GM Badblood's Snarl of Koboldious Wisdom (Inactive)

Game Master Lance K

Midnight uses better magic to try to get the person to stop.

casting charm person

"Please, stop and talk to us!" she calls out softly.

"I am coming for you! Chasing is fun but I tend to go overboard when I catch my prey unless they give up!" Krall roars as he continues the chase.

Intimidate: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (18) + 6 = 24

The ninja begins to scale the wall of the school when Gynezz lets loose a blast of bright colored fire, revealing them not only to the kobolds but to the guards on the wall who shout out an alarm. In the distance a horn blows as the men on the wall scramble to find out what is causing the commotion in the school.

Seeing Skirthyx and Skyxa running towards them, the thief lets out a surprised cry and turns and runs past the bushes where Demm and Kaidynn are hiding. The two kobolds leap out of the bushes, surprising them.

With kobolds closing in on them on all sides, the thief runs towards the the fountain. Midnight, also in hot pursuit throws out her charm person spell. The figure, once shadowy in black and gray but now impossible not to see due to the small pinpoints of rainbow colored lights sticking to their clothing turns and says, "I know you want this, friend. Why not just let me go and you can have it?" The figure pulls out the orange silk map from their back and and sets it on the ground before turning to run.

At this point Krall comes storming towards him. With a cry of surprise, the thief falls backwards into the fountain, trinkets and scraps falling out of their bag, so landing on the cobblestones and others landing into the fountain.

As the kobolds close in, they notice that there is another figure also running towards the fleeing burglar. This figure is dressed in chainmail with a cone shaped helmet and a sword slapping against their hip as they run towards the fountain.

Round 3; the conclusion

At this point you are just shy of the needed number of successes to end this encounter. The thief is covered in faerie fire, laying in the fountain and surrounded on all sides. But the chase is still not over.

Skithryx raises a little claw in the air before directing it at the flailing thief. "Behold! The might of TRUEBLOOOOOODS!" Leaping into the air, the Kobold lands on the lip of the fountain and inhales deeply.

Perhaps anticlimactically, nothing but dense fog pours from his mouth as he exhales onto the thief. Quickly, however, the water around the thief starts to form a sheet of ice.
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Skithryx has the Frost Spitter trait. Even if it doesn't apply, I think it's cool :)

"Careful in 40 steps of thief!" Gynnezz calls out as she digs DEEP into the ground spiritually and pulls the grasses and such *up* to help restrain the thief.

Gynnezz casts Entangle. DC 13

Hoping that maybe the thief will see reason now that they're pretty much caught and surrounded, Skyxa clears her throat and tries using her words again.

"We won't hurt you if you come quietly and return what you took. I swear it in the name of Apsu!"

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (4) + 6 = 10

I'll totally let you use Frost spitter that way! Its exactly the kind of colorful, creative use of a spell or ability I'm looking for!

The thief is quick on their feet and has one foot out of the fountain when they look back and see that the other foot is stuck frozen in the ice. Loosing their balance, they fall forward, dropping the bag full of artifacts on the ground. And before they are able to stand up, the flowers growing around the fountain wrap themselves around the burglar's wrists, capturing them in place.

At this point Krall (I'm assuming Krall would be the one to do this) rips off the thief's mask, revealing that the masked burglar is none other than the student Jianghong.

"Hey, guys, we're friends here, right? Would you be open to letting me go? I'm just taking a couple of items that I know will sell really well so that I can pay off my family's debts and strike out on my own. I don't want to be a scholar; I want to be a cool adventurer like you! I know I can do it but I need a little money to get started."

"I know you guys need that map. If you let me go, I'll let you keep the map and you can blame it on the ninja who came in. You'd just have to lay low and you'll be able to walk right out with it. Otherwise, they're never going to let you take it."

Jianghong looks nervously towards the figure in armor that is running towards the group. "Come on, it's now or never. Zheng's too honorable to let me keep what I took if he catches me rehanded, but he would look the other way if I get away. Our family needs this money! And if I'm caught our family name will be ruined and Zheng will be be banished from my parents' service. And all this stuff has just been sitting there for years, with nobody looking at. The people I can sell this too will appreciate it way more. There's really no reason not to just let me go."

Oh boy, what are the kobolds going to do?

"We truebloods who work with the Pathfinder Snarl sometimes. Pathfinders are scholars that learn about other things to be a 'cool adventurer' like truebloods. Pathfinder Snarl also pay for people to work for it, and not steal special things from old places just to make money." Gynnezz begins grumpily.

"You no understand no-scale Jianghong. We can make copy. You should make copy. Knowledge shared is knowledge grown. No-scale go find Pathfinder Snarl and ask for job. Make lots money. Explore lots. Zheng too. No-scale endanger no-scale's snarl by not working with snarl to do this right, no-scale need to make right. Make right is not make money on side."

"People who no-scale sell to are like Assspisss Conssssortium, who make drugs that kill no-scales or make very sick. There is many reason to keep no-scale for this to give to school, who let us stay in their snarl when truebloods ask nicely." the bugtalker finishes, then turns her back on the young thief.

Lol, I'm sure there is a Scooby-Doo gif that'd do nicely here!

Skithryx shrugs his shoulders. "Here for map, don't care what else happen," he admits. "What do fleshies say? Catch two two? Don't know what two they catch, but other fleshies seem to know. We take map and then you fix your problems. Win and win to me!"
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Skithryx doesn't really care what happens to Jianghong, but more importantly he doesn't want this on his conscious. The choices, as he sees it: Do the "wrong thing" and let him go so he can help his family and live free. Do the "right thing" and turn him in so his family can stay in debt, he stays miserable, and Zheng loses his job. He'd rather have the map right now and run off into the night.

"AHA! I...well I am surprised it is you. You are bad at this so why would we let you go when we can get map and surprises from the teachers here? Double win for the mighty dragons!" Krall says while using his claws to gather the treasure underneath him like a mini hoard.

Krall sees it as the Ji-ji-whatever his name failed at his mission so why not get our map and another reward from the teachers for giving them their stuff back.

"Gynnezz speaks wise," Skyxa replies, crossing her arms over her chest. "You should find better way down the path than breaking rules and stealing. Take punishment like adult. Then go to Goka; talk to Pathfinders there and ask for work. Pathfinders always need more people to work. There'll be some school but also claws-on training with weapons and things. Plenty to do."

She glances over at the armored figure making his way towards them. "Take your Zheng, too. You're adult, yes? If parents banish him then YOU hire him. Or become equal partners."

Demm shakes his head. "Don't try to make us collaborators in you failed crime! We just met you. AND, you never even filled our bowls! Nope, you are one your own."

So far it sounds like the consensus of the party is to turn Jianghong in to the guards. I'll give you a little more time for the other two to pipe in and then we will move on.

Midnight is a bit surprised that the others react the way they did. Weren't they going to steal something, too? She looks around at the others, seeing if any seem to be weak in their resolve.

Midnight would probably let him go, but not going to kick up a fuss if the rest of the party chooses otherwise.

"I don't see the value in destroying this young man's family, friendszz..." says Kaidynn, cutting the young man free of his entangling vines with a quick snap of small dragon jaws, careful to shield this action away from the incoming guards.

stealth: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (11) + 10 = 21

"Leave now, before I change my mind. Punch me in the face on your way out. DO IT!"

Krall looks shocked at Kaidynn asking the man to punch him but he attends to the goods, bearing his teeth.

"Krall doesn't care if he scurries away but not with this stuff." he says laying back on it.

"Yes. Do leave us the stuff. After you punch me in the snout!" adds Kaidynn, winking at the young man. "I will arrange to drop a few gold coins at your parent's house later tonight. GO!!!!"

Demm silently wonders if they can ALL receive gold for punching Kaidynn. He decides to wait and see how it all works.

"Okay, deal!"

Freed by Kaidynn, the young man gives the kobold a swift kick to the face, then scopes up the bag with whatever remains in it and stumbles towards some hedges, hoping to escape before Zheng catches him.

Skyxa sighs as consensus turns to simply letting the young man go, albeit without his stolen goods.

"Maybe he take our advice anyway," she remarks to Gynnezz. "Would keep him out of trouble maybe if he did..."

You can still stop him. Five of you do want to turn him in. Also, he is still taking some of the stuff he stole, it's just that a lot fell out of his bag during the chase.

Incorrect: Kaidynn grabbed everything off him in exchange from a punch in the nose. If he 'still tried to take some of the stuff' or some other nonsense, Kaidynn holds the idiot down and holds on to his leg like a ball and chain!! :)

The bugtalker does NOT dismiss the roots and vines and grass.

"Noscale make life difficult for noscale hatchling tender, noscale teaching place, noscale family. Noscale need learn how to make life not difficult. Noscale guards already watching, running away bad plan."

Unwilling to accept an outcome where he doesn't get to keep any of the stolen goods, the youth attempts to run away with the sack of stolen goods. Between being surrounded by kobolds and the plants around him attempting to ensnare his feet, Jiang has no real chance of escaping. Kaidynn and him struggle with the bag for a few seconds when suddenly Zheng, the boy's bodyguard shows up.

"Oh no, what have you done, Jianghong! You are going to bring great shame onto your family." A look of despair turns into firm resolve as the man picks up the orange silk map from the ground. "There's no reason that Jianghong needs to be caught. Let him go and I will tell the guards that you stopped the robbery. In exchange, I won't say anything about you having the map. All the suspicion will be on the thief that got away and you will be able to walk right out of here with it. Otherwise, I will make sure that everything gets returned to the authorities."

So now you have the choice of making a deal with Zheng or turning Jianghong in.

Demm stares at the large guard. "No matter what happens, he has already shamed his family." Demm then takes the offered map. "But, there is no need to make my life more difficult just because the fleshling child decided to dishonor himself. I shall take this as payment for teaching the whelp this life lesson. A cheap price to be sure."

Believing the matter to be over, Demm turns his mind to more pressing things. "We're we supposed to buy our breakfast in town as well? All this running about has given me an appetite."

From his mini-hoard of dropped items Krall lets out a half-whine/half-snarl.

"This is a lot of trouble, Demm, isn't it? Treasure isn't shiny enough anyways and nice lady wants the map...okay. They will remember the day mighty dragons gave them mercy!" he says still upset about leaving the treasure.

"Let the boy go. He doesn't know what's best for him yet. Zheng: I hope you give the boy extra chores or extra repetitions on leg day."

"Ok, we have map now AND he say we don't have map! I think we win-win, we go now, yes?" Skithryx asks, nervously looking at the guards surely making their way over.

Kaidynn nods and departs at once. He won't mind buying his own dinner tonight instead of lingering here for explanations on the off chance that breakfast would be free...

Skyxa heaves another long-suffering sigh; she might've reconsidered the mission, or at least this particular aspect, if she'd had any idea that stealing and dishonesty would be necessary to acquire the map.

But.

She'd given her word to Mai Chun that she'd see the mission a success. And though it also rankled her to let Jianghong more or less get away free, it did at least seem that Zheng was *trying* to look out for him and steer him on the right path.

"Mercy is offered, but only once. Should I be betrayed in my moment of kindness, I will not stop until I have put my enemy down," Skyxa recites. "This wasn't a battle, but...the student is young. Young make mistakes and sometimes learn the hard way. But not always."

She gives Zheng a very hard stare. "Keep him out of trouble or his luck will run out, one day."
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Skyxa still isn't thrilled *but* hopefully the above works as something of an IC reason she'd go along with things. But as a player, I'm fine with this outcome :)

Krall bears his teeth and growls at the men, to drive home the warning of Skyxa.

"Since we stopped the robbery you think we can get a midnight snack from their kitchen? Zheng can cook?" he says not spending too long on one thought.

Jianghong seems like the kind of person who skips leg day.

Skyxa, being a Pathfinder means having to Cooperate, with a capital C. Sometimes that means turning a blind eye to some of your associates more "expedient" solutions. I'm also not interested in ever making a paladin fall over some technicality.

Jianghong looks towards Zheng resentfully but the older man says in a tone that allows no argument, "Boy, get out of here while you can." Jianghong leaves empty handed, running to the hedges then scrambling over the wall with incredible agility.

The guards arrive shortly afterwards and question the group. None of the guards speak Taldan, the common language of the Inner Sea so the kobolds don't even have to lie. Whatever Zheng says to them seems to work and they let the kobolds leave early in the morning without any incident, the original map stuff safely in Krall's backpack.

When the team returns back to Mai Chun, she is excited to see that they brought back the original map and not a mere copy.

"I've been hounding them to turn this map over to Shokuro for ages, but they school has been as stubborn as bulls on this issue. I knew you would be able to bring this item back to its rightful home."

Part 4 will be coming soon!

Though pleased to have ultimately succeeded at another part of their mission, Skyxa can't help but feel a little subdued in spirit after the whole affair.

"Thought being a Pathfinder would be better than home. All they do there is mine or do piracy," she admits. "Now I see that being a Pathfinder will not always be an easy path to walk, either."

But it's better I learned this now and not later on.

"You did good. It is hard for truebloods to give up part of being a dragon -- but you did it in a way that helps the Pathfinder snarl and made sure that a noscale hatchling was not killed for stealing. Plus, you gave warning, so if we run into them again they gave up the chance you gave them." Gynnezz offers encouragingly.

"Being Dragonfinders we will be in charge soon! Then you can change the rules. No miners or pirates...but maybe a buffet for every mission and free wagons." Krall says flexing in an attempt to cheer up his companion.

He turns to the nice elder and smiles.

"I tried to bring back some extra things...had to leave them but glad you like the map!" he beams in success.

Midnight sighs sadly at the need to compromise with badness. Maugrim the Good did say that's sometimes necessary, though, and Midnight did her best.

Part 4; Teahouse, AKA Little Trouble in Big Lanming

Before leaving, Mai Chun reassures Midnight and Skyxa that the next mission will be very straight forward and not require any ethical compromises. "You just need to get a comb from Jiang Fei. You're going to have to do her some kind of favor, but I'm sure it won't be anything you can't easily handle. Then you can just come back and I should be able to figure out where the Summer Palace is."

The party arrives in Lanming without incident. The kingdom of Quain is known for its accomplishment in martial arts and the city is filled with dojos and students in a variety of different colored gi practicing kata in the street. When the party asks the locals about the Jade Ogre school, one person says, "Oh, you must mean the Dumpling House!" and gives the party directions to Jiang Fei's residence.

The shouts of merchants hawking wares and students practicing their forms are quieter in this part of the city, but the streets still bustle with activity. Rows of old and run-down dwellings line the streets. One small apartment has been converted into a food stall, where a handsome woman with dark hair chats with a few customers. The sign above the shop reads “Jiang Fei’s Dumpling House and School of the Jade Ogre Style.”

Midnight tries to exchange glances with her companions. A dumpling house and a school in one? Is that usual around here?

"They know how to run a business! Fighting makes you hungry and they have dumplings there." Krall says with delight at the news. As they walk through the streets, the kobold has to contain his curiosity at all the stalls.

Arriving at their destination he doesn't hesitate to introduce himself.

"Hello, kind lady. Are you Ji-ji-jiang Fei? And one dumpling please." he says with a clawed hand outstretched.

Skithryx smacks Krall's hand. "One dumpling?" he sneers. "No. We order ten dumpling. Each. Please."

"What's a dumpling?" Skyxa asks, genuinely curious. "Smells good, whatever it is. Meat inside? Then yes - more than one."

The kobold then thinks it over, trying to judge how many she can reasonably eat.

"But not as many as ten. Maybe five? Yes. Five for me, please. Can always buy more if I want. Or save them if five is too many."

She then offers a bow to Jiang Fei. "And hello. We're here to learn. I think. What is the Jade Ogre Style?"

As the other negotiate how many dumplings are enough, Demm takes out his bowl and waits patiently.

"Just to be sure, there no ogres or jade in 'dumplings'?" Gynnezz asks warily. "Eating ogre bad for truebloods, cause case of stupid."

Jiang Fei is a Tian-Shu woman on the young side of middle age, with bright eyes and a demure smile. She keeps her long black hair up with a beautiful jade comb and wears the simple garb of a martial artist.

"Ah, you are the Pathfinders, are you not?" Jiang Fei scoops out the remaining dumplings in her pot into seven bowls. "Mai Chun said in her letter that you were going to ask for food first. Luckily for you, I happen to have the best dumpling shop in south Lanming. At least until my Jade Ogre Style School gets off the ground."

The dumplings are pretty good. There are both pork and vegetarian dumplings served in a light brown broth. They are plump, chewy, and well seasoned. Jiang Fei turns over her open sign and cleans up the shop as the kobolds eat. She appears impatient for the kobolds to finish up eating and go inside with her.

Midnight shyly holds out her bowl. She is embarassed by her companions, but can't say no to tasty food. She eats neatly, trying to be quick when she sees the woman's impatience. She also thanks her politely and complements the tasty treat.

"Kobolds are like birds. We need to eat lots to keep our energy," Skyxa explains. "But we get the job done, no matter what. So thank you for humoring us."

Then she tucks into the dumplings as well, trying to strike a balance between not lingering over her meal but also not eating so quickly as to choke or seem rude.

Krall quickly eats his meal and puts the empty bowl away.

"Where should Krall put this? Was very tasty!" he says listening to any directions before sitting back down in front of Jiang Fei wherever she is.

"So now we can learn to be Jade Ogres?" he asks with curiosity in his little head, forgetting the reason they were there.

"Why waste time? Teach and we eat! I think Ogre big and dumb. Is that how we fight to?" Skithryx asks, scarfing down the meal. Setting the empty bowl down, he raises his claws in the air and stomps around the room. "ME BIG OGRE. DUMB AND GREEN AND LOUD."

He recomposes himself. "...did I do good Ogre?"

"Well, you are going to need the energy because we have a lot of work to do."

After the kobolds are finished eating, Jiang Fei closes up the shop and leads them into her home. The largest room of her apartment has been completely cleared of furniture and has been covered in bamboo mats. It appears she has converted her apartment into a dojo space!

Suddenly Jiang Fei becomes very impassionate as she stands up and holds her fist to her chest.

"I am trying to get my martial arts studio off the ground, but I need to build up some credibility first. There is another school, the Scorpion School. They are a bunch of braggarts but they lack discipline and their style is weak! Having some of my students defeat them in an honorable dual would elevate the Jade Ogre School to the level it deserves and show the city that we deserve to be here!"

"I will show you some of the basic kata. We only have a day or so to train you and then you will go out to their hideout and challenge them to hand to hand combat! Mai Chun said that you are a scrappy and tough group of Pathfinders, so I know you can do it!"

At this point queue up an 80's power ballad as the kobolds start vigorously training to learn Jade Ogre Style. Of course, at first they are not very good, but then imagine them starting to get the basics of the moves and then finally mastering them while Jiang Fei stands by, nodding in approval.

There will be some special rules for the next section, including some new moves that you'll be able to do just for the duration of this scenario.

Wax the car: -Wax on, wax off
Paint the House: -Side to side
Eat the dumpling: -Lift and Bite