The Road Through Tirine

Game Master Yucale

It is shortly after sunset, even though, it being late summer, the night would be short. The large hunting lodge in the northern part of the Aeradifa-wyrd is still open, though you are some of the only patrons. The hostess, a half-elven woman, is cleaning the counter and ignoring you. A human man in a strange mode of dress - colorful furs and cloths - is hovering next to the counter, moving from foot to foot, occasionally giving you a nervous look. You have just arrived at the lodge. It’s a cold night, and there is still snow on the tall pines of this area of the wood.

Welcome to the game, finally! Kyr (Avrin) and Amy (Kaya) will be joining us later. I encourage everyone to introduce their characters and socialize a bit - when you're done with that, I also encourage you to make a general Perception check and a Sense Motive check on the NPCs. (The guide to rolling dice on the play by post is under "how to format your text"). I will have the Primer for this game under the linked Campaign info. Please put your character sheet under your account profile or otherwise share it with me. If you have any questions, ask!

[ooc]I will probably by using Roll20 once we start combat.[/ooc]

A small, wiry-looking woman with blue-black hair and skin a peculiar shade of ashen-grey steps up to the bar. Her every movement is abnormally precise, but it is the natural precision of a cat rather than something studied or measured. She gives the nervous-looking human a vaguely friendly - though not directly inviting - glance before focusing on the hostess and quietly requesting a half-pint of beer.

As she waits, she shrugs back her dark cloak a bit in the relative warmth of the common room, revealing a sense of colorful whimsy beneath the charcoal-dyed wool - flashes of turquoise, darker blue, and a very pale buttercup yellow.

OK here's the link to the game on Roll20: https://app.roll20.net/join/1315817/RlUMww

I have no effing clue how that site actually works but I'm thinking we'll use it for combat.

Only a few moments after the graceful woman orders her drink, a tall human female joins her at the bar. Her dark hair is pulled back away from her face, making the long, thin scar bisecting her cheek seem quite severe. She offers a polite smile to the other woman, but doesn’t speak aside from a quiet request to the hostess for two tankards of mead. As she reaches out to accept the mugs, the edges of her cloak part to show off the etched leather vambraces encasing her arms. She quietly thanks the hostess, taking the drinks to a nearby table. A massive orc inclines their head in acknowledgement as the woman places both glasses down, pushing one in their direction. She sits beside the orc, back to the wall and gaze traveling over the other patrons.

Nice username. Should I be breaking out the torturous angst, or - ?

(So a priest walks into a bar...)

Yet another patron strides in, this one with a straight back and a sense of purpose, scanning the room while wearing a stony expression of concentration. It's a young human male with shoulder-length straight black hair who wears the vestments of a holy order (complicated sigils flow over the cloth in neat columns).

He approaches the bar, orders a glass of wine from the half-elf, and then turns to focus his scrutiny entirely on the nearby woman with the off-putting color to her flesh.

"Are you sick?" He asks, careful to keep his voice quiet but tone as blunt and devoid of warmth as possible. "Or are you simply unable to choose between concealing yourself and standing out?"

She returns the human woman's smile with a slight nod, eyes sweeping over her once - curious, but with the sense that this is the same level of curiosity with which she applies to everything and everyone around her.

The man - a priest, she notes - who enters shortly after gets a similar look... and then an amused eyebrow-raise with a coquette's smile at that question.

"Since you're asking that, it seems I've succeeded in standing out, whether I chose to or no, don't you think?" she replies easily, a playful glint showing in her silver-grey gaze.

---

Would Imrien possibly recognize his religious affiliation given her time with the clerics of Araya?

"No, I think your game is a different one altogether, one which you think you are winning," he says. "But as someone who undoubtedly sticks out, perhaps you would be an authority on other people who fall into that category."

He sips his wine.

"I'm looking for someone like that... only, he was slightly more successful at concealing his origins, for a time."

"You rather stick out, yourself, you know," she observes, grinning and sweeping her eyes along his sigil-scribed clothing demonstratively. "You have 'I'm no fun at all' literally written all over you."

Looking for someone like that. Right. Because all the hell-kissed know each other, of course.

Her smile doesn't falter or chill, despite her cynical amusement. "But you mean, sticks out like I do, don't you? Who is this fellow? I meet a lot of people."

"Oh good, you can read. I'm probably not wasting my time at all," he says... sincerely. He turns to the hostess and requests another round for his 'new acquaintance'.

Returning his attention to this probable denizen of the (figurative) underworld: "Yes and no. My information suggests that he's now a corpse, so while the pallor may be the same he's rather less likely to be found talking in an establishment. He was a runaway son of a noble house. I don't know how he made such terrible choices, but I'm led to believe that he became involved in criminal endeavors which later got him killed."

Definitely no fun at all.

But that is paradoxically where Imrien sometimes finds the most of it, so her smile remains, if tempered by eyes now slightly narrowed with curiosity... and a nagging sense of... something.

"So you're looking for the corpse, or looking to make certain that he is one?" she asks, nodding her thanks for the fresh round of beer. "Or something else?"

---

For the NPCs/general atmosphere:
Perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (17) + 1 = 18
Sense Motive: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8

"I'm attempting to find the truth," he says. "And my church would prefer that I gather proof of it while I'm at it."

He pauses to sip his wine and scowl thoughtfully, eyes wandering around the room.

"As usual, there are those who hide the truth. It seems my search is opposed, directly or indirectly. So not only must I investigate, it is prudent that I do so with influence. Influence, of course, requires making... deals. Strange deals for one of my calling, but deals nonetheless."

---

Likewise, looking around:
Perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8
Sense Motive: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (9) + 5 = 14

Oh, and since Yucale isn't chiming in: Avrin bears the markings of another church, not Araya.

The hostess isn't making a terrible effort to conceal her interest in Avrin and Imrien's conversation. Avrin notices this, and also can guess that it's more that the lodge is so remote that any entertainment is good entertainment - if he's not too paranoid. The hostess, with her heavy, smooth face and veritably icy expression is very hard to read. Imrien notes none of these things, except the hostess' basic appearance.

The man in outlandish clothing looks similarly interested, but that could be due to his apparent desperation for company, or some other reason. Even Imrien notes this.

The lodge is large, dark, and low-ceilinged, inhabited only by the cleric, the tiefling, the orc, and the woman traveling with the orc, and a trio of hard-looking, self-absorbed people at a table next to the banked hearth. They appear to be fur trappers of some sort. Imrien can hear several people moving about upstairs, in the undoubtedly cramped rooms of the inn, but it seems to be the normal sounds of road-weary travels finally getting a bit of civilization. It is a very sturdily-built lodge, maybe intended as something other than just hospitality and entertainment when originally built.

If Imrien and Avrin want to roll sense motive to get a better read on each other, tell me, and roll bluff to hide anything you want hidden.

Washington and Viv, this is prime eavesdropping opportunity ...

"Of course," she agrees easily, with an unconcerned shrug. Her eyes sweep up from her mug to move around the room, lingering very briefly on the man nearby and then the trio near the hearth before returning to the priest beside her.

"Well, do you have a portrait, or more you can say about his looks, or anything else? I can't say he sounds familiar from what you've said, but you've not said especially much."

She knows more than one person dead due to criminal activities, but the only one she particularly cared only stood out when he wanted to, and never quite like she does.

---

I asked Yucale offline about it; Imrien correctly recognizes his affiliation.

Also, Yucale, Imrien's definitely trying to get a better read on Avrin, so if you want to roll that for her, that'd be great.

The clergyman stares at his 'new acquaintance' as the gears turn in his mind.

"You're not an information broker," he decides quickly. "Or you would have responded with something relevant to negotiation. Furthermore, you're not interested in impersonating one - but you are interested in getting information out of me. Your clothes say 'performer', corroborated by you using 'fun' as a noteworthy characteristic of personality (it is not)."

A momentary pause for him to think; It is possible that she is a travelling bard without affiliations, but making that assumption gains me nothing. Better to confront her now...

"For whom are you working?"

---

Avrin is, as you might imagine, very interested in correctly reading Imrien for the purposes of how she answers the question he just asked. So yes, another Sense Motive roll.

She raises a single eyebrow at the man, amusement and incredulity battling for dominance in her face.

"I'm not working for anyone but myself, at the moment," she replies, shrugging again.

"Information broker's an interesting suggestion." A smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth, and she raises her mug in salute to him before taking another sip. "Might look into doing that in earnest, sometime. For right now, though, you've got me; I'm not - but if it turns out I have information you want, you can expect some negotiation to happen. So far you haven't told me nearly enough for me to have any idea if I can help you, though."

"It is a good profession, I highly recommend it - just so long as your sources are above-board. It's easiest to start out with one principal buyer who has a specific interest and then develop your network from there, or so I have heard," He comments casually. "Very well. To whom am I speaking, if you work for yourself?"

Right, and you would be the principal buyer? That suits me just fine, I suppose.

"My name is Imrien," she replies simply. She's used other names, but sees no reason to bother, at this juncture. It makes her feel obscurely exposed, even though she's done nothing that should warrant the pejorative interest of someone like the priest in front of her.

After a moment, she expands a bit more. "You aren't too far off with 'traveling performer.' That's what's fed me the last month or so, mostly. And you are?"

The fact that he was effectively correct with his guesswork comes as no surprise whatsoever to the priest.

"I am a servant of the goddess Fervuti. My church has contracted with the noble family I mentioned for the acquisition of some proof of the state of their errant scion, and I am its agent in this task. My name is Avrin - like you, no family name (do not ask). It is strange but heartening to arrive at the tentative conclusion that I am pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Avrin," she repeats with a half-bow, free hand rising in a graceful, small-yet-theatrical gesture to accompany it as the name rolls off her tongue. "A pleasure to meet you, as well, Avrin No-Name, Servant of Her Sternness of the Long Night." Imrien grins up at him.

"This is a bit of a strange place to be looking for a ne'er-do-well noble son," she observes after a moment. "Most of those sorts seem to prefer the comforts of a city, even - or especially - when they're busy getting into trouble."

They used to be just about her favorite sort of person, in fact. She suppresses a sigh.

When the lodge's door opens again, it is to admit a youngish dwarven woman. She looks, frankly, like what she is: a tired traveller who has come too far on too few resources. By 'resources' you might mean gold, food or good health – as poorly dressed and scrawny as she is, she looks short on all three.

She eyes the bar with mingled wariness and longing. She wants food, not trouble, but isn't expecting much of her luck.

Perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (20) + 1 = 21
Sense Motive: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (4) + 1 = 5

Ru sees the inside of a large, low-ceilinged hunting lodge. There is a half-elf woman behind the bar, two people talking at the bar, another human man standing awkwardly some distance from them, several humans or human-like Kin who look to be fur trappers sitting near the fire, and an orc and a human woman sequestered in a corner. There are the sounds of patrons upstairs, but the sounds are faint and sporadic.

Please ignore the orc and human woman in the corner, their players are busy.

No one seems to pay any attention to Ru, except for the barkeep, who eyes her dispassionately, probably gauging how much she can buy, and the oddly dressed human man, who looks at her with slightly more interest.

Feel free to read previous descriptions of the environs and - with the exception of conversation and actions which you've missed - consider them things that Ru has noticed. You got a natural twenty, which almost always indicates remarkable success. Good job!

It's an empty place, this lodge, at least relative to what she grew up with. For Ru, empty places have come to mean endings – the point where there's nothing left to do and no reason left to care. But that isn't right. This is a beginning, not an ending, and she can't afford to fall apart.

So she takes stock instead: the most striking figures are the pair engaged in some kind of verbal swordplay; she couldn't guess the subject of their duel, but both look to mean business – although not necessarily the same kind of business.

Most of the other patrons seem intent on keeping themselves to themselves – although there is the motley man by the bar. However unintentionally, his outfit reminds her of home.

She stands on tiptoe to put enough coin on the counter for a bowl of stew, too hungry to care that this leaves her with virtually nothing. Then she lets out a long breath, and looks cautiously up at the oddly dressed man. Either there's trouble here or there isn't, but at least she'll have food to face it.

"You look like an arklin, sir." she ventures. "I don't think you are one, but that's almost a good omen."

The barkeep sweeps up the coins with alacrity.

The oddly dressed man blinks down at Ru, seeming a bit surprised that she's approached him despite the fact that he was inviting it.

"Excuse me, but what's an arklin?" He speaks Trade clearly, but has a thick accent that Ru can't place.

A few moments later the barkeep returns and places a bowl of hearty stew and a mug of beer in front of Ru. The customer service in this place isn't anything to write home about, but at least Ru got good value in food for her coin.

He responds to Imrien's dip by placing his palms together in front of him and inclining his head; substituting a gesture of rigidly regulated respect for a true obeisance.

"It is," he says, a corner of his lips curling up humorlessly. "I'm currently chasing a thread of the particular business that brought about his end; he was said to have come here while entangled in it."

A glance to the side, and he has examined the dwarf... his gaze lingers, regarding her not with the derision or suspicion she might expect but instead a calculating curiosity.

Imrien notices the dwarf woman's entry, eyes flicking to take her in, then back to her new acquaintance when he speaks.

"Well, if I can help in the investigation, that's a business partnership I'd gladly enter. If I don't know anything of the man already..." She winks playfully. "I bet I could find out. People like telling me things, in the right circumstances."

The newcomer receives a brief but warm smile when she steps up to the bar - she looks... lost, in a way that Imrien can't really help but empathize with, in her present circumstances.

"Demons," says Ru, solemnly, and lets that hang there for a moment before offering a careful smile. "But not real ones. People who played them. They have – had – clothes like yours: all colours. Different combinations meant different demons. I'm sorry. Shouldn't expect you to know. You sound further from home than me."

All of this comes out in a nervous rush, and by the end of it her smile has faded to nothing. There are other eyes on her now, too, and she's painfully aware she is drawing attention to herself with her babbling. Mercifully, though, her food arrives at this point to distract her. She seems to be less swallowing the stew than inhaling it like a pocket of fresh air in a smoke-filled room.

And – hi, everyone. :)

The man's brow furrows a bit as he thinks. "No, I think that makes sense. Neyuz's midwinter pageant also has demon actors, except ours dress in black. And Neyuz isn't that far from here. You're from Ethellus, right? What brings you far north?" The man doesn't seem to notice Ru's self-consciousness.

The man in the motley clothes and most other current inhabitants of the inn have the long noses, high cheekbones, and nut-brown skin of inhabitants of the northern Aeridyfa-wyrd and Blue Reaches, in contrast to Ru's Ethellan dwarvish features, and the features of the two Southerners who've just taken notice of her.

Avrin turns his attention back to Imrien.

"What a novel method. People usually don't like telling me things, but the exact resistance gives me a good idea of what they're hiding."

The priest then begins discussing the various recompenses his church offers for services in pursuit of a mission of this level of importance in a voice that does not carry.

Welcome, and glad to have you. This roleplay reactor hasn't quite hit the level of self-sustaining fusion yet, so don't be shy: spark off any interaction that catches your fancy. Especially if it puts Avrin in an awkward spot, that would make me smile.

Half a bowl of stew down, and Ru begins to look a little better – at least there is more colour in her cheeks.

"My fortunes passing from Raevskel-kal's hands to Ososh's," she replies, perhaps obscurely, although the remark seems to make sense to her. "And yourself? You looked ..." she gestures with her spoon, trying to sum up her sense of the man. "Expectant?"

The man looks to the side and runs a hand nervously through his hair. "Yes. I, uhm. I'm looking for help." He looks at the fur trappers next to the fireplace with some bitterness. "However, most of the people here seem to think that my business isn't a very good bet - or at least I'm not."

The barkeep tries not to smirk to herself at this and fails.

Ru drops the spoon back into a now-empty bowl, and smiles wryly up at her new acquaintance. "Well, unless what you need help with is creating small but interesting explosions, and you can provide most of the ingredients, I'm probably not much use to you either." She peers over at the fur trappers, and makes a guess. "You're ... tracking something?"

The man considers this; he's obviously in pretty desperate straits if Ru's comment is being considered. "That ... might have some offensive capabilities? Oh, don't listen to me. I'm no warlord. And someone, but yes, I'm trying, and failing, to find her."

"Is she ... lost in the woods?" Ru hazards. She's still betting on the fur trappers as a reasonable search party: you might use such folk, if you were desperate, to track someone who'd wandered off.

"She disappeared. I doubt she just got lost - she grew up in these lands, she's an accomplished hunter. Just before this, a band of troublemakers showed up at our village. We kicked them out, but she was gone shortly after. I hired some trackers from my village, but one of them went missing and the others dropped the job." The man looks increasingly distressed.

"Ruffians?" Ru went still, staring into her empty bowl as though it might hold answers to questions other than 'What did you just have for dinner?'; evidently it didn't, though – she shook herself out of it a moment later.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know what it means to wonder what happened, and think you might never find out. Did your men say why they were quitting? There's missing and missing. Only some kinds of it make people drop a paying job."

The man squints into the middle distance, thinking. "I just don't think they were willing to risk their safety for some stranger from Neyuz, not on the word of some other stranger from Neyuz. I have enough money, but ... there's some hard feelings in this part of the Wyrd towards my people. Silly, all of it."

Imrien listens to Avrin's explanation, though with half an ear on the other conversation nearby. With most potential employers, she would be more careful, but the flip side to No Fun At All is usually Reliable, and more to the point she already knows that applies to Fervuti's clergy and church.

This task would help her make a living for the present. That is all that really matters, just now. (She knows other things should matter. But figuring out what those things are is just... too much. The thing about violent life upheavals is that it tends to leave one a bit dazed and aimless.)

When Avrin finishes his explanation, she nods a polite acknowledgment. She'll need more information from him on the quarry, but for the moment...

Imrien uses the natural pause in the interaction with her new acquaintance to throw the dwarf woman and the human man nearby a look that holds a much-practiced blend of curiosity and flippancy.

"Sounds like there's a miniature epidemic of people falling off the map around here," she observes.

--

Hello, and welcome!

The man turns to Imrien with a politely bemused expression, notably unfazed by her otherworldly traits. "How so?"

The priest turns to follow the new line of conversation with some interest. What he doesn't realize is that means he's thinking about it, and his thinking face looks a lot like a disapproving frown.

Imrien shrugs, lips quirking affably. "Your acquaintance you're looking for, the tracker you hired. A city boy who got in trouble and ended up here, then disappeared. In an actual city, I wouldn't think twice about it. Here?" Her dark eyebrows go up. "Bit different."

"No," Ru says, shaking her head. She's seen a whole city vanish into into ruin and decay; as far as she's concerned there's nothing more common than the sudden absence of people.

"It's not the disappearing. People disappear from cities, but if they're not lying in an alley with their throats cut, this is as good as anywhere to disappear to. You mean there's an epidemic of looking. There are a lot of people looking for someone.

She smiles, slightly, as if unsure as to whether she is making a joke or sharing a secret.

"I am too."

The man looks suspicious at Ru's words.

Make a perception check, if you wish. And always remember that you can make skill checks or otherwise act at any point whatsoever.

"Who are you looking for?"

"A lordling," says Ru, and while she's still smiling there's a nervous edge to her voice; she knows when she's out of her depth. "Traded the silver spoon from his mouth for coin and ran off to find trouble. This is – further than I expected to need to go looking."

Perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2

Ru is unable to read anything into the man's expression. He deflates a little. "Oh. There have been a clutch of those in Nuyez recently."

"Rich children disgracing their family names?" Ru shrugs, and laughs a little. She still sounds brittle; nervous. "I think those are probably found everywhere. Unfortunately, I don't think they'll let me off for finding one of the same type. It has to be a specific one."

"Maybe one of the same type is in fact the one you're looking for?"

"Or perhaps they're all so alike that, in the end, no one will know the difference." Ru sighed. "No – my apologies. You're being kind, and you could be right. My leads have rarely been good, and the last one brought me here. Eventually it all starts to sound like nonsense."

The local - for a certain value of local - looks back at Imrien. "I, uh, can't say why you're here, but I'd be inclined to agree with you - except the hellblooded lady seems to think there's more to it, too." His black eyes flick over to Avrin, as well, maybe thinking how odd it was to see a refined Raphaeran in these northern reaches.

Well "hellblooded" is a crude term, though not the crudest possible directed against tieflings, and he doesn't speak with any ire or discomfort. Imrien has attracted mild curiosity, but no more than the Raphaeran and the Ethellan dwarf.