Lady Jenise goes and helps the blind Ohak down the steps as he starts to make his way. "Thank you for your help. Hopefully your eyesight can be restored." Seeing Lothar rise, "I believe so, thought it's hard to understand him at times." She gives Nark a smile before continuing, "I am curious what the birdman thought to accomplish by this attack. I had thought Karbal wanted us alive, so did he turn on him, or are there other games afoot?" Lady Jenise attempts to plant the thought into Ohak as she aids him.
posting in advance, since it appears they are retreating, Xzot won't take any further action to chase them down unless someone else in the party does. When combat's over, I'll post up again.
Hope you don't mind Ormak, but I moved us both on the map.
Xzot follows Ormak, seeing the scene before them. "Call off your ratmen, Pauhan, and you might survive this conflict. I'd prefer to end this like men, not animals."
I technically can't Intimidate since I double moved, but I threw out the threat. Next round I'll probably do it unless things change dramatically.
Xzot will double move down the hallway on it's action. If Ormak doesn't take the spot next to Ohak, that's where I'll go. Otherwise just beside Ormak in the hally. Just an FYI.
It was my surprise round action, I just hadn't actually moved myself on the map at the time. See my post on August 14 @ 10:20am. Unless you'd rather not count it, which is fine. I'll still move up to it and provoke.
Lady Jenise strikes with her rapier to the ratfolk north of her. "Come Lony, shouldn't a good wolf like you know enough of pack tactics to flank with myself against this creature?""Stupid wolf, MOVE!"
Attack:1d20 + 6 ⇒ (16) + 6 = 22 Damage:1d6 ⇒ 6
Not really expecting much, but hey, you never know. Wolves are pack animals. Also, just reiterating, italics are thought ;p Oh, and another thing, at work so I can't edit Google Docs, can someone please move me to O8 now that it's confirmed, thanks in advance!
Seeing who has come up the stairs, trained instincts take over. In a quiet voice, Xzot begins to issue orders, "Flametouched, make sure he isn't going to die. Nark, see if you can find out what's down there, Lothar back him up. Take no chances though, it's obviously hostile. Just get information." It gestures to Pauhan in response. "Ormak and I will be ready to charge in if there's trouble."
Lady Jenise draws her rapier, shifting her clothes to a darker outfit to help blend in to the room, taking a position near the door to strike from the shadows if needed.
"Point taken on that then. This needs to be a group effort." She considers for a moment. "What is your opinion, Flametouched. Should we attempt escape?"
Lady Jenise smiles despite the harshness of the situation, then turns serious again. "So Karbal believes our guard to be sufficiently strong enough to keep us here. What do you believe our chances are of subduing him?" She asks the others, more martially inclined.
"I had already considered that option. The only way for it to be effective would to silence the goblin, and I'm not quite ready to go that far, if he promises to behave himself."
"It is an honor to have your best man protect us this evening, Master Karbal." Lady Jenise heads back up to the room with the others.
Once back in the room, Lady Jenise makes a quick check to see if anyone is listening before talking to the others. "As it stands right now, Karbal doesn't believe a word of what happened. I was speaking with Red Mualla, odds are it will be a very long time before Karball will let us leave. And our best chance at subterfuge went up in smoke this afternoon." She gives a mean stare at Nark before continuing. "So I'm looking for opinions on how to handle this, and get us all out alive."
"Cahoot's? He's my employee, hired on to prevent him from being thrown overboard. Perhaps my philanthropy has become a bit of a burden at this point. Of course you can't truly expect to hold the rest of us for what this one MAY have done?" Lady Jenise puts emphasis on the word may, enforcing the fact he is not yet guilty.
"And how are we to know Nark wasn't coming to speak to you about this allged gold, and the ratfolk attempted to silence him? If he was there, that is, and he knew about this alleged gold. As you said, the two of you have met before, perhaps it's some form of goblin loyalty. The Host knows you can't understand what they are thinking most of the time as it stands. And you've already established these ratfolk have hidden information from you."
At this point, trying to sow enough doubt in Karbal's head to not act hastily at least. Buy us until tomorrow.
Lady Jenise only smiles as Xzot thinks to itself, "You're not the only one who doesn't want to be here."
While Ormak does his tracking, Lady Jenise walks up to Karbal, deciding a gamble was in order. "I must say, it looks pretty bad, the five of us just strolling into town like this and a fire starting that night. Would make one consider us to be the troublestarters. Of course, we were in your Inn at the time, and we did help put it out. Doesn't make quite much sense for us to have done it. Of course if someone didn't like us..." She leaves the words hanging as she searches the crowd for Pauhan. If I find him, I'll focus my gaze on him for a moment, flashing him a smile, before continuing.
In a lower voice, she continues, "And remember, all because someone has proven loyal in the past, doesn't mean they can't betray you thinking they are helping."
Once the guards are clear, Xzot will attempt to head back to the inn, with Lony in tow (if willing to follow). She'll attempt to take a back route, away from the crowd at the fire, though won't hide or look suspicious while heading back to the tavern.
Xzot turns to Nark, and drags him into any nearby shadows. "Listen to me right now you big toothed hooligan, if I'm going to have any chance of getting both of us out of this, I need to know RIGHT NOW and the TRUTH of what just happened. Spill it, or so help me that ogress will be having fried goblin with a side of wolf steak."
If I overstepped any bound on that Nark, let me know and I'll hold back next time.
The irritation taking ahold of Xzot, the changeling takes a look around to see if anyone else is looking before climbing the fence and heading in the direction of Nark. "I should kill them both and turn 'em in to Karbal, just to get on his good side."
If able to and no one is in sight, Xzot will sneak up on whatever is attacking Nark and attempt to finish it off quickly.
"Nark is gonna die, and I'm gonna do it!" Xzot thinks to himself, sneaking towards the fence, trying to see if he can find out what kind of trouble the little goblin is in.
Lady Jenise considers, ignoring the creatures, but instead asks them in a hushed and whispered tone, retreiving a gold piece to hand to them. "Have you seen a goblin around here? Travels with a wolf."
"It would be best to find him, and quickly. If he does get caught, it will look bad on all of us. The rest of you help the blaze, I'll try to find that little goblin."
Xzot will change it's outfit into something a little more mundate before going out.
"Expected, though not what I had hoped," Xzot thinks to himself. He turns to the others. "And what of you two? Employ or not, Lothar, this is not what I hired you on for. Your opinion matters a great deal at this junction. And I still know little of you, Ormak. As of this moment, like it or not we are all allies, and if my fears do come true, we may only be able to trust each other."
"Well that certainly isn't good news to hear." Xzot ponders this for a moment. "Well, we will have to deal with that when the time comes. I'm more concerned of our immediate circumstance. Things that were said, I'm not sure leaving this town will be as easy as walking out the gate. I truly do not trust this Karbal. He seemed a tad interested in whether help was coming for us. Plus there's Pauhan downstairs, the bird man. Either lucky at guessing or too observant for his own good. If it wouldn't draw suspicion on me, I'd see about him not waking up tomorrow."
"From what you saw, how easy do you think it would be to escape from here? How secure are the walls?"
"Why, Master Harmon, you certainly know how to make a girl blush. Though it seems my compaions have returned. If you all don't mind, I must see to them. Of course, if you're here tomorrow I might have to join you again." She winks at Harmon, then turns to Pauhan. "And you as well. I still need to win that story out of you." With that, Lady Jenise gets up and joins Flametouched and Ormak.
"Well then, let us get Pauhan is winnings. I'll start with the story of Chlora. If you wish to continue the next hand, please feel free.
"Chlora was a teacher during my university days, taught Khorvaire history. Older, but still pretty for her age. Despite this she was still single, and as far as my friends and I knew hadn't been seeing anyone. We thought it was strange. So we all decided to learn more about her. We learned a few surprising things.
"To start with she never socialized outside of classes. With anyone. Straight from university to her home. She never received guests either, not a one. And she had a magnificent home, large and spacious, left to her by her father. She only had one servant, and he was forbidden to speak of her. Did all her shopping as well. And then there were the packages, sealed shut for no one to see. All suspicious.
"Well, one day we decided to learn what sinister things Chlora was up to. We happened upon a day where one of the packages was delivered to her house. A friend had procured a scroll to open her door, and we went through her house, attempting to learn her secrets. Of course as soon as we found her basement stairs, those are what we took. We began to have doubts then, and I volunteered to go forward alone.
"I crept down into the basement, to an ominous portal, slightly ajar with light coming from it. I heard Chlora talking beyond, so I quietly snuck all the way up, right until I was about to sneak a glance inside. Of course, I had chosen to wear a dress still that day and tripped right over the hem, crashing through the door.
"That's when I learned Chlora's sinister secret. Prepared for anything from demonic summoning to a death cult, I wasn't prepared for what I saw, the truly horrific site before me. Chlora....was BALD!" Lady Jenise cannot help but stifle a laugh at this point.
"Of course, I'm sure you can't understand how dreadful such a thing to be. So pretty, only to have her hair a lie. We ended up talking for hours. Learned it was an accident with some magical device to enhance her hair. No magic had been able to restore it. A sad thing that was, for her to change her entire life over such a horrible secret.
"To know such a terrible secret about a person who has become a good friend, you should feel honored I shared it with you all. And by the by, Pauhan, my name is Tyra, as real to me as your own is to you."
"Who doesn't have a few skeletons in their closet? Mine is named Chlora. Would the table rather hear her story, or shall I repeat how I came to the Holt for my bet?" [ooc]Lady Jenise will agree to either.
I understand them. Am I able to do Profession (Gambler) untrained then in this case? If so, I'll roll them below.
"Thank you, Master Harmon, but I must say, sitting out this game? I might have to deprive you the honor of hearing my name if one of your fellows happen to beat my hand. Of course I could see Pauhan here letting such a worthy prize out to all. How such a handsome beak can make such accusations, I'll never know."Trying to throw off Pauhan as well, not sure if you want a roll for that.
Lady Jenise picks up her cards, smiling at the Tengu. "My, my, my Pauhan, you must truly be an entertainer to come up with such stories. That sounds like the plot of Pantio's Le sentier des Anges. An excellent play, I must say. I took in an entire gnomish production of it while I was in Zilargo a couple years back. And besides, I already put my wager as my first name for the good Master Harmon. If you'd like to bet against that as well, then please feel free."
"Well if you wish to get a little more personal, you'll have to beat me in hand, won't you." She returns Harmon's smile as she waits for the cards. "Of course, you'd have to wager something as well. Any ideas?"
Lady Jenise takes the proferred seat. "Thank you, Master Harmon. And a pleasure to meet you. The rest as well, Vau, Dell, Pauhan. My companions and myself might be here for awhile, so thought I'd get to know some of the major residents in town. Lady Jenise is my name. You must tell me more about this town, it's people. So far from everything, I'm sure it has a fascinating story."
"Well, if you'll excuse me Master Karbal, I think I might just go introduce myself." Lady Jenise takes her leave of Karbal and goes over to their table. "Good day gentlemen. Don't suppose you'd mind if I join you for a game?"
"A woman of my standing, I should say they will as soon as they hear we didn't arrive at our destination. I suppose another reason to stay in town awhile. Why risk the dangers out there when we can simply wait for them to come to us."
Wanting to Sense Motive on Karbal, both on the status of the citizens and on his reaction to the possibility of help coming.
"I guess we'll have to see how friendly the locals are. The prospect of marching all that way doesn't sound all that appealing myself. I mean, the shock from the crash alone, it's more than a girl like me should be exposed to. Might have to stay a few days, recover and everything." She pauses to sip at her drink before continuing. "So why don't you tell me about some of your residents here? Like that group over there playing cards."
Pulling up to the bar, Lady Jenise orders a drink from Karbal, making some conversation. "Well now, Master Karbal, I must say you have a very comopolitan city here, a strange sight in this area. You must tell me all about it, I find it quite fascinating."
