Sharinda nods to the lean hildago
"No problem Ser, I'll have those out to yeh in a jiffy."
Sharinda bustles to the bar where Mitchifer is pouring drinks
"Need some lemon ice water, some pomegranite juice and some warm whole milk when yeh get a second Boss."
Right-o here's yer warm Lemon water, iced pomegranite, and a freshly juiced milk... don't mind the cow now.
Mitchifer's great belly shakes and his snakey beard writhes as he hands you the correct drinks and winks playfully.
Sharinda spills out the coins for the drinks on the bar and grimaces at Mitchifer's joke.
"Good thing you got that day job as a god's avatar Boss" She snickers
Sharinda takes the drinks and brings them to the fighting pit.
"There yeh go cutters, some fresh drinks for yeh."
Sharinda looks at Karrin
"Are yeh all right luv? Are yeh hungry? Mitchifer is just putting up some new specials if yeh'd like to try summat."
Karrin Can't help but smack her lips at the mention of food.
"I'm fine Sharinda," Karrin says pointing at the spot where the wound used to be, "it was deep but not very wide or anything. Me and Joachim are going to spar a bit more but then some food sounds great! Thanks Sharinda! We'll be a few more minutes."
Karrin turns to her companion, "you want to join me for some eats later? Sharinda's great she keeps me well fed and makes sure I never miss a meal. I'm worried that I might be putting on weight though," Karrin says patting her flat stomach, "So I got to work extra hard to burn off all that food."
After Joachim's reply . . . COMBAT:
initiative, attack, damage, cold (1d20 3=23, 1d20 7=24, 1d12 4=13, 1d6=4)
Just be thankful that 20 was for initiative and not her attack to hit!
Still Joachim needs to roll a 19 or 20 to beat Karrin's initiative
Joachim sips his pomegranite juice and sighs contentedly.
"I think after we fight a bit of food would be most welcome Lady Karrin. I have a bit of gold from my last commission still, would you do the honor of joining me for supper? "
Joachim finishes his drink, rises to his feet and prepares for combat.
Joachim's rest seems to have invigorated him. He darts forward in a blur of steel, both weapons flashing in the lantern light.
1d20+9=28, 1d20+8=25, 1d4+5=8, 1d3+4=7
Although he is able to hit Karrin, the strange forces inherent in the World Serpent Inn deflect the force of his blows. Karrin smiles and winds up her turn. Her big blue axe takes Joachim in the short ribs, the spewing blood once again freezing and the wound blackening. Joachim groans involuntarily.
"It seems you have drawn first blood again Lady Karrin." He gasps. "I will have to concede this round to you and stop a bit to heal."
"Sure thing Joachim," Karrin says lowering her guard, "take as much time as you need."
Karrin sits down against one of the walls of the pit.
"I was thinking," Karrin says eventually, "individual place names must be a dine a dozen, but deities are probably quite rare, so if you're still looking to get home maybe you should try searching for your god. Someone loyal to him might know where your home is."
Joachim nods
"I have tried that route, but I have yet to find anyone who worships Asharra, the Golden Lion, in the two months I have been here. I have not been shriven by a Prester in that whole time."
Joachim looks downcast.
"By Bell, Sand and Hawk it has been too long since I set foot in a temple and professed my allegance to the Pride of Faith."
"Don't give up hope," Karrin says, "I've only recently found a temple to Rao in Sigil. I haven't seen a temple for nearly two years before that." Karrin stops and thinks for a moment, "Hmmm, Have you met my friend Olli? He works in this big library somewhere in Sigil . . . er the cage, everyone calls it the cage, and he knows quite a bit about everything. He might be able to help you find this god of yours. I mean it's got to be written down somewhere right?"
As if Karrin's words had summoned him from Sigil, a boxy shape darkens the World Serpent Inn's common room door. Clanking loudly, with an apergillium swinging gently in the breeze above his head, the Modron O.L.L.I. walks over to the fighting pit.
"Greetings friend Karrin. It seems like a long time has passed since this unit has seen you. How have your parameters been operating?"
As if Karrin's words had summoned him from Sigil, a boxy shape darkens the World Serpent Inn's common room door. Clanking loudly, with an apergillium swinging gently in the breeze above his head, the Modron O.L.L.I. walks over to the fighting pit.
"Greetings friend Karrin. It seems like a long time has passed since this unit has seen you. How have your parameters been operating?"
"Olli!" Karrin squeals, "I haven't seen you in ages! Joachim could we call this match a draw? Or we can pick it up later if you'd prefer . . . I want to talk with my friend Olli, you might as well, let's get out of this pit and get something to eat!"
Joachim bows
"As you wish Lady Karrin. Your friend looks very interesting. I insist you let me buy us all some provender."
Joachim sheathes his two blades and follows Karrin and O.L.L.I over to her table. Traveller Surf and Saurig sit sipping coffee. O.L.L.I introduces himself around.
"Greetings beings of unknown appellation. This unit is designated Oil Lube Initiallizer, but most of my acquintences know me as O.L.L.I. Can this unit have your appelations?"
Joachim bows before O.L.L.I.
"I am Joachim Fernão, a pleasure to make your acquaintance Ser Olli."
Karrin climbs out of the pit and quickly gives Olli a hug . . . which considering Olli's unusually angular and boxy shape is quite difficult.
"How ya been?" Karrin asks, "I was going to go visit ya at the library but work's been keeping me busy. What have you been up too . . . oh ya," Karrin says quickly remembering her manors, "this is Joachim my sparing buddy, he's been kind enough to let me thump him around a bit in the pit. He's good with a sword though and he does occasionally get his kicks in . . . and Joachim, this is Olli, probably the first friend I ever made here in the inn."
Karrin waits a moment for her two companions to acknowledge one another then she slaps them both on the back and laughs:
"Great now that we're all friends lets get something to eat! And drink! When people haven't seen each other for a while it's customary to have a drink!"
Joachim calls to Sharina
"Dear lady Sharinda! We have need of your services!"
Sharinda comes bustling up to the table.
"What do yeh cutters need? "
Sharinda sees O.L.L.I
"Oh 'Ello Olli, didn't see yeh come in. Are yeh having the usual?"
O.L.L.I greets Sharinda
"Greetings Server of Comestibles Sharinda. This unit would like to partake in his usual liquid imbibement, a Clockwork Medium Grade Oil."
Joachim looks at the small waitress
"If I could dear lady, a glass of that wonderful dry red wine you got for me last. It was quite exquisite."
Traveller Smurf pipes up
"I could really smurf for some more coffee and some smurfberry pie if you can smurf it for me Sharinda."
Sharinda scribbles notes on a piece of foolscap.
"Right, anything for yeh Saurig? An' you Karrin? Yeh thirsty luv?"
Sharinda scribbles notes on a piece of foolscap.
"Right, anything for yeh Saurig? An' you Karrin? Yeh thirsty luv?"
"You know it Sharinda!" Karrin says with a smile, "grog me . . . also bring me whatever's on for supper. Thank you."
"Now," Karrin says turning to Olie, "lets here what you've been up too!"
Sharinda smiles
"Well, Mitchifer just posted his dinner special: Stygian Dire Eel pie with Bytopian potatoes, Urdlen's albino baby carrots, and mixed elven greens. The ale special is Wreychtmirk's own Scaled Pale Ale. If yeh want that, I can fetch it fer yeh luv."
Sharinda finishes scribbling
"Anything else? Saurig, yeh thirsty?"
O.L.L.I looks at his Tiefling friend.
"This unit has lately been on an adventure with the bariaur gentleman Thorn that you may have met the last time this unit was in this establishment."
O.L.L.I pauses.
"This unit is given to understand that he was involved in some sort of reproduction ritual with the unit appellated as 'Eir' when he was here the last time."
O.L.L.I. looks like a thoughtful box.
"What this unit has not been able to compute is why the two should engage in a reproductive ritual when the plasticity of the humanoid genome does not extend to the centauric goat species of Bariaur. It seems to this unit a futile waste of time to attempt a crossbreeding of two mutually incompatible species."
O.L.L.I looks at Karrin.
"This unit remembers you leaving in the company of an older male human, the dishwasher known as Greep and Eir. What have you been involved in since our last encounter, friend Karrin?"
"Yep I went to work for Renkar cuz Hal'Oight sort of left me hanging. Anyways we've been doing all sorts of odd jobs in Sigil, I think I'm doing good work cuz Renkar hasn't fired me yet! But I'm sometimes worried about if I'm fitting in with the others . . . Eir is always sort of stand offish, I mean she's nice and all, but she's sort of distant at times. We totally kick butt though, I mean we got into this fight with these supposed powerful dudes and we mopped the floor with them, I mean it wasn't even close! We totally destroyed them. But the thing is we don't do much together when we're not fighting but then I've only been on the job for less then a week.
"The others a nice, smart and stuff, oh! And I got a cat! I haven't seen her in a while though. I think she's been hiding from me and everything. It's a black cat so I call her Blacky. I haven't had a cat in such a long time. Also I got this Axe," Karrin says holding up the beautiful crystal axe, "it seems pretty neat."
O.L.L.I looks at the crystalline axe
"That looks to be a potent magical weapon friend Karrin. Does it have a name? This unit has been on an adventure with Thorn to the Hive in Sigil. We fought fiendish baboons and came across several mysteries . This unit has researched the deity known as Rao as you had asked earlier. Do you still need to confess?"
O.L.L.I looks at the crystalline axe
"That looks to be a potent magical weapon friend Karrin. Does it have a name? This unit has been on an adventure with Thorn to the Hive in Sigil. We fought fiendish baboons and came across several mysteries . This unit has researched the deity known as Rao as you had asked earlier. Do you still need to confess?"
"I found a temple of Roa!" Karrin almost shout with excitement, "right in Sigil! It's pretty close to where I live so I can go visit it all the time! Thank you for looking into that for me tho, is there anything that I could do to repay your kindness? Oh, and as far as I know, the axe doesn't have a name . . ."
O.L.L.I smiles at Karrin
"There is nothing to repay this unit for friend Karrin, this unit discovered many interesting facts about your deity, and the information is now a permanent part of his data architecture. This unit derives his greatest enjoyment from the persuit and assimilation of facts."
As the group gets settled, Sharinda comes bustling up to the table. She distributes all the drinks ordered, then sets a large savory-smelling pie and several plates in front of the group.
"Hot Stygian Dire Eel Pie, fresh from the oven folks!" Sharinda says with a grin
"Yay!" Karrin cheers as the food is placed in front of her, "thank you Sharinda! I never had eel before I hope it's as good as it smells!"
"Well I'm glad you liked reading up on Rao," Karrin says to Olli before clasping her hands together in prayer, "I was feeling a bit guilty about asking you to do that and then finding a priest later . . ."
Karrin's lips move silently as she offers her prayers to Rao. Olli, having studied the religion, probably recognizes Karrin's prayer.
Wow! That's a powerful axe! Maybe a bit too powerful for Karrin's 3rd level hands? <hint, hint> Maybe you could run it a bit like a weapon of legacy . . . the more powerful Karrin gets the better the axe becomes. Treat it like a +1 frost axe for now and as Karrin gets more powerful (like maybe level 8 or 10 bump it up to a +2 frost axe, and give it it's full powers as Karrin reaches level 14 or 15) or, seeing as it's an intelligent weapon, make it uncooperative or dominating from time to time, vastly reducing it's effectiveness. I love this axe BTW, I just don't want Karrin to become overpowering or unbalancing because of it, and I don't want the others to become jealous of Karrin's awesome new toy. I mean you might have some plans (plot wise) to make it less effective, but I think I better warn you, from a rules and balancing standpoint, it could be trouble.
Sharinda bustles by the table.
"Everything all right ducks? Do yeh need some more grub or is the eel pie good for yeh?"
"Mmm," Karrin, who would likely eat an old boot with a smile, says, "it's good, a bit crunchy, but really tasty. I've never had eel before. I like it."
Joachim looks up from his meal
"Dear lady Sharinda please give my compliments to Mitchifer for this tasty treat! I have never tried eel, there were few sea creatures in my homeland."
Traveller Smurf looks up with a gravy-smeared face
"Smurfing excellent! It just smurfs a bit more smurf to make it smurf."
Looking over at the odd snake-haired woman and her toad familiar
"Hey that smurf-haired woman over there looks smurfy. Maybe we should smurf her over to be smurfborly."
Malfearr glances down at her toad like companion,
"What?" She turns to look at the others, "well I don't know, they seem relatively harmless . . . perhaps we should join them . . . well quite frankly your not that interesting!"
Malfearr stands, extends her arm to allow her toad like creature to crawl up her arm to sit on her shoulder, and then seems to glide across the floor to the companion's table. She glances down at the assembled group. Her eyes seem to linger slightly longer then they should, her smile seems strangely manacle, and her 'hair' seems to twitch and move of it's own accord.
"Greatings humans, humaniods, and Miscellaneous,
I couldn't help but overhear what was said about us,
although my friend talks like wind in a sail,
we're never apart, so I know all his tales,
so if you don't mind,
you can help me kill time,
and in return,
I'll buy whatever drinks you yearn."
Joachim stands as the newcomer arrives. He pulls out a spare chair for her.
"Please be seated, m'lady. My name is Joachim Fernão, lately of the country of Andimala. These are my new friends, Karrin, Saurig, O.L.L.I, and Traveller Smurf."
Joachim pushes in the chair after Malfaerr is seated.
"Hello," Karrin nervously says, "how are you?"
Malfearr's eyes seem to focus on Karrin, causing the young tifling to squirm even more.
"How do you do?
and how are you?
my name is Malfaerr,
if you care,
and I hope you don't mind,
my joining you miss Kind."
"Um, no" Karrin says, desperately trying not to stare at the woman's strange hair. "Please join us."
Joachim turns to their new guest
"I must say, Lady Malfaerr, that you are a striking-looking woman. Are you a practicioner of the Art? My homeworld had little by way of wizardry, so I am always fascinated by people who channel the raw power of the multiverse. Are you able to show us any expressions of your power without harming us?"
"Do you mean something akin to parlor tricks,
flashes of light and cards doing flips?
Sadly I have nothing entertaining like that,
I only learned how to make monsters and villains go splat.
Perhaps I might have been happy in the life of a performer,
making people happy, and hearts lighter and warmer,
but I think I was destined to fight evil and dread,
and that means I've only learned to make things dead."
Malfaerr speaks with a certain fervor, a passion, and her constant eye contact makes her more then slightly unsettling. Perhaps sensing a bit of uneasiness creeping into her companions she quickly turns her attention to her bag.
"That's not to say that I don't have some trinkets and charms,
magical tools and devices that do something other then harm,
I have a rings, wands, amulets, and scrolls,
something here must be interesting to you young souls."
The seemingly young woman dumps an assortment of wands, jewelry, books and scrolls out on the table . . . including, much to everyone's horror, a severed head. At first the thing looks like a giant orangutan head, except for a pair of large sinister looking tusks, and Karrin lets out a gasp of horror as the thing rolls across the table.
"Better ignore that,
all it says is total clap."
Joachim flinches when he sees the severed head
"By Bell, Sand and Hawk! What is the purpose of that ..thing?"
Traveller Smurf shrieks as the fiendish severed orangutan head rolls to a stop next to him.
"HOLY SMURF!"
Traveller Smurf looks stricken
"I think I just smurfed my pants."
"It's a Bar-Lgura demon's head,
but it truly is neither living nor dead,
The husk is home to an alien spirit,
a quasi-demigod" Malfaerr says with a roll of her eyes "or so I hear it,
it's role is to advise,
if you see through it's lies,
but don't be fooled by it's bodiless and trophy like shape,
it's far more dangerous now then when it was attached to the ape."
For a moment the head lies perfectly still on the table, then to everyone's shock and horror, the eyes open and the thing looks at it's surroundings.
"Greetings humanoids," the head says, it's mouth moving, but how it emits sound without lungs is a mystery, "you must excuse my companion, she is indeed correct, that bit about being dangerous and god like, but too be fare, all I said was I must seem like a god to you material plane types, and it's hardly soothing to have all that superfluous information thrown out at you. Please think no more about it. I'll no go back to appearing completely harmless and inert now."
The eyes close and the head looks nothing more then a lifeless trophy.
"Yes, ignore the severed head," Malfaerr says, perhaps realizing that she'd said more then she needed too, "let's all pretend that it's dead."
The young woman reaches across the table and quickly stuffs the head back into the bag.
"There is clearly nothing to fear," she says trying to laugh, but her eyes dart around the table and she quickly realises that the others aren't fooled, "Waitress! Bring over a pitcher of beer!"
Joachim stares at Malfaerr
"Truly you must be a most puissant sorceror, Lady Malfaerr."
Joachim looks at the other assembled magical items that Malfaerr has spilled from her satchel.
"What manner of wizardry do these items use?"
Joachim stares at Malfaerr
"Truly you must be a most puissant sorceror, Lady Malfaerr."
Joachim looks at the other assembled magical items that Malfaerr has spilled from her satchel.
"What manner of wizardry do these items use?"
"Sorcery and wizardry are not the same,
This is why we have two different names,I'm a wizard, my magic comes from knowledge,
I studied hard and graduated top of my collage.
A sorcerers magic comes from within,
while wizards work, sorcerers cast by whim,
They can be dangerous and powerful foes,
but guile and cunning can't match what I know."
The young lady shifts through the small pile of wands and trinkets. She fishes out a silver ring and slides it onto her finger.
"This little ring is one of my favorites,
It's a great little tool and I really savor it,
ever have a foe that has eyes only for you?
illusionists turn invisible, and now I can too!"
The young woman suddenly disappears. Her laughter marks her continued presence though, and those with sharp eyes will spot the chair shifting slightly under the slight woman's weight.
Her laughter is a musical sounding thing, not at all maniacal sounding as one might expect, and it's almost contagious. Then again, disembodied laughter, no matter how pleasant, does have an eerie quality to it. Malfaerr reappears almost as soon as she disappeared.
"Sorry for laughing at you just then," She says to Joachim,
"but your face reminded me of an old friend,
I used to play this trick a lot on that pretender,
it turns out to be a wonderful conversation end-er."
"Wait," Karrin says, suddenly finding the courage to speak, "are you saying that Joachim is a pretender? That's very rude and I don't think you should . . ." Slowly Karrin realizes that she's threatening a potentially powerful wizard, "what I mean to say is that, it's not very nice, and if you continue I shall have to ask you too, um, well, it's just that there are other tables and . . ."
Karrin sort of trails off.
"Did I unintentually insult you Joachim?
an apology is in order it would seem,
I'm not sure exactly what insult I spoke,
but you'll forgive my gaff I sincerely hope.
and too you young Karrin Kind . . ."
"And that's another thing," Karrin finds herself saying, "why do you call me young? I'm like twenty one! I'm a fully grown adult thank you very much! And you don't look any older then me! You might be even younger . . ."