Rav's eyes narrow. "Now you die."
Drancis' eyes widen as he sees the black energy engulf his companions. Is this one a priest? he thinks as he sends another aetheric bubble slamming into the syaandi leader.
Will
Rikkan tosses a precise bomb, attempting to spare his squad of any splash damage.
RTA
Damage
Zoreck shouts, "What Shorty said!!" He drops an alchemical cartridge into his pistol, then rushes at the lizard-priest, drawing his shortsword as he closes.
Grit: 3/3
Mythic Power: 5/5 Not Available
Bullets: 16
Powder: 16
Alchemical Cartridges: 17
Raging furiously as the blows keep landing, the leader of the syaandi - tall and imposing, is the last to fall.
In amongst the various items scattered around the camp, there is a spear and, somewhat concerning, a number of maps that appear to be Fort Buckle and its environs. There is something else strange here, each of the syaandi is wearing a pendant made of glass similar to that found around the shattered gate structures - warm to the touch, they have a fading glow about them.
Rav raps Zoreck on the butt with the butt of his rifle as the lizard goes down. "Don't call me shorty, longshank, or I put gunpowder in your boots and make you stumpy." He growls, although without much teeth to it (or force either). Looking over the bodies, he waves his rifle in Palo's general direction. "Look like magic. Make sure is." He also looks over the longspear. "Look like good weapon, nice balance. Too big. Make gold and sell." He nods at Zoreck. "Maybe use gold make better gun for smelly longshanks. Or reforge that one, if sentimental." He pats his own rifle. "Reforged one crazy old gnome gave me, Reforged into BoomRav, then BoomGar, and now LoBoomGar."
”What are those pendants? Could those have some sort of magical control over the people who wear them? Or are they just glowing pieces of glass? Should we take those with us to study at a later date?”. Rikkan asks the question, and regardless of the answer, he grabs one and stows it in his satchel.
Drancis levitates the spear with his mind and holds it aloft for examination. "Seems like a useful item to wield, yet I don't feel like healing myself everytime I touch it! Selling it would be fine with me," he replies, glancing at the remains of the syaandi. "Taking the glass baubles sounds like a good idea Rikkan. While these glass orbs are a mystery, what worries me more are these maps of Fort Buckle. Could they be planning an attack on the Fort?"
He then smiles at the others, "OK let me try out something new I have been experimenting with...Manipulating the aether within your bodies to promote your own healing!" He then touches each one of the others
"Aw Palo, it's not that bad - I'm sure Drancis wouldn't try it on living people if he wasn't sure that it was perfectly safe," Relas rumbles contentedly.
"Oh...and uh, Mister Zoreck? When Rav says he'll put gunpowder in your boots, he's really really really not joking," Relas adds, suddenly registering just how Rav had phrased his words. "When he says 'I', he means business!"
Drancis gives the goblin a pointed stare. "I would seriously reconsider that course of action. I don't think you can shoot a thing without your weapon...", leaving the threat unspoken.
Goblins...the only thing they understand is brute force. I hope we did not err in bringing him along...
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Rav tosses a knife 100 ft away and dead center hits a knot in a scrabby tree on the side of the road. The knife hits with enough force to drive it in an inch and leave the handle humming. "Not sure Rav agree with that. 'Sides, mayo jars are more fun that shooting..." He grins, showing off lots of teeth.
Once all the loot is taken off the lizards, Rav checks the tents for more loot, and then retrieves his knife when they pass it on the way to their destination.
Not picking up on Rav's choice of phrasing, and also assuming that the talking panther is playing along with the goblin's joke, Zoreck shrugs.
"Just joshin' with ya, Shorty. Don't take it personal." He claps the goblin on the shoulder. "Good eye on that spear, too... it'll probably catch a pretty penny if we can find a buyer."
After Drancis' new trick, "Whoa!! That's a new one, Drancis! Neat trick... but it feels kinda weird..."
Rav looks up. "Sure, no take anything personal, Stumpy." He says equitably, putting his rifle away before heading to the tent to search it. "Hmm, how many mayo jar Rav have?"
Rikkan mostly ignored the grumbling of the crew. After stashing the glass pendant, he turned to the others and set about determining the next course of action.
”Are we ready? I’ve got a piece of the glass for further study. We’ve still got a long way to go, and if we are going to have to stop and blow things up every so far, we need to get going.”
Rav grins. "Let's make with the hurrying to where we blow stuff up. We can add Stumpy to the list of things to blow up next time we're blowing things up."
The sun is starting to approach the horizon now - it'll be dark soon enough and, if the temperature in Fort Buckle was anything to go by, it will get very cold soon...
Drancis mutters under his breath, "Yeahhhh...I may not know much about guns but I DO know without ammo it is nothing but a fancy club!"
Later as the group gets underway Drancis also notes the dropping temperature. "Yeah OK, shelter would be a good idea now," he nods in agreement, his eyes scanning for a suitable place to camp.
Rikkna nods. ”Maybe we can find a dry cave somewhere to make a nice fire. Palomia is right, it was really cold last night. My little bones aren’t meant for the cold,” he mutters as he starts back on the journey.
Palomia's examination of the pendants, as they are taken from the fallen Syaandi, reveals that they were imbued with a rapidly fading conjuration aura - relatively strong although dissipating quickly, it isn't immediately obvious what the effect of the spent magicks may have been.
The group are fortunate for, as the sun dips below the horizon, they find their trail drawing close to the sea once more... and, with a relatively shallow escarpment down to the shore, there are several hollowed out caves that would suffice as a camp...
"Not blow him up, blow feet off, make him Stumpy." Is Rav's cheerful reply to Palo.
When Zoreck wakes up for his watch, and shoves his feet into his boots, he finds that there's something in them already. Investigating, he finds that there's about a half-cup of black powder in each boot, and a fuse leading from each boot. Zoreck's flint and steel are sitting next to the fuse.
Rikkan has dark vision so henoffers to take a shift in the middle of the night.
Before we make camp...
Zoreck stops in his tracks and bristles at the goblin's comment about maiming him. His eyes narrow. "Are you threatening me, goblin?" His hand is on his pistol, still holstered, and his other hand hovers above the hilt of his shortsword.
"'Cause last time I tangled with goblins, I was the only one who walked away."
The goblin shrugs. "I tell you not call me shorty, Stumpy, you kept on, seem like you want trouble. Last 50 longshanks that tangled with Rav, they weren't in enough pieces to walk away, kind of bounced and splatted and plooped away instead." The goblin doesn't seem overly threatening, but he does seem firm. "So, if want trouble, call me Shorty again, I turn you into Stumpy for real. If not wanting trouble, don't call me shorty." Red eyes look Zoreck in his. "Just because I goblin don't mean you got right to insult me, dumbass, or expect me to laugh off your insults. I never insult you, did I? So what makes you think you got right to insult me? Just because you human?" The goblin spits.
Zoreck raises his eyebrows in sudden understanding and relaxes ever-so-slightly.
"Look, Rav... Where I'm from, friendly insults are a sign of friendship and camaraderie. It means we're letting our guard down, and that we're offering trust. It's icy formality that you have to worry about. Among my people, that friendly ribbing tends to be about what you look like or how you act, and it's part of the game to pretend to be offended... and to insult right back. I meant no offense by calling you 'Shorty:' I was trying to be friendly. I mistook your warning for the kind of banter I was expecting... and I thought the talking cat was also playing along. Now that I know you really don't like it, I'll stop. We're stuck a long way from home, and, like it or not, we're going to have to work with each other to stay alive."
Taking his hands away from his weapons, he offers his hand to the goblin. "So... are we good?"
Rav tilts his head, and then nods. He shoves his hand into Zorecks. "Got it. Know what you talking about, with friendly insults, Rav and Relas and Palo do that all the time. But Palo and Relas and Rav know each other long time. Just meet Zoreck, too soon be doing playful banter. No way be sure it playful banter and not 'oh, you gobby, you stupid'." Rav grins. "If Rav insult Zoreck, then Zoreck know Zoreck and Rav either friends or enemies." He digs into his ear. "No like Shorty though, so if we make good enough friends to do 'playful banter', no use that one. Points, Teeth, Floppyears, Boombreath, things like that."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Zoreck shakes Rav's hand firmly. With a grin, he adds, "Got it. Believe me, I never thought you were stupid!"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rikkan turns to Palomia. ”I don’t suppose you and I need to fight about anything, do we? Or maybe Drancis and Relas can go a few rounds, too,” the ratfolk asks, clearly glad the tensions seem to have resolved. For the time being.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"If going to fight with Palo, make sure stand directly in front of her, much less likely get hit that way."
Drancis raises an eyebrow as he turns to regard the goblin, "I am pretty sure you can hold your own Ravboom, and Palomia too. We would not have wasted our money on hiring you otherwise. We are a team now, and we need to work as one, if we are going to survive, and escape this planet."
"Amen to that, Drancis!"
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"I don't know Palo, Mister Rikkan might have a point - it'd be kinda funny to see you in a fistfight," Relas teases. "Or for me to see if I could wrestle Drancis to the ground before he can carry me away with those bubble-things!"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rav nods. "Would pay see Palo in a fist fight." He mimes punching himself in the nose and looking surprised at the result.
The night passes without incident, outside of the cave there is the gentle lapping of the sea against the rocky shore whilst within the relative warmth of the opening carved into the escarpment the group finally sleep. The next day, and waking before the sun starts its inexorable rise into the heavens, the group strike out into the wilderness once more... following the shoreline north, they are soon at the borders of what is marked on their simple map as the 'Barony of Dust' and are approaching the 'Barony of Merebec'.
Leaving the dustlands behind, the adventurers - leading their short camel train - come upon an ancient structure identified on their map as the 'Seabridge Causeway'. A huge stone structure that rises from the sea and traces an intracoastal waterway along the shoreline, this is the first sign of any true building upon Rythes that the group have encountered... and it makes the journey, previously slow along the dirt trails heading northwards, far easier. Eventually the journey arrives at a structure of brown stone, its surface shot through with faded purple marbling, that bridges the wide gap between two shores - the ocean below separating the Barony of Dust from the Barony of Merebec. A low wall bisects the causeway with four, 15-foot-high, crenelated towers flanking its length.
Moving onto the bridge, the group finally attract the attention of the previously hidden guards. A lone figure stands up from behind the battlements atop the easternmost tower, pointing a readied longbow in the direction of the camel train. "Truek says far enough, off-worlders! Travellers pay a toll at dead-and-buried Kobec’s Crossing, god rest his salty soul. It’s a hundred gold a head, and fifty for any animals. Of course, if you claim poverty, you can always run the gauntlet or run away — right boys?" At that moment, more armed figures stand above the ramparts of the other three towers and shout in unison, "Spoken true, boss!"
Zoreck looks at the guards on the walls and their positions, estimating their numbers and possible weaknesses.
He calls back, "That ain't a toll. That's exrortion."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rav shakes his head. "Rav no good 'gotiating with idiots. Rav take walk while Palo deal with idgits." He takes a walk back about 40 ft away and begins messing with his pack.
Having noted the large amount of traffic along the causeway, Drancis looks up at the guards ensconced in the towers noting they were out of range of his aetheric attacks. Glancing backwards at the goblin who seems to be looking for a way around he calls out to the man seemingly in charge, "We do not take kindly to extortion! Besides I doubt any of you have even seen that amount of gold. Since we really don't wish a fight...yet, we are willing to forgive this insult. A toll of one gold per head, plus 5 silver for the camels is more than fair for safe passage."
Perception
Rikkan looked around and listened to the group. ”I can make myself Invisible and run the gauntlet,” he whispered to the others.
"The toll is the toll!!! Less you're willing to trade some of them there Chag shells you got on the camels then that's the price!!!"
The man smiles cruelly, "You want to try your luck running the gauntlet or swimming... be our guest!!! And we'll take the toll from your corpses". It seems that the border crossing guards have little interest in welcoming new arrivals to the Barony of Merebec.
With his hand on the grip of his pistol, Zoreck calls out, "Listen, friend, I have another proposition for you: How about you just let us pass through, and we don't kill you? 'Cause, if it were up to me, I'd really rather not waste my ammo on the likes of you!"
Rikkan pulls his invisibility extract, downs it and moves onto the platform. He was intending on seeing just how serious this group was about security, and if they had a spellcaster to Detect the invisible.