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I'm sorry, I've just been snowed lately, bad, bad Dien. And this section of the thing does have the risk of bogging down in the rolls. I'd suggest we pick two people who each have a high in the primary, and try and divide aids between them, gives a little insurance against primary rolling low but still lets us benefit from aids some. Going to go post in game right now. ...eta: well, so far Jikan and I are equally bad at perceiving, haha. Hey, didn't we have a naturey-druid-y guy with us? Where'd he go? ;) ;) I guess the people who haven't rolled yet might be best trying to pile onto Korum's roll.
"What th'... what IS that thing, other than ugly?" Shaya says, head whipping to try and follow the racing creature's movements. "--sorry, Shelyn, I mean, what um, is that thing that doesn't conform with my expectations of aesthetics. --though I'm pretty sure it's ugly inside." With glaive in hand, Shaya tries to examine the beast a little closer. With the glaive. So to speak.
"EY, GET BACK HERE AND SAY THAT," Shaya laughs, enjoying the even deeper echo of her voice around the cavern while she's in this towering form.
Apparently Korum's not far enough away to not be caught up with and have his head knuckled mercilessly. Shaya is far too busy with this task to manage delicate tracking or clue-hunting.
Shaya blinks as the world gets smaller! "Ooh, this again! Alright! Hey Korum! I'm definitelythe bigger sibling. --I got no idea what the bugs are either but let's find out if they splat." Swinging her glaive overhead-- and over the heads of the front line-- she tries to smack the little critter.
Sadly, while her strike is strong it isn't accurate-- possibly she's too worried about hitting her friends.
Shaya pulls out the gem they found in their first mission for the Society with a smile. "Knew this would come in handy."
"Let me see if there's anything naughty up there, hang on." Pushing her way to the lead, Shaya scans the chamber beyond after a quick prayer to Shelyn. "Holy Shelyn, if there's anything spiritually ugly in here, please let me know, thank you."
(Shaya has spent the downtime eating and cooking, and foisting the results of her cooking on her new friends. Some of these recipes turn out better than others, but the perpetually optimistic half-orc is never daunted by these failures...) In the office, she listens. "Yeah, looks like Nelk. Hey, buddy, you got a brother in Averaka...? No? Okay..." "So, I guess we got no information who made this weird maze, well, what else is new. Alright, team, let's do this! Let's make sure we buy, uh, chalk... and string..." Shaya counts off on her fingers. "So WE don't get lost too, you know. Hey, does anyone got one of those wayfindy things yet?"
We actually have the campaign numbers in the spreadsheet! But not immediately visible perhaps. It's one of the sub-sheets. I'll add Dulcinea to it. Here's Shaya though:
Upaynao, you look like you're already listed as a reporter on the event to me. Let me know if it doesn't give you the option.
Shaya glances sidelong at Klo, then glances again as it seems he isn't about to stay his enormous spear. For one second, she hesitates, then steels herself to step in front of the warrior and their surrendered enemy... ...but Klo catches himself before the blow can land. Shaya exhales... and misses her brother's own brief flirtation with a darker thought, perhaps, so worried was she about Klo. "That's right," she says swiftly in response to Korum. "Surrender given and honored. I'll take the second round of drinks. I'm not sure Celeena will be buying any, though, as she's got a hot date with the city guard."
Shaya resists the urge to explain how doing the RIGHT thing is better than any sort of pay. Mostly because she suspects she'll never hear the end of it if Korum's ploy gets blown. With her glaive back in hand she approaches the door.... "Hey! Those ugly things again. --sorry, I shouldn't call you ugly. Beauty's on what's on the inside, not the outside-- well honestly you might not be that great on the inside either," Shaya muses to herself as she strides in to have room to swing.
"--okay, let's just see what you have inside, then I'll know."
Relieved at the apparent bypassing of bloodshed, Shaya finds a tentative smile for the first mercenary they are passing by. The lie sticks in her throat, but better a lie than a death, she thinks... ...and then there's undead.
"Whut," Shaya says with a blink as skeletons advance. Well, this at least is straightforward. Without the room to draw and use the glaive she just stowed, she snatches up her club from her belt instead and strikes at the closest undead.
However, her surprise seems to be evident in the less-than-accurate strike.
Hearing her brother spinning lies, Shaya makes an uncomfortable face It's a little too late to try and stand out of sight. "Yeah. We're... muscle," she says with a throat clearing. She always feels itchy when she lies even a little bit, but she doesn't want to ruin Korum's play, here. Besides.... if they can get past these men without killing them, that's a greater good, she believes. That lends a bit more credence to her words as she slings the glaive over her back and says earnestly: "We don't want trouble with you. Honest."
Shaya grimaces at her brother's comment to Klo. "He's nice! And shy! We have to work with these people, don't make them scared. Remember, mainlanders often have PREJUDICES about HALF-ORCS," she lectures/whispers. "We have to show them those aren't true. Through kindness and care." More loudly: "Yargul, how about you go first with that shield, and Korum can peek over your shoulder for trouble? Then Dulcinea after me, and then... Jikan and Klo? That way if anything nasty comes up behind us, you won't get eaten whole," Shaya informs Jikan, with a Reassuring Pat to his head. Because kindness and care "So! Forward?"
Shaya yelps as the fire singes her and the others, wincing in the aftermath, touching at her missing eyebrows and blistered skin. "Owww! Where'd that come from, gah..." Yargul's healing almost instantly soothes away the pain, and she blinks, then gives the half-elf a big pat on the back. "Shoot, thanks! You're a handy fellow to have. Can you get my eyebrows back? no? Darn." Before Shaya can turn her attention from her lack of eyebrows to the puzzle, Klo's stumbled across the answer. Shaya side-eyes the big 'simple fisherman', wondering if he's sandbagging, but in the end she takes up a spot at the rear to guard things...
Shaya peers around her brother's shoulder as the door gets opened. "What's all that, frescos? Hey, it's art! I know about art!" There's a pause, then: "--okay I don't know about that art. It looks like creepy cult stuff. Those people don't have faces. Hey, shield boy! You wanna go down first? I'll lower ya." She grins, toothily. "...or I guess we could just use the ladder," she amends, once her brother points it out. He's the one with the good eyes.
Pulling a scroll from her pack, Shaya checks on Yargul after Klo stabilizes him. "You don't look great, buddy."
Brushing the scroll dust from her fingers, Shaya frowns at the surrendered guards-- the one unconscious. "Yeah, you can get your buddy to a cleric... once we're done here. I can't say I REALLY trust you not to go make trouble if we let you walk out right now. Anyway, he'll live." She moves over to the trapdoor, wrinkling her nose at it. "Korum, this is your area of expertise, right? Think it's safe?"
Shaya hurries up, views that there's not a lot of room for glaive smacking and that people with smaller weapons may want the prime territory next to Yargul, and instead settles for.... a warning, at the guard with the blue bandanna. "Riiiiight. See this rose? It means I worship Shelyn. She's a nice lady. Queen of Beauty. Probably, your face is in the most beautiful configuration possible right now, the one the gods intended. But buddy if you don't lay down arms and let us pass there's a not-insignificant chance I'm gonna have to rearrange it to something less pleasing to my goddess. And that would make me sad."
Shaya knows from past experience she is not at all quiet. Her brother's told her that. A lot. With a lot of wincing at her attempts. So she hangs back with the others, whispering Shelyn fangirlism to the new 'knight.' "So do you practice any kind of art! I'm going to be a painter, I'm just not very good at it yet..."
"Hey! Hi, welcome!" Shaya says with her usual enthusiasm at seeing the new face. "Oh, wow, I really like your hair-clip..." This with a (very toothy) grin as Shaya holds up her own dangling Shelyn-rose, those hers just hangs on a chain around her neck. "It's nice tomeetcha! I'm Shaya, and this lunk here's my brother, Korum. And-- well I guess everyone else can speak for themselves, heh, sorry, I'm pretty chatty! So is Kul-Amon but I think he got in a fight at the docks. Anyway." She tries to drag her attention back to the briefing. "Wow, treason? Serious stuff. Are they not supposed to be here, this family, with the fake name and all? Can't we just say, hey, city guards, this family that tried to sell out the city ten years ago is still here under a FAKE NAME and trying to do it again? No?" Shaya frowns. "Okay, well, we'll do our best. Do we know anything about Celeena? Or what her house is like?"
When she catches sight of her brother, Shaya beams massively and breaks into a jog on the docks, causing a few people to worriedly get out of the way of the armored half-orc collision. "BRO! "Yeah, yeah, whatever, I think the ogre was making eyes at you big brother. Anyway you didn't miss much, we crawled around sewers a lot. They REALLY stink. That's mainland civilization for you I guess. Yeah, hopefully we'll see Kara again but I guess the Lodge cap'ns will run you with a full team one way or another. Suits me. So this is Absalom, huh?! Wow! I think I smell street food. I'll meet you at the Lodge, I just, you know... wanna check out the local food options..."
"Oh man. Big guy, camping's nice and all, but.... hot meals!" Shaya counters with a pat to Klo's sinewy forearm. At Kul, she gives a slight blink. "No, it's a metaphor, it means.... you know what, it's alright, I'll take you both to a bar. Hot mutton stuffed with rice, and poached fish, and a rich, dark beer, and a thick crusty bread with cheese-- you'll like it, I promise." Turning to Jikan and Yargul, she grins. "How about it, half-size and shieldy? I'll get the first round of drinks. If it's not a green bar, Kul-Amon and I can make it one." The half-orc looks wistful. "If anyone wants to go to an art museum with me after they can..."
Shaya is very happy to change into clean, non-stinky sewer clothes. "I can't believe my brother got to miss that!" she exclaims repeatedly, probably to the annoyance of her fellow agents, as she makes her way back with the others to report at the lodge. "Next time, I'm dunking him in. Just you see." At the dinner, Shaya grins. "Time off? Great! So Kul-Amon, do you know any green bars? Oh, oh, or maybe there are art museums!"
"....good hit, big guy," Shaya says with a pat to Klo's over-large forearm, since she can't really reach his shoulder when he's magically tall. "Yeah, I think that's that. She was obviously the brains behind all this... I bet the goblins will go back to just being a nuisance." Shaya cleans blood from her glaive carefully. "Let's see if she had anything on her that's better off in Society hands. It's a shame some people prefer to act ugly than on their potential for inner beauty, but I'm glad we could make the area safer." Shaya searches the de-headed body with a little grimace for the grisliness of the task. "Maybe we should check around, see if these aspiring thieves had other ill-gotten loot squirreled away?"
For a second the fear grows stronger yet, and Shaya freezes up-- but just in time she blocks the bugbear's blow with her glaive. Her cheerful face turns dark. "I deal in beauty, not fear," she rasps. "But if you only speak one language... I'll acclimate." She takes a step back and strikes with her glaive.
"Aw come on, really?!" Shaya shouts. "Well, damn, I woulda listened too! Shelyn, it's hard to trust to beauty when people are backstabbers!" The half-orc lowers her head in a fashion not unlike a bull. "But alright, we'll do it that way."
Shaya bursts into a run, leading with her glaive, bellowing wordlessly in a roar.
"Hey, if you gotta rest, you gotta rest," Shaya says with a pat on the shoulder to the captain. She yells to the speaker: "We're sort of a democratic operation! But who's you, and why should we trust you? You don't sound like a goblin but I'm tired of getting lit on fire and stuff!"
"You know what, I guess you're probably okay," Shaya says cheerfully, and walks forward with her big glaive slung on one shoulder. "See, it's all about redemption..."
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