Time Bandits

Game Master Monkeygod

Dr. Craven silently raises his hand for both Plunder and Pillage.

Sio muses on this, "I am quite skilled at stealth as well as cooking... you can, I suppose, count me in on plan Sneak."

Privately, she does hope that said run wouldn't be totally peaceful; a good stalk is most satisfying with a good feed at the end.

"Hopefully, everyone on that plan will be perfectly happy in the pitch dark." She eyes those already in shadows. "That question wasn't for you." She grins.

Scrivener raises his hand for all options.

can work for any of them, but pretty much preference is most to least in the order mentioned

"Breaking and entering or breaking faces, I can do either," Nephre states, cracking her knuckles. "If they have a clue what a maftet is we could even sell me as a professional tomb explorer, seeing as we tend to live in ruins. It's even almost true."

Salvis shrugs "...send on missions where I don't wish to waste my own resources."

Translation: Don't wish to risk your own team. But that's ok. I don't think anyone here minds getting their hands dirty.

As Dymer lists out the apparent options, Nikolsi muses over the response. There really does seem to be a lot of people involved for something that needs to be simple. I wonder what's not being shared? The less we know, the more valuable extra talents become...

Agreeing with the goblin's assessment, Sir Morien proposes to plunder the tomb or, perhaps more usefully, to act against those hired by the locals to explore the tomb and recover their birthright.

"After all," he explains, "we may have to deal both with the tomb's defenses and with others seeking its treasures, like us."

There had been relatively few interesting things going on lately in Douglas's sphere of influence: A few Urgathoan parties here and there, and no shortage of Caydenite acquaintances he'd made lately had kept him well-supplied in just about anything he asked for, so it hadn't been hard to immerse himself in all the things he'd refused to partake of for so long.

Days blurred together, especially since he slept so infrequently these days, and that made it easier to forget how long it'd been since he'd spoken with any of his friends or family. So when a letter made its way into his lodgings at a tavern, he was somewhat confused for a moment, before wracking his mind. Missed birthdays? Some big holiday celebration? No, Douglas had been keeping up on all the niceties that were expected of him.

He slit open the letter, reading it with a small grunt, and then fondling the coin inside. He cleared his throat, walking over to a bedside table, and unfurling the scroll there. As his lips moved over it, reading the magic laid within, he spoke to thin air, and waited for the almost immediate reply.

"I need a favor from you. Gotta go on a shopping trip, and I'm broke. Pay you back later."

--------------
Almost three hours later, he was in the city of...Hyraetan? Whatever it was, it was just the kind of bustling he liked. If the people here needed his particular talents, that was a good bet they could give him some particularly obscure rewards too. He shuffled along the streets, eyes peeled for any 'Crossing Houses'. When he finally found it, he stepped straight inside, flashing the coin given as if it were a badge, and then trudging straight towards the largest group of people present.

Ten seconds and a few cleared throats later, he was directed towards the private meeting room, whereupon the doors were opened with a hushed squeak, and one wholly unapologetic human of nearly seventy could be seen shuffling into the room, with the sort of exaggerated calm that came from extremely advanced arthritis, or a very bad broken bone.

"Yo. Took me a while to get down here, but here I be."

"I am not particularly skilled at going un-noticed, but I have means of getting people to where they are best suited to be, without having to cross the intervening space.

I can also provided a good deal of support and personal might in the Pillage option."

Dymer makes a mental tally as everyone raises their hands or their voices at each option, disregarding everybody who raises their hand at Pillage, assuming that each member of this gathering would be able to at least hold their own if pillaging is what it comes to. Or if a violent distraction is needed.

Plunder:
-Dymer
-Ozzie
-Nikolsi
-Craven
-Sio
-Scrivner
-Nephre
-Morien
-Countess

Profession:
-Scrivner
-Nephre
-Countess

Persuasion:
-Scrivner
-Countess

Plunder

Lehkazeran offers his hand at each suggestion, confident any solution is feasible. More interesting was the idea of returning to Toril. It hadn't been long, practically speaking, since he's been there researching his bloodlines.

'How much of this seems believable to you, Countess? Can we trust this man?' he thinks across the network.

The Countess would like to assess the trustworthiness of their potential employer.

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 37 ⇒ (19) + 37 = 56

Douglas sucked at his teeth, with a sound very much like water trying to go down a clogged drain, then rose one hand, almost lazily.

"I tend to find three's the magic number. No stalemate votes, can always have one guy watching the other two, and they can always cover one another's mistakes nicely. Profession works best if they're too panicked to spend time doing background checks on the newcomers, and Pillage works best if they have someone rushing ahead to trap check. We do it right we can even convince the crypt's owners we succeeded and get a double payday. I'd say a little friendly competition is even good for morale. No reason we have to crowd everyone up together, right? Find who's best suited for each goal, and make the most of the opportunities our colleagues provide us."

And it helps make sure we can keep the rp active if everyone's only replying to a couple people at a time, methinks.

Ozzie ran a hand through his perfect head of sleek human hair. It sounds like most people had their say. It was time to make a last call to the crowd.

"Douglas makes some good points. Few of you seem the type to take orders. We'll stand a better chance not killing each other in smaller groups. I'm not going to be as picky as him though. If one of you can stay standing after a dragons breath or two, especially from one of the eldest, we might have some use for you. Otherwise we might leaving after I eat another bowl."

Ozzie managed to order another bowl of worms between the subsequent sounds of conversation and alliances. They noise also gave him a chance to inspect his surroundings with some discreet castings of [i]detect magic[/b].

Eighteen offered up the bowl his Dymer, asking "Do you have your eye on someone or should we be moving soon?

Lehkazeran glances at Ozzie and gestures towards himself, halfway between annoyed and amused, reminding the little one that he is, in fact, a dragon.

"You have categorized me with the plunder group, and while I do have at least particular skill set that might help there, I am only very slightly trained in being stealthy myself."

I can teleport even large groups quite reliably, but my stealth modifier is a +7

Douglas rose a brow very very slowly, a bemused smile on his face.

"Did boss-man call roll while I was gone? Cause I don't even have the slightest idea what -your- name is. I know a goblin when I see one, but...that's about the furthest guess I'm willing to venture."

“I haven’t given my name, you can call me the Countess, if my name becomes relevant or important, I may share it at that time.”

"Countess works fine for me. I would have to get my eyes checked if I could ever confuse you for a goblin, but...yeah, sure. Countess works. If I still get a vote even though I came late, I'm all for Profession though. Should be easy to backdate an adventurer party with the help of our feathered benefactor, right? Add some legitimacy when we charge in to help clear out the crypt."

Lehkazeran nods subtlely to the Countess, pleased with her read of the situation, and not wanting to interrupt her conversation with the old man.

@Countess, I did mistakenly put you in the Plunder group, but still

Dymer nods as the Countess expresses her concerns with the groupings, and "The goal of any stealthy character is to cross an intervening space without being seen. Being quiet or invisible are some effective means, but far from the only ones. You come into play with the most effective way: not having to cross the space in question. As long as our arrival doesn't call down a choir of angels or some such to announce our presence, we should be able to assist with the hiding once we arrive. Of, if you are able and would prefer to do so, send us on our way and let us find our own way back. Unfortunately, it all comes down to him. Dymer gestures with his thumb towards the host, since he's the one most likely going to pick or at least have the final say on who gets given any task.

After Ozzie's interaction with the late arrive, Dymer's eyes widen as he realizes the man is correct and it surprisingly hasn't come up yet. "The old man here makes a good point, though making a fuss over someone else's name without offering or verifying your own seems kind of rude. And to that point, you all may call me 'Dymer'", he says with a flourishing bow. "Some of us are familiar with each other, but most of us have never interacted." Turning towards their host, Dymer continues, "Salamander, or whatever your name is, since you know or know of everybody here, you think you could scrounge up some name placards for us so we don't have to go through the rest of this meeting pretending we remember peoples' names?"

And finally seeing Ozzie with the bowl in hand, kneels down slightly and plucks two worms from the bowl and, purposefully loudly, slurps them down.

While Dymer speaks, it becomes fairly obvious that he's not exactly subtle while he speaks. Lots of handwaving and gestures. He seems surprisingly personable, for a goblin who looks more like a shadow than anything. With skin that is nearly pitch black, but with dark blue mottled in as if as camouflage, and eyes the same black, except for the pupils, in which you can see a deep red - the color of a fire's dying embers - moving back and forth marking the direction of his vision. Most of his gear follows a similar coloring pattern - his boots, tunic (normally worn over his armor and his bandoliers, but currently rolled up and folded over his shoulder), and armor all seem to flow over him as if made of smoke or shadow vapor, while the myriad potions and extracts tied with twine onto his belt and onto the two bandoliers crossed over his chest provide a startling contrast in colors as they swish and swirl as he moves about. None of what you see before you seems to match up to the grinning, slightly hyper, center of attention that has tried to inject some semblance of control into the meeting.

I realized that I don't think I have put a physical description of Dymer anywhere, so... there we go. Now you know who speaks before you!

Gabriel mentally raises a "hand" to plunder. He is not close to the other options, though.

A gust of wind blows open the door, and with it, a wave of papers, papyrus and scrolls enters the door. The papers begin to cycle around each other with incredible speed, the wind caused by this rotation being enough to close the opened doors.

The papers pick up speed, completely obscuring their center before suddenly loosing all momentum, slowly falling to the floor before dissolving into nothingness. At the center of the falling disappearing papers is a kneeling medium-sized creature garbed in a long black cloak. As the cloaked figure stands takes off it's hood, it appears to be nothing more than an old man in moderately decent shape for his age.

Those with the ability to see magic consistently, will notice that he appears to be almost completely garbed in magic of various types and different abilities. Even those without magical abilities will be able to see a steady stream of papers falling into and out of existence around him. Those particularly observant will note that a lot of the pages seem to be exerts from a novel called "War and Peace."

At this point, the man speaks up. "Sorry I'm late. I had a few obligations that I needed to take care of before traveling here." With that, he'll scan around the room for the most likely host.

Knowledge (local): 1d20 + 23 ⇒ (6) + 23 = 29

Being an old man whose lived most of his life in the city (though being sent on various odd jobs here and there), I think I might qualify for that +6 bonus to know who exactly I'm dealing with, getting me exactly 35, heh.

"Ah, a member of the Forseen Parity! This mission must be quite important, I see. How may I be of service?" Koro states as he bows deeply, giving all due deference to his host.

Salvis looks pleased at all of your suggestions. "There is enough of you, I think, that you can easily pull off the 'professional' scam, and then send in another team to actually plunder the tomb. Those who are on team professional can then keep an eye on things from the outside, and make sure nothing goes wrong. Like another team of 'adventurers' showing up and trying to muscle in on your operation. I have no problems with you getting paid twice, from both the rightful heirs of Mutalib and then myself along with keeping the spoils from the tomb."

Dymer claps his hands together in excitement, completely ignoring the newcomer. "Excellent! In that case, might I suggest a three-pronged approach? We can insert members of our group into the actual excavation team, then once the general vicinity of the items are found, Countess can get us in, making sure that she and the Profession team are still visible to the family. The Plunderers find our own way out, and either start a distraction or queue some of the rest of you to start a distraction, both making our escape easier and making sure that our inserted group does not fall under suspicion."

"Any objections, concerns, or other ideas?"

"It is a sound plan. One concern I have about getting you in, would be if the place is warded against dimensional entrance. While setting up and establishing ourselves it would do us well to find out. If it is so warded, breaking and entering, or unlocking and entering will have to suffice."

"I'm on whichever team ends up actually getting to break something," Nephre states, sounding a bit bored with how much planning is going on. The tip of her tail lashes about with nervous energy. She hated waiting and talking.

With a little smile and a cocked head Craven looks over to Nephre, "You realize that such a statement doesn't endear yourself right? It establishes you as a potential liability to either part of the plan."

Koro is quick on the uptake, and he pieces together the main idea of the mission from the response he was given. "I see, we have to infiltrate the tomb of Mutalib in order to reclaim something that our benefactor of the Forseen Parity wants. That said, it appears that the tomb in question belongs to the rightful heirs of Mutalib, who themselves are also sending in an expedition party to investigate."

Knowledge History Check on who Mutalib was: 1d20 + 23 ⇒ (8) + 23 = 31

Koro thinks back to his knowledge of historical figures, and finds that he does indeed remember who this man was. "Yes, Mutalib, if I remember correctly, was a famous clockwork inventor. I suppose we must be after either one of the inventions he completed, or...one of the inventions that he didn't complete, ey?"

"Got it in one folks. Give this man a toaster. Might I also suggest we work out some manner of code for those few times we need to communicate, on the off-chance we're being scryed or spied on? Lie all we like, at some point the right hand needs to know what the left hand is doing. Something simple, but not overly obvious. Perhaps preface work-related queries with something like 'blasted'? Or some other phrase we'd use...decently often."

Nikolsi pushes forward enough to draw some attention to himself. You can call me Endrigo. I'm on board with the planning so far, but I've a question for our host; what happens after this? You've called us out, and for our own reasons we have answered. Say we do this job for you - what happens then? Nikolsi is not being belligerent, but is concerned about this beings knowledge of things he should not know, and what he could do with it.

He also doesn't trust most of the beings in the room, but that just goes with the territory.

"I'm not opposed to a little swindling, as long as it's swindling some pompous nobles. No humble folk, you hear?" He gives Craven a sidelong glance. "Prob'ly shouldn't go insulting strangers. Could get you in some trouble. Unless your name is just ironic..."

"What happens after is entirely up to how successful you are, and if you're still wanting and willing to work for me. Let us worry about the future once the present is dealt with." Salvis says in reply to Endrigo's query.

Craven's face wrinkles in contemplation for a moment. He says flatly, "Deeply ironic. Simply put, I can't die. Bash won't let me." He then shrugs and holds his hands to the sides, palms up, "He tends to be both reliable and vindictive in that way."

Craven shrugs again, "Place me wherever you want, with my tinctures I can probably succeed at either."

"A weird flex, old man, but okay."

"I'll have you know, I've never been not successful," Lehkazeran says.
"And my blood tends to win out in Faerûn."

"Oh boy! Another immortal! And one with an alter ego at that. Man...I never get why everyone wants to have an imaginary friend so bad. Most of my real life ones are bad enough. I'm pretty damn unkillable too, but that's just pure stubbornness. Last time Pharasma sent someone to nab my soul I put her in a headlock and just punched her teeth out. Then I hopped back in my body and waited for that good healing magic."

At this point, Douglas stopped, examining everyone else present, and began scratching at his cheek. "Reminds me to ask. Who here can heal?"

"I can heal." Koro mentions, as he pulls out an alchemical salve as well as an alchemical panacea. With that, he'll exclaim, "A few of these should patch up most anyone, I'd wager. That said, if medical stuff isn't your cup of tea, I've also studied the esoteric ways of monks who would manipulate the internal essence of themselves and others so as to invigorate the body. Interesting stuff, that is."

Koro will begin to wax nostalgic about his time in ancient monasteries, but he will catch himself before he gets too lost in his memories. At which point he'll continue with, "Course, I find that the best method of healing is not getting hurt too much in the first place. If you're with me, I'll see to it that nobody gets it too rough, ya know?"

This character has a lot of abilities devoted to tanking and damage mitigation. He's a lot tankier than he looks.

"Persuasion, profession, plunder, all works for me. I too have some healing abilities, as well as a few other handy tricks designed for infiltration, though I'd rather not give away all my secrets. But healing is something that I can help with, if need be." She looks to their host though, eyeing him curiously. "If it was mentioned, I seem to have missed it-is there some form of compensation for all this? Fun as it is to test skills out on the real world, I'd much rather be paid in more than exposure and entertainment."

"I bet you anything we're getting paid in exposure. Meet new people. See new things. It's like an all-expenses paid vacation!"

Douglas cleared his throat, folding his hands over his chest. "This may be a good time to say this. I'm on the outs with Pharasma. We meet any Pharasmans, I'm gonna get real scarce real fast. I'm not undead, but...let's just say she's getting tired of hearing my name.

Douglas basically gets the benefits of Breath of Life for all healing if it's done within one round per CON mod. He dies, but he gets back up super fast too.

"I'm not opposed to working for favors, particularly when the favors would be coming from a member of the Forseen Parity. But I do work with a number of other organizations for whom such secrets (such as those that may be found in the Tomb of Mutalib) would be of great interest," Koro says, as he puts away his alchemical gear.

Once he's done, he'll continue with, "Given that you're hiring a ragtag band of rabble-rousers such as ourselves instead of trusted personnel, am I correct in assuming that you don't particularly care who else gets to see Mutalib's secret work, do you?"

At this point Koro looks intently at his angelic host, devoid of much of his prior jovial mannerisms. "Of course, if that was just the case, then I'd have to wonder why it was necessary to send people to steal it instead of procuring it legally -- given your wealth and connections, that must have been within your power. If time was a factor, we would have been given a time limit. And if it was to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, then we would have been told to watch out for such hands, would we not? If anything, the people we'd be likely to watch out for the most would be the primary inheritors of Mutalib's assets, yet it seems like we're being encouraged to work with them if anything. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm missing something...or rather, if this entire ordeal isn't simply a test for some greater scheme down the line..."

Koro trails off, staring intently at the host.
Sense Motive: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (12) + 20 = 32

I presume I'd get a similar result to the Crimson Countess in this regard. Doesn't mean that I still wouldn't do it, though.

Unable to find any trace of deceit in the angel's mannerism, Koro lightens up and returns to prior jovial mood. "Oh well, it's not like this kind of stuff isn't right up my ally. I'm down for whatever the group decides."

"I am skilled at keeping myself and my companions hale or pale as the case may be. While I am associated with the Sovereignty I am not undead myself, and in fact respond remarkably well to positive energy.

Also it is unlikely that we'll encounter any Pharasmins in Faerûn, but if you are concerned with similar, you should watch for worshipers of Kelemvor."

"I can get in and out of places, create things from nothing, and hit a target from miles away at times if needed.

"Yeah, I just...I hit stuff. And stuff hits me. Never failed me up until now. Pretty confident that until I -do- go down, I'm not gonna need any outside help, so just consider me ready to throw down till you see me take a knee. Or fall on my back. I've had people try to prick me in my sleep just to make sure I'm not part iron golem a few times. Anyways, can we get back to the topic at hand? Code words. We need some code words, if we're gonna be maintaining any meaningful degree of interaction while in the field."

"Perhaps. Alternatively, we could just set up a few telepathic channels and relay the information to one another either magically or psionically." Koro states, bluntly. "I assume that some of you are telepathic, yes?" Koro asks, matter-of-factly.

Continuing without waiting for an answer, "Well, I have the ability to form a psychic link with up to 7 other people, and communicate with them across any distance (as long as they're on the same plane). Even if we were to form multiple groups, as long as each group has a resident telepath, it shouldn't be too difficult to coordinate without saying a single spoken word."

"I can maintain telepathic contact with several individuals at a relatively short range." Up to 8 others at a range of 200ft.

"If that's the case, we could theoretically split up into two groups and maintain telepathic concert fairly easily," Koro suggests.

"I would be in a team of 7, and the young lady here I have yet to be introduced to the group, have I? lol would be in a team of 8. She maintains telepathic concert with her group, I maintain telepathic concert with my group and add her as a member. With that alone, everybody should be able to communicate."

Koro claps his hands at this, but then takes an inquisitive look, with his right hand underneath his chin, "Course, then we'd only have 2 groups. Can anybody else maintain telepathic concert between multiple individuals? If so, we'd be able to make another group for each additional telepath."

Koro snaps his fingers. "Ah, before I forget, I have yet to introduce myself. My name is Koro. Koro Jigen, at your service!" with that Koro will close his eyes and bow, placing his right hand over his heart.

Lehkazeran rolls his eyes at the planning and instead looks to Salvis.

"You want a successful retrieval, and have suggested 2 groups. Are you intending to split this group in half then?"

"I'm pretty sure boss-man is outsourcing. That usually implies a certain degree of agency on the part of those delegated. Doubt he 'intends' anything more than to keep up appearances and disavow us if any of us drop his name."