Feel free to use Byron.
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Byron sighs. "I will go," he says, uncharacteristically briefly.
Okay, interesting.
"I would hate to kill you over a misunderstanding," Bryon tells the guard as he steps back and throws a bomb at Captain Locatelli.
Byron backs out of the flank (taking the attacks of opportunity) and hurls a bomb out the door, aiming for the priest.
I'm fine with bringing it to a close, and I can stick around. The problem isn't period but frequency--I can post once an evening or so most days, but not really more than that.
Byron hurls a frost bomb into the midst of the guards.
Life is just busy for me now and likely will be for a while. I've also just be on a low ebb in RP energy in general for some reason. I think I may have spread myself too thin, but natural attrition in games is helping with that already.
Byron quaffs his extract of bomber's eye.
Byron looks about for anything that could be used to fashion hasty traps.
Byron frowns in thought. "It is true that for self-preservation flight would seem most reasonable but I believe Osric has a point as well if the Temple faction here remains unchecked it will have serious consequences for elen civilization as a whole with Hearth totally under their control they could threaten the food supplies of those who do not submit to their madness assuming of course that the planar instability here does not grow worse and end up destroying the city and unleashing a plague of berserk elementals on us all."
You and Osric do need to slow down sometimes. XD Creativity hasn't been flowing as naturally for me of late.
"I have prepared a couple of healing elixirs this day as well as a number of bombs of course speaking of which I was thinking the detonation of a large enough ice bomb would likely seal the planar rift though the current situation would need to be resolved first of course..." Byron trails off, realizing he doesn't quite know what the current situation is.
Byron rasies his eyebrows. "Truly that would be marvelous but how would we gather such a quantity as Osric says there does not seem to be a reliable and ethical way to create more..."
Byron frowns slightly. "Odebie has been heavily involved in many of my recent activities particularly in tracking down the Gasp dealers and from what I understand he now has considerable reason to mistrust the Temple given what they have done to his Captain and besides he saw the White Obsidian."
Byron frowns. "Perhaps first you could tell me what you know about White Obsidian as it is clear you know more than I I had thought at first it was useful only against darkspawn but it seems there must be more."
Byron follows Instra. "White Obsidian," he says. "That is the discovery."
Byron groans, a hand on his head. "Was that the tree a psychic projection but what was that image?" he mutters, half to himself.
Byron is shocked by Odebie's words. "That that that is like declaring war a civil war in the city in the middle of this crisis in fact that is essentially what they have done this is hardly the time for such things not that there ever is a good time for them..." He trails off, frowning. Something here didn't make sense. Well, actually, a *lot* didn't make sense, but some of it was beyond the normal level of nonsense the universe, or at least elenkind, seemed determined to have. How could the temple possibly justify such actions? Were they truly so unafraid of the opinions of the city dwellers? ...were they about to establish martial law?
"Fascinating it seems to be nourishing itself from the corpses with supernatural rapidity I wonder if it is the elemental or nutritional content that it most requires..." Byron murmurs as he watches the tree grow from the blood of the dead creatures. He starts slightly as Osric speaks to him. "Indeed well we should be on our way yes."
"What does the tree what is it saying?" Byron asks, suspicious.
Byron hangs back for now, though he also drinks an extract of resist fire. He watches as Osric grins at... nothing, as far as he can tell, and fingers one of his bombs.
Byron shakes his head. He is silent a long moment before stating, "I will come better to be... distracted."
Byron, still dazed, simply nods non-committally and follows after Osric.
Byron is the sort of person who would rather be alone in a lab than with other elens. It's other people's jobs to handle social things. His job is SCIENCE.
Byron opens his mouth, stops, closes it, frowns, opens his mouth again, hangs there for a moment, closes it again, stands there for a few moments, and then finally speaks. "More reasons to harvest dead iron and grief likely are not safe in fact how would the Temple have gathered such things?"
Some of the ingredients for the white obsidian formula can only be acquired from dead elens, right?
Byron takes a long moment to realize that Osric had asked him a question. He nods jerkily. "Cramped but yes," he states perfunctorily.
Byron stares uncomprehending at Osric, unable to follow his reasoning at present. "None yet... there were headless pigeons..."
Byron starts as Osric speaks to him. He'd missed the other sylph, not even noticing him in his narrow focus on walking. "Osric I would... I need... you need to investigate a murder and arson... my lab... Eldon," he rambles, gaze as unfocused as his sentence structure.
Byron stands, looking without seeing, for several long moments. Then he wheels and walks away quite purposefully. He's not quite sure where he's going at first, other than away. Slowly his brain re-engages. There was a decent chance that whoever had done this meant to kill him, too. Why? It didn't make any sense! But what could he do about it? Wouldn't it be the Watch's job to investigate this? Yes, yes... but would they? Ah, Odebie. Or perhaps Osric. Yes... he should find one of them. One or the other of them would probably be at the Dims Watch. His pace quickened now that his destination was determined.
Byron stands, looking on in incomprehension, for a long moment. Nothing he had left active should have been capable of such destruction. It simply should not have been possible. And yet it had happened. Had Eldon... "Eldon?" he calls out weakly, as he reaches that thought. As if in a daze, he steps forward, looking back and forth for signs of his fellow sylph. "Eldon?"
Byron nods. "The Temple is as good as any a source to manufacture weapons against the Dark but the planar disturbances do seem more pressing it seems that there must be wards remaining over the rest of the city perhaps they can be extended or maybe something can be arranged if a party could sneak in to the center of the affected area..."
Byron doesn't trust any formula he hasn't yet tested himself. :D
Byron nods, warming up to his subject now that he's focused on alchemy instead of someone for whom murder is legal. "True I am simply stating I have not tested the other formulation so it remains theoretical and very well take some experimentation to verify I simply haven't had access to the proper reagents such as true lava and until I have successfully produced white obsidian using this formulation I cannot be absolutely certain it is correct."
Byron hesitates a moment. On the one hand, more white obsidian would mean more weapons against the Dark. On the other, he did not trust Ky La at all. But he had to admit Osric was right--for all that he was untrustworthy, Ky la had no more desire for the Dark to overtake elen civilization than he did. "I could do so though a single sample hardly proves the formula especially as I'll need to vary it to find replacements for the ruby solution as I doubt even the Temple has access to more of that."
Byron opens his mouth, pauses, and then closes it again. He frowns for a moment, thinking something over, then finally speaks. "Is this what you want?" He pulls out the sample of white obsidian.
Sure, he'll go along. It'll give him a good reason to not be home. ;)
I'm really not sure. I can't really think of another character I'd like to play in this campaign. So we need something to get Byron more interested in the game. And I thought of something. Destroy his lab.
Still debating what I want to do, sorry.
He's my first alchemist, so I'm learning. XD I'll have to think if there's another idea I'd want to build.
Yeah, it's more the second--Byron is too focused on solving 'science' problems before 'people' problems, and so when a 'people' problem like "How do I convince someone to let me use their facilities for this?" his first instinct is "This isn't my job to figure out I want to work on something else" and his second is "I will clearly and logically explain why this is vital to elen civilization and anyone who doesn't listen is illogical and not worth trying to convince of the obvious benefits of this research". Basically, he's the sort of researcher who needs a manager to handle the non-science problems for him. XD I don't know... maybe what he needs is material proof of how dangerous/naive his approach is. He's a smart guy, if he sees the cost of ignoring the elen element of life he'd realize he can't just keep doing things the way he's doing them. That and I need to figure out how to play an alchemist in combat other than throwing bombs.
I've been kind of hesitant to bring this up, but... I think I should quit ignoring it. In short, I feel I've built the wrong character for this campaign. Byron is almost militantly indifferent to politicking, psychology, and just about everything else having to do with dealing with other elens--the sort of fellow who wants to grapple with problems of science, mathematics, and alchemy without having to deal with 'people' problems. As the campaign has gone on, it's become increasingly clear that this attitude leaves him, not entertainingly out of his depth as I had anticipated, but rather completely unengaged with large portions of what's going on, if not actually actively dangerous to the party as a whole. Add to that the fact that his connection to the party is tenuous at best and I'm left wondering at times why he's sticking around. I'm not quite sure what to do about this. Obviously, as a fictional character written by me, I could just start writing Bryon differently, but that feels... 'artificial' isn't exactly the right word, but it's not wrong, either. Writing Byron out and then having me create a new character is possible, but it feels like it would be difficult to integrate a new party member at this point with our group's rather uncertain relations with authority and consequent closed-mouthed-ness about our real intentions and plans. So I'm not quite sure where to go from here.
Byron hurries back to his lab, eager to tell Eldon of the results of the unexpected test. The present danger from weak planar boundaries distracts him, however, and his thoughts soon turn to how alchemy could help with this problem.
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