[Umzamo] Adanar By Cometlight (A Campaign Journal)

[Fluffy the Orc]

Yeah, Adanar is Tam's serious campaign, Wispwater is Tam's silly campaign - and I think we have only scratched the surface of what is to come.

Don't worry, I've been taking notes about what's been happening each session in the Wispwater; we just need to turn my chicken scratches into a story and then there will much enjoyment for everyone.

Back to Adanar --> I think we can all learn a valuable lesson here. Don't mess with Martial Arts Masters. . . unless of course you have poison, daggers, and a drunken dwarf on your side.

[The_Werebear]

Seconded on the martial arts thing.

Getting kicked in the face hurts.

[flabort]

Fluffy, No matter which of your persona we're talking about, your so-called "chicken scratches" must really hurt. Like, half the face gone?

[Feichi]

Fun little preview: the bird is now two levels higher than the mage... and is large sized.

Horse-sized bird. Now... what do birds eat? ...what do giant birds eat? Ta-dah, preview-fu!

[Kaulesh]

Horse-sized bird. Now... what do birds eat? ...what do giant birds eat?

Whatever they want!

[flabort]

When I first read that, it looked like "house" sized bird. a "horse" sized bird isn't as scary... but it's still scary enough.

[Fayd]

Chapter 7: Quandary in Solace Or: Another One Bites the Dust!

Spoiler

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The White Crane school (and their guest) leave to the north. We converse with the Master a little bit before he leaves, find out where he and his students are going --off northward to ‘get some peasants’ so he can rebuild Rimtown-- and we get our next mission: Find out who is in control of what. We also finally remember to do formal introductions: The Master of the White Crane, Master Nianzu, and his guest, the Mistress Liang. They depart, Winddancing over the river. We… are not so lucky. The Pink Ninja could get across, along with Yhennon (or rather Bloodhawk), but the rest of us are stuck for a bit. The rivers in our way are slowly dropping as their output over the waterfall exceeds their input. We estimate it will take a couple of days for it to drop, so we stay and hunt in the area, gathering enough food to hopefully make it up to the next significant town without having to do too many more Survival checks along the way. Yhennon, being able to go up and down the cliff at will, explores the destroyed town looking for useful things. He only manages to find a box of clothing and a large amount of hemp (meant for rope, just unwoven as of yet) over the course of two days. We ask Jan if she wouldn’t mind making the hemp into rope. With a sigh of “I suppose it’s not too late to learn another profession…” she gets to work. And rolls a nat 20 on the craft check, producing about a hundred or so feet of decent rope. We stare in dumbfounded amazement when we get back with our hunting that night… “That’s amazing Jan! Where did you learn to do that?” I ask.

“It’s a little like braiding hair?” she sheepishly responds. Whatever the reason, she did good work.

Once the river has dropped a bit, we ford it; using some rope to help guide ourselves and the mules… it takes us the rest of the day to get to another river and cross it. It’s a DC 5 strength check, and nobody fails (though Reizei got rather close. He nearly lost a boot.) We spend our time alternately starving, marching, and hunting our way to the next town on our path: Solace. The town is the retreat of the “king,” as well as a quiet place for rich nobles.

Along the way, we get to a point where two rivers used to meet (as one of them is now flowing the other way, well… yeah.) There’s a rice farming village here, and they’re… paranoid. To say the least. They won’t let us in, but they do bargain with us from over the top of their freshly constructed wall. We trade away some booze, some weapons, and some of our newly crafted rope to get food, a boat, and once we remember it, a boatman. The town has been having some major trouble with bandits, and we offer to help, but they don’t seem inclined to believe us. The boatman, a shaggy haired fellow named Wu, is informed that he “shouldn’t come back until they’re sure he’s not dead.” Or something like that. He’s just as confused as we were.

We take our time going upriver, but we have enough food for all of us, so it’s an enjoyable trip, at least as compared to the trip thus far. I spend some time trying to gather information from the local Fae… the most significant of which is a rice pixie. They’re small, insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and not very bright. They don’t really know anything new, but they are the most significant Summer Fae I have met so far.

Which is really a disturbing concept, if you stop and think about it, because we are approaching the height of summer and I’ve been looking for them at every opportunity. These things are only Summer Fae because it IS Summer. But, even though they know NOTHING that can aid my cause, I ask them about their interests (the plants and flowers) and they buzz around me for hours telling me every little inanity about the fields.

The trip up to Solace is rather quiet and uneventful. Once there, we have Gao and Wu watch the raft, while I don the appearance of a butler (with the nasty white robe from the city, but it’s the best I’ve got to look the role) and we all approach the city through the artificial hill in front of it.

Once we get to the front entrance, a pair of hill dwarves (human/dwarf hybrids) swing out into our path and ask us for our business. Between Reizei and myself, we bluff our way past as upper-class travelers seeking rest. The entire structure is designed to protect against assault. It’s dark, so much so that only those of us with low-light vision or another supernatural sense can really see for any amount of distance (and Urgrim’s the only one of us with an applicable one) but whatever the case, the entire structure is designed to be very difficult to get through if the dwarves don’t want you here. The tunnel is curved to prevent ballistae from being effective, while the walls and ceilings are covered in murder holes.

At the end of the tunnel, we send a runner into the city to find (hopefully) a guesthouse of House Reizei or at least someone who might possibly be willing to entertain us.

I suggest having the rest of us take a tour of this lovely little bastion while we wait. Gav stays behind for our reply. The tour is… odd. Our guide, another hill dwarf, won’t really say anything, which leaves it up to Urgim, the only one of us who can even begin to understand the dwarven mind, to explain things. He does so moderately well, but gets more and more sullen as the tour continues, eventually ceasing to explain things and continuing on in silence. When we meet up again with Gav, Urgrim requests leave and Reizei grants it to him. (The rest of us are posing as his entourage, as we lack anything near the political clout to be past the front gate here otherwise.)

While there is no representative or holding of House Reizei in Solace, we are offered a place to stay by one Baron Lucan, someone apparently sponsored by the Lady Lillis. I don’t know if I should be worried the name Lillis or not… but she’s not apparently home at the moment. She left on urgent business to another continent recently. The manor is nice, and the servants are rather gracious. The Baron himself is ancient, and is currently occupying himself with a rather large book. In fact, most of the walls of this manor are covered in bookshelves. We make our formal introductions, and sit to talk a while (they bring out one too few chairs, the one problem with Hide in Plain Sight. Gav very specifically ignores his seat to go study the tomes and almanacs so the Pink Ninja has somewhere to sit). Yhennon and Jan take a fascinated look around the room at the volumes on the shelves. …Yhennon spots something on the shelf that has him flabbergasted. Sitting on the shelf are the PERSONAL LAB NOTES of Indar the Seventh, the Last Mage-King of the Varaz. (A fallen Empire of magic users.) Jan spots something else that is equally amazing: A book on !chan ritual magic detailing their rather nasty and effective anti-fae rituals. (“They don’t MAKE written accounts of these magics! How did you find this?!”) There’s even a book on The Ecology of Genasi by some Ruby Tower mage, assisted by an Emerald Tower mage, with divinations provided by the Diamond tower, though that isn’t terribly interesting to our case, all things considered. (Easter egg…)

When Baron Lucan freely lets them browse his vast collection, they are in heaven. They spend the rest of the day (and a good portion of the night) reading and translating books back and forth for each other as Yhennon speaks ancient Varaz, and Jan knows !chan. The kindly Baron Lucan gives us all new clothes (I even get a nice scholar’s outfit, complete with what is basically a bishop’s hat, robe, and stole!) and feeds us for the evening. I spend time integrating myself with the servants of the house, trying to pick up any information I can. The only bit of new information I learn is that the “king” has “left” suddenly.

Gav gathers information around the town, and notices an odd pattern: There’s music going on. All the time. And it’s never overlapping, even by a second, nor is there ever a gap. People just suddenly break out into song while walking down the street. Weird.

In any case, we learn a good deal more about the city: the main part (almost all of town) is the noble’s district, which is hemmed in by a very thick wall riddled with all the facilities needed by the town guard --a force almost entirely composed of dwarves, oddly enough.

The Martial School of Five Point currently rules in Solace. The school concerns itself with the manipulation of energy within the body; they can block it to inflict some nasty statuses (Basilisk Style, similar to Ty Lee’s fighting style in Avatar: The Last Airbender) or they can ease its passage (Unicorn Style, the healing martial art). The School’s leadership is hereditary. The current Master, Egil, is too young for his position, not yet nearly as talented (a leader or a fighter) as his late father was. Partially as a result, the Five Point school is losing both students and influence, and their control of the city is starting to be challenged by Ikini the Architect, a eunuch mage and the leader of the resident population of hill dwarves.

We’ve yet to see Urgrim at all… Turns out that he spent his night drinking himself into a stupor. The tour of the hill dwarf homes reminded him a bit too much of his own lost family. He’d been relatively sober the entire trip up from Talmar to Solace; at the first tavern he can find he quickly makes up the difference. He drank FAR more than he could pay for and woke up in a completely dark holding cell. He owes the management 50 lunas by the time he leaves the city or … well… let’s not think about that.

While he’s sleeping off his bad hangover in the prison pits, the rest of us go our separate ways in the morning, and ironically most of our ‘separate’ ways lead to the Five Point Academy, for various different reasons (Though Jan and Yhennon remain behind in the paradisiacal library, absorbed into the greater Nerdvana. We’re fairly certain they haven’t slept or eaten. Gav is fairly certain they haven’t noticed). When we get there, the students are practicing with the Master Egil, and Baron Lucan, The Pink Ninja, and Reizei join them. Of course, Reizei has absolutely no idea what he’s doing, but he tries to stay in the back and remain mostly unnoticed. Urgrim also meets us here, and he tells me that one of his family’s murderers is here --one of them was wearing Five Point Academy robes. From what he could remember of appearances, the man of the hour could be any one of three people present today… two students or the master himself. I promise to investigate for him, as I tend to have a bit of a lighter hand in these sorts of things.

After the class completes, Egil has a chat with Baron Lucan and Reizei… he doesn’t want me to listen in on it, so I don’t. Next, he speaks with the Pink Ninja, surprised that she knows so much about his school, and especially that she learned in Talmar. (In fact, she can tell that he doesn’t know much more about the style than she does. He is a little more versed… but not much.) Finally, the Master speaks with me, and I come as a bearer of news. I begin to inform him of what happened with Tozi before he decides to take the conversation indoors.

Urgrim, meanwhile, is steadily boring a hole through any of the three people he can with his glare, sitting out in the middle of the practice field. Some students try to get him to move, but when he curtly asks them if they need the exact space he’s standing in, they decide to make a point of sparring around his unmoving form. As the style focuses on precise hand motions, it’s actually rather good practice. And so long as Urgrim continues to remain completely still, he’s almost guaranteed to not get messed up physiologically.

The conversation with Master Egil… could have gone better. I accidentally contradict myself a couple of times, but Reizei picks up the slack and we manage to at least come off as not totally threatening. Thanks almost entirely to Reizei, in fact. Well, THEY don’t. I do. But… We even manage to get a job out of it. Master Egil wants the same thing that Master Nianzu (the White Crane Master) wants: information as to who is currently in control of what. He even lends us his yacht and gives us 80 luna to provision ourselves.

Now, this isn’t to say that I’m a COMPLETE social failure this time around: I do manage to get out that he does at least know all of the other masters, and is none to upset by Tozi’s death. He wasn’t much of a nice guy. He briefly alludes to traveling with the other Masters for a time, and that’s all I need for my suspicions to be confirmed. When I get outside, I inform Urgrim that the Master is indeed one of his targets, but urge him to think this through: he seems to have felt genuine remorse about the situation (at least from what I could gather about his mannerisms) and… well, if anyone is going to be able to give him more information, Egil is it.

Now, we broke the session right here… however, Urgrim’s plan was to go do his vengeance quest without the rest of us, so, in the interest of expedition, he and Tam decided to do this bit this session. Urgrim waits until we have left the town so that we will not be connected to… whatever happens. Nevertheless, we left Gao, Wu, and the raft behind so that he could get to the next town and rejoin us. Once we’re gone, Urgrim waited until Egil left his tower to confront him, and it turns out my gut was right, on most counts too. Egil felt true remorse for what happened, and for what it’s worth, he didn’t kill any dwarves. “You didn’t stop them either.” Urgrim notes.

“What could I do? Zhan could kill me with one hand!” Egil replies. Ah, association by peer pressure; it seems most of those involved were both shameless monsters and quite a bit more powerful and experienced than our newly-named Five Point Master.

Urgrim, will not be placated so easily. Egil, however, has had enough. “I’ve never wanted this anyway.” He agrees to disappear, to essentially “die” to the world, give up everything he has, and give Urgrim the names of everyone else involved in the murders. Urgrim asks for some blood to repay the debt, and Egil offers his arm. Urgrim is, all things considered, rather gentle. Urgrim leaves the Five Point Academy with Egil’s bloodied robe (its owner strangely relieved to have ‘died’) and another step on his vengeance quest completed.

[Alleine]

Wow. So how many people does Urgrim have to kill in order to have his revenge, and are they all basically masters of a martial art? Seems like it could be a wee bit tough.

[Fayd]

Wow. So how many people does Urgrim have to kill in order to have his revenge, and are they all basically masters of a martial art? Seems like it could be a wee bit tough.

I think it's 6. And no, they're not all masters of a martial art. One of them is a master of a gish school (a magic AND martial art.) Though it appears that that one is retraining to become a master of a martial art. And they're almost all masters of a city now. So, a fair number.

[Kaulesh]

So Urgrim is basically a medieval Travis from No More Heroes.

[The_Werebear]

Yeah, I did not know that they were all city rulers. OOC, I was kinda when I figured that out.

[Alleine]

Well, the world is already in turmoil from the comet. What's a few murdered city leaders?

[The_Werebear]

Weeell, it's less the destabilization and more the fact that to run a city in Adanar, you have to be a badass. And Tozi was able to wipe the floor with us while poisoned, diseased, and ambushed. And the logistics of even getting close to them... It's quite a lot for one dwarf.

[LordShotGun]

Did this thread die?

[Fayd]

A little bit. Both I (the writer) and my editor got absolutely slammed with work. However, it's break now. Which means... LOTS OF TIME TO WRITE! I'm beginning to make steady progress to claw my way back up to present.

[flabort]

sweet!
got an estimate on the next update?

[LordShotGun]

I'm beginning to make steady progress to claw my way back up to present.

Plenty of time to play but no time to write eh? Thats fine, we all have been there before.

[Fayd]

First of all, thank you all for your patience. We are going to be doing what we can to get caught up to present. It may be that we have to skimp a little on the detail to do it, but we want to make sure to get caught up. I hope you all don't mind.


Chapter 8: Odds, Ends, and Oni

Spoiler

Show

Yhennon’s player was absent this week, so at any given moment assume our resident bookworm is glued to his notes from the tomes or texts Baron Lucan let him study.

The trip from Solace to Ferdfurt was a short, rather pleasant two day cruise for everyone in the first party, though Gav doesn’t seem particularly thrilled with our choice of destination for some reason. The second party, namely Gao, Wu, and Urgrim, had a grueling four day trip up a lake on a raft -without oars. (They had to use poles instead.)

As the rest of us have gotten into town early and have to wait for our companions, we occupy ourselves with various pursuits. Yhennon, Jan, and Reizei pass most of their time around the inn, though Reizei does, of course, seek out the local pubs. I decide that someone has to pay for all this, so I spend the days pickpocketing, and doing a marvelous job, slowly taking on riskier and riskier targets. I am able to pay for the inn, our food, and extraneous other charges, and I even start making a profit.

Gav just sort of disappears; none of us ever see him around town, but he appears at the inn each night with a little more information about the town and current events thereabout.

It’s… an odd city, to tell the truth. It has no walls, for it needs none. It sits on the top of two mini-plateaus, connected by a bridge. The Wind Fist academy takes up most of the second plateau, and for good reason… you see, periodically, Oni (demon-ogres, typically with an elemental theme) come crawling up out of some portal or spawning pit or something, through an elaborately constructed labyrinth, and the Wind Fist school uses them for training.

The Wind Fist School focuses on running really fast and punching people from 30 feet away. It is run by one Mistress Chen who sounds like the hard case no-nonsense sort of person. She currently has a lover called Master Fang, a shaggy haired !chan warrior who we know has connections with some of the Wolf styles.

In any case, the school sends its older, more experienced students into the tunnels to harass and cripple the Oni while they inexorably plod their way out of the labyrinth. Once the weakened Oni emerge into the little arena surrounding the only exit, the younger students finish them off. Rather efficient, all things considered. Another useful function of the students, due to their running training, is to have them act as message runners and scouts, especially because horses can’t really survive in this region due to diseases from the mangroves. In fact, at the moment the school is stretched pretty thin at the moment; due to the Apocalypse a while back Mistress Chen has dispersed most of her students across the entire continent, for the most part to contain the inevitable tide of refugees in an effort to prevent outbreaks of plague. (Apparently they didn’t make all the way down to Talmar in time…) It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that these messengers are also doing exactly what we are for various parties –surveying the political climate, finding out who’s who and what’s what.

Once Gao, Wu, and Urgrim arrive, they tell about their last four days. Urgrim says that Egil committed suicide, but he did get the names of every remaining person on his List-o-Doom. Included on the list are Tozi and Egil, both already taken care of, as well as… Mistress Liang of the gish school Fairy-Heart. Dang it. Shoulda listened to my gut; the Crane Master’s guest in the hobgoblin armor was in fact who I thought she was, and now we’ve missed an opportunity. With the Comet in orbit she’d have been weakened too –our best guess is that she’s studying under Nianzu because she’s in the process of retraining in a style that isn’t crippled. Urgrim assures me it’s no problem and that there will be other opportunities before continuing with his list. Next is Master Fang, the !chan lover of the Windfist’s Mistress Chen, so we have a lead right here in town to pursue… Finally, there’s General Zhan, whom we knew about already, the Ghost Eater Duyi, Master of the Hungry Void (a martial school focused on grappling… sometimes grappling incorporeal foes… sounds pleasant) and one Cadmus Corrick.

Suddenly Gav’s head whips around. ”What was that?” he demands. When the rest of us are taken aback, he shoots to his feet. ”The name. What was that name?!”

Urgrim gives him a strange look. “Cadmus Corrick,” he repeats gruffly.

After one very long, uncomfortable pause, Gav says nothing, turns, and stomps out of the room, slamming the door loudly behind him.

Well. What in the world under the comet was that all about? Urgrim and Reizei are content to let him tell us in his own time, but I’m just too curious; while the rest of the party make our tentative plans for the next few days, I go after Gav.

He’s not too far away, staring moodily at the horizon at the edge of the city-side plateau. With no idea how to begin, I simply ask if he’s alright.

He looks completely surprised when he turns to me. “Yeah, of course. Why do you ask?”

I’m not buying it, friend. “Just… that outburst back there was so abnormal for you.”

“Oh? So tell me, what is normal for me?”

The question catches me off guard, and I realize just how little I know about the ‘famous’ Gav Jagger. When I don’t reply for a moment, he smirks, turns, and walks off along the plateau’s edge. Not to be deterred so easily, I pursue. “But what is going on? You had a very strong reaction to that name, that Cadmus Corrick--”

Suddenly Gav claps me on the shoulder. “I wonder if you might help me out with something,” he says with an easy smile.

“What’s that?”

“Well you see, I’ve been wondering just how quickly someone could get to the base of the plateau from here…” The hand that isn’t clamped like iron on my shoulder gestures to the 100-some foot near-vertical drop right next to us.

I’m sensing that Gav would really rather not talk about this subject.

As any further attempt to question him results in more pressure to my shoulder and no further words, I give up and call it a night. Near as we can tell, Gav stays out wandering another hour or two before turning in.

Now at this point, someone has mentioned the Windfist’s arrangement with the Oni tunnels to Urgrim, and he has a rather capitalistic idea. Due to the lack of horses, caltrops (typically anti-cavalry weapon) aren’t very common; since the school is stretched so thin, the barbed little devices (scaled to proper size) would be ideal to help cripple the ogres in the meantime. And we even have two party members who can make them! Gav agrees to the plan and helps whip up the sample batch, but firmly refuses to accompany Urgrim to make the pitch at the school. Even so, the Academy is rather pleased with the results and orders a large batch –enough for our group to make a sizable, legal profit.

Even while I’m out making an illegal one. As it turns out, my particular craft inspired yet another money-making endeavor; Gav asks Reizei and Gao if they feel like going out ‘Thief Thumping’. The three of them proceed to wander through town, identifying the pickpockets out of the crowd, trotting them off into side alleys and mugging them for their ill-gotten goods. Fortunately, they never meet up with yours truly.

The next day, however, Gav is occupied smithing up his half of the enormous caltrop order. Without his particular set of skills, Reizei and Gao are significantly less successful at picking out pickpockets properly. Once they become aware of this fact, Reizei turns to Gao and asks “Want to flex?” And they do. For an hour. Reizei’s player asks Tam if they could make a little money off of this by making it a perform check of some kind. Tam agrees, saying that they should each make a Strength-based perform check. They roll phenomenally. “The crowd is appreciative.” Tam says calculating the results. Then he rolls to see how much money they made. “… VERY appreciative.” They make about 18 Luna… quite a lot of money, for the effort and (lack of) forethought involved.

Meanwhile, I’m getting an odd feeling. My gut says I should take a day off (or perhaps outright stop) with the pickpocketing, but I decide to ignore that feeling and continue. I make 45 Luna before I feel a hand on my shoulder. A rather firm hand that starts walking me through the city… Yeah. I got caught. What surprised me is that I got a 31 on the Sleight of Hand check!

Thinking quickly, I say “Ah, wonderful! I was hoping to talk to someone like you!”

“Oh really? And just who do you think I am?” my guide asks.

“A guard, obviously.” He just ’s

First, he takes me to the Oni arena, where he is slightly disappointed that there are currently no Oni to throw me to… apparently a common punishment here in Ferdfurt. I am then marched to what is apparently the guard station, where I am plopped at a desk in a dark, windowless room and manacled to a chair. The guard, who is by this point apparently more than just a regular guard, begins peppering me with questions. I try to use my skills in deception to avoid implicating the rest of the party. In fact, I attempt to spin my larcenous spree as a “Job offer” of sorts to the city of Ferdfort and Mistress Chen in particular. “I’m particularly talented with infiltration, and I bring news from the south.” I relate what has happened so far, Tozi’s death, the ascension of Juntao in Talmar (“Great, as if my job wasn’t hard enough” the guard interjects), the fall of Rimtown, and Egil’s apparent suicide.

I “was trying to gather money for a gift for the Mistress.”

He seems willing to entertain the idea that I’m doing this out of some sort of infatuation with Mistress Chen, and I’ll roll with it for a bit. She’s 50 years old, and already called for, but… whatever. “What aspect of our Mistress Chen was it that so captivated you that you decided you had to do anything to be in her presence?”

Thinking quickly and ignoring the dripping sarcasm, I respond “Her power.”

This catches him a little off guard, as it did the rest of the group. (Meanwhile, this whole time, Urgim’s player is saying that this is one of the WEIRDEST interrogations he’s ever seen –and he’s the longtime, seasoned player, so that’s saying something.) “Why not find some young noblewoman up in Ada or Nar?”

“Ah, but information is power.”

He rolls his eyes, “Oh good, we’ve got a scholar.”

I continue to try to bluff for a long time, especially with regards to the identities of my fellow party members, and do a rather remarkable job. I even try to lighten the mood a little bit, and answer his questions to the letter. (“Does this Dwarf have a name?” “Yes, he does.”) At one point I observe casually that I would feel like answering the questions a bit more if these manacles weren’t so chafing. For some reason he humors me and they get replaced with silk. Just as tightly bound, but still. Silk manacles.

Eventually though, I go just a bit too far and, still wearing that same vaguely indulgent smirk, he brings out a loaded crossbow, plants it on the table, primed mere inches from my chest, and invites me to continue the smart talk, as it would make his job a lot simpler this afternoon.

I just can’t keep up the bluff for 5 hours. (In game, not out of game) Eventually I can’t think of any more ways to dodge or block him (the crossbow is quite the convincing argument) and I spill. Everything. I try to make it clear that these people are traveling with me, not working with me, to try to spare them in the event something bad could happen to them. I start with “Have you heard of the Famous Gav Jagger?”

“Interesting… What’s he famous for?”

“I’ve no idea… he mostly just tells me he is.”

From there, I mention everyone in turn, being rather descriptive and formal. “A traveling scholar, named Yhennon Dei, a mysterious woman who is referred to only as ‘the Pink Ninja,’ a nobleman of the House Reizei, an ex-Lion Talon student named Gao,” (“Ah, the flexing ones.”) “Wu, a boatman, a former shopkeeper from Talmar named Jan, and… Urgrim, the dwarf I’ve mentioned before.” He forces a description and location of our inn out of me and then I’m left to sit by myself for a while. Not wanting to make things worse than they already are for my friends, I stay put.

Meanwhile, it has gotten quite late and most of them are asleep inside our inn. Gao, Wu and Urgrim are awake in the stables (it was marginally cheaper) and Gav is mulling about at his forge. The guardsmen arrive in force, and most of the party gives themselves up without a struggle. For his part, at first glance at our visitors Gav merely sighs, “Yeah, I wondered how long it would take.” None of us catch the significance of this yet.

But I said most of our party, didn’t I. Out at the stable the guards tell Urgrim, Gao and Wu that they’re being brought in for questioning on “a related incident.” The dwarf’s had “related incidents” happen before and isn’t keen on going forward with this… so he rushes one of the guards and delivers a nasty headbutt, while yelling for Gao and Wu to resist arrest. Wu… yeah, that’s not happening. Great guy, really helpful… not that brave. Gao would… if his broadswords weren’t in the other corner. Then Urgrim runs off and the guards… can’t catch him. They’re rather embarrassed on the whole to be outrun by a dwarf.

As everyone except Urgrim is marched single-file into my interrogation room, the guard who captured me is watching us. Suddenly his eyes narrow further, his face darkens, and he begins punching an empty palm menacingly.

Gav meets his eye unflinchingly. “Evening, Captain,” he says flippantly. Cue groans from the rest of the party. They have history. Wonderful.

Silent glare. *PUNCH. PUNCH. PUNCH.*

Gav smirks. “Been a long time, hasn’t it Boss?”

*PUNCH.* “…Yes. Yes it has.”

Uhh… okay. That wasn’t the sort of ‘history’ we were expecting.

Session break

[Grimlock]

Hurrah! The next Chapter!
I shall read it now!

Oooooooh, finally the Famous Gav Jagger is about to be unveiled!

[Fayd]

And I just updated the first post. Yes folks, there IS a new chapter!

[Feichi]

Yikes, is this really all the further we've gotten in regard to posting journals? Eeeep. Way behind is way behind.

Well, as a teaser for you ladies and gentlemen, we all officially hit level 4, and we're all still alive, SO! This means that the mage has thus far survived AND, in one level, will theoretically be able to use magic again. :3

Also, from a technical standpoint, the bird's tendency to both OBLITERATE things and also substantially slow down gameplay due to the sheer number of rolls needed to attack things, he (by way of the feats he had) have been significantly nerfed (read as: balanced.)

As it stands, I had him take a feat that gives him a +3 to all will saves, making it easier for him to resist/beat the mage's if he so chooses.

[Alleine]

Yaaaaay!

Those are some mighty interesting new developments.

I think you might want to start listening to your gut a little more. Eh?

[flabort]

History... Well, while a lengthy backstory is great, Always hope the DM doesn't revisit it on you.

[Cade Rentyr]

History... Well, while a lengthy backstory is great, Always hope the DM doesn't revisit it on you.

Oh believe me. Gav can't wait for a certain second meeting. (Hint: this isn't it.)

[flabort]

Oh, no. So, even though the populous know nothing about him, the 'famous' Gav Jagger has met so many folks that he really could be considered famous?

I hope the 'certain second meeting' is not related by blood.

[Keito]

So I got this snake.... but you'll see that in a later chapter =P

[Fayd]

All right! New chapter up! YAY! The plan as follows: Due to being so terribly far behind, the next chapter I'm writing is a catchup to present. That isn't the next chapter you'll see, but them's the breaks. We're going to try to get you guys up to speed as quickly as we can! (Really)

Chapter 9: The Secrets of the Famous Gav Jagger. Or: You Thought I Was Serious?

Spoiler

Show

We pick up with every party member (save one) and tagalong NPC neatly bound in these chairs with handcuffs built into their backs. (Well, okay, I’m in my nice silk manacles, but that’s beside the point.) The guard in charge, apparently one Captain Malcolm, leaves us to stew for a while. There are several curious glances toward Gav and several disapproving glares toward me, but he’s ignoring them and whistling what sounds like a jailbird theme and I can’t seem to look apologetic enough. I even tried switching into a couple sadder-puppier faces, but to be frank, the party isn’t exactly happy with me or their current situation. I would try to assure them that they’re only here for questioning and should be perfectly safe, but I wasn’t counting on someone actually recognizing our ‘Famous’ Gav Jagger…

Meanwhile, Urgrim is still on the run. He crosses the bridge to the plateau with the academy and knocks on the door. When the bleary-eyed gatekeeper answers (it is getting to be later hours), Urgrim asks him for “political asylum.” The man at the door nods, and brings him into a room down a couple hallways. As he shows our Dwarf through, he calls in after him, “This one wants ‘political asylum.’ You know what to do,” and swiftly closes and locks the door. Instantly, the eight Wind Fist students in the barracks sit up and begin punching Urgrim from their beds. He bashes in the door with his pickaxe and barges through and over the startled gatekeeper on the other side, taking off down the hallway. He gets about 20 or 30 feet before they knock him unconscious via nonlethal damage.

While Malcolm is absent, Gav wonders aloud if an ‘old trick’ he remembers still works on these chair-manacles. Slitting his palms with his thumbnails, he greases his hands up enough to slip them free. Wu, encouraged by this sign of success, struggles mightily against his own bonds… and to the surprise of everyone present (himself most of all) he breaks free as well. Once loose, however, he can’t seem to figure out what to do with himself, so he rights his chai—well, now it’s a stool, and waits, looking as meek and flighty as usual.

Gav, of course, has seated himself squarely on the interrogation table, legs swinging and whistling flippantly.

The Captain returns shortly with two or three guards carrying our unconscious dwarf. Noting and ignoring our table-dwelling swashbuckler, Malcolm has Urgrim fastened into his own chair. Apparently none too soon, either, because the other guards have only just departed and the Captain just resumed his seat when Urgrim wakes, in about the state of mind you would expect.

After immediately trying and failing to break free of his bonds, he promptly and viciously demands that the captain draw closer so that, first: Urgrim can bite off his nose, and second: the captain can immediately set him loose of this confounded chair so he can march back to that Windfist dormitory and beat every single one of those (dwarven expletives) backstabbers into a bloody pulp --from up close and personal, as it should properly be done.

Malcolm remains entirely stone-faced, waiting patiently for the end of the tirade. Yhennon notes with resigned frustration that he has no free hand with which to facepalm, and asks for assistance. Shrugging, Gav hops off the table and obliges him.

“Thank you,” the mage says flatly. A moment later, he realizes, “Wait. Now there’s blood on my forehead. Wipe it off, please.” Already reseated on the table, Gav flashes him an agreeable grin -and wipes his own palms clean on his trousers.

“So,” Malcolm begins, spreading his palms almost casually, save the hard expre--wait, he always looks like that. “What are you doing here?”

Before any of us can speak, Gav gestures for silence, sneaks over to a nondescript patch of wall and kicks it, hard. “Hey!” he shouts. Behind him a few of us exchange looks and raised eyebrows. “Don’t think I forgot about our little room. This is one ‘interrogation’ you don’t get to listen in on --clear out!”

There are muffled exclamations of disappointment from beyond. His ear pressed to the (apparently rather thin) wall, Gav waits a moment, kicks again. “You too, Tomás. Yeah, I know it’s you. Out.”

One more drawn out, disappointed sound. Satisfied, Gav plops back down on the table. Malcolm patiently tries again. “So.”

And the floodgates open; Yhennon and I compete to relate our entire (mis)adventures up to this point, mixed with consistent commentary of various shades from our deeply disgruntled dwarf. Reizei silently nurses his hangover, our ninja may or may not even be in the room in the first place, and Gav simply reclines back on the table, offering a casual correction or two. Wu simply cowers, trying and succeeding to be unnoticed, while the setting on Jan’s customary irritated dial lingers at around 11 (13 whenever our story mentions her shop).

Malcolm listens through all of this with unnerving aplomb, only interrupting to ask for clarifications now and then. He raises an eyebrow (and somehow manages to make the tiny gesture both palpably significant and intimidating) at the mention of Tozi’s planned assassination in Talmar, causing us to force Gav to exasperatedly show off Bug and their arrangement once again.

“You said I ought to get closer to my faith and background as a guardsman,” Gav haphazardly suggests.

The Captain pins him to the table with that glare of his. “Not remotely what I meant.”

When we get to the point where I threw the first knife into Tozi’s gut Malcolm shoots his former subordinate another glance, but I get the rather strange impression that this is one of professional disappointment. Gav reinforces this sense with a disbelieving gesture in my direction, as if to say “I know, right?”

I’m never going to live that one down, am I.

The Captain says nothing at Master Egil’s ‘murder’, and once we wrap up with our arrival in Ferdfurt he merely asks what our plans had been. We tell him that we were on our way up to Ada and Nar, for various purposes--

“But mostly to remove Zhan’s liver through his nose,” supplies Urgrim bluntly. Malcolm makes a few comments that leave the impression that, as a guardsman, he cannot approve or condone our proposed course of action… but as he also believes the stories of General Zhan’s regicide and usurpation, he wouldn’t be too zealous about capturing and punishing the perpetrators of extremely unfortunate events in that man’s life.

Afterward, he fixes our swashbuckler with yet another unflinching stare. “I know that look,” sighs Gav, finally pulling himself off the table. “What you’d really like to know is why I’m here.”

Malcolm nods. “What with you supposed to be both dead and banished, yes, I’d like to know why you thought you could come back to town.”



Wait. What?

Gav is strangely silent for a long time. When he finally speaks, there is not a trace of his usual mirth or sarcasm.

“Cadmus Corrick.” He bites the name out with a quiet bitterness none of us had seen in him before.

What followed was a touching, emotionally profound and revealing explanation of the tragic and thought-provoking story behind the ‘famous’ Gav Jagger. Hearts were bared, tears were shed, and none of us will ever think of our poor, deeply troubled swashbuckler without a pang of sympathy again. Even Urgrim, gruff and hardened by the ghosts of his own past, wept openly for our dear friend. It was a truly beautiful event.

Unfortunately, in the interest of expediency and getting this journal quickly back up to date, and not wanting to deprive you, the readers, of even an ounce of the dramatic power of this literary event by diluting it or spending any less time than that required to relate it in its perfect potency, Gav’s player (who is certainly NOT the one at the keyboard right now typing these words) has decided to skip it in its entirety. He regrets that he must keep the epic tale of the famous Gav Jagger under wraps for now, and wishes to reassure you, the faithful readers, that if in the future he is presented with adequate time to set his masterpiece to written words he will hasten to share it with you.

Until then, too bad, so sorry, and good night. Over and out. (Fayd, don’t you dare mess with this section!)

…

…Yes. Well. Incredible cornball antics aside, the long and short of it is that the Gav Jagger we know is actually an assumed name --his former identity was ‘executed’ for treason. The character’s nemesis, for good reasons, is Cadmus Corrick, an assassin in the Rat Clan. We found out both that Gav has Oath of Hatred individualized on his character sheet (+2 on everything versus this person --at base level) and that every time he’s disappeared in a new town or city he’s been attempting to track the man’s movements. Most recently, here in Ferdfurt, he’d heard that Corrick had passed through town and headed northward.

Gav glares at the Captain upon sharing this particular tidbit, eliciting an irritated scowl in return. “I have my hands full enough keeping order with the local miscreants,” says Malcolm. “He didn’t kill anyone while he was here this time, so he never came to my attention.” He clears his throat. “But speaking of local miscreants, it’s time we figured out what to do with you lot.”

“You could let us go?” poses Yhennon hopefully.

“Given your recent propensity for… ‘encouraging new leadership’, no, I don’t think I’m about to let you loose on my town.”

Gav is quick to protest. “Hey, I’m not about to let anything happen to Mistress Chen.”

“She’s not even on the List!” I add quickly, referring to Urgrim’s List O’ Doom.

“But Master Fang is,” adds Urgrim casually. The rest of us facepalm. Yeah, real helpful there buddy.

“Oh, so the standing death threat is not against our city’s leader but against her lover. That makes me feel much better.”

Gav suggests simply throwing us to the Oni and ‘forgetting’ to take our weapons and armor --if we live we go free. This seems almost suicidal, but there is a point to it; on top of the nice XP we’d be in for, if there really is a portal at the bottom of the labyrinth Bug COULD utilize it to our advantage. But not all of us think we could survive the gauntlet that far, so we’d rather not get thrown to the Oni.

After talking for quite a while, Malcolm proposes a solution that pleases everyone. The party is to go and take control of the mines down south along the !chan plateau where Talmar gets the iron it uses to make its famed bluesteel, as well as other lovely mineral resources. After the mines are in our control, we then ship the ore northwest instead of south, cutting Talmar, and the Rat Clan, out of business quite neatly. Ferdfurt would love to get into trade with the region, but it would be too risky to attempt open confrontation with Talmar. If, however, the region unified under a new banner and declared independence, and approached Ferdfurt for trade, the Windfist would of course be pleasantly surprised and open to talks. Malcolm is careful to make it clear that, officially, we do not exist; Ferdfurt will deny any involvement with us. You know, standard spy stuff.

He says we are “absolutely not authorized” to take a cart he has prepared at the base of the tower, “absolutely not authorized” to get our gear back, and when the concern of supplies is brought up, “absolutely not authorized” to take a couple of months worth of supplies. As we are now level 2, Tam decides that: A) we suck (as players) at preparing for journeying out. B) The survival stuff is just taking too long to resolve and isn’t really adding anything. C) The characters probably would be pretty good at this by now.

Ergo! Food = Yes. Food will continue to = Yes until Tam says otherwise.

We make our way east and south along a river. We don’t encounter anything of note along the way. We arrive in our little sub-region, and get ready to plan out how we’re going to take this region over. The closest thing is a guard “tower” (it’s only a couple of stories tall) and we decide that, in addition to being rather close by, it is also a great place to rest up.

The tower is called Thornguard, and its purpose is to protect the trees of the Thorn Forest from being poached. It is Windfist property, after all, and the extreme edge of their presence in the region; beyond here, we’re officially on our own. The place is deserted, and has been for a while --most likely the Windfist recalled all available members for their mass messenger and information gathering operations. Dust has gathered everywhere in large amounts. The place looks more like a hunting lodge than a guard post.

We break here for the evening. It was a short session due to lots of factors.

[flabort]

Trying to keep from laughing. Trying to keep from laughing.
Awe, too late.
Kid's behind the wall, eh? Gav's certainly an interesting persona.
I hope the kids aren't his.

[Cade Rentyr]

Trying to keep from laughing. Trying to keep from laughing.
Awe, too late.
Kid's behind the wall, eh? Gav's certainly an interesting persona.
I hope the kids aren't his.

Kids? Those were grown members of the watch, though they may not act like it.