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I'm Heward Wallace. And I approved this DM. Pssh. You would kiss up to the authority, Law-Boy. Personally, I think he's just picking a new group of recruits so he can tell us how much we suck compared to his new team. (Btw, I totally identify with Haley in the last two panels.)
Awgin catches up with Auriel. "I hope we're still ok. I don't know many people in this city and hope we can hang out again sometime." She gives him a noncommittal half-smile. "Bye, Shy Guy. Congratulations on your promotion from meaningless peon to right-hand lackey. When they fit you for your boots, try to get some with tooled leather instead of the standard-issue dull-brown foot-boxes." With a wave, she walks out the door.
"So am I." Auriel walks out, leaving her badge on the table, and heads up the stairs to grab her bag. When she comes back down, she hands the crossbow back to Mrs. Brigglespan. "Thanks, but ... I'm not going to need this anymore," she says a bit shyly.
"Wallas seems to think that his shiny new title gives him authority over people who have never taken an oath to uphold said authority," she counters. "And I swear to Abadar himself, if you don't stop calling me 'Minick' like I'm an ant in your damned anthill ...! That's a new and endearing quirk since the fumes from your newly-acquired power went to your head."
She shrugs. "Near as I can tell, you got a promotion, so you're in charge of anyone in the Watch that has a lower rank in you. I don't have a rank in the Watch at all. Don't think anyone else here does, either." She looks around the table. "So, congratulations: you now get to answer to Captain Boring-Shoes for the success or failure of a bunch of people who have never sworn to abide by the hierarchy of the Watch in the first place. Or do you think being a sergeant qualifies you to walk out into the streets and order anyone you find there to report for mandatory daily training?"
She shrugs. "He suggested you might need my help. And that if I helped out the Watch, he might be willing to look the other way about ... other things. If he'd ordered me to do it, I'd have told him where he could stick his orders and let him throw me in jail if he thought he was man enough to hold me."
Auriel's stomach lurches as she flinches away from the muffin. "That would be the halfling," she tells Calatin firmly. "We're both girls, but I'm taller." What would she do working for the mage? Long, boring days in libraries, carrying stacks of books and fetching snacks, come unenticingly to mind.
She stifles a laugh. "Honest men like Stafford Millis and Rav Kinman? My heart bleeds for their loss. I said before: I don't take orders. From anyone. If you want to frame your ideas in the form of suggestions, I'll be happy to consider those I feel are in the interest of the city, its citizens, and my safety. In whatever order I choose." She snorts in derision. "Gods, Percival himself didn't order me to come here."
"How'zabout this, Wallas?" she asks deliberately, leaning forward across the table. "You treat me like your spunky underling, I walk. Pretty sure I can help little old ladies across the street anywhere in town without a badge that means you get to give me orders."
"'Stafford wouldn't let you,'" she scoffs. "He 'let' me, because I went ahead and did it whether he liked it or not. By the time Mikobar got to the staircase, we were the only ones left in the house. Or do you think he's above grabbing someone and using them as a hostage? He did it with Taverson. What if his snake had gotten ahold of Millis' daughter, or one of the councillors, and threatened to crush them if you didn't give him the enjoiner?" She leans back in her chair. "But fine; if you think that was nothing, then I haven't done anything on this team and you're better off giving that badge to someone else anyway."
Auriel turns pale at the proffered pastry but slides somewhat reluctantly into an empty chair. "Got everyone out of Millis's place before the fight went down, guests and kitchen staff," she answers immediately but warily. "No one got hurt. Everyone else was all about the plan to catch Mikobar; nobody was thinking about the bystanders."
That just leaves Laya.
"You're the one who couldn't let me speak my piece without brushing it off at the end," she mutters, turning her gaze to Laya and Calatin.
"Except you're the ones with the power to push people around. Not even. Not unless I'm allowed to tell you what's 'mandatory.' Everyone's entitled to their opinions; it's just when someone's handed the authority to force their opinion on other people that it's a problem."
A blush chases across her face at Awgin's whisper, but she leans on the back of his chair and fixes Heward with a defiant gaze. "I'm Auriel, and I'm here because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm good at lying to people and at making them look one way when something's going on the other way. I'm also good at getting lost in a crowd and at finding things out, but both of those abilities go straight out the window if it ever becomes public knowledge I'm working with the Watch. I've never met a Watchman who didn't think he knew better than any ordinary person what that person ought to do, feel, say, or be, present company not excepted. And I don't take orders from anyone, ever."
When Mrs. Brigglespan has left the room, Auriel shifts over behind Awgin's chair and offers him an apologetic shrug. Awgin or Perception DC 15: "I thought I was coming on to you."
"You're wrong, Mrs. Brigglespan," she says wearily. "My friends are in Lowcleft. They smile when they see me instead of glaring. They ask how I am and listen to the answer instead of lecturing me about what I should feel. They think what I do is great instead of expecting me to sit down and shut up until I'm told to try to kill someone. They never tell me I'm less useful than a cat. Most of all, friends don't give friends orders. They don't tell me I'll be 'used as my expertise applies.' They don't tell me anything is mandatory, and they don't threaten me with the stockade if I don't do what they say. A cup of tea's not going to change any of that."
It briefly looks like Auriel will shove right past Mrs. Brigglespan, but at the last moment, she turns sharply on her heel, crossing her arms over her chest impatiently. "I can run from a lot," she tells Awgin. "He sent the snake to kill me first, when I was alone and you were all still sitting around waiting upstairs. If I'd stood and fought, I'd be dead too. I'm alive because I was smart enough to run from a fight I knew I couldn't win." She turns toward Heward. "Captain Percival said he wouldn't press charges if I helped out the Watch. He didn't say I had to become one of his jackbooted lackeys, taking orders and carrying weapons. I'd rather be in prison." To her horror, tears begin to sting her eyes, and she rubs at them with the back of her hand angrily. "You told me to help people," she tells Mrs. Brigglespan accusingly. "I can do that better in Lowcleft. Up here, they just want to make me learn how to hurt people. At least in Lowcleft, people like me; they think what I can do and what I have to contribute are worthwhile. Up here, I'm a miserable failure because I don't know how to tear someone's arm off and beat him to death with it. Every time he looks at me, all he's seeing is how he can change me to be someone else, someone more like him, so I won't be such a horrible disappointment any more. It's like living with my mother all over again."
"Whatever. Not my problem anymore." She nods to her badge on the table before offering Laya a shy smile. "Bye." Awgin gets a tentative nod. "You know where to look for me, if you want to."
Auriel stands up, slips her badge over her head, and lays it on the table. "Okay if I have my room cleared out by dusk? I'm not a damn soldier. Neither is she," she nods at Laya, "or him," gesturing to Calatin. "I'm guessing Captain Boring-Shoes knew that when he put the three of us on the team. You've got a damn wizard on the team, and you want to waste his time with sparring?!? Makes as much sense as putting him in charge and him forcing you to learn to cast a spell."
Auriel stumbles in last to the meeting. She shoots Awgin a quick, uncertain glance across the table before taking a seat as far from the food as she can find. If anyone offers her a muffin, she emphatically refuses, turning her head away with a wince, being of smaller frame than Awgin and not privileged to share his orcish constitution. "Who's this new sergeant?" she grumbles, folding her arms on the table and laying her pounding head down on them. "Some other loser Captain Boring-Shoes is putting between us and him to cushion himself from the fall-out from our next fiasco?"
When the clamor starts up outside the door, Auriel moans in protest. Then she turns over and sees Awgin next to her. "Eugh," she groans, scrambling over him and dragging the sheet with her to cover herself with as she darts for the door. A moment after she disappears around it past a startled Mrs. Brigglespan, she pokes her head back in. "'S'not you, okay?" she tells Awgin. "I'm just really...." She takes off again toward her own room. The faint sound of retching might be heard from down the hall. A few minutes later, after Mrs. Brigglespan has left, she reappears while he is splashing his face, a bit pale but smiling weakly. "Sorry," she tells him, depositing the sheet back on his bed as she picks her clothes up off the floor. "Empty stomach and then ... whatever all it was we had last night. It's not ... morning remorse." She watches him leave the room a bit nervously, not sure if she's just gotten the brush-off or not. It takes her longer to get ready than it does Awgin; she is easily fifteen to twenty minutes behind him in arriving downstairs.
"Ssssh!" she giggles at him, her finger to her lips. "Don't you know all the good little boys and girls are in bed at this time of night?" Coming closer to whisper, she stumbles up against his chest.
"Damned snake," she agrees, scowling, then breaks into giggles. "It did look pretty silly when it slithered into Stafford's kitchen all menacing and got a face full of bearnaise sauce. You know, there's been a few men who've fed me the line that they have a magic snake I should see, but that guy was the first one who ever actually had one."
Awgin:
Auriel stumbles up against Awgin as they climb the stairs to the front door of the MSI building. "See? Isn't Lowcleft great? That's why we had to stop the house from falling on it. That's what I was trying to tell you that night when you were hiding. Why didn't you answer me?" She seems to be speaking a little over-enthusiastically, and a suspicious scent wafts into the foyer along with her.
So Auriel and Awgin are getting high on fumes, arsty poetry and free love, then heading back to MSI HQ?
Arriving in Lowcleft, Auriel tracks down some of her artsy friends and introduces Awgin around. Her friends being mostly, as she is, children of middle-class to well-to-do parents rebelling against their parents' worldview, they're all excrutiatingly polite and inclusive of the half-orc in an attempt to prove how unlike their bigoted families they are. Sharing the news that one of the heroes of MSI died in Lord Millis' house and it turned out that none of the Watch knew if he had family or faith, she quickly gets them to agree to an art-in expressing their disdain for a system which views people only as cogs in a machine rather than as individuals in their own right. There's lot of spoken-word and bongo drums, as well as fumes of a heady and intoxicating nature. Up to Awgin if he sticks around for the poetry slam, although if the trust-fund girls get high enough, he might get lucky as a matter of principle. ;)
She shakes her head. "I didn't sign up to be a member of the Watch. I thought I was like ... a consultant. Just helping out until the whole pickpocketing thing blew over. I mean...." She realizes that Awgin hadn't known anything about that until she mentioned it and shrugs, blushing. "I was just a consultant on that, too," she excuses herself, a little shame-facedly. "The Watch are a bunch of jerks. Think they're better than everybody."
She shakes her head, looking at the ground. "I've never seen anyone die before. I've never really thought about dying. It's something that happens to old people. Or, I don't know, you heard about someone dying in Lowcleft sometimes, but it was always because they did something stupid: got really drunk without friends around to take care of them, or got involved with dangerous people, or, you know, something. Something you could tell yourself you were smart enough not to do. That damned snake ... it hit me the other night at Rimblesnuffin's. And anyway," she goes on angrily, "what is Captain Percival doing, putting me in such a dangerous situation? I thought we'd be, you know, investigating, arresting people, not having them try to kill us."
She laughs a bit hollowly. "Only child. The sole repository for my parents' shabby, respectable, law-abiding hopes and dreams. They sell shoes in the Marches. You can imagine how pleased they are with my life trajectory." She is quiet for a moment. "If I die, someone should probably tell them, though. I'll be dead, so it's not like my mother would have one last chance to get on my nerves."
"So...," she pulls some leftover muffins from her pocket and begins to juggle them idly while they walk, "if you're the one who ends up in a box next, no family or friends back in Underbridge to notify? Just so we don't look like such heartless co-workers when the Pharasmins show up next time," she explains with a smirk.
"So if it makes you a turncoat, why were you so eager to join up?" she asks curiously.
"T'swhere I'm headed," she answers and then pauses. "They've heard of us there -- of the people who stopped the house from falling on them, anyway. If you tell them you're part of MSI, they might buy you a drink. I'd rather you didn't tell them I have anything to do with it. That's my home; I don't want anyone to treat me different. Besides," she shrugs, "telling people you're working for the Watch clams up an awful lot of conversation."
"Maybe I just like to be around pretty women." Awgin gives Auriel his best non-threatening grin. "Actually, I don't know the city very well and was hoping to learn more about it. We can always say we're patrolling or something." Auriel's face breaks into a grin. "Not a bad line, Shy Guy, not bad!" she congratulates him. "Maybe the Shy Guy's not so shy after all. Where are you thinking of going? I don't know much of the city except Lowcleft and Keystone. And ... well, some places where I'm not so welcome."
With that, Awgin goes to catch up with Auriel. "Mind if I tag along with you for a while?" Auriel turns around when Awgin hails her. "Hey, Shy Guy," she says, smiling a little uncertainly. "What lists do you have in your head today?"
"How long have they been married?" Auriel asks some of the women. "Was it ever anything other than a horrible mistake, or has he always been a bone idle bastard?"
"Of course there was time to get to know him. I've found out more about one-night stands than any of us did about Markiv. You know why? Because we didn't care. He was here to do a job, and he did it. His hopes and dreams and fears were irrelevant. Only now that he's dead, everyone's pretending they were close, to make themselves feel better about the fact that it never occurred to him to treat him like a person instead of a Watchman. I didn't know Markiv. I wasn't his friend. And, Hells, he wasn't mine! I don't hold it against him that he never asked about my life; none of the rest of you have, either. But this whole funeral is just a chance to not speak ill of a dead guy that no one bothered speaking of at all when he was alive. Look, I'll go down to Lowcleft. I know some people who will have no problem putting together an impromptu poetry slam about anonymity and alienation in the urban setting. I'll 'honor' his sacrifice that way. It's a lot realer than everyone standing around in dress uniform pretending to be broken up."
"Markiv was a good man and a member of our team. Anyone of us could be in his shoes tomorrow. He tried to protect the citizens and the law, without him Rimblenuffin's might be sitting in Lowcleft or that damn snake might have killed some of us or the bystanders before Taverson answered your call. Markiv deserves some respect from us and from Magnimar." "What good does respect do him now? He's dead. He wouldn't know if he got a funeral service or got tossed on a trash heap for dogs to eat. Maybe someone should have respected him when he was alive and it made a difference. If it is me tomorrow, I don't want a bunch of strangers showing up to stare at my dead body just to make themselves look good and feel pious. You didn't actually know Markiv. None of us did. He was just a cog in Captain Boring-Shoes' crime-fighting machine. No one ever asked him about his family or his beliefs or why he was doing what he was doing. Anyone who really wanted to show him him some respect would have known the answers." Nazard:
Auriel puts her finger to her lips with a nod to show she understands and tries to very quietly repopulate her pouch with marbles. Gathering the rest of her things together, she picks up the borrowed pillow and blanket, stretches some of the accumulated kinks out of her back, and tiptoes across the room to Teeka. Folding the blanket, she nods toward Cobb in the chair and whispers, "I thought he'd end up in the bedroom with you. I mean, it's none of my business ... but you did say you were married."
"Thanks a lot, Teeka. I really appreciate it," she whispers to the halfling woman. "Just give me a nudge in the morning if I'm in the way, and I'll get out of your hair." When Teeka has gone into the bedroom, Auriel stares at Cobb snoring in the chair. Sleeping in the same room with a drunken man and no witnesses is bad enough under normal circumstances; him being your friend's creepy husband is even worse. And a halfling! She shudders. She's heard that some of them have things for taller women. The pants are on, yes, but will they stay on? She finds the most unobtrusive corner of the room, one that isn't in the way of anything so the only reason someone would go there would be to approach her, and carefully unbuttons her belt pouch, letting the marbles inside roll out quietly onto the floor. Leaving the empty pouch lying artfully with them so it will look like it accidentally came undone when she was settling down for the night, she curls up in the corner behind her makeshift barrier. A drunken halfling and a dark room: if he steps on the marbles, he ought to make enough noise to be heard in the bedroom, and by the time Teeka is up in the morning there should be enough ambient light for her to see and avoid the hazard. Despite the company, the hard floor, the smell, and the undersized blanket, Auriel hasn't spent enough nights in a real bed at MSI HQ to have lost her ability to sleep in almost any level of discomfort. She is soon asleep, her hand under the pillow clasping her sap, just in case.
"You're married?" she asks blankly, as if Teeka had just confided she had only six months to live. She's never met anyone in Lowcleft who was married before. All the artsy types she typically hangs out with believe marriage to be a bourgeois institution that promotes conformity and crushes individuality and that if two people are truly soulmates, they don't need a piece of paper from the city of Magnimar to validate it. Then again, it's hard to imagine Cobb being anyone's soulmate. Feeling that offering her condolences isn't appropriate, she busies herself with setting out the crockery and utensils. "I'm sure things will get back to normal soon," she offers, not sure what 'normal' is for Teeka and Cobb but hoping it's very different from what she's seeing now. "I guess being some rich old lady's personal touch-up artist would pay pretty well," she admits, "if you could stand following her around all day, holding your tongue and acting like an idiot servant. Because they'd never admit they were getting magical help to anyone." She stops and considers shrewdly. "Which, again, would up the price. I mean, they couldn't cut your tongue out; you need it to cast the spell." She grins at Teeka. "Might keep that in mind if I'm ever desperate for a new gig."
"It's really nice," Auriel lies, forcing admiration into her face and voice. "Gosh, a place of your own. I'm still in the crashing-with-friends stage. Obviously. Can I help you cook? I mean, I can't actually cook. But I can follow instructions reasonably well. Chop things? Get water?" When the two women have the meal started, she asks, "So, your ... husband? boyfriend? He's been working all night? What does he do?" please be something illegal please be something illegal please be something I can get him busted for
Auriel's report is written in looping longhand on several sheets of parchment. She has obviously not written anything formally since school, as it resembles nothing more than an essay or book report, right down to the name and date in the upper right-hand corner, albeit one that focuses excessively on footwear. Although she describes the shoes of virtually everyone she met, she does not mention Lyeban Lerath, Timmery Chader, Mara, Teeka, Willis, or the state of the Staffords' marriage. She does point out what she sees as the high points of her career thus far: the way she found the invisible summoner, her successful evacuation of Lord Stafford's guests and servants, her saucepot-assisted escape from the snake, and her successful summoning of Taverson. After a brief but scathing aside on Hawk Dancer's apparent ambition to work with an all-feline team, she places blame for Markiv's death on Lord Stafford's refusal to send in more of his men or call for the Watch.
Also, please let me know if anybody raised their Perception, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, or Initiative modifiers, so I can update my group lists on the campaign (Paizo) site. Leveled. I didn't raise any of her useful skills. :)
"'T's not real magic," she mumbles, shrugging, a little embarrassed at the attention. "Not like the students at the Stone of the Seers. Just a few tricks I've picked up. Hells, I've seen gnome children doing this. Only lasts an hour. What am I supposed to do, rent myself out to some aging noblewoman and follow her around touching up her grays all day?"
While Teeka is away, Auriel quickly digs in her pouch, removing a generous night's payment for wait staff, and piling it on the table. When Teeka comes back, she pushes the coins toward her and says, "Here. They finally coughed up after the Watch came and hauled that guy away. Even included a little extra for hazard pay. I guess they noticed a bunch of people had left so they could afford to be a little generous. I got in line twice." She quickly casts a prestidigitation and turns her hair from shocking red to a pale blond color to demonstrate. "Figured as long as they were giving out money, I'd get all I could," she shrugs. "But you deserve it. Us Lowcleft girls have to stick together."
"Not a problem," Auriel assures the halfling, finishing off her latest drink. "No plans to leave here until they ask me politely to leave the building. Do you know this one guy, back where I've been staying, said I wasn't as smart as a cat? You believe that? There's a lot of standards I've been told over my life I wouldn't measure up to if I didn't buckle down, but I always thought cathood at least was in my grasp. Don't want to cause you trouble, Teeka, really. I've had such a good time tonight. Say, did you ever even get paid for that debacle at His Lordship's?" she wonders with concern. "Didn't see you when the guard showed up."
Auriel is disappointed but offers a smile anyway. "'T'salright. I know what it's like. Last time I slept in Lowcleft, it was in a corner booth with an unfinished drink in front of me to justify me taking up the space until morning. It's not like I don't have a place to stay. Has a bed, a door that locks, even a kitchen with food in it. It's just ... it's like living with my parents, you know. Everyone disapproves of me all the time; everyone's wanting to change me. I think I prefer a floor or a corner booth."
As the evening wanes, Auriel is still enjoying the company so much that the thought of going back to her lonely room in MSI HQ is giving her a headache. Well, that and all the drinks people keep buying her. "Teeka," she asks the halfling, "you have somewhere to stay tonight? You think I could crash with you? Wouldn't matter if the furniture's too small; I don't mind curling up on the floor."
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