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With a cry bigger than her frame would suggest, Valentina steps to the side in order to start getting around the wolf attacking Fendir. She thrusts her rapier in towards it.
Drawing her rapier, Valentina moves over next to Fendir, frowning. Sparing a glance over her shoulder to the wounded hunters, Valetina's eyes linger on their wounds. "I'm not excited about this," she sighs. "Can we all fight?"
Valentina nods. "Simple animals don't kidnap people," she says. "I think something has to be up."
Valentina's contribution to the conversation about their next heading: Asking about the particulars! They're very important! "How much food do we have?" she asks, "And what's the difference between the headings? It doesn't make much sense to me to go the wrong way unless we're literally running out of food."
Valentina furrows her brows, thinking about the situation before she speaks up. "You guys realize we could die, right? These aren't just harmless little birds. Is it really worth that chance, just for a few eggs?" "Besides," she thinks, "Isn't it a little rude to kill wild animals and steal their babies?"
Same. I meant to post some scathing criticisms in Gameplay, but it slipped my mind! I'll voice my mind now.
Valentina shrugs. "I'm not sure why we'd bother with this, unless any of you have a way to control or influence animals. Do you?"
Valentina rolls her eyes. She hadn't considered that Kalig being a half-orc might color her judgment, but she also knew that she couldn't just agree with the woman because of the prejudice against her. She shrugs. "You're the ones that jumped first to drawing weapons and barking orders." She sighs. "It's beside the point. It's over now. You won't find me sneaking away to secretly ask them to join us anyway, I'm abiding by Aristide's judgment. I just," she continues, turning to Aristide, "don't believe that we should be using that incident as precedent for further decisions."
Don't worry, I'm not too easily offended :) I'm trying to play Valentina as sort of a "woke" college student, so she's gonna claim moral high ground and intellectual superiority sometimes. Also, her family was just executed by some small-minded a&&%+$&s, so she's on the lookout for that. Hopefully we'll get along after we have to UNITE to handle bigger threats (probably).
Valentina shakes her head. "I'm not going to argue with you about this. You aren't going to convince me that I'm wrong, and it's already past."
Valentina steps up beside Dorick, adding her frank and honest words to the conversation: "Yes, but just because we turned the last people away does not mean that we should turn away all future people. That sets a dangerous precedent. We are moving into this land. We are the invaders. We should learn to live with and work alongside others." "Besides," she says, "It was a mistake to turn away the previous group. The reasoning behind it was essentially, 'they're lying about it being hard to live out here', and the speakers were a rich knight and a druid." She shrugs. "Harkan and his people appear honorable, in any case. And I don't see why we should have to draw from our own supplies in order to feed them. I assume they have their own food. I assume that they will cultivate their own farms."
Valentina's eyes are icy with determination. "I would guarantee it to you, if you saw fit," she says. "I refuse to allow this one chance we have at a new life to be colored by racism and greed. That's not how I will start my new life."
Valentina blinks. "How about you just come with us?" she asks.
"Why do you live here?" asks Valentina. "I mean, specifically here?" She smiles charmingly to try and put them at ease. "I mean, I'm just curious. Was this just the only place you could find?"
Valentina goes along with the others, pulling on her lamellar cuirass and strapping on her rapier before they take off. While she doesn't know Orc, she calls out nonetheless. "We're not here to fight!" she shouts. "If you're not interested in trading, we'll just leave!"
"Maybe we should go and say hi?" volunteers Valentina. "Maybe they can trade food for money or spells or something."
Valentina waits to see whether Soraya's owl sees anything before she makes any complete judgments, but she definitely doesn't think that such a thing should be investigated one way or the other.
What difference does it make?
As the caravan packs up and gets ready to go, Valentina is awake as well, trying her best to manage the disparate groups and make sure that there is peace between everyone while they are on the road. If she has time, she tells stories to children, or does her (likely inexperienced) best to help adults with their tasks to lighten their loads. Mabel she trusts to lead their pack mule alone while the group travels, but she still comes back every hour or so just to check on her.
Valentina just snorts and turns her back on the congregation.
Valentina only has to look at Dorick as he rides back towards the group and passes her, shaking her head. She grumbles, and wishes that she could wash her hands of the whole situation, but his and the half-orc's weapon-shaking make her nervous. She jogs back to listen.
Valentina looks wide-eyed at the half-orc woman. When had she signed on with such bloodthirsty savages? Were they really willing to kill over a sack of potatoes? Becoming worried, she takes off after Dorick at a run.
Valentina shakes her head. "What an a@@!$~&."
If I'm going to be playing Mabel as well as Valentina... can I make an alias for her? Would that be annoying?
"How many are you?" asks Valentina quickly.
Valentina runs up beside Dorick and Fendir. With a gentle hand, she pushes down Dorick's bardiche - "Gods, calm down and put your weapon down! These people aren't a threat to your life, so stop being a threat to theirs!" She rolls her eyes at the man, and then crouches down to speak to the two who ran into one another. "Hey, somebody bring the other one over here, ok?" She looks at one of them. "Your friends took something from us. We'd like to go take it back, and then we can all go our separate ways. Can you tell us where to find them?"
Valentina rolls her eyes at the hobgoblin leader. "Showoff," she mutters to herself. As the journey begins, she approaches the caravan master and volunteers her services to him, hoping to make sure that the caravan is run as efficiently as possible (and perhaps dull his abrasive attitude a bit).
Valentina smiles at the old dwarven priest as he tells her of his faith. She hopes she gets the chance to meet him again, under less rushed circumstances. Not speaking Dwarven, she still cheers when the priest finishes his benediction, and sets out with the rest when the caravan moves to start out. She and Mabel are walking, with the bulk of their heavy stuff on a pack saddle, being carried by their horse this time. When the doors open up, she audibly gasps. "Wow..." she murmurs.
Valentina looks upon the wizened dwarf, having mostly mentally skimmed through what Aristide had said. His fancy words held about half as much meaning as the time he spent saying them, as far as she was concerned. She bows her head briefly to the high priest. "Bolka? Tell me about your god, if you would. I didn't study dwarven religions in school, and would be happy to hear about yours."
Valentina inwardly (but not outwardly) rolls her eyes at the caravan master's grandstanding. He had to wait until moments before departure for this grandstanding? Was there some reason he didn't know already that there would be hobgoblins along for the journey? Maybe Aristide hadn't told everyone, which showed a really severe lapse in judgment, in Valentina's opinion.
"Please, listen," she says to the caravan master. "I don't like these hobgoblins any more than you do, but Aristide has given his voucher, and they haven't actually done anything wrong yet." She points back vaguely towards the camp. "I have a young sister. We're trying to reach safety, far from Galt, as fast as possible. Right now, you're in the way of that much more than these grayskins. Please... Can you just let it go for now, so that we can set off?"
Valentina is also up early, saddling the horse, preparing provisions and making sure everything is ready before Mabel wakes up. She makes sure to go out and get some hot dwarven street food for the little girl's breakfast (eating only a little bit herself) before waking her sister and telling her to eat and get dressed.
Seeing the disturbance, Valentina heads over to the argument, the Viscount, and the hobgoblin leader to see if she could learn something or do something. Maybe the hobgoblins had done something wrong already, but damned if Valentina wasn't going to make sure. "What's up?" she says, cavalierly.
Valentina quietly tells Mabel a story from her own childhood, and then the pair bed down, ready for the travel the next day.
Valentina doesn't feel safe bringing Mabel to dinner in an isolated spot with hobgoblins, so when she's finished buying supplies for the journey, she simply finds some hot dwarven food with Mabel and sits in the spot she's carved out for them. For the rest of the evening, she speaks with Mabel about her dreams for the coming settlement. This Viscount Aristide seems like a good man, something for which Valentina is very grateful. If they can all make it through the journey and their destination is fertile and verdant, she sees a bright future ahead of them.
Mabel isn't actually napping, but rather people-watching. The young girl and the tall half-orc meet eyes for a moment, and Mabel, brave and weird girl that she is, keeps eye-contact for as long as it takes to make Kalig uncomfortable.
"Will you be okay if I leave you for a couple hours, Mabel?" asks Valentina, putting a hand on her younger sister's shoulder. Valentina pulls a scrap of parchment out of her pocket which she had prepared while on the road: things they would need in the wilderness which she hadn't purchased already. "I need to go deeper into the hold to see if they have any of these supplies." Mabel, who doesn't want to worry or burden her sister any further than she feels she already has (for what 20-year-old wants the burdens of parenthood unwillingly) flippantly says, "I was just gonna take a nap. Don't worry." Valentina nods, looks cautiously around - especially at the group of hobgoblins - but ultimately decides that this crowd is too public for anything to happen. Then, she stalks off into the city to buy some things they would need for the journey. She would pull her own weight, so she buys a few tools useful on the road, bags to carry them in on Mulligan, a tent to shelter from the elements, and an axe for woodcutting.
You got it, GM Vayelan. I've put together a buy-list for supplies: 15gp - collapsible bathtub
Total: 61.8gp Valentina will be storing most of her stuff on her horse, naturally. It's too much for her measly 10 Strength. Any other suggestions for things to buy? I have no use for scrolls, and potions are a little to expensive for the gains.
Seeing a crowd gather around the Viscount, Valentina decides to hang back for the time being. He was a cripple, and he was also still human. Nobody appreciated getting mobbed by hands wanting to be shaken and smiling faces waiting for favor. Instead, she just tries to find a bare spot to set up at, to tie up their horse, and to lay down a bedroll to sit on. It had been a long journey, and her legs were tired. "Watch out for those people, Mabel," she says, indicating the hobgoblins. "Those are hobgoblins. Known for very little more than they are known for murder, enslavement, and war."
Valentina leads their horse by its reins with Mabel on top, across the lawn. "Let's go meet our hostess, Mabel." she says. She was surprised at herself that she was surprised the Viscount was a woman. Good, she thought. Women should always rule. She waves cheerily as she gets closer. "Hello, Ms. Aristide, I'm Valentina Silverstone. I just wanted to come and say how impressed I am with all of this, and how excited I am to be a part of it."
Meandering down the last stretch of road, Valentina and her sister tiredly make the last push to the rendezvous point. Mabel, a young blonde-haired girl of ten, wears a damp traveling cloak over her outfit and rides of the pair's horse Mabel. Valentina, a young woman with buzzed hair, a grim tight look on her face, and a sword belted to her hip, walks alongside the horse. They both look dirty and tired, and have little other than saddlebags filled with hardtack and the things which they carry. "Look, Mabel," sighs Valentina, pointing at the hold. "Dwarves." Though the hardships of the last month weighed heavily on her heard, and a kernel of burning-hot anger festered for the arrogance of the revolutionaries, the sight of the settlement preparations gave Valentina hope. "Let's go see if the Viscount has any time for us," she says, and leads the horse farther in, asking around for where the leader of this expedition might be.
Mia is the true support here. I'm pretty much going to be handing out potions to the party and I'll be focusing on summoning (only 1 creature) and providing some other support with spells. She's got red hair but her name is Ravenlock? XD
I might advise against Lookout, because it's only really useful before combat, which means you'd have to use it before we get surprised, and it only has a 3-round duration. I'd advise choosing a teamwork feat that: A.) You can talk another party member into taking on a permanent basis or B.) has an immediate effect that happens during combat, such as Precise Strike, Outflank, or Escape Route. I think Escape Route is a solid choice there, because it's situational but can really save a life.
I'm in! Thank you for the selection, GM. Let's all share a little bit about our characters. I'd like to know the kind of crew that we're adventuring with. Valentina is a phantom thief rogue, which means that she's pretty s&!@ at combat, but she'll be using Diplomacy and Intimidate to debuff enemies by insulting or flustering them. She's a social activist with good education, a sister she cares very deeply for, and very strong moral fiber. She was the popular kid in school because she basically participated in every extracurricular and is friendly and charming, but now she's more withdrawn and quiet. Mechanical niche: Party Face
"Hm. You have many good points. I merely thought it was strange that you would spend so much money being on...guard, I guess?' She humms. "I thought, when I first arrived, that you were bodyguarding for somebody or working security for Emile. That you're here, guzzling perceive cues potions just out of...what, paranoia? That puzzles me."
"Well, I trust you not to spend our time on something foolish. I'll meet up with you later." says Valentina, before she splits off from Raphael to go aid Halcyon in her search of Vincent. He has a truly staggering amount of weapons for somebody who's at a party. The potions were one thing, but what was that, twelve daggers? Why does somebody even need more than one or maybe two? She frowns while Halcyon and Vincent converse. "I don't think I've ever asked... even when we had a few moments to talk." says Valentina, inquisitively. "But why are you here, at the party? You're obviously well-armed, but who hired you?" Searching Valentina results in...: -Her clockwork companion that lumbers around behind her
-In a bag (a mwk backpack) attached to the companion is: a well-made pistol and ten rounds, and the dress that she wore earlier to the party. -Valentina has her rapier at her belt, she's wearing a mithral chain shirt and she carries a clutch that contains a pair of magical keys, a set of lockpicking tools and a dagger. Valentina will grin sheepishly at anyone who searches her - it's pretty suspicious, she knows.
Valentina follows behind Raphael. "You said you want to bring somebody, or you want to stop off at somebody else's house?" asks Valentina, trailing behind him. "I mean, I'd like to see everybody safely home, especially these people who I consider my new friends. But not everybody is somebody I'll be inviting over. Especially since you have some of Emile's wine."
"I could escort somebody to their home or to my own. I never go unarmed and my clockwork servant could help quite a bit if I was to be attacked." Valentina raises an eyebrow. "I don't have much of a desire to stay here and batten down the hatches with many of the guests, as I think might happen. However, I'm also limited in who I could escort by whose home I wish to visit, or who I wish to be at my own home. Raphael, I trust you enough - do you require an escort?"
"I meant that if there was a single Galatian who opposed the war or was helping to soothe diplomatic relations, their death is a greater pointer than many Galatians of different political leanings being killed all over the city." She thinks for a moment. "We might want to look into the political dealings of those deceased when we get a chance." "Also, are you believing that everyone should have some sort of escort?"
Valentina, in the room with Helmuth, answers his request for information. "We know that she was likely poisoned hours ago, and the evidence covered up with potions of delay poison. Eduard had no relevant information about who might have been around her hours ago to poison her." She looks about the room at everyone assembled. "We also know that it's extremely unlikely that there's anybody here at the party capable of casting delay poison or creating a potion of that spell, so either the killer isn't present or the poison was purchased - a search of nearby apothecaries might yield results." "We also know that the primary reason to kill Abigail is to forment war, but mass killings of Galatians all over the city calls that specific motive somewhat into doubt."
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