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I apologize. I had hoped to at least carry on through the manor, but I will excuse myself from the table now. Thank you, DM DoctorEvil, for picking up the table and my fellow players for sticking with the campaign after the original GM departed. If you would do me the favor of inactivating my aliases in the campaign, I would appreciate it.
"Between Quintessa, and you," Fenric says as he lays out one of the guards lest his efforts to give the dead some dignity be mistaken for common banditry, "this whole manor will know we escaped death." He steps over and taps one of the potion vials with the tip of his sword and asks Graham, "May I have that?" Then he moves on to listen at the double doors. "Selina, if you would double check me?" After the double doors, he continues to listen at the other doors while waiting for Quintessa to return.
"Ye--No--Tha--," Fenric flushes as he tries to answer Quintessa's angry and rapid string of questions but to no avail. As her diatribe continues, he face sets into an expression as one resigned to death. "I said retreat!" he yells after the noblewoman as she storms back into the gardens. He turns back to address those who remained in the scullery, whether they are paying attention or not. "Do not get me wrong," he says with a quaver in his voice that fades as he presses on with his speech. "I thank Cayden Cailean that gambit worked, but it was a gambit. There was time, and Quintessa could have discussed her plan with us. I don't know if there was another way past the giant. Maybe that was the only and best way out of this hall, and maybe we all would have agreed." He loses his train of thought and restarts. "However, she didn't ask us if we thought making the frost giant stronger and hoping he didn't then kill us was a good idea. She just decided it on her own." Fenric looks toward the garden doorway and mutters, "And I did support you in the moment despite that." He takes a deep breath and sighs. "We have to each stop acting impulsively or we will not make it out of this manor alive. Sometimes there isn't time for debate, but that was not one of those times. It is clear that there are more dangerous beasts loose than we imagined, so if I want us to take a moment before flinging open doors, that is prudence, not sloth nor cowardice." He looks at Teela. "If I suggest looking for things we can use to bend the odds of survival in our favor among the dead who have no need of them now, that is pragmatism, not avarice. If I say there is a better way something could have been handled--after the fact--it is not pettiness but revision." He points to one of the bodies on the ground. "It is very noble that we want to help the lady of the manor, but I learned years ago that the world doesn't care about noble intentions. We can't help her--or anyone trapped in here--if we're dead because we can't keep our heads on our shoulders. Clearly defeating the ogre was a fluke." He then sheathes his blades with a grunt and begins to sort the dead.
Fenric moves into the scullery once the giant is past. "The outcome was fortuitous," he begins slowly, working moister back into his mouth. "However, that was not well done. That was a gambit taken with all our lives on the balance." He looks around at the kitchen. And the pile of corpses. "Sometimes one might, but you did not need to make that decision on your own in that moment. You did not see me or Selina rush past you and stab the brute because we thought our way was best." With a glance at Teela, he adds, "Or faster. If we do not start working in concert, we likely will not make it through this night of nightmares."
”He’s half dead and with a lame arm, so more now than after you strengthen him,” Fenric hisses back answer to Quontessa’s first—likely rhetorical—question. ”And he needs to be gone. Or he’ll just kill more in the manor later. So see if you can convince him to leave.” His voice rises so anyone could hear at the last.
"Linzi," Fenric says while looking at Quintessa. "That is a good point the giant it makes you should step back. We have other paths to take." His voice becomes hoarse a few times as he speaks and breaks the odd sentence into fragments. He hopes he gets his point across and that the giant's grasp of Taldane is not sufficient.
"Were the other beds slept in?" Fenric asks Quintessa. "If so, then the enemy must have infiltrated the companies seeking a charter, which would explain how such as that ogre was let into the manor." His head reflexively turns toward Teela and then back. A clue someone tried to push us past? His eyes only flicker toward Graham and Alvis. He shakes his head.
With a pensive expression, Fenric looks to the dwarf. He opens his mouth to speak but closes it again as Teela tries to bully him. He watches her step away with a cool expression, but the corner of his eyes twitch each time she claps her hand. His flush begins to fade as Quintessa starts to speak. However, he visibly flinches and grimaces when she ends her statement with a clap. He inhales and then says in a flat voice, "Quintessa, would you go check that room for people? Selina, join me at the door. Graham? If Tessa doesn't find anyone, we'll head this way."
"Conditions? You're going to get someone killed not waiting for us to assemble. I'd rather you not let in a room full of Black Tears while I'm looking the other way. Can you agree to that? And do you even know if someone is bleeding to death on the other side of any one of those beds that we could have saved?" Fenric asks, flushing with frustration and pointing back at the ransacked bedroom. "No. You don't. Your actions are counter to your stated conditions."
The tension in Fenric's neck and jaw muscles belie his efforts to speak patiently, "As Quintessa and I just agreed. It is tactically unsound for a seamstress--however helpful your magic has been, you're no swordsman--to be panicking and throwing open ever door in a rush." He glances for a moment at the spot where Teela had just recently been retching. "And you don't even know if we're--Behind the beds--" He looks at Quintessa with pleading eyes. "You're not even listening--not letting us gather our strength--Ugh." He comes to the end of his diplomatic skills in a tangle of thoughts that undercuts any attempt at gravitas.
"Grim," Fenric answers Quintessa seriously, referencing the ogre's savaging of the dead--hopefully dead at the time--and shakes his head at Alvis' question. "The ogre fell to our concerted attacks just after it struck you. I can barely feel that scratch from the Black Tear's shot." His tone becomes serious again as he muses, "We may not be able to move as swiftly as we hoped. And probably best not to leave enemies behind us if we can help it."
Fenric lets out a held breath as the giant falls to the ground. He wipes sweat--and someone else's blood--from his brow with his arm. Noticing that Alvis is moving, he chuckles nervously and comments awkwardly, "That blow looked worse than it was, I guess?" The nobleman then looks over the hill of flesh. "Did we save the halfling?"
When you have someone with the ability to heal (e.g., Teela) who acts before your recovery check, it is better practice to wait for that than to roll your stabilize check early. For example, if you had rolled a critical fail, you would be Dead (barring Die Hard). @DM: Was the information on the debuffs supposed to be the result of my Recall Knowledge on the ogre?
I not sure that placing the result of every secret Perception or Knowledge check adds value to the game. Looking at a page full of spoilers and waiting for another player in an asynchronous PbP to reveal or not reveal things before I know if I should do something in response to it is efficient for me with limited windows to check posts. For the record, Fenric will always relay combat information and critical success Monster Hunter information as well as any perception checks.
”I don’t suppose any of them are still breathing?” Fenric asks rhetorically as he wipes the blood on his rapier blade off with the shirt of the corpse at his feet. He pulls a black handled dagger from its sheath and tucks it into his belt. ”I just have a little scratch—this time—and I Quintessa has me to believe we’re in a hurry.”
Request for the future: please describe what weapons are in enemy NPC's hands as it will affect tactics. The cutthroats we fought before were "armed" with daggers and also stowed crossbows. EDIT: Meta Request: Please repost the initiative order with GM posts in encounter mode. Another QOL request is to track damage on the initiative tracker as well as inflicted conditions (e.g., frightened, prone) to help with strategy. Or at least some semi-quantitative measure of how hurt NPCs are and inflicted conditions.
"Many hands makes the work go faster, but if you all are just going to stand by the door in silent protest," Fenric says as he steps towards the door. "Alvis, right, apologies." He continues, "Maybe I'm salty and shy, being the only one of us stabbed. Repeatedly. But I don't need anything. Don't you work with scrolls and wands and potions, Tessa? We might find a bit of magic or an alchemist's draught. But fine, fine." He gestures with his dirk at the door.
"Our host is an Aldori Swordlord with her own retainer," Fenric counters. "If we handled the assassins while half-asleep, she'll be fine. We, on the other hand, could use any survival advantage. Especially, if they've come for us." He looks to the dwarf. "Alvari, is there anything worth taking among your fallen companions?
Fenric arches an eyebrow and glances to the window with an amused grin as lightning illuminates his reemergence into the hall. However, a sharp eye might note the whitening of his knuckles around his blade hilts and tightening of his eyes that belie his affected calm when the thunder rattles the windows. "You found us some help, Teela?" he asks rhetorically. Turning his attention to the other two men, he adds, "I am Fenric Lodovka, grateful for any additional eyes and arms to guard our backs." And as an awkward afterthought, "And we will do the same." He points at one of the oil lamps, "Quintessa, can you do that trick to make light, or should we carry light with us?"
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