The young thief shook the day's dirt off of his leather boots as he entered the common room of The Drunkard's Arse. Normally he would have been excited about enjoying a night of revelry in such a "fine" establishment, but tonight was different. As the door closed slowly behind him, he quickly scanned the room for trouble. Seeing a quiet spot in one of the corners, Riley cautiously strolled over and took a seat with his back against the wall. It had been several years since he had returned to Perdition's Point and arriving in Hamsberg meant he was only days from his inevitable return home.
Riley had been born to tenant farmers in Perdition's Point. He spent much of his early life working with his father in the fields. The few possessions they owned were due to the landowners who allowed the McCormick's to squat on their land. Life was rough and mundane. It would get even worse when Riley's mother died of influenza when Riley was only eight years old. In deep despair, his father turned to alcohol and pushed most of the hard labor onto his son. Riley spent the next few years toiling in the fields. He had little hope of a normal life.
Startled out of his thoughts by a female voice, Riley looked up to see a pretty young barmaid. "Good evening ma'am. Riley was skilled at veiling his mood. Bluffing a charming smile, he continued, "I'll take a tankard of your finest ale and whatever stew you have warm!" With that, he slid a silver across the table. As the barmaid walked away his attention turned to the bard. Decent looking enough for a town like Hamsberg. His eyes then traveled down her long legs to her bag lying about two feet away. His keen eyes noticed the performer's coin purse. Not tonight Lucky...not tonight.
There was only one reason for Riley to return to Perdition's Point...the Mayor's daughter, Elena Ebonlocke. It was Elena who helped Riley move on from his mundane existence. She had always come to check on Riley's father once he had been widowed. She often brought food for the two. It was Elena who first suggested that Riley attend school and who made sure he had a couple of decent outfits to wear. Riley thought back to his first day of school at the age of twelve. Elena spent the entire day introducing him to the teachers and her fellow students.
"Your stew sir. Will there be anything else?" Riley smiled once again at the barmaid and shook his head no.
The next few years were much better than any Riley had ever known. He was gifted with intelligence and succeeded in every class. Unfortunately, his social life was not as good. Elena was always kind to him and attempted to include him, but the others knew that Riley was a poor commoner and gave him very little thought. By the time he graduated, his father had drunk himself to death and Riley was left with little opportunities to succeed. Shortly after graduation, he buried his father and left Perdition's Point without a word.
"So if you're not playing along, you must be playing with yourself!" Riley chuckled to himself as the crowd reveled in song. He held up his mug of ale and toasted the room. Leave tomorrow's troubles for tomorrow Lucky. There is a keg full of ale and a room full of beauties...well...woman at least.
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PHASE 2
The door leading to the smallest, quietest side street opens at a measured pace, and a young human with spiked armour enters the pub non-chalantly--almost too non-chalantly. He's very clearly looking about himself while trying to appear like he's doing nothing of the sort, checking the attire of every patron and barmaid. Whatever he was looking for, he seems to have not found it, and relaxes...slightly. He finds a table very near the far door from where he entered, and sits down, unslung hung his heavy shield from his back and leaning it against his chair.
When a barmaid arrives at his table, he orders cheap ale and some stew.
As the song comes to its inappropriate conclusion, the young man's face flushes, bringing an amused chuckle from the serving wench who drops off his food. He ignores her, eating his food and avoiding all eye contact.
Appreciating the women in the tavern brought Riley's thoughts back to Perdition's Point...back to Elena. After seven years on the road, she was still the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Her kindness as a peer had led to a serious childhood crush. He had hidden it from her for the three years they spent in school together before she moved on to the temple of Erastil to further her education. She was the only person he missed after he hooked up with the 1st merchant's caravan out of the hamlet. Years later he wondered if she even remembered him.
Life took a turn for the good when Riley joined the caravan. He met a traveling merchant and was trained to protect the merchant's interests. Being weaker than the merchant's usual toughs, Riley had to rely on his dexterity and smarts to hold his own (reactionary). He took to daggers easily and soon was one of the toughest son of a guns the merchant had ever seen. He was soon promoted to work as a guard on one of the merchant's vessels, a small cargo ship that bartered goods throughout the area utilizing the river channels (river rat). As his skills progressed, so did his position. After only two years on the river, he was brought to the merchant's home city and given the opportunity to apprentice in the local thieve's guild. It was after three years in this position that he, now known as Lucky, heard of the disappearances in Perdition Point and the involvement of Elena Ebonlocke. While wondering why he even cared about his skeletons, he decided it was time to face his past and return the kindness the Mayor's daughter had shown him and his family.
Flagging a passing serving girl, he asks her, "Excuse me, miss. I'm new to the area, what other towns or villages are around these parts?"
Her haggard look shows the stress she's feeling with the increased customer load, and she looks around for anybody else, staff or patron, on whom she could foist the question.
Everyone get's the food and drink they order, but before it's served, there is a small kerfluffle. Tavern wenches begin asking people to move to free up some tables in the center of the tavern, near the stage. It takes several minutes, but a dozen tables are freed up, and Larry, Emilan and Riley end up sitting at tables next to each other against the northern wall. Then the food is brought to their new tables.
The wench who brings the order answers Emilan's question. "Oh, yes, well there's Milltown, Rache's Reach, Alder's Folly, Sin'orsa, Lavellas, Perdition's Point, and Taggert's Fort. In descending size. If you want closest, it's Rache's Reach, Sin'Orsa, Lavellas, Milltown, Alder's Folly, Perdition's Point, and Taggert's Fort."
Shortly thereafter, two dozen men and women of various races march in, all wearing uniforms. A tall human woman with bright red hair seems to be in charge, as she get's the salutes. Soon the uniformed personnel are sitting and eating, and enjoying the bard's latest song (which is much more a military song, although just as bawdy).
PHASE 2
Emilian goes white as a ghost when the soldiers walk in. If it weren't for the confusion of the moving tables, he probably would have thrown himself at the lead soldier in a desperate bid to escape. Once it becomes clear that the soldiers aren't here for him, he relaxes...slightly.
As the cheap ale settles in, Emilian lets himself laugh along with the other men at the crude songs.
Phase 2
"Around here? No, definitely not. I'm ..."
He pauses, glancing over at the soldiers, then lowering his voice slightly, "Emilian, and I agree on the whole 'not liking to kill people for no reason thing'. Of course, if you have a very good reason, I mean, a really good reason..."
He trails off as the man starts choking on his food.
Cathran Ingwood has arrived in Hamsberg.
Deleted.
You still have a chance to reroll (actually, you shouldn't have deleted yet). As I said in the other thread, you forgot to roll a 6th stat, if it's an invalid stat (6 or less) you reroll the set.
LOL, no inconvenience at all. :)
Dotting for placement
@Cathran, not sure if you noticed my edit to my earlier post, you are a go for Phase 2 whenever you want to join in.
The uniformed people eat for about 30 minutes, talking amongst themselves, but eventually the commander of the group speaks. "Lieutenant, Check the Crowd."
One of the uniformed men stands up, salutes the woman, and then details half the force (apparently the younger half) to begin canvassing the room.
One of the uniforms, a human kid who's a bit on the scrawny side whose armor fit's him loosely approaches the tables where Emilian, Larry, and Riley are seated. He has closely cropped red hair, freckles, and an adam's apple that protrudes visibly. He marches up, then gives a half-bow. "My pardon." His voice is a bit high, but easily discerned even over the noise of the bar. He reaches into his belt pouch and pulls out a scroll and unrolls it. Around the tavern, the other uniforms who are up are doing similar things. "Have any of you seen anyone looking like this?" He asks.
I went back and forth on this guy's class, building him (first as a bloodrager) then rebuilding him (as a hunter) then rebuilding him again (as a heavy armor/tower shield fighter) until I finally settled on Ranger. Here's Raliscar Fane for your consideration. =)
@Raliscar/Dal Selpher - Only major issue I see is the way the WBL was spent. I'm kind of a stickler, as a GM, for loosely following the spending guidelines (25% offense, 25% defense, 50% other). Raliscar has spent 2/3rds of his wealth on his weapons. I'd feel better if it was one MW waraxe, instead of two. You may proceed to Phase 2 at this point, RP'ing in the Tavern with everyone else.
Swapped one masterwork waraxe for a regular one and picked up a potion of barkskin.
Thanks!
"Glad to meet you, Emilian." He offers to shake your hand.
"This place seems huge for this town, doesn't it? I wonder how many other taverns this town has in it? Quite a bit of money must flow through here. Means there's gotta be work available for the likes of us."
Larry will continue to talk about such low-stress topics as long as the others wish to talk.
When the soldiers get up and start talking to the rest of the patrons, in an obvious coverage pattern, the Varisian frowns. "What do these want, then?" They answer his question by showing him the picture and asking if he's seen that person. "I've been in town about an hour. I haven't seen anybody here that's not working in this tavern, yet." THEN he looks at the sketch. "Looks like an Ustlavian children's story character, doesn't it? The Grim Collector of Children Who Don't Do Their Chores or somesuch, right?"
Phase 2
Expecting to see an image of himself, Emilian actually smiles and looks relieved at the appearance of the hideous monster.
He shakes his head. "Nope, but I'm not from around here. What did he...it do?"
Riley chuckles to himself at the sight of the scrawny guard. He takes a sip of ale then takes the scroll from the lad. Hmmmmmm....nope. Never seen him before. He hands the scroll back to the guard. How about you fellas? Wait a minute. Maybe if you tell us what he is wanted for we might have heard something. Riley leans in and raises his eyebrow at the lad.
Phase 2
A tall half-elf woman entered the Drunkard's Arse, her gait level and purposeful. Sharp, dark eyes took their time looking around the crowded tavern for a place to sit. With the center tables entirely taken up by some uniformed band, Cathran targeted an open seat next to a trio of well-armed men and made her way toward it. Removing her backpack and leaning her bardiche next to another resting polearm--probably one of the men's--she sat straight-backed and caught the eye of a barmaid. "I would like cider, some fresh fruit, and something with cooked vegetables in it. Thank you."
She considered striking up a conversation with the men next to her. They seemed to be travelers, or mercenaries, and in any case were armed as well as herself. Perhaps they knew of some work to be had, or knew of some mercenary bands that were looking to recruit, but it was hard to start talking to other people after traveling alone for the past year or so. Just as Cathran started to work up the nerve to ask them where the best place to stock up for a long trek through the woods would be, the young ginger soldier approached the table and squeaked out a question about some scroll. Cathran's brow furrowed. "I have not seen this person. Why are you looking for them?" she asked, suspicious. Normally a bounty job would be welcome, but this picture looked like someone who was trying to hide their identity. If they were wanted for some definite crime, that was one thing, but in Cathran's experience, those wishing to hide their appearance--and with such eccentric clothing--were more often the target of a witch hunt than not. And that was not something that Cathran was going to join. She turned to the Varisian man with the grimy soldier's garb. "Good sir, let us allow the young man to give us a little more information before we jump to any conclusions."
Lucky stands and slides a chair out for the lady to sit. Please. Sit here. He bows slightly as she sits. Riley shakes his head in agreement. This lovely lady is correct. Let's give him time to respond. I am sure we would all love to help the local authorities. He offers the young soldier a charismatic grin.
Larry grunts. "Not my local authorities. You know as well as I do that this soldier doesn't know why this caricature is wanted. I'm sure he can spout the official accusations meant to garner our assistance, and there may even be some truth behind them. Those familiar with Ustalvian tales know that a great many people die before creatures such as that pictured are actually dealt with, and that the tales teach us to ignore that they could be anything other than evil things from beyond. Or are you suggesting that they aren't just tales?"
The young man shakes his head and opens his mouth to respond, and then Larry goes into a rant, and the boy begins to look angry. For the first time, the quartet see him as an actual warrior, not a kid dressed up in his big brother's armor. "Hey, shut up you miserable excuse for a drunk! We may not be local, but by the gods we are Mildern's Marauder's, and we got a Mercenary Writ out of Magnimar. You keep up that kind of talk and I'll see how far it'll stretch to kicking your arse for impeding us on a sanctioned hunt! We've been trying to track down these gods be damned Cultists of Elvan'Shor! They wear this stuff!" He holds up the scroll. "They raise undead, and do other evil stuff, especially involving children!" He fumes for several seconds, as if deciding whether to backhand Larry, and then sighs. "Not that we've been able to find anything out so far. We're actually heading back to Magnimar in the morning. We heard a few rumors out this way, but nothing panned out. Word is we're gonna go back, resupply, and head north to the Uhlf lands."
Riley takes another look at the scroll doing his best to notice every detail of the criminal's garment for future use. I am sorry I have no information. I offer Godspeed to you on your mission sir.
At the soldier's anger, Riley frowns a bit at Larry. He offers softly, You attract more bees with honey my new friend.
Larry looks the angry young man in the eyes as he goes off, and waits for him to wind down before offering with a chuckle and grin. "So, it IS an Ulstavian tale about evil people who abuse children!"
Riley turns his attention to the half elven woman he offered a seat. He extends his hand. Riley McCormick, but my friends call me Lucky. May I be so bold as to ask for a name?
Phase 2
The young mercenary glares at Lenny, then rolls up the scroll. "Useless piece of horse excrement... hope someone uses your intestines for a divination..." He mutters, walking off.