Welcome to Shades of Ice. This is a CORE session, so please make sure your character is Core before we begin. I am fine with pre-gens, as long as it is one of the core classes.
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A half-elf strides in. His supercilious nature is immediately obvious. He wears leather armor comfortably, and his bow has clearly seen a lot of use, but the striking feature at his side is a book. "Finally time to get some field work in. If I have to spend one more day inside these walls I'll go insane."
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And another half-elf, though possibly a very different one than Kayanor! Standing nearly six feet tall, with hair that's been hacked short and a figure with little feminine about it, it might take a few seconds to realize the newcomer's a woman. Scars on her face and forearms, as well as dings on her breastplate, show she's seen battle as well. She slings her pack off in a corner, leaning a halberd up against it, and stomps for a chair, settling into it with a huff with her legs splayed out before her and an arm hooked over the back of the chair.
She gives the other present agent a brusque nod. "Crazy is as crazy does."
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This woman is either in her late-twenties or early-thirties. Her sunburnt olive skin shows signs of a life of toil that ages a person prematurely, but her eyes show an unfettered vitality. Her wavy black hair is accented by a rose that doubles as a holy symbol of Shelyn, the strands of which fall as-they-may in an unkempt flair which carries over into her clothing, ill-fitting scale over a loose blouse and breeches. She carries buckler and numerous small weapons, though her hand wanders closest to her rapier.
"I do have to agree that 'Crazy is as crazy does!' Going a little mad has certainly made me do a lot." Her sonorous voice carries a distinct Taldan accent that caresses each word.
She takes the stance of a back-alley fencer, flips her rapier about in her hand, holds it up in front of her face, then bows.
"I am I, Dulcinea, 'Lady' of la Mancha. Destiny called, and I said 'why not?'"
A small twinge of a frown forms for just a moment as a memory strikes her unprepared before her mouth pulls itself into a cat grin and she shrugs.
"Or something of that sort."
A pair of feline eyes watch the newcomers enter from the rafters, where a great leopard lounges above. He watches with confusion as the newcomers bow low, exposing their vulnerable necks. As the woman reaches for steel, one hundred pounds of fur and muscle coil to spring.
"" the gnome says firmly. She looks like something out of another world, which is accurate, to a point. Flower petals, twine, wooden beads and polished bones adorn her hair, green like long blades of grass, and her skin is marked with the curvilinear markings of the druids of old. "Don't think I'm not watching you. You aren't allowed to eat any more Pathfinders, remember?"
The snow leopard lounges back down, shrinking from Lini's gaze in sullen acquiescence. His claws dangle from above as he begins to sulk. "Sorry about that. Droogami doesn't much like being cooped up in here either, do you Droogami?" the druidess says, matter-of-factly, beckoning the great cat down and stroking it behind the ears. The beast makes a deep growling noise, scarcely recognizable as a purr. Contented, the beast slinks off to resume it's nap.
"They told me we'd be setting sail by the harvest, but we've been cooped up in here for days!" she motions to the numourous corn effigies sitting completed on the table, from the last sheafs of wheat, barley and oats of the spring, and the beginnings of a wooden songbird, wood shavings littering the table. Amidst her chatter she seems to have forgotten to introduce herself, and before long picks up her bone knife and begins whittling once again.
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Thessaly eyes the newcomer without taking her booted foot off the table in front of her. "Lamancha? Where the hell's that? Sounds kinda Andoran."
She looks around the room, mentally passing judgment on those she sees-- half-elf with a book, fancy-pants fellow with a demon-symbol, lady with one of those little street-fight swords...
--gods, a cat? Thessaly's feet come off the table and she's half to standing before the little gnome speaks up and orders the cat down. Thessaly slowly sinks back into her chair with a glower at the big cat.
Rolling her neck side to side to crack a vertebrae or two, Thessaly reaches down into her pack and digs out a small stick, about ten inches long, carved with religious iconography.
"So can any of you use this, then," she mutters as she tosses it onto the table. "Got it as a present for helping an agent out of a town called Pezzack... he said it'd come in handy for patching up scrapes, but I dunno how to work the thing."
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Dulcinea gives a hearty laugh at Thessaly's question.
"I really have no idea. The 'Lord' of La Mancha would say it's 'in every man's heart' or something of the sort. I simply happen to like the sound of it."
She picks up the wand, briefly waving it about like a child's rapier.
"I would happily take up this wand for you. They are easy enough to figure out. One wand is like another."
She briefly sung that last sentence for some unknown reason.
"Pezzack. Lamancha. Pezzack." the gnome says, scrunching up her nose. "Huh. These humans sure have strange names for things, don't they Droogami?"
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I could also use for you this wand Lady Thessaly. As I'm no warrior, it will be better in my hands than in the lovely ones of Lady DelaMancha.
Says in a bright smile Titus.
Looking at Droogami, Titus adds
As you seems to have taking your pet, let me introduce you to mine. Ydresus, a gift from the Mighty Asmodeus.
He shows to the assembly a small serpent.
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"Call me 'Lady' Thessaly again and you can use the wand alright, to heal your split lip," Thessaly says with her arms crossed. She looks between the two, then shrugs, her battered breastplate shifting with the movement.
"Don't much care who has it. If you've got nothing else to do, Titus, go ahead, I guess."
Thessaly looks warily at the serpent. "Is that thing poisonous? If so, you'll keep it away from me."
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Dulcinea gives a knowing smile to Thessaly and begins singing to herself.
"I am not your lady
I am not any kind of a lady...."
Dulcinea flips her rapier in her hand and points the handle at Kayanor.
"Big plans you say? What manner of plans?"
Her rapier flips back rightways in her hand and she finesses it in the air as she continues humming her song, still listening for Kayanor's answer.
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Kayanor looks back and forth at his partymates. "I am gifted with a bow, but my passion lies in magic. I'd like to earn some coin while adventuring so that I may fund my studies with the Society. While I had heard that you lot were also rather newish, I can see you're already starting to make names for yourselves. I'm looking forward to being a part of that."
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Dulcinea bows her head in regard to Kayanor, shrugging her mouth in a typical "not bad" expression. She pulls out a coin and shifts it back-and-forth between her fingers.
"Finding money to pay for studies...How very practical. Nothing impossible or unreachable. I suppose that's to be expected."
She throws the coin in the air and stabs at it with her sword.
Piercing only air, she holds the rapier still as the coin lands on the table. She frowns, not out of disappointment but out of fulfilled expectation.
She picks up the coin, returning it to it's journies flipping between her fingers.
"I am not trying to make a name. I was already given one. I merely need to earn the right to wear it."
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Thessaly side-eyes the other half-elf again at his words about a passion for magic. "Hrm," she mutters, and plucks a dagger from her belt and pick a little dirt out from under her nails. Probably it's dirt.
"Yeah, well, I've done loads of Society missions," she says nonchalantly. "I'll keep you new recruits safe."
....Thessaly, you are all fairly sure, is full of dragon-poop. At least about the 'having done lots of missions' thing.
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Dulcinea finds no need to call Thessaly's bluff, not wanting to rouse the surly woman to anger.
"Do not worry about protecting me--"
Dulcinea jumps up onto the table, holding her sword aloft.
"--a knight is a protector by nature! She protects damsels and..."
A thought interrupts her, and she ceases her dramatization, placing a hand on her hip as she taps the flat of her sword against her chin.
"Protecting damsels...I think that this idea was made up by a man, no? I am not entirely sure how that is supposed to work for knight such as myself."
She drops a hip, taking a pose of feminine swagger.
"Certainly men need protection, too, no? I can think of more than a few I knew personally."
"Do I want to ask where you were keeping that snake, Mister Tiberius? ... nevermind." she says, a wry smile on her face. She fixes her eyes on the snake, bobbing her head and hissing out the traditional greeting. "Hsssss sssst ssssss, ysssusss. Sssstt shhhh sssst."
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Dulcinea takes a spot next to Thessaly, throwing a friendly arm around Thessaly's shoulders and giving her a hearty pat.
"Of course! Perfect."
Dulcinea shakes her head as another thought comes to her. She holds her rapier up like a finger.
"Though...I am supposed to get 'love tokens' from those I protect. That is a lot of love for one woman."
She gives a playful smile. She is clearly delightfully amused at this "conundrum."
"Droogami usually carries me, rather than the other way around. But each to their own, I suppose!" the gnome chirps, having found a kindred animal lover. She peers into the basket and begins talking very rapidly. "You should try warming some stones on the fire and keeping them in there. It can get cold up north. Snakes don't like that. They go into a torpor and hide away somewhere warm. He'll need fattening up too if he's going to survive the winter..." she says, with a conspiratorial wink to Ydersus. "Have you considered feeding him more often?"
She fixes her bulbous eyes on Thess, staring a little too intensely. "That's not true, you know."
Lini shrugs, returning to her weaving. "The Archdruids've come back almost a dozen times, in as many different shapes. Won't shut their gobs about it either. Take it from me." she says, winding a few corns of barley into an ornate knot. "When you move in the circles I do, it don't seem so odd."
Droogami looks up from his cat nap as a new smell enters the room. He peers around the room disinterestedly, and seeing nothing, buries his head in his paws once again.
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This one can hear thoughts? I shall have to fill my mind with banal, insipid, stupidity if I am to remain hidden.
The meeting in Absalom with Drandle Dreng nearly a month ago was brief, as always. “I have a routine mission for you, though a dangerous routine mission,” the old man whispered in the great hall in the Grand Lodge. Suffering from a cold and weak from lack of food and rest, the old venture-captain looked quite possibly the worst you’d ever seen him. Through wracking coughs he explained, “An ally of ours in the Land of the Linnorm Kings—Rognvald Skagni—is writing a lengthy report on the state of government in the northern countries of Avistan. I received a letter from him just yesterday requesting several key documents from the vaults here to help him finish the report.” Venture-Captain Dreng patted a large, heavy-looking chest next to him. “These are the documents, and I need you to board a ship north to deliver them to Skagni.”
Dreng tried to stand at that point, but a fit of coughing sent him back into his seat. He gestured for a well-dressed, impeccably kept man standing in the shadows of the room to approach and whispered raspy orders to him. The man picked up a small pouch and a large key and handed them both to the party.
“Venture-Captain Dreng is unwell, as you can see. He wished me to give you this key and this pouch of gold. The key opens the chest, and the gold will buy you passage and get you from the Linnorm coast to Trollheim, where Skagni resides. Whatever you do, do not let the chest out of your sight and do not, under any circumstances, allow it to be searched. These documents are for Mr. Skagni’s eyes only. Are we understood?”
Dreng’s nameless servant waited for a reply and then smiled. “Good. Now run along; Venture-Captain Dreng needs his rest.”
The chest is 2 feet wide, 4 feet long, and 3 feet deep. It’s made of heavy oak bound with iron, and locked with an enormous, finely crafted steel lock. The chest weighs 100 pounds.
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When the chest was first revealed, Thessaly grunts in dismay at the size of the thing. "Bleeding Aroden!" she swears. "That's 'a few documents'?? That's a library!"
Growling, the half-Ulfen woman moves to the chest, wrapping her hands around it and starting to lift it. She manages to do so, but it's clear that its unwieldy size and shape won't suffice well for long-distance hauling. She sets it back down again heavily.
"Let's buy a demons-infested mule or something," she mutters to the others, giving Dreng a dark look. "Damned if I'm carting that thing around in the snows. We can lash the chest atop it."
"So what's Skagni look like, then?" she demands of Dreng. "I don't want to have to deal with someone claiming to be him, and us gettin' in trouble for handing that ton of wood off to the wrong fellow. And don't you say 'a big man with a beard' -- that's every snow-blighted Ulfen man from here to Trollheim."
The man gives you a description of Skagni which should suffice for your needs.
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Dulcinea stabs her rapier into the ground and leans on it, crossing her right leg in front of her left and holding her hand on her hip.
"Routine indeed! I had hoped for a mission with a bit more romance to it."
She glances over her fair-weather outfit and cocks her mouth to one side.
"Perhaps one that is a bit less cold, too."
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Thessaly looks over at Dulcinea in her light blouse and breeches. "You'd better dress for that cold, you know," she grouses. "In that little froo-froo outfit you're gonna turn into a block of ice, and I'm not hauling you too."
Thessaly digs into her belt pouch for a few coins and tosses them to Dulcinea. "Don't waste it."
Looking back to Kayanor, Thess jerks her chin towards her halberd propped against the wall. "I stab things," she says drily.
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Dulcinea grabs each coin out of the air, depositing all but one in her coin pouch. She flips the final coin in the air, catching it between two fingers.
"Who would have thought! A big softie hidden underneath all that grousing."
She smiles at Thessaly as she deftly flips the coin about through her fingers.
"No need to worry about the money; I've never wasted a thing in my life."
Dulcinea flips the coin into her coin pouch as she makes a few flourishes with her rapier, finally thrusting forward with a lunge towards Kayanor.
"I suppose I stab things, too, with a bit more flourish and with a vast preference towards evildoers, but stabbing is certainly involved in some manner."
She turns to show off the various weapons covering her body.
"Unless alternatives are necessary."