untrained diplomacy
Something about the situation seems tense. Rikki keeps his mouth shut and listens attentively.
"I'm not from this town, this is just my second day here. Do you have any suggestions as to where we could find said masthead, ma'am?"
"Now that sounds like my kind of area"
Morgana says, happy that something on this adventure is finally within her skill set.
"250g should be more than enough, I'll just need to know where the artisans are, would you like it something like it something akin to what you have here, or something else?"
Morgana shifts her gear on her shoulder and stretches a bit, while gesturing to the visage on the smaller boats.
"Nothing like a good barter to get you on your toes. Reminds me of home"
Just as you open your mouth to speak Iulia turns on a dime and walks away, swearing the entire time. As you leave the dock one of the sailors bumps into Morgana, "Hey, you one of them hired muscle people an't you. Just wanted to let you know, don't pay Iulia no mind, heard her chewing you out but she's got a sweet side if you can find it. By the way, we heard you going to get that new masthead, word to the wise the Captain as her a thing for birds and crowns if you know what I mean," he points up at the crowned birds on the ship and move on about his business.
Morgana shrugs off Iulia's crassness and turns to face the rest of the group.
"Well then, let's go see a woman about a carving. Mastheads aren't her thing, but I'm sure gold is."
"Gold is everybody's thing." he says as he hustles along with the others.
"Like, I guess so, in the long run. I mean, like, I use gold to buy things and pay for services, but, like, I don't really like the stuff on its own. I don't even, like, wear jewelry most of the time."
K'Wai heads out with the rest of the group, in search for the woodcarver's shop.
You wind your way around 40 or so tightly packed grocery stalls, finding at last Hartha's Headstone. This small square building has no sign advertising its name or type of business, but the door and support posts are heavily carved with images of gravestones, religious symbols, sea monsters, and sailing ships.
An old dwarven woman looks up at you over her glasses, the smooth aroma of some spiced tea overloads the nostrils "Well, who's dead?" she inquires.
"I like shiny things." Zeex says in answer to K'Wai...
when the woman asks who's dead, he shrugs and bites his lip... because she's all old and wrinkly and looks like maybe she might be close. He looks at his companions quickly to make sure they're all alive still. "No one. No want dead things"
Rikki will wait to let Morgana speak. She had a way with words.
"We are here for something a bit different. A commission that may be a welcome change of pace, should you be up for the challenge."
Morgana looks around, observing the works on display, seeing if she can gauge the quality and how much it could be worth.
"You do such nice work, we'd like to show it off for you, and we're willing to pay. It's one thing to have your work buried, burned, or stuck in the ground. Quite another when it is the figurehead of a ship."
Morgana stops to gauge the dwarven woman's response, to know how to proceed.
Cael stands back with Rikkivar. There was no point of having multiple people talking to the old woman to complete this task. Actually, I wonder why they send us all on this task. It's not like the masthead will be ready this instant. As he wonders about that, Cael starts looking at carved support posts.
The dwarven woman looks around her workshop as you begin speaking, the old woman's eyebrow twitches in bewilderment, she leans back against a coffin waiting for you to finish speaking. "Masthead? Been a while but certainly manageable. I have a talent with sculpture. Crows and crowns? You mean like a crow wearing a crown, or a crow snatching a crown in its beak?" Your instructions weren't clear, leaving the artistic liberty in your hands.
Morgana ponders for a moment, reflecting on what she knew about the crew. Also a bit surprised she knew who they were working for.
"A crow wearing a crown, though a magpie would be good too. It should be ominous and powerful, but regal and slightly feminine in its own way. Our captain is a powerful woman, and her ship is the Magpie Princess, so it should reflect that. Wings open to either side of the bow, the head should be positioned do that the crown is visible, out stretched. If we could get a starting quote and work from there?"
"Like, these things are, kike, works of art, man. Real worksmanship, beautiful sculpting, man. You know you stuff, like, miss woodcarver, for real."
K'Wai wanders the shop admiring the art, running his fingertips lightly over the smoothed wood.
Hartha looks at K'wai watching as he admires her work, "I do indeed" Her eyes look off in the distance "Yes...right, sounds like a fun project. I can see it now...I'll need 500 gold and 2 weeks, with 250 gold up front." She might just be haggling, but on the other hand her shop looks busy, with a number of partially completed projects about. Regardless, you certainly don't have 2 weeks.
Morgana staggers on her words, she may have been from The Great Market, but it had been years since she had really haggled with anyone.
"We don''t really have 2 weeks' she manages to finally blurt out, a bit flustered. "Is there anything we can do to get it done a bit quicker? Perhaps anything you need doing but haven't the time?"
Crap, we didn't ask when we needed the figurehead by... Surely they didn't expect a custom order to be ready same day though.
She thinks of the money that they were given, and hoped that it was more a prediction of the cost of down-payment, rather than the actual limit.
"I will tell you what, there is a problem I've been having, as it happens. Loggers to the south have been beset by dragons, wee ones mind ye. They can't get the best woods anymore! No Kauri, no Strangler Fig...look." she holds up some not very obviously inferior woods. "Want me to screw over these ones? Want it fast and for 250? If you can get the supply flowing again, I'll make you yer burglar tart for free."
Cael's ears perk up when he hears about the problem about the wood. "What's this about small dragons. Do you know what type exactly?"
Hartha looks over at Cael, "No clue but I am sure they might have a wee bit more info at the logging camps, you could ask them."
Rikki muses, "Could be fairie dragons or pseudodragons. Maybe drakes. Checking it out can't hurt. It would be better than disappointing the Boss Lady. "
"Like, I thought dragons were, like, huge lizards that breath fire and stuff. How come these little ones are causing such issues? Shouldn't they just, like, use nets or something? I bet we can take care of the problem right away, like no problem at all, man."
K'Wai smiles and seems rather excited to be heading out to deal with such an adventure.
"Zeex be mighty dragon killer... me go!"
You begin to realize how insular Lilywhite really is as you head south. Just outside of town, the logging operations begin: a brutal dirty job of hacking away the great jungle. You meet Taryn of Taryn's Planks who is happy to hear you are willing to help with the situation.
"That's great. Truly. But I hope you know what you're up against, they have the phlegm of the damned, I tell you, the phlegm of the damned. Great balls of snot...man sized...burst forth from their portholes. They killed Jimmy's whole crew a few days past...and they were no sissies." he explains.
"Sounds like quite the problem. Could you give us the run down? When did it start, where does it occur, what direction do they come from, how many, and what you think caused it. Any directions or further information would also be greatly appreciated."
Taryn scratches his head, "There are three of the little buggers, they attack every crew that ventures into the forest. No clue bout direction they come from, they just appear. A damn nuisance, my men are scared to go out. One thing I can tell you, they stay pretty deep in the forest, they don't never come in sight of the walls," Taryn's voice takes a hardened tone.
"Like, what do they look like? One person said they were, like, little dragons, but I don't see the connection, like, at all. Dragons are huge and fly and breath fire, man, not, like, be little forest critters that spit snot balls and stuff."
"hmmm... Little snot dragons." he thinks as to what they might be.
Taryn calls another man over and confers in a whisper, he turns back to you and the man jogs off to another group of guys splitting wood. "Charlie says they are man sized, covered in these blue green scales, and there "snot balls", he says in a sarcastic tone, "they burn like a terrible acid melting clothing and skin alike. I would be careful if I were you"
"Ah, sounds like a river drake. They can come from land, sea or air. Their acid can stick you and bind you up. Like most dragons, they have good senses."
"River drake? Not full dragons then. Do you know if they have any weakness we can exploit?"
"Hrm... they bleed once you get through the scales." he says. "Sort of like anything else. No special vulnerability that I know of. But they should be something we can deal with."
"So, like, punch them a lot? I guess, like, I can use my spear, but I dunno, man. I'd kinda like to, like, punch a dragon in the nose."
Rikki cocks his head at that, but then shrugs it off. "Feel free to do that. I'm going to use arrows and explosions and poison and whatever other advantages I can do."
"Should we send a message to the Captain as to why we are taking so long? We've been gone for hours and we only needed to order a masthead."
"I expect that it's easier to claim we were looking for something "worthy of status" than to come back empty handed." he says. "Hopefully she'll be so overjoyed at the quality that she'll ignore the time."
"So are any of you trackers?" He looks around at the silence of the group. "Well, I'm not great, but I've at least know a little. I'll try and find them. It's better than simply going in and shouting Zzrathax kar'vasha exi, syccorax kelvasha!"
"Maybe Zeex and K'wai scouting a bit ahead and Cal and Morgana trailing?"
"Yeah, like, I can totally scout ahead and keep an eye out. But, like, tracking footsteps and stuff, nah, man, that's, like, beyond me. I can be sneaky, though, like real sneaky too."
K'Wai gets his spear out and makes ready to take point, on the lookout for dragons.
"Never needed to learn how to track, so that's a no from me. Though from my understanding, the creatures attack anyone walking in the wood, so we might not need to look for them." Cael close his eyes for a second and crackling arcs of lightning appears on him. Also, his hair and clothes move as if there is a strong wind blowing, but yet seem to only affect him. "Okay, I'm ready to go."
Enveloping Winds: You constantly surround yourself with a whirling torrent of air, crackling arcs of lightning, or both to protect yourself from ranged attacks. All ranged attacks made with physical weapons suffer a 20% miss chance against you, except for attacks from massive weapons such as a giant's thrown boulder or a ballista. This ability has no effect on ray attacks. The miss chance increases by 5% for every 5 kineticist levels you possess beyond 2nd. By accepting 1 point of burn, you can increase the miss chance by 5% until the next time your burn is removed. You can continue to accept points of burn to increase the miss chance further, up to a maximum of 75%. Whenever you accept burn while using an air wild talent, the energy surging through you causes your enveloping winds to also affect non-physical ranged attacks such as ray attacks for 1 round. You can dismiss or restore this effect as an immediate action.
"Me can be sneaky, but no tracky." He shrugs... tracking just isn't in his wheelhouse... "Like he say, they come to us?"
"Well, they never do come within sight of the town walls, they attack every damn crew we send out there so you could accompany one of them. We are not sure where they are holed up, they appear like magic and attack, no one has been bold enough to chase one of em down, everyone is to busy running for their skin." He looks around briefly, and points over at a group of men hoisting packs onto their backs. All ten men look loaded down with logging equipment. "Garent and them are about to go out if you want to join them I am sure he won't turn down the protection."
Looking at the group of men, Cael raises an eyebrow. "I'm not sure bringing a group with us would be the best idea. The last thing we need is babysitting a bunch of non-combatants."
"Like, why do we need to babysit them at all? They seem to be able-bodied fellows, plenty strong, right? Like, we tag along and use them as bait...er...protect them, like, heroes. Then we, like, fight off the dragon things, and, like, win. Right?"
Rikki gathers the group and speaks quietly.
"We should ask them to pay us for the escort. Or pay us for killing the dragons. It helps them out be restoring their livelihood and making them safer. If we go separately and they attack the loggers, then we're wasting time, so it helps us." He looks at Morgana, "I think that you could probably negotiate a good deal for the service we are doing for them."
"Fine, fine... If you want to bring them, do it. But I'm not going to throw myself in harms way to prevent one of them from getting killed by their own stupidity." Cael walks a bit to the side and look at the edge of the forest, waiting for the rest to make a decision and move on.