Seeing the price and seeing how light her coin purse is, Gwyn pulls out two potions and a wand.
"Would you accept any of these as payment," she asks, looking so abashed that even Fluff keeps her beak closed.
Orik follows Gwyn and the rest into the herbalist's home. His concerns about cramped spaces were allayed as he saw that the place was set up to attend to several people at once. The medicinal smell, however, could not be covered up, and his nose wrinkled as if it had a mind of its own. "I could use some healing, as a matter of fact. And, uh, I used my last healing potion back at Thistletop, so I'll buy one of them too."
Gwyn nods in thanks to Cerinnibert and graciously accepts the healing.
"We don't know what kind of torment she's been through," Helena says in a quiet, careful tone, glancing from Hannah to Marla. "Please take good care of her."
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"Well, with Helena's gracious gift of life, we have shall have to see about sharing this wealth. Let's see, divide by 5 of us that would be...
divide by 2, carry the 1... about 170 gold each after we sell the jewelry, if you don't mind my keeping a bit of coin for minor expenses?"
Upon hearing about Orik's interest in the 'contest' the Hagfish holds, Cerin smiles and nods. "Ah, of course. In that case, you might want to see if Hannah has any sort of antitoxin before you go. I remember a similar contest I participated in many years ago, although I'm not sure if the sewage we had to consume was quite as noxious as I've heard they have at the Hagfish..."
[ooc]Ah, well that's a different proposition altogether. Gwyn would be more than happy to join you and cheer you on then. Also, yes to the potions. I'd also look into getting another wand for when this one goes kaputs.[ooc]
"Can't be as bad as all that," Orik replies. "It's just water, and water that hasn't been tainted by being near goblins at that."
At Orik's urging, you decide to give the Hagfish a try. As you walk up to the tavern on the docks, the sound of laughter and conversation makes a jolly sound. As you walk in, the sound of conversation dies a bit as many eyes turn to look at you... followed by a hearty shout of, "Hey! It's the Sandpoint Heroes! Huzzah!" and brief applause.
The man behind the bar beckons you in. "Welcome, friends! C'mon in! We haven't seen you down here before... First round is on the house!"
There is a large glass aquarium sitting on the bar, filled with cloudy, greenish water. You occasionally see a serpentine shape move in the tank.
The rest of the patrons return to their conversations or games: You notice a number of people sitting across a chessboard or card table, and some people are playing darts in the back. And sitting around a table near the door, a five men and women turn to listen to a sixth tell a tale of adventure on the high seas.
Gwyn grins and nudges Orik in the ribs.
"Well, shall we get this challenge over with? I'd hate to waste good booze," she says with a grin.
Fluff on the other hand, shakes her head in a surprisingly human gesture.
"Didn't you learn your lesson with the dwarves," the thrush asked in resignation.
The man behind the bar smiles as Gwyn mentions the challenge. "Did I hear you say you want to try Nora's Challenge!" At that, there's another cheer from the crowd. Stepping around the bar, you see that he has a peg leg, but that disability doesn't seem to hinder him in his place. "Oh, I'm Jargie Quinn, and I own the place. And this—" he taps the aquarium "—is Norah, our establishment's namesake!"
Another patron says, "So it's 'Nora's' now?" Several more laugh. A somewhat flustered Quinn says, "Uh.. no... that's not what I...um...well, she's a hagfish! See?" He taps the tank again.
As if on cue, the serpentine shape in the tank swims around the front, and you can see a creature that looks like a tan-colored eel with a weird sucker-mouth.
"As for the challenge... Just drink a tankard of Norah's tank water, and hold it down. Costs a shilling, and if you manage, you win that purse!" He points at a leather coin purse hanging from a spike in one of the posts holding up the ceiling.
"Or would you rather just have an ale?" At that, a couple of patrons jeer, but you can tell it's meant in fun.
Gwyn antes up two silvers and points to both Orik and herself.
"Well Jargie, I'm not going to say no to the ale, but I'd like to try my luck with Norah's water first and m'friend here is going to see if I can drink him under the table after we try this brew," she says with an impish grin.
A loud "Huzzah!" erupts from the patrons of the Hagfish. Quinn heads back behind the bar and raises two pewter tankards above his head, one in each hand, then slowly lowers them to the top of the tank and fills them with the cloudy, greenish water. He then places them before Gwyn and Orik with a flourish and a loud *thud*.
The water in the tankards smells like a salt marsh at low tide. It looks thick and slimy... you think you can even see thin ropes of translucent slime floating in it.
"If you win the challenge, in addition to the purse, you also get to carve your name on the rafter!" Looking up, you see about two dozen names and dates... the oldest date is 10 years ago, and the most recent is eight months ago.
"Bottoms up," Gwyn toasts cheerily as she taps her tankard to Orik's and knocks it back.
"Gwyn, wait!" Helena pleads desperately, watching in horror as the elf downs the mug of filthy water with barely a second thought. Fearing the worst, she covers Fluff's eyes with one thin hand.
Fluff hops up onto Helena's hand and twitters a laugh.
"Oh no, I've gotta see this! Besides, you know that once Gwyn gets something in her head, she's going to do it no matter what," the little bird replies with glee.
Gwyn guzzles the disgusting water, finding it salty, thick with slimy chunks of varying consistency, and with a flavor that is far fouler than it smells. After downing it, she proudly slams the tankard down on the bar. The patrons of the bar erupt in applause!
But Gwyn's smile of victory almost immediately turns to a grimace of disgust. Clutching her abdomen, she doubles over, and with a series of retches, spews the contents of her stomach all over the floor.
The applause increases in volume, accompanied with laughter and a few good-natured jeers.
While clapping, Quinn says, "I'm impressed! You had the guts to try Norah's Challenge, even if you're puking them out now..."
Shalelu merely shakes her head while smiling slightly.
Quinn gestures at one of the barmaids, who then rushes over with a mop and bucket. He then takes down the coin purse, adds Gwyn's shilling to it, and hangs it back up.
He then looks Orik in the eye, grins, and pushes the other tankard toward him. "Your turn!"
"She had no idea what she was getting herself into," Orik replies, fishing out a silver piece from his coin purse. "But the Hagfish Challenge is known even as far as Magnimar, and I had to give it a try while I'm in town." He slaps the coin down on the bar in front of Jargie, and picks up the mug of slime and water. He makes the mistake of looking at it for too long, and for a moment wonders what the Hell he was thinking. "Oh, f**k it. Over the teeth, past the gums, look out stomach..." He grabs the mug and begins to chug!
Orik drains the tankard of slimy eel-water. It's pretty disgusting... but you've had worse-tasting grog back in Riddleport and fouler food in Thistletop. After a moment, Orick belches loudly and raises his fist. The crowd in the Hagfish cheer. "Huzzah!!"
Quinn joins the applause, then takes down the purse and hands it to Orik.
"Well done, sir!" Quinn then produces a dagger which he drives into the bartop. He points at the rafter above your heads and says, "You may now add your name to the list of champions!"
"Gods, that's wretched!", Orik says with a grimace as he slams the tankard back down on the the bar. He gags a bit as the belch carries the fishy taste back up, but he keeps the bile from rising too far in his throat.
Orik takes the blade from Jargie, and climbs up onto the bar to start carving an 'O' into the rafter beneath the most recent name. "I'm going to need a few beers to get that taste out of my mouth, Jargie. And so is everyone else in here! Drinks on me!" He goes back to carving, and if someone looks closely, they can see something unusual about Orik.
He's smiling. For the first time since the Heroes met him in Thistletop, he's smiling.
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Cerin watches carefully as Gwyn downs the foul mixture, then leaps forward at the inevitable conclusion to lift her hair back. When she is finished, he pats her on the back, still sporting his cheerful grin. "It's all right, it was a good try!"
He glances over as Orik drinks his tankard, and one eyebrow raises as his new friend manages to keep it down. "Very impressive, you must have the constitution of a mammoth!" he comments as he helps Gwyn sit down at a table.
Helena waits for Gwyn to finish vomiting, before swatting the elf on the back of the head. "Gwynethiel, I expected better of you!" she scolds, ignoring Fluff's delighted twittering from the top of her head. She then sighs heavily, running a hand through her white hair and adding, "But I suppose I should know better than to do so, given your alarming tendency to find all kinds of trouble!"
Amid the chorus of cheers as Orik buys the house the next round, she sips a glass of house wine and watches the soldier carve his name into the rafter. "It's good to see you in high spirits!" she calls above the din.
As Gwyn puts herself back together, Kyrian slaps her on the shoulder. "Look like another mess you've made, huh?"
Fluff flutters over to Kyrian, cocks her head, and says, "Hey, buster! I'm the only one who gets to insult Gwyn!"
Kyrian is about to quip back to the talking bird, but his attention is suddenly caught by someone in the back. "Um... excuse me..." He takes his ale over to an empty table in the back, where he silently watches two men play darts. One wins the game and collects some coins from his opponent. As the winner leaves the bar, Kyrian follows him at a discrete distance.
As Kyrian passes you on the way toward the door, he leans in and whispers, "I know that guy from Magnimar... he's part of the gang my sister and I were investigating before she disappeard. I need to ask him a few questions... alone." He then follows the man out the door.
Kyrian replies, "Thanks for the offer, Cerin, but I got this. We can talk in the morning." Kyrian then exits the Hagfish into the night.
Orik hears Helena over the good cheer of the crowd, and he quickly and unconvincingly composes himself. "What? Me? Nah, um, must have been some indigestion from drinking hagfish slime water or something."
Orik is deep into his cups when Kyrian mentions the gang member, so he pays him little mind as he leaves the Hagfish into the night. He's more interested in chatting up one of the serving wenches with the patented Vancaskerkin charm.
Gwyn shaily casts a spell to clean up the mess then gives the others a weak smile.
"Well, that's the second most foul thing I've ever tasted. And Helena, when have I ever passed up an opportunity to have fun in a drinking challenge," She asks her best friend.
Hearing that he'd be alright and would talk to them in the morning, Gwyn wishes him luck and returns to her losing fight to drink Orik under the table.
"Hokay, dis time, we try a real drinksh! JARGIE! Gimme shomethin' that'll make a drunk dwarf an' aboutin' stumble," Gwyn calls out cheerfully.
She'd only meant to have a few drinks, she really did, but the whole comment about her not knowing what she was getting into had riled her up enough to prove Orik wrong. Fluff, meanwhile, was busy snoozing in the nest she'd made in Helena's hair.
You all have a decent time at the Hagfish and stay until last call. The Hagfish is strictly a tavern (i.e. not an inn), so all shuffle out and stagger back to the Rusty Dragon sometime after midnight.
The tavern at the Dragon is still open, and there are still a few people up. Your old friend Krissina is behind the bar. "Hey, look who's back! We heard you'd ditched us for the Hagfish tonight!"
Seeing that some of you are rather inebriated, she shows you up to your rooms where you can sleep it off.
Gwyn, half-passed out, hangs between Orik and Helena like a ragdoll, giggling from a mumbled joke about how she bet Orik found Helena pretty as they begin to go up the stairs. She seems to pass out by the time they were up the third stair, and the gentle rise and fall of her breathing is the only movement she makes. The two of them slide into the room that Helena and Gwyn share before Fluff lazily flits to the bedside table where she'd made a nest of rags and goes to sleep as Orik and Helena guide a boneless Gwyn to her bed. When they try to lay her down, they find her clinging to them with all of her strength.
"No! Please! Please don't leave me alone! I don't want to be alone," she whispers in a voice that is filled with pleading and fear.
Orik casts a questioning glance to Helena at Gwyn's plea, since Helena knows the elf far better than Orik does.
"She gets like this sometimes," Helena mutters, carefully prying Gwyn's fingers off of her shoulder and stroking the elf's hair. "Gwyn, it's alright. I'm not going to leave you alone."
Bleary eyes open and Gwyn's voice is quiet as she looks up at the two humans, her friends.
"Do you promise," she asks, "do both of you promise?"
"Um...sure, I promise," Orik says, reasoning nothing bad could possibly happen by spending the night with the two ladies.
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Cerin hops up the stairs after his two companions carrying the almost-unconscious Gwyn with a knowing smile and a chuckle. He pauses for a moment outside her doorway when he hears the plaintive whisper that he can't quite make out. After debating with himself whether or not to see if she is all right, he finally decides not to intrude.
Helena and Orik are more than capable of taking care of her... he thinks as he slowly walks to his room with a hint of sadness.
Gwyn refuses to let go until she falls asleep a few minutes later. Her breathing is slow and even, but the expression on her face does not tell of pleasant dreams, but neither are they so bad that she's restless.
Fluff flutters down to Orik's shoulder and softly tells him, "Gwyn didn't grow up among elves. She's over a century old and grew up among humans." Then, with surprisingly hard eyes, she fixes Orik with a glare whose meaning was impossible to miss.
"She's been through a lot, more than I or Helena know. If you do one thing to hurt her, just one, and... and..."
The little bird just sits on the big man's shoulder, radiating a fury all out of proportion to her size.
Orik fixes a hard glance at Fluff in the dim light in Gwyn's room. "Won't have the chance, squab. Don't see why I'd be hanging around when morning comes. I wanted out of Thistletop, and I'm out of Thistletop. Why the Hell would I go back in?"
"Now get off my shoulder. I'm trying to sleep." He brushes the bird off, trying to get some rest.
"I promise, Gwyn. I'm not going anywhere." Once the elf falls asleep, Helena sighs and looks around the room. "There's only one bed, so you can sleep in the chair," she says to Orik, her voice stiff as she begins undoing her bun and taking off her outer layers of clothing. In the dim light from the window and candle, the effect of her grey hair and pale skin is ethereal, near-ghostly. "And Fluff, calm down, would you?" She prods the bird teasingly in the chest before stroking her breast feathers. "I'm sure we can trust Orik. Can't we?" Though her tone is light, her clouded eyes fix on the man with a surprising hardness for her usual demeanour.
Wealday, 12 Rova 4707
You awaken in your rooms at the Rusty Dragon to the sound of wind and rain on the tin roof of the inn. Opening the curtains, you look out at a steady rain falling from a gray autumn sky. Yet, the chill of winter isn't yet in the air: the warm breeze from the Varisian Gulf still carries the last gasp of summer.
You each make your way down to the tavern. Bethana (the halfling manager of the Dragon's serving staff) is fussing over a cauldron of porridge in the hearth. She smiles at you as you come down for breakfast and asks what you want for breakfast.
Kyrian seems a bit quiet and agitated this morning, and he barely picks at his food... which is unusual for him.
He finally sighs deeply and looks up. "Guys, I really don't know how to say this... so I'm just gonna say it. I know we're about to fight the hot demon-priestess chick, and I feel like a heel for doing this, but I have to go down to Magnimar. Now. The, um, 'gentleman' I met last night had some very interesting news for me. After a bit of persuasion, I finally have a lead on my sister's whereabouts... but she isn't going to be there long. If I'm gonna find her, I have to go. I'm sorry, guys. I know this threat to Sandpoint is really bad, but family is family. I have to do this." He then arches his eyebrow and smirks. "Who knows? Maybe I'll run into Lynnda and her magic cat down there! And I have a feeling that we'll all cross paths again."
"Pffff, family," Orik says to himself at the breakfast table. "You wouldn't see anyone in my family sticking their necks out for me, and I'm inclined to extend them the same courtesy. But I guess not everyone had Saul Vancaskerkin as a father figure, so maybe that emotional blackmail works better on them. Good luck, Kyrian." He takes a thoughtful sip of his coffee before continuing. "And, um, if you happen to run into Lyrie? Tell her that...um...tell her I'm sorry things didn't work out."
Fluff does calm, some, flitting to the headboard and taking a protective watch over the sleeping elf.
===
The next morning, Gwyn wakes with some surprise to see that she's not in her night clothes.
"Uh, Helena, what happened last night? And do you have anything for headaches. Cayden is being rather spiteful with his revenge this morning," she mumbles as she looks around and spots Orik.
"How badly did I embarrass myself last night," she asks, sounding almost scared of the answer.
===
"It's fine, we've got sourpuss here to watch our backs," Gwyn says with an encouraging smile, "go find your sister and rescue her."
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Cerin walks down the stairs and says "Good Morning!", much too alert and cheery for this time of morning after the drink they all had last night. "I hope everyone didn't have too bad a night, we should get an early start."
"Morning Bethana, the porridge would be lovely, thank you!" he replies, and digs into the steaming bowl she brings him with vigor.
His face falls at first when Kyrian gives them the news, but he quickly recovers and pats his friend's shoulder reassuringly. "That's all right, I understand. Family must come first! You have already done much more than anyone could expect. It has been a pleasure to travel this road alongside you and I am sure we shall meet again." After a brief hesitation, he continues softly. "If you should see Lynnda again, tell her...
Tell her I hope she is doing well and I will see her later." he turns away for a moment to brush some moisture from his eyes.
Kyrian pauses at Cerin's mention of Lynnda, and nods. "Yeah. I hope I cross paths with our old friend the witch again. I guess time will tell, right?" He finishes his morning ale and sausages, then stands. "It has been an honor to work with you all. I would say it's been a pleasure, and killing scads of goblins does have a certain joy to it, but... well... you know. Take care of yourselves... and don't get yourselves killed. I'll be really angry with you if you do!"
Kyrian shakes Cerin's and Orik's hands, and gives Gywn, Helena, and Shalelu a farewell hug. He then walks out the door of the Rusty Dragon. He stops for a moment beyond the swinging doors to look back at you, salutes, then turns and walks away.
Bethana serves you all a hearty breakfast.
Before it's over, Sheriff Hemlock walks in, bids you good morning, and asks to join you. Looking oddly at Orik, you make an introduction, and he listens to Orik's story with a bit of suspicion. However, once you vouch for your latest companion, he seems to take Orik's story in stride.
Hemlock asks the status of the goblin problem, and seems very happy to learn that Ripnugget is dead, as are most of the Thistletop Goblins. His demeanor turns darker when you tell him that Tsuto Kaijitsu is on the loose again, and that Nualia and Bruthazmus are still at large... and that Nualia is trying to free some kind of demon.
For his part, Orik is clearly a bit nervous explaining himself to the Sheriff, and just as clearly relieved seems to accept his version of events.
"So, are you three really planning on heading back in there? I mean, I know demons are bad news, but Nualia's bugnuts, plain and simple. And she knows you're coming now, thanks to Tsuto and Bruthazmus. You're walking into your deaths - you know that, right?"
"So was Cayden when he took the Test of the Starstone, drunk," Gwyn replies testily before diving into her plate once more. Her hangover, from the looks of things, had vanished, and she was pretty cheerful now.
"I'm not saying this will be easy, but pessimism is how you wind up forgotten and alone with no friends or family to laugh with and trying to drown your sorrows with cheap rotgut names 'Fibble's Regrets' cut with your own tears. You don't want that, do you? Besides, if you don't come I'll make sure that you're forever known as Orik 'Orki' Vancaskerkin, the Man Who Wussed Out," the elf said in her usual cheerful tone as her eyes danced devilishly.
"Oh, and I'll start calling you 'Orki' every chance I get, so you're not going to let three lovelies and Cerrinibert here go all by our lonesomes, are you Orki?"