According to Loup, something suddenly came up again and things got even busier. He said he was considering a short hiatus, but I haven't heard from him since
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Shara hurries home, searching the streets to for any sign of her family. She's more than a little relieved to find Jorgi and her mother both safe and sound at the Hagfish. She elects to join the party near the docks rather than heading back up to the Dragon, but the only noticeable difference is the location. More than one person has a story of a goblin managing to get himself killed, and Shara shares a slightly dramatic retelling of the battle in the cathedral square. She's up early the next morning, meeting the guard at the door only after a decent breakfast. "This may be the first time Hemlock's had to have me escorted somewhere when I haven't blown up something important," she jokes as they head to the Dragon. "Good morning sheriff," she adds brightly when they arrive. "How are you this fine day."
"Well, I certainly don't doubt your ability sheriff. You've been on top of things for long enough. I wish you good luck trying to get the little cretin to talk, but I need to go make sure that mom, Uncle Quinn, and Brodert made it through alright." She nods to the odd noble and her new group of... acquaintances. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you all again within the next few days, but I need to make sure my family is still kicking." With that, she hurries away.
"I've always meant to learn Goblin," Shara muses. "But I've never had the time. It was more important to learn languages with some... academic value. Maybe you could show me some of the basics at some point."
Shara blinks as the man steps out of cover and suddenly starts gushing. "Oh good gods, who is this man?" She puts on a polite smile and reminds herself that he doesn't mean any harm. "I'm flattered, though I don't know how long I could have held out without my allies to make use of my magic. And we're just doing our part of protect the town." She considers his offer. He doesn't seem harmful, just a bit overly enthusiastic. "I find myself at the Dragon a fair bit, so it's no trouble to see you there again."
Share steps forward and attempts to strike the goblin before it can recover.
Shara steps forward and raises her hands unleashing another wave of magic over the mounted goblin, this time with a wide spray of bright colors. "I'll keep him under control. Clear out the small fry!"
"Something must have really gotten them riled up if the goblins actually decided to attempt to come at the town in force. Maybe..." Shara doesn't have time to finish her thought as the shriek cuts through the air. "Maybe we should wonder why they're attacking after the attack has stopped." She turns and hurries toward the scream. She winces as the goblin warrior strikes down the dog. "Great, so that's the leader I suppose. I'll try to stun him. The rest of you can close in and take them out." She twirls her ranseur and then taps it against her wrist, forming a glowing aura of power. Then she shrieks so loudly that the air can actually be seen rippling.
Hey. Quick heads up. My sister is going away to college for the first time this weekend and the whole family is going with to help her move in. I'm leaving tomorrow morning and I should have internet, but my posting may be slower than usual until Sunday.
"I think there are a few injuries, but not on me," Shara says. "Thankfully you big warrior types draw far more attention than I do it seems."
Shara is going back to help him now though, since she wants his help spell casting, so I think things work out.
With the last goblin by the cart being jumped by half of the warriors, Shara turns and hurries toward the church to help Father Zantus. Hopefully he has create water prepared. She stabs at one of the remaining goblins once again.
As Uriel jumps in to carve up the goblins setting the wagon ablaze, Shara quickly closes in behind him to provide support. As the little menaces leap to attack him, she twirls her ranseur again and stabs at one of the monsters flanking him.
I know the feeling...
Shara sighs as the goblins promptly set more things on fire. "Fantastic. I'll go do what I can." She doesn't really have any particularly useful spells for putting out fires ready, so she hurries in closer to get ready to deal with the goblins.
Good luck with your project :)
Shara frowns as one of the goblins manages to avoid the flare of light from her spell, but at least one of them is left vulnerable to Hemlock's blade. "Doing alright Sheriff?" she asks glibly as she instantly closes the distance on the surviving goblin. She twirls her ornate ransuer once and then violently drives the bladed end through the remaining goblin's chest.
Just wait until she has Wall of Force and Prismatic Spray
Seeing Sheriff Hemlock outnumbered, even if only by goblins, Shara moves closer, carefully judging her range to make sure that the sheriff isn't in her way before she sweeps her hand through the air and unleashes a brilliant stream of multicolored light over the creatures.
Efen and GM:
"Good afternoon Brodent," Shara says, smiling at the older man. "This is Efanydd Sylvir. He's visiting for the festival and was very interested in your work. I thought that he'd much rather hear it directly from you rather than seeing my notes second-hand."
Shara's ears perk up as she hears familiar, high pitched voices. "Oh no. Not these clowns." She reaches back and pulls the ornate polearm from her back. "Goblins coming for all sides." She quickly points toward the little menaces for anyone else who draws arms.
I don't really have much to say other than telling Brodent that Efan wants to meet him, so I think I'm good to move on too.
"You're father buys into the whole honor thing too much. I mean, there's remembering your culture and then there's looking for an excuse to treat a kid like sh*t. I can't say that I wouldn't have done the same. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to stay in a house where I wasn't wanted." Shara sighs, realizing that she's not really helping. "Maybe you and Tsuto can patch things up just between you two. Your dad may never like him, but he's still your brother and you still love him, right? Like I said, who cares what your assh*le dad thinks?" She shakes herself. "Well, this has turned into a rather depressing talk for a festival, hasn't it? How about we head over to the church together? I'm sure that the speech will be suitably inspiring and uplifting." Sure enough, Father Zantus has a simple, but sufficiently inspirational speech ready for the Swallowtail release. The array of color is beautiful. Shara even grudgingly admits to herself that nature can create some wonderful things all on its own. She bids Ameiko farewell with a smile, and hopefully a bit better mood than their conversation had ended on, and goes to look for her mentor. If there are visitors interested in seeing him, she should at least warn him that they're about.
"I've been trying not to curse out people just for being assh*les as much these days. My teachers at the academy always got mad when I blew up doors when I got into an argument with someone." She frowns slightly. She didn't actually know Tsuto all that well. "He and your dad still hate each other?" She bites her own tongue, immediately regretting her words. "Eh, forget him. You found something you like doing. No reason to let your dad being a jackass ruin it."
Shara chuckles and takes the bowl. "Maybe you should work together instead of competing then. I bet you could make the best seafood feast the town has ever seen if you put your heads together." Shara sighs. "Yes, yes, I remember what your father is like. If I recall correctly, didn't he try to forbid me from seeing you at one point because he thought I was a hooligan and a bad influence?" She just shakes her head. "No offense, but I really don't envy your family." She puts a hand on Ameiko's shoulder. "But who cares what your dad thinks? He's a grouchy old man with way too much time on his hands. You keep doing what you love and you'll be fine."
Shara waves back as she goes to join her friend. "Well enough so far," she says with a smile. She leans over and sniffs the air, letting the spicy scent of Ameiko's cooking fill her nose and make her mouth water. "A seafood dish? Jargie is going to be p*ssed if you manage to outdo him with his own specialty." She snatches a taste of the fish and licks her lips as the salmon practically melts in her mouth. "Looks like business is going well though. The whole tavern keeper things seems to be working out well for you."
"I can't really say," Shara says with a shrug. "There's probably a shrine to the Lady of Bones over near the cemetary if nothing else, but I don't really remember." She falls silent as the speeches begin, listening to the town's leaders going on. It's hardly anything special, but they at least get the point across. She still applauds with the rest of the town, caught up in the excitement and energy of the festival. She turns to the rest of the group and smiles. "It's been a pleasure to meet you all, but I have a friend that I want to find. I'm sure we'll see each other again by the end of the day though." With that she heads toward the refreshments area to look for Ameiko.
"It's fairly common in Varisia actually. Though I suppose we're a sort of eclectic group, so they almost need to dedicate churches to more than one god. Most towns aren't big enough to handle the five or six churches and shrines they'd need otherwise." She frowns for a second, clearly trying to remember the answer to Efanydd's question. "Desna obviously and the head priest has been Desnan for longer than I've been alive. Also Erastil, Shelyn, Sarenrae..." She trails off for a second. "Abadar and Gozreh. Pretty much what you'd expect from a growing frontier town. I admit, I wasn't really the type to go to the shrine and pray when I was younger. I wouldn't have been around at all if I hadn't known the priest's daughter."
"There was a fire years ago, not long after I left to attend school in the city actually," Shara explains. "We lost the old priest and his daughter, a friend of mine. This is as much a celebration of overcoming that tragedy as it is honoring the new cathedral."
"And speaking of the festival, it's about to start. We wouldn't want to miss the opening ceremonies." Shara smiles brightly. "I can show you the way, if you're not familiar with the town yet." She gestures for the others to follow her and leads the way toward the square. The new cathedral make it look like the old one was never gone, but she can't help feeling a little sorrow for those lost in the old building's destruction.
They did change that a while ago, but there's no reason you can't change that if it's more interesting to do something different.
"I... can't argue with that," Shara admits. "But in the end magic is only a tool. Any dangers are the result of the wielder, not the power itself. And I think most people would agree that mages who abuse their powers are a problem for anyone in any time." She shakes her head. "But now this discussion is getting far too philosophical and heavy for festival day. We can discuss the ethics of magic some other time."
"It's a particularly odd theory, but not entirely impossible," Shara explains to the new arrival. He seems much more like a warrior type, but muscle is still useful when dealing with dangerous ruins. "Ancient Thassilon was capable of incredible feats of magic that have never been recovered, even after all the millennia since its fall. Those secrets could completely change the world as we know it."
"Of a sort. Brodert was my teacher and mentor for many years, though I've been away for quite a while expanding my education for a while. We've recently started collaborating again, so perhaps colleagues would be a better way to put it now." She shakes the elf's hand. He seems quite a lot like the other elves who passed through: a bit formal and focused. "I believe I could do that, after the festival of course. I believe he's likely busy today. And if you're interested in exploring the Light's secrets, perhaps we can collaborate."
That makes sense. Brodert is also the local scholar, so it makes sense that Gao would have met him at least once.
Shara's eyebrow pops up when she hears her mentor's name. Perhaps the more interesting one is the elf rather than the red-head. "Pardon me," she says, walking toward the small group of outsiders. "I didn't really mean to overhear, but well... I did. You're researching the Old Light, yes?" She offers a hand to the tall elf. "My name is Shara Alazna, and I've been Brodert Quink's student for a number of years. And I've been working on the same project for the last few weeks."
Shara arrives at the festival grounds with a few minutes to spare and takes the time to wander between the stands. Everyone finally seems to have gotten their cheer back after everything that's happened in the last few years. She can't even remember the last time she saw this many people smiling and happy in town. "Maybe things are finally turning around. And just as I come home too. Lucky me." She finds someone selling sweetmeats and picks out a treat to nibble on while she heads toward the cathedral. Her eyes scan over the crowd, picking out a few familiar faces from her childhood along with a number of unfamiliar ones. It seems that the traveling caravans have set up a few stands to get in on the festivities as well. She would need to visit one later and see what kind of silks they had. She could use a new scarf. As she walks into the square, she sees a most unusual sight. A Tian man and a man who has remarkably similar coloring to her own having a lively chat near one of the booths. "That's a new one. He's got the right look about him that he could be my brother." A tiny voice in the back of her head reminds her that if half the stories about her father were true, she likely has a number of brothers, but she shakes it off.
I'd think it would basically be all grease at that point.
How on earth do you deep fry butter? Wouldn't it melt?
Shara barely notices Jorgie working as she pours over Brodent's latest notes, copied into her own journal to read at her leisure. It certainly wasn't the most extremely story she'd ever heard about old Thassilon. If their knowledge of magic was half as impressive as most of the ruins seemed to imply, magical weapons of mass destruction would have been child's play for them. She sips a cup of tea and jots more details into the margins of the page to remind herself what to look for later when she has time to do some research of her own. Uncovering the secrets of the Old Light would be an excellent first discovery to jump start her reputation. Even sharing the credit with her mentor would still show her chops as an archaeologist. Her head snaps up and she pushes a stray strand of bright red hair from her dusky face. "What? Oh, is it that late already?" She glances out the window to see the sun high in the sky. "I must have been completely buried in my notes." She packs away her notes and hops to her feet. "Thank you Uncle Quinn." She stands and absently grabs her emerald cloak from the back of the chair. After poking her head out the door, she folds it away in her pack rather than put it on in the warm sun and straightens her matching dress to make sure that it's clean and straight. Her mother had nearly had a heart attack when she'd seen the neckline, but she was quite satisfied with it. And it was the latest style, made of silk from halfway around the world and designed by the finest designers in Egorian. She pulled her hair back with a quick twist to keep it off her neck and headed downtown. Hopefully she wasn't too late.
I heard from him last night and he said hopefully today. Updates have been going up for his other games for a while now, so hopefully soon.
It does finally seem to be up again. Hopefully we can get things started relatively soon.
I'm still here too. The sites downtime is probably making it hard for Loup to post. It's getting ridiculous.
The inquisitor who's amazing at lying versus the inquisitor who's great at detecting them. That would be a thing to see.
I'm in PA, so Eastern Time along with a lot of other people. I generally post on and off through the whole day though, so I could be on anywhere from noon until 3AM.
Shara will probably be support for that. Fly is only a third level spell and Overland Flight is fifth, so I'll get it around the time you get your wings. Plus raining fireballs and meteors from above is awesome for a blaster caster.
I can certainly allocate points periodically to Diplo to back you up. My first Stat bump will go to INT which will give me a few more points to play with. But Raj isn't a face character per se. He's socially reserved and his MO is to go relatively unnoticed. That said, I'm willing to throw some resources to Diplo so you can stay a bit more focused on boosting your class-related skills.I'll just have to use Raj as a 'quiet influencer'. Yeah, that's what I meant to say, he can do it mechanically, it just doesn't seem like the kind of thing that fits him. Don't stress about it, I can manage face skills fine. My high Int means that I'll have plenty of skill ranks to throw around by the time we hit mid game.
A +7 is decent at 1st level. I do like playing face characters though, so it's no really stretch to make it work for me. And a few of my abilities scale of Cha since I'm an arcanist, so I can afford to put some resources into boosting it mechanically too. Though Int needs to be the priority because I cast off Int and all. Rajuna could actually be decent at Diplomacy too, if he had room to put ranks in it, but he seems more a Bluff and Intimidate kind of guy instead of Diplomacy. And having all the roguish sneaky skills is rather skill point intensive. EDIT: Nice backstory for Matoska. He's going to really, really hate the goblins when they show up, isn't he?
Regarding build (sorry, haven't been able to get on most of today), Shara's really supposed to be a blaster focused on dealing a lot of damage and hitting wide areas mixed with battlefield control with walls, pits, and disabling spells. Standard tactics are throwing around fireballs, various cones and blasts, and separating and disabling priority targets with control spells so we can peel encounters apart piece by piece. Buffs will mostly be stuff to make her more efficient in combat. Her Fighter levels are more about making her survive longer when she needs to get in close, but she'd much rather have a more dedicated combat character between her and the bad guys. Outside of combat, she's good at Knowledge and Social skills and that's about it. I don't think we have much of a party face yet, so she can take that up, in which case I'll put a bit more focus into Charisma and social skills. I also plan to take some enchantment spells to help with that kind of thing, as well as possibly working intimidate into my combat tricks.
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