone heard anything about them? With a bit of luck zey may even have met zeir untimely demise ... Oooh! Or started practicing ze dark arts so we get a good excuse to help them down zat road!"
"Well, I admit I did assume they would betray us, which is why I have not taken the oath. Finding that skeletal priest-face-wearing-snake makes the fact they took blood from you...interesting, in a bad way. I think I'll try and blend in with the crowd, within shouting distance, but not present myself this time, either.", Janus pondered for a bit when the topic of reporting to the other group came up. "But you are right in that we should get that done...then we can focus on fulfilling our promise to ghost boy."
"So!" Lu started when she found the others and something for breakfast. "How do we do zings - some discreet probing around first or just go and find ze waterhavian scrubs? Trying to not set foot in ze church of course ..."
"Hmm... Maybe we should ask around and see if anyone heard anything about them? With a bit of luck zey may even have met zeir untimely demise ... Oooh! Or started practicing ze dark arts so we get a good excuse to help them down zat road!"
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Chaïa agreed, “but I think that Khellek might be clever enough to avoid anything too incriminating. At any rate, he’s certainly a better dragonchess player than I am. Then too, in for a copper, in for a handful of platinum: if they are involved, and as skilled as I fear, why not join in rather than leave it to snaky pets and chance?”
“I think our best bet might be to double bluff everyone. Triple bluff? If that wizard and his pet barbarian are plotting something but haven’t taken action yet, we can probably outface them in public, and likewise for whatever’s wearing a stolen priest’s face. If we don’t say anything, what are they going to do, accuse us of knowing what they are? It might be best, though, to deliver our report to an acolyte, or at least have a couple around when we hand it over, so it doesn’t get conveniently lost. Assuming, of course, that all the Lathanderians haven’t been replaced.”
An awkward beat passed in silence. “I have to admit, I, um, might be a lot better at polite negotiations than deceiving anyone as such. Just so you know.”
"Eh I can handle ze smooth talk as long as it don't have to be so nice." Lu grins "So zat is ze plan zen? What do we cards say about today?"
Chaïa nodded at the question, showing her own casual interest. The Weave was a tangled enough thing before one added prognostication into the mix, and she was curious about the techniques used by braver souls than she. Growing up surrounded by magic, her gift and curse both made even the simplest divinations dangerous, revealing an all too mesmerizing tapestry through which it was far too tempting to run one’s own flashing thread of magic…
“Something about how far glib tongues and charming smiles can take us, I hope,” she said, her features lighting up at the thought of a discreet bit of mischief while getting to the bottom of things. To be sure, it was a dangerous situation, but being too dour about it wouldn’t improve things, and if they could discomfit the wicked and wanton first, before it became a question of spells and swords, so much the better. With that, she set off for the Morninglord’s temple, a spring in her step despite her limp.
The explorers came to the Morninglord's temple during the services. A half dozen desperate men and women scourged their bare backs as Liam Sunmist, or whatever stole his face, presided.
"Strike! Strike! Bleed and cry! Your blood is the red of the New Dawn! Your breath is praise! Your muscles burn with the sun's light! All you give unto the Morninglord will be given unto you!"
"Good morning to you too ..." Lu mumbled to herself as she saw the fanatics. She herself was fairly sure she didn't want the Morninglord to whip her but each to their own. No matter. Since the priest was clearly too busy to be disturbed (or too disturbed to be busy?) Lu looked around for some other functionary of the Church.
Saeri winced slightly at the display of devotion. That... wasn't anything even vaguely close to her own tastes in religion, but hey, if it made them happy...
Chaïa joined the others in observing the spectacle, then looking over the bent backs of the devotees to try to find a way onto the porch and into the temple without disrupting their worship. For all her talk about outfacing whatever was impersonating Sunmist, she didn’t necessarily want to wait around until “he” was free, and if they could find a lesser acolyte first, they could fulfill their oath before talking to the high priest, just in case a scene erupted and a hasty retreat proved advisable.
As her eyes scanned the temple façade, the incongruity of the scene before her continued to pester Chaïa’s subconscious. It wasn’t the sort of thing any of the Seldarine would really ask for. To be sure, she could imagine some aspects of the One and the Three, Angharradh as a warrior, or Sehanine for some old, dark forms of magic, might be pleased by a cut or two, but flogging, for goddesses’ sakes! Maybe one of the drow deities might love it – Kiaransalee sprang to mind – but otherwise, all Chaïa could think of were odd human divinities: Ilmater, perhaps, on the receiving end, or Loviatar, for the unholy glee the false Sunmist took in dishing it out.
The scourging and praying went on for some time, with nothing resembling an underpriest in sight. A pair of miners with red sashes about their necks gathered up rags that had been laid to absorb the falling, and sometimes flying, blood, but nothing more. Finally it did end, with Sunmist bidding the flock to go into the dawn's light. They filed out past the explorers, few giving them a second glance.
Chaïa took a deep breath, then, meeting the eyes of each of the others to make sure she didn’t surprise them too much, she set off once the crowd had thinned a bit to accost Sunmist. When she was able to catch his eye in turn, she saluted him with a smile, “The servant of the Goddess of Moonlight greets the Morninglord’s on this fine day! I’m not sure if you remember us, and I would hate to keep you from your duties for any length of time, so I’ll be brief. A few days ago you were so good as to witness a covenant between us and some acquaintances from Waterdeep. In fulfilment of our oath, we have come to give notice of our discovery of a cairn of interest to both parties and to deliver the stipulated deposition concerning our findings.”
As she spoke, savouring a morning that began with the niceties of polite conversation rather than fending off monsters at swordpoint, Chaïa produced the report, complete with a neat heading containing the details of the oath and the names of those sworn to it, which she had added for ease of reference and to jog the Lathanderians’ memory. Then again, painfully aware that there was wickedness at work, she focused on keeping her hands from trembling and herself from staring at the impostor before her.
The priest took the report from Chaia's hands and regarded her thoughtfully.
"I have remembered," he said. "It's well that you and your friends have all come back in one piece."
"That's... one way of describing it." Saeri said, remembering some of the things they'd gone through in that place. What kind of madman built complexes like that, anyway?
"Yes, yes indeed. Would you *uh* notify the honoured waterhavians if zey come around?"
"Yes, yes indeed. Would you *uh* notify the honoured waterhavians if zey come around?"
"Of course. They were just here yesterday to see if you'd come by," Summist said.
“Oh, excellent,” Chaïa said glibly, lying through her teeth. Well, it wasn’t really lying, was it, if it was just making polite noises? “Do let them know, please, if they drop by again, that we’re consulting Delfin Ondabar about some of our findings, so that would be a convenient place to reach us.”
Part of her was enjoying this, perhaps a bit too much. There were so very many ways of tactfully suggesting, ‘See, we have powerful friends too, so don’t ignore us or push us around,’ all while avoiding anything too blunt. Well, mostly. What counted as unaggressive varied between barbarian tribes and elven socialites, and honestly Chaïa preferred it when the stakes were whispered gossip among the ladies and gentlemen of Evereska or a catty remark about a less than absolutely up-to-the-minute dress than a sword at one’s throat or a blast of unholy power, but then one didn’t always have the luxury of choosing.
Accordingly, as she continued, she tried to strike a balance between the conversational and earnest shock, playing up the role of a young cleric rather unused to the adventuring life. “That does remind me – as a fellow priest, you might know best what might disturb the rest of the departed in the region. There are such stories in the Tomb Hills! We were quite fortunate, but even so we encountered a ghoul or two. Thank the One and the Three that we were all together, and that it was nothing worse. We did also find something else, though, the likes of which I’ve never heard of before, and I wondered if it might be specific to the area around Daggerford, and what could cause such a manifestation. A serpentine bone creature, wearing a most peculiar – ”
As Chaia spoke, Saeri flipped her hand around to check the cards.
The Mountain Man, eh? Representing an encounter with a physical force outside of one's control. Thinking back to some of the rooms, that could certainly describe them well. More to the point, she couldn't entirely control what other people did - and the card seemed like a suggestion to not intervene.
Lu however had no such divinations to help her. Just the sinking feeling that some face-stealing monster was about to have a go at her visage. If, of course, this conversation weren't rerouted in a tactful manner. Good luck me!
"Ahhh let's not bother with ze pesky details noh? I'm sure you are far too busy for zat!" Lu gave the carefree mage a sisterly embrace and grinned at the priest. "We really only wonder if you heard anything about any necromantic activity lately. I'm sure ze Morninglord keeps tabs on such abominations and zeir masters..."
As Chaia spoke, Saeri flipped her hand around to check the cards.
1d54
The Mountain Man, eh? Representing an encounter with a physical force outside of one's control. Thinking back to some of the rooms, that could certainly describe them well. More to the point, she couldn't entirely control what other people did - and the card seemed like a suggestion to not intervene.
Lu however had no such divinations to help her. Just the sinking feeling that some face-stealing monster was about to have a go at her visage. If, of course, this conversation weren't rerouted in a tactful manner. Good luck me!
"Ahhh let's not bother with ze pesky details noh? I'm sure you are far too busy for zat!" Lu gave the carefree mage a sisterly embrace and grinned at the priest. "We really only wonder if you heard anything about any necromantic activity lately. I'm sure ze Morninglord keeps tabs on such abominations and zeir masters..."
“Yes, I do beg your pardon. That is, as Lucrecia says, we thought you might be more familiar with the particular manifestations of the forces that call for the gods’ light near town. Of course, the Luminous Cloud embraces and shines gently upon all mysteries, and is anathema to the undead, but her mortal servants have limited sight. Any advice you could give about what we might have to worry about in the hills would be welcome,” Chaïa said, trying to turn back to safer conversational territory. Maybe something about mythical banshees and specifically elven forms of the restless dead, if necessary? On a good day, at least, she could take a hint. No need to tip quite all their hand yet. Right. Shutting up now.
"All manner of undeath and necromancy is hateful to the Morninglord," Sunmist said passionately. "His is the light in which they burn, their unclean flesh ushered into renewal so long denied. I'm sure you know all this: That which mends the living flesh destroys the unliving. Tokens of righteous Powers may also ward them away."
"And, of course, judicious application of a blessed convincer." Saeri said with a straight face. "Alas, my own talents have never lent themselves to such - but 'tis all the more opportunity for those gifted by the Morninglord to use what they have been given, no?"
No, I lied, Chaïa decided a moment later as Saeri’s glib remark gave her another opening.
“To be sure,” she jumped in, letting the others decide for themselves if she was agreeing primarily with Saeri or Sunmist, at the outset, “but sometimes, instead of the whole breadth of our prayers, the gods’ gifts take a more determinate form, and we are asked to rely on whatever that may be and our own native wits. So, it seems it has pleased the One and the Three to guide me more towards magic generally than to the spells of most use for setting the undead to rest. Conversely, as to native wits, while such would be far beyond me, knowing that banshees haunt the hills outside my home, I know whom I might consult on the subject. Likewise, before we leave you to your duties, would you know, or know who would, anything about historical or recent patterns in how such creatures manifest around Daggerford?”
She beamed in what she hoped was a disarmingly ingenuous fashion, all the while admitting inwardly that who- or whatever had replaced Sunmist seemed to be admirably suited to the task of deflecting pointed questions.
"And, of course, judicious application of a blessed convincer." Saeri said with a straight face. "Alas, my own talents have never lent themselves to such - but 'tis all the more opportunity for those gifted by the Morninglord to use what they have been given, no?"
"My adventuring days are behind me," Sunmist said. "I am called to other things now."
Some distance away, Janus stands with a group of other people, considering wether to try the snack food with a bun of bread enveloping a 'mystery meat' sausage...eventually deciding that tempting the fates would only work so long, and that was better used in situations where it mattered -
"Oh zat is a shame. But zere are other zings in life I hear. Maybe we should procure some blessed water? Zat way we can deliver a piece of ze Morninglords scorn anyhow!" Lu suggests. Both since it was useful and she was curious to see if the priest would start to melt or something if she just *happened* to soil some...
For what it was worth, Saeri was speaking more in general terms than trying to lean on any specific person... but at the same time, she didn't mind if someone else got a different interpretation from her statements. Goodness knew that happened often enough with the cards. She contented herself with a faint smile.