Rhost looks pleased. "Ah, nuts!" he says. "Wonderful. Dinner in two nights."
Rhost gives Myriana a warm grin.
Myri smiles back, then asks, "I have more nuts and some jerky. Do we have anything we can add to make a trailmix? Just asking, not real important." Myri does look hopeful, however.
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The main temple to Torag is in a large cavern in the mountains, accessible only through a short series of tunnels that require Hrithik to duck his head. It is surrounded by a vast circular stone wall, and once again, at the center is a working forge. This one is huge, and there are five satellite forges surrounding it. The heat is intense as you approach the center of the complex. The only other people here are dwarves, who go about their business without paying much mind to you unless you attempt to get the attention of one.
Hrithik tries to identify someone of knowledge who is not directly busy tending forge.
Knowledge (religion):
Hrithik bows, greets, and then addresses the Dwarf in Dwarven, "Dutiful Forger, we are pilgrims here, and wished to inquire of the Temples of Kopparberget and Karlsgard, if we may."
Diplomacy (Gather Info):
Hrithik's last-ditch try, if the party does not like the idea as PCs, is at least as much a roleplay exercise as it is a real plan: he would approach his Emancipators, Ameiko and Sandru, and try to sell a personal plan of slavery intervention, personally. To that end, seeing as how Whispering Shrike is going to be repaired, and another magic sword awaits to the North, and Ameiko is now super valuable and not casually pushed to the Front Line, Hrithik would offer burning most of his Legacy from Brinewall (Cheliax as well as the Brinewall Helm and the Discs, if desirable as artifacts to the Steadholder we choose), if she and/or Sandru, as experienced Emancipators, would be willing to pony up magic weapons or armor they don't expect to see as much use for (staying closer to the Caravan as their roles will tend to do). Hrithik is willing to handle the business end in Karlsgard, he just doesn't have enough money to do it himself, even burning Cheliax.
To that end, Hrithik flex-time prepares an identify extract and consumes it before the Meeting. He would like to take in Ameiko and Sandru, his emancipators, before the meeting gathers and see how much, if any, magical eq of a straightforward nature they have. Basically, armor and weapons and amulets and rings and *really* straightforward stuff, if any are magical. He can take-10 on the Arcana and Spellcraft checks to get a basic sense of what there might be, if anything. Especially in Ameiko's case, as she seems to be slowly getting loaded up with Amatatsu bling, he would ask if she would be willing to let older items go to do right by beginning to emancipate some of these Steadholders.
If neither of them really have any rings or amulets or weapons or armor of a magical nature, he won't go there. But if they do, he will feel morally obligated to try.
Kalimac sits quietly for a while after Hrithik finishes his explanation. After mulling it over, he slowly shakes his head. "This is awfully close to Cloud Cuckoo Land, Hrithik. Too much needs to go just right. I still don't feel like I could walk away from the freed slaves for many months while I made sure they were safe and learning to be free."
"I don't trust any slave-owner's sense of shame, any further than his word. And while I'll grant that not all slave-owners are necessarily complete monsters--at least as a theoretical possibility--even if we found one his neighbors are likely to be. I don't trust shame to keep a neighboring slave-owner to add to his flock from the ones we just freed."
"And I think you're banking heavily on our return. If this were a regular trading caravan, I'd say you have a point. But this isn't regular. We are on a quest. When we get to Tian Xia, we don't know what we'll find or how long it will take us to do what needs doing. We might not be able to come back this way. And while the slavers don't need to know that, I'll know."
"No. I can't do this half-way. I'm either all in, and staying for the long haul, or I'm not in at all. And I'm previously sworn."
"I'm truly sorry." Shoulders stooped, Kalimac returns to his seat.
As he slips into his seat, Mel reaches her free hand over to squeeze his shoulder. It would be apparent that she still sides with the small cavalier.
"The experienced big cat keeps track of her target, tracks it down, makes the kill and has food for her family. The one still learning is distracted too easily by the confusion of the rest of the herd." Myri bows her head, not looking at anyone. "My primary allegiance is to my sister, Ameiko, and all of you. ...I agree with Rhost and Kalimac."
She stubs the toe of her boot at a rock, half buried in the ground. She does not look particularly happy.
After the meeting, Mel rises, still holding Alaric's hand, leans down to Kalimac and kisses his cheek.
She nods to the rest, and heads toward a wagon.
After the meeting, Mel rises, still holding Alaric's hand, leans down to Kalimac and kisses his cheek.
She nods to the rest, and heads toward a wagon.
Alaric gives the halfling a respectful pat on the shoulder before returning to the wagon.
He's quiet, obviously still processing things. "I'm not totally okay. But I'm... a little better than I was."
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Hrithik bows to Ameiko. "I expect I know what the answer of the leader of this Quest must be, but still, I must ask, Ameiko. You and Master Sandru and the rest of your party made a desperate gambit a decade ago, and freed over 300 people, including me. Gave us the tools to free ourselves. I would ask, if there are things you can live without, that I be allowed to make a similar desperate gambit, as an individual with your permission, to establish a toehold of freedom here, and give many thralls here the tools to free themselves."
Hrithik holds Cheliax aloft. "I can bear to part with this after copying the formulae I have learned. I can bear to part with the Brinewall treasures I have. I can bear to part with my first Grand Potion. Those, combined, should emancipate 2/3 of a steadhold, enough to allow them to emancipate the rest. With the Amatatsu Legacies slowly accumulating, Ameiko, if you had any older weapon and armor you could bear to part with, that would likely be enough value to make the offer to emancipate in full."
Hrithik looks, longingly, into her eyes. "This can be done, Ameiko. It has been done already. It feels wrong not to try to do it. I wish to formally ask your permission, Amatatsu Ameiko, to follow in your footsteps and try this as an individual."
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Smiling, Hrithik says, "Saw a rooting boar." Out of the pouch he pulls a more than sizable batch of fresh truffles. "Good with red meats, I have read."
Hrithik smiles very broadly, and shakes his head. He shifts languages to Thassilonian, which seems to have more bondage words than Elven for some reason, "Oh, but I can. I can flirt with others, or get to know them better platonically, and refuse to do anything further, such as, say, kissing them or giving them a shin massage. I can deny advances from them, and make it clear that my primary partner has not accepted me engaging in such behavior should it come up."
Hrithik looks directly into Liothonae's eyes, his gaze smoldering in a completely different way than hers. "I am keeping Ameiko, and Kalimac, and Spivey, and Tollin, and Rhost, and Shalelu at arm's length for you. But there is a great deal one can do at arm's length to deepen a relationship, and I have made no secret that I am doing that. With all of them. The road of love and beauty will lead where it leads in time: friendship, companionship, lovers, life-partners, or elsewhere still."
Hrithik's smile grows warmer, hungrier. "I have not ignored that you are uncomfortable. I have made it a bright red line in how I behave toward people I find morally inspiring and physically radiant. I would be aggressively pursuing several of them, rather than waving and talking professionally and dropping one double entendre in a week at worst, if I were ignoring your discomfort with me establishing amorous relations with anyone who is not you."
Hrithik leans in to the table, his voice huskier, "I defer to you because you establish it as a pattern in our relationship, one I will not take advantage of unequally. You defer to me all the time. You imply consent rather than explicitly giving it, which is a road of tears I promise you. You let me have my way rather than engaging my points all the time, and I enjoy receiving that no more than you do, as in my point about the flaws of normality. Turnabout is fair play. If you dislike receiving overly-deferential behavior, love would counsel not inflicting the behavior on me."
Hrithik's smile is almost feral, his foot on Liothonae's shin hungry in its own way. "Likewise, if you wish for restraint and honesty concerning me and those I admire, love would counsel restraint and honestry concerning those you admire. So, honestly, how much do you admire Ms. Shalelu, a woman I morally admire and deeply respect? How much do you restrain yourself concerning her? I will match any admission with anyone and everyone you care to name."
Liothonae shifts in her seat, putting space between her and Hrithik. If he continues to use his foot to stroke her shin, she silently repositions herself so that he cannot do so. Her expression is hard to read, nearly blank.
A less perceptive person would struggle to hear her, so quiet does she speak. Of course, they probably also don't understand Thasselonian, but it isn't just her voice that is quiet... it's her tone, and perhaps even the deepest part of her soul, it is quietly raging. "You are still ignoring my concerns. It is clear you will not address them, having arrived at the topic you actually wish to speak upon." The smallest of pauses. "Do not keep Ameiko, and Kaliamc, and Spivey, and Tollin, and Rhost, and Shalelu at arms length for me. Do these things for me and you resent me. Keep them at arms length because you respect them and their feelings, as you do not respect yourself. You are so set upon this path of yours, you see not where it leads through. Do you think about how Ameiko will feel if you pursue her, and Shalelu? Do you think about how Tollin reacts as worse to touch than I? Do you... think of, the hearts, they carry?" The last words are even quieter, then she says,
"Your deferral, feels like manipulation."
A moment later, her voice never raising, though you get the impression inside she is shouting. "Yes, you are very smart. You can do many things at once. You are a fountain, bursting forth with desires and thoughts, your ideas and passions are one within you. You do everything with great feeling, and you analyze and develop theories that most cannot even comprehend, let alone come up with. You know something about nearly everything. But your intelligence, it makes you cocky. You think you know better. You think you have the answers. You think everyone should agree with you because your arguments are logical to you. Just because you are logical does not mean you are right. Just because you argue better than I, does not mean you get to ignore my concerns by playing footsies and looking at me with bedroom eyes."
She takes a breath, so many more things to say, a restaurant not the place to say them.
"You are a fountain. You do not understand that I am a well." She puts some coin on the table. Gets up.
After the meeting, Mel rises, still holding Alaric's hand, leans down to Kalimac and kisses his cheek.
She nods to the rest, and heads toward a wagon.
Alaric gives the halfling a respectful pat on the shoulder before returning to the wagon.
Kalimac takes the respects given by his fellows, but it is clear he did not like saying what he had to say. He still feels it is the right decision, but that doesn't make it any easier.
Hrithik finds the chef doing chef work. He brings some of his daily haul in. As usual, it is almost entirely plant material of one kind and another, mostly berries and edible foliage and roots and wild vegetables. He has one special pouch to share, however.
Smiling, Hrithik says, "Saw a rooting boar." Out of the pouch he pulls a more than sizable batch of fresh truffles. "Good with red meats, I have read."
As Kalimac gets up to return to his driving seat , he grumbles softly, "Pärast seda, ma arvan, ma lähen kaasas olema Rhost ja Alaric ja purjus järgmisel linn."
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Hrithik stands and adds matching coin to the table. He is ready to follow her lead. He seems ... oddly happy at all the stinging replies he has received from her.
"You feel manipulated by deferral. I feel likewise. We should perhaps find a way to remove it from our relationship. I prefer enthusiastic Consent, or respectful disagreement."
"You believe important concerns are being ignored, and the topic changed to avoid them. I feel likewise. We should perhaps find a way to restate our deepest concerns and sincerely address the concerns of our partner."
"You feel that physical affection is being used to ignore you. I feel differently. The thing that matters most, I understand, is spending time together. Getting to know each other, regardless of activity. Arguing is an activity. One you are very good at. It is a pleasure and an honor to know this part of you."
"If you are a well, wishing to absorb what falls into you, please restate your key concerns. I will promise to sincerely answer them, if you will make the reciprocal promise to me regarding mine."
Ameiko and Sandru listen to you, and are quiet for a while.
Finally, Ameiko says, ”Don’t sell whatever you found in the Brinewall Vault. Koya and Spivey tell me all of those things are going to be needed, before this is over.”
She digs a toe into the earth. ”I thought about selling Whispering Shrike for this, when you proposed it. It wouldn’t raise all of it, but it’d go some of the way. Believe me, I understand what you want to do here. But ...”
”I think you know, really, that it’s not going to be a matter of throwing a pile of money on the table and saying, ‘You’re going to build an Inn!’ You can’t do that in an afternoon. That kind of negotiation takes weeks, at best. Realistically, we’d have to open up talks with several of the landholders around here, see who would be interested. Establish our reputation as businesspeople. Get them used to the idea. Overcome anti-Varisian prejudice. Work out all the details, and there are lots of details in this kind of matter, there are going to be questions we haven’t even thought of. Draw up contracts. And talk to the thralls – lots of them, to see if this is something that would be helpful, that would benefit them, or if there’s something better we should be doing.”
”And without that last, which takes a lot of knowledge of the people and the land, we might be throwing equipment we can’t afford to lose at a gesture, as pointless as it would have been for Alaric to throw his life at one. And we can’t afford a gesture, not when any of us might find ourselves on the front line.”
”The fact is, Sandru and me and the rest, we got lucky in Cheliax. My bardic training let me remember an obscure codicil from a book of Chelish trading law my father made me read when I was nine. And other than that and surviving some days and nights of poisonous etiquette – and occasional poison – we couldn’t do much. The real heroes there were you, and the halflings, and Kyriya, who spent years actually doing the actual work. There were hundreds of slave plantations we passed where we couldn’t even do what little we did for you, because we didn’t have the time, we didn’t have the resources, and we didn’t get lucky.”
”And we don’t have that here.”
”And I want, so much, so very much, to do it again, to do something to give these people the chance to be heroes, but I think we can’t right now. We don’t have the time, organization, or knowledge to pull this off here. Not right now.”
”But I’ll tell you this – if there’s any chance, any way at all, that we can come back here in a year or however long, flush with adventuring cash and with plenty of time, we will do something. We will give these people the chance to be heroes, if we possibly can.”
”But right now, I think, we have to be ... patient.”
Mel leaves the wagon still rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes. Her eyes search for and find Alaric at the edge of camp with his book... and broken chain.
She sits down near him, whispering.
She pulls out her flute and plays. The song is half dirge, slow and low, and half inspiration for what follows a death.
Mel also hugs Zaiobe as she finishes, "I am still sorry that his death didn't restore what he took from you. And I think not normal, in your case, is a good and special thing." She looks up with an impish grin, "After all if you were normal, you wouldn't fit in this caravan at all."
Gentle laughter fills your minds. <Thank you both. And thank you for making me laugh.>
<But does having a bad childhood in this Caravan actually require me to have the occasional public hysterical breakdown? Because I'm not really very good at that.>
Hrithik bows, greets, and then addresses the Dwarf in Dwarven, "Dutiful Forger, we are pilgrims here, and wished to inquire of the Temples of Kopparberget and Karlsgard, if we may."
The dwarf is gruff, a trait shared by many of them, but does not seem unfriendly.
"And what is your question, pilgrims?" he asks.
"I think she wants to talk to you," Ameiko says.
In Skald, Hege says:
"Mistress, I am sorry to ask to presume any more on your amazing generosity ... and, and you have my thanks, more than, more than I can say ... but may I ask ..." She pauses, and then continues in a rush. "Would you come to the household and tell them you have given it to me? Else they will believe I have stolen it."
Mel leaves the wagon still rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes. Her eyes search for and find Alaric at the edge of camp with his book... and broken chain.
She pulls out her flute and plays. The song is half dirge, slow and low, and half inspiration for what follows a death.
Alaric closes his eyes to experience the aching perfection of the dirge. Then, as the last note fades like smoke, he places a grateful kiss on Melinda's temple.
"Of course, I'm sorry... I didn't think of that. Now?" Mel blinks a few times, trying to wake herself up fully. And realizing what the woman called her, she winces, "And please, not Mistress. My name is Mel, which I should have told you earlier, sorry." But the smile on her face is happy when she gently corrects.
A quick stretch and arcane word that rids her cloths of wrinkles and sets her hair looking less bed-heady. "Lead on, Hege."
Look at Ameiko, "Coming too?"
As he slips into his seat, Mel reaches her free hand over to squeeze his shoulder. It would be apparent that she still sides with the small cavalier.
Liothonae listens very quietly while all the talking goes on. She's on the outskirts of the group, as usual.
Stealth:Bluff (if anyone notices her):
On day five, you continue through the settled lands along the west bank of the Thundering River.
By nightfall, you should reach the ancient Skalsbridge at the juncture where the Thundering River joins the Rimeflow. Instead of heading north over the bridge towards Trollheim, you will turn west there to start the final leg of your journey to Karlsgard.
The days are getting colder, and there is a noticeable chill in the air today.
She smiles, "I know it doesn't change the" motioning to the fields, "everything the way Alaric and Hrithik would like... But... better for some good than none, right?" She looks to Ameiko has she always has, as teacher, mentor, and example of who to be.
Hrunndalf listens to the to and fro of the exchange, nodding at Kalimac's and Myriana's statements.
"Hrithik, your enthousiasm is commendable, and in a better world, your plan would no doubt succeed. But I fear your will to save these people casts the circumstances in too favorable light. Running an inn, let alone raising it from the ground to begin with, is no simple manner. You render the prospect of a inn on this road as an 'incredibly lucrative venture', a river of income waiting to be tapped, yet the number of caravans passing through is no doubt limited, and there is no substantial patronage to be expected from the locals, given the lack of towns. You see the neighboring lords as peers when in fact they might be competitors. You foresee a change in the general perception of Varisians for the better, when in fact the existing prejudices against Varisians may turn potential customers away. The kind of change you propose is not achieved over night, yet a night is all we can afford to spend here."
Mel switches back to Taldane for the conversation. "You don't?" She blushes slightly. "I know that it isn't going to change anything here, but.." She looks over at Ameiko. Hege cared more about Alar... our welfare than a offer of freedom." She shrugs a little abashed, "I couldn't let good pass uncommented on... So I gave her some gemstones that I got from the Brinewall treasure."
She smiles, "I know it doesn't change the" motioning to the fields, "everything the way Alaric and Hrithik would like... But... better for some good than none, right?" She looks to Ameiko has she always has, as teacher, mentor, and example of who to be.
Ameiko gives you a lopsided grin. "I feel incredibly hypocritical, having just given someone else a long speech about time and resources and making a real difference. But, um ... good for you."
You arrive at a large house, and are quickly escorted in to a receiving room after a hurried consultation with some House Thralls. A middle aged Ulfen man enters the room and looks at you with an inquiring glance. "Yes?" he asks in Skald. "Or would you prefer Common?" he adds in Taldane.
You arrive at a large house, and are quickly escorted in to a receiving room after a hurried consultation with some House Thralls. A middle aged Ulfen man enters the room and looks at you with an inquiring glance. "Yes?" he asks in Skald. "Or would you prefer Common?" he adds in Taldane.
Mel smiles politely at the man, and in slow, but perfectly accented skald, "I am new to your language, but it would be fine. Your choice." She looks briefly at Hege to make sure she has the right person before continuing.
"Greetings, Mr. Krigersson, my name is Melinda Sorn." She looks at Hege, not entirely sure how much is needed.
Mel smiles politely at the man, and in slow, but perfectly accented skald, "I am new to your language, but it would be fine. Your choice." She looks briefly at Hege to make sure she has the right person before continuing.
"Greetings, Mr. Krigersson, my name is Melinda Sorn." She looks at Hege, not entirely sure how much is needed.
"Let us speak in Common, then," he says graciously. "I am told there is some matter you wish to discuss with me?"