[3.5] The Destruction of Empires - Chaos

[Xanyo]

The smell of smoke and unwashed ruffians hangs in the air. There is loud, unruly talking all about as people play games of chance and skill, bet on the outcomes of fights between insignificant critters, drink, joke, laugh, and - occasionally - fight. The bartender, a scruffy looking gnome with a squint in one eye, works on the other side of the dirty top of a bar, washing glasses and pouring watered down beer for those who pay cheap, and hard liquor for those with cash to burn. A halfling waitress flits between tables of outlaws and idiots - there's other types, of course, but these two dominate - serving drinks, shooting winks, and probably picking a few pockets on the way. She ducks aside as a couple of tattooed men tumble over each other, locked in a wrestle. The door is securely locked and there's a corridor on the other side, leading to the secret entrance, where the lookout awaits.

Spoiler: Dimensions of the Room

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The room is 50 ft by 40 ft, the door being on the East side, on of the longer sides. The Bar is 5 ft by 15 ft and is in the southwest corner, longer dimension parallel to the West side of the room. The door is around 5 ft wide and is in the South center of the East wall.

You are already in the room, engaging in various activities. Introduce yourselves.

[remetagross]

I am sitting at a table near the middle of the North side, the wall to my back, and relaxing. In such a dingy place, one should always have the wall to one's back. A tankard of cheap beer before me, my Haversack to my feet (but with a leg through one of the straps, eh), and my heavy woolen coat wide open to get some fresh air (but not completely removed either). The air is hot, wet and smelly, but I've seen worse places like that, so I am having a good time playing cards with another human and two half-elves. I have perfectly noticed the human is swapping cards with his neighbour below the table, but we don't play for money, and I don't care enough to bust them. Simply playing cards, even if I lose, is refreshingly simple after a long day's work when I had to search for and wide all day to finally discover that the rumor about the temple of Garl Glittergold's plot to crash the economy by massively turning tin to gold was false. Eh, my master will be pleased by that one, I might as well allow me some rest in a place where no one will ask me any questions about my day before making my report.

"Your turn." I put a pair of eights on the table and nod to the (honest) half-elf to my right.

Spoiler: Who I am

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http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=981953

[redzimmer]

Thenacus

"Liquor! And none of that bottle water you call 'beer!' The more sober I get, the less I want to be here!"

Thenacus slaps a gold coin onto the table and waits for his drink.

Anyone briefly looking at him would dismiss him as a simple drunk elf, another of those yokels who left their forest glen to discover the decadent lifestyle of the humankind.

Those who look closer would notice the glimmer of intelligence and the twinkle of dragon scales barely hidden under his cloak.

Spoiler: Brief glance

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Thenacus
Male CG Forestlord High Elf Sorcerer/Dragonfire Adept, Level 2/3, Init 0, HP 18/18, Speed 30
AC 13, Touch 10, Flat-footed 13, Fort 3, Ref 1, Will 6, Base Attack Bonus 2
Breath Weapon (DC 10 + 2 (1/2 class level) + 0 (Con modifier) + 2 (Ability Focus) + 1 (Dragon Spirit Cincture)) DC 15 for Half Damage (DC 14 if Frost) (3d6, -)
+1 fire (crystal of energy assault) Masterwork Shortspear +2 (1d6-1, x2)
(+1 Armor, +2 Natural)
Abilities Str 8, Dex 10, Con 11, Int 14, Wis 13, Cha 16
Condition None

[DontEvenAsk]

Kaer lounges in a chair in the northwest corner of the room, bare feet on the table and facing east. She's short enough that this obscures her face. She sits with the happily exhausted languor of someone who's been moving fast, and indeed she only stepped down from her table a minute or two ago. Previously she'd been dancing on it, all skips and twirls, multicolored strips of cloth trailing from her skirt in a swirl resembling flames. Now she rests, her ribs rising and falling abruptly and her skin painted with a sheen of sweat. Her hair falls in a red-purple tumble between her chair and the wall. A quarter-full glass of cider sits on the table, sufficiently close to her for her to reach it but sufficiently far for the risk of her knocking it over with her feet to be minimal.

Then without warning she tucks her feet under her thighs and sits up to take in the scene. Brawlers, check, there's always a few. Gamblers, check - more than a few. And, ugh, an elf, buying a drink. Bourgeoisie hedonists. She looks at him again, trying to find and memorize his face, just in case, and spots an odd glint on him. Well, well, well, someone's all dragon-y. Bully for him.

She scans the gambling tables; someone's always cheating, of course, but it amuses her to see who it is on any given day and how they're going about it. She notes the lean, pale-haired woman apparently patiently tolerating her compatriots' subterfuge. From her further table and lower vantage point she can see the cards changing hands. Old trick. No fun at all to watch.

She lazily draws her cider to her lips and drains it, savors it for a few seconds, and sets it down on the table with a clack that would be loud if not for the general noise of the room. She slips past the various patrons to stand just behind the elf.

"Is that so," she says, and despite her phrasing it's not a question. "I can't say I get that problem much, but then, I have special reserves."

[redzimmer]

Thenacus

Thenacus starts, and looses a curse in Sylvan (untranslatable into common, but the gist is a congress similar to what a celestial bee would do to a pitcher plant).

"'Ware, little friend. There are people who would take sneaking up on them as an act of aggression!"

His drink arriving, he shoos the halfling waitress's attempt to give change.

"Well come sit if you aren't going to rob or murder me. Rescue me from this crushing boredom!"

[DontEvenAsk]

"With you among them, I hope, at least with people less harmless than little old me." She doesn't recognize his curse in the slightest, but she can tell it's definitely profane just from how he says it.

She slips into a chair across from him and puts her elbows on the table. "What do you want to hear?"

[redzimmer]

Thenacus

"Well first gift me with a name, my new and interesting friend; as barter, I offer you mine!"

With a mad flourish (his shiftweave flickering through all his clothing options as he does), the greenish elf offers a drunken bow.

"Thenacus Oathbreaker, Dragon-Tainted outcast, roustabout, deviant, and general ninny, at your service."

He knocks over his drink, which barely misses the gnome. Thenacus motions for another.

[remetagross]

As the play goes on, Arielle lets her gaze wander into the room. She suddenly becomes aware of a gnome woman dancing on a table in the corner at her right. She does have some skill while twirling and twisting, and, Arielle thinks, certainly much more than all of the half-drunken performers that usually cramp this miserable place. Arielle takes a mental memo of this gnome. A few minutes later, the same gnome walks across the room, passing just behind her table, and finally sits at a table at her left. Yes, the way she moves, she speaks, this gnome is definitely of another caliber than what Arielle is used to see here. "Interesting", thinks the Silverbrow.
There is more. At the table where the gnome has sat, is a noisy elf complaining about the quality of the alcohol. Arielle had firts dismissed it as another irrelevant drunkard, but now she negligibly looks in his direction to better assess him. She focuses on what he says. At the moment the gnome has joined, his words have become much clearer and his speech pattern more fluent. "Hum, this one was feigning to be an idiot."
Two unusual individuals in the same evening, in the same tavern. And now they gather. Her reflexes of Tracker tell her to pay good heed to what will be said.
Her attention now fulled focused on the table at her left, Arielle keeps on playing but actively listens to what is being said by those two intriguing folks.

[Gavinfoxx]

Spoiler: Note to gm

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If this is inappropriate to put here, let me know; I am assuming you would want Valen here based on your PM you sent me.

Valen

The young human is nursing an ale. Seeming to be barely, what, 19? Maybe less?, this red-haired male seems to be sketching something on a sheet of vellum. He seems to have some sort of spell on him, something that makes a sort of glowing blue spectacles, that do nothing to hide his blue within blue eyes.

Frowning, he circles something and puts the sketch away, and looks around the room. His eyes focus on one particular woman with a solid stare and a crease of his brow. Quietly, he circles something on his sheet, and packs it away, getting up to walk to another table, his pack jingling.

As he approaches, the others notice he is still wearing his armor, even in this 'safe' location, and he has the most intriguing wooden choker or torc on his neck, inscribed in minuscule, intricate runes and designs.

"Care to deal me in?"

As the others presumably deal him in, he nonchalantly speaks to the woman with the white streak of hair, his eyes not leaving his cards but for a moment to show the hint of a smile toward the woman. Of course he waits for a point where the group she is paying most of her attention to seems to pause in their goings on, before speaking up.

"Not many humans with a hair feature like that. You see it after someone gets a head wound, sometimes. Rumor says there's other versions of the feature, where it can be passed down along family lines--sort of like my eyes, and that the whole family who has that is gifted. Anyone ever give you any lip cause of it?"

Spoiler: Image

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[remetagross]

Arielle

Ok, so what have we got here. Arielle realises someone is approaching her table, and seems to want to join the game. A very young redhead human male takes a chair and, as the current play ends, grabs a share of the cards for the following turn. He wears an armor. Why wear an armor in a place designed to be safe and to relax ?

1. The armor is so light on him that he doesn't bother to take it off. Unlikely, given his thin frame.
2. He does not have anywhere to store his amor in. But he has a backpack.
2. He fears of being attacked more than he fears of being noticed. But if he fears that someone, in this room, will attack him then:
2a. He must have a very good reason to be in this place nonetheless
2b. He should not carelessly walk across the room as he did. Yet he did.
Consequence: whatever he fears, is not in this room.
But: he acts calmly nonetheless. So he sees this place as a safe place. But then he should remove his armor.
So: issue 2. leads to a paradox.
Which mens: 1, however unlikely, is the good answer. So either his armor weighs much less than it seems, or he is stronger than what he seems.
Consequence: magic is at work here.
...and the fact that he has full blue eyes and some sort of runic collar might be a tip-off, too.

Arielle decides that in spite of this, the newcomer is still less worthy of her attention than the table to her left. And then, at a moment when, very conveniently, the elf and the gnome have paused, he speaks to her, ensuring the whole table hears up. His smile, half-hidden so that only she can perceive it, makes it obvious that the human knows of what he is speaking, despite his innocuous sentence. In herself, she curses for allowing her to be flushed out in her listening. But then she smiles for the exxagerated bravado.


"Ok, this little bugger wants to show off in the most mysterious possible way how smart, alert and perceptive he is. Ah, men..."
Of course, the Silverbow has had to deal with this situation more than once, and has a well-honed answer to give:
"Oh, my hair? Well, my great-great-grand-mother was a Drow. The silver hair pops up from time to time in the family ever since.

Even though that was prononced matter-of-factly, in a place full of dubious beings and shady backgrounds, this gives everyone at the table a pause. After a split second, Arielle strikes back with the second part of her answer, which will dissipate the unease and win the table to her side.
"What about your eyes ? Your great-great-grand-father was a shapeshifting great whale ?"

The expected raucous laughters ensue. Your turn, Red. "Your turn, half-elf."

[Geeksthenewsexy]

Lux

Walking back and forth between the bar and the various tables with tray in hand, the attractive barmaid glides expertly between tables. Bending fluidly at the waist so as to let the patrons get an eyeful of more than just her smile, she does so with a mind on the stash of pilfered coin mixed with her honest tips, all tucked deep in what little neckline her black dress provides.

Itching to play cards, but not having established a new credible identity to do so, Lux had been forced to fall back on his buxom elven maid identity for now. Last week he was made as a cheat at this very den...though he was wearing the form of an elderly human man at the time - his established gambling personality up until then. But, he needed to reinvent himself soon regardless, as his loans for that identity had been coming due soon anyway. As if he had ever repaid a loan in his life. Ha!

Smothering a growl and focing a smile as another patron pinched his ass and made a lewd suggestion, he made a note to avoid that table better and kept a fake smile on his elf maiden face as he continued making the rounds, looking for opportunities to palm some more gold and sliding ass-pincher's last gold coin into her considerabke cleavage. He was too drunk by now to realize he hadn't soent it, and would mean no more trips to that table. With that thought, the forced smile turned genuine.

[Gavinfoxx]

He chuckles in good nature at the joke, as the half-elf plays his cards. "No, actually. One-sixteenth Dryad, as a matter of fact, and she was bonded to a Blueleaf tree. It's why much of my gear is treated Blueleaf. We have an understanding." He grins, tapping the striking surfaces of a slightly blue-tinted wooden gauntlet surrounding his off hand with his main hand.

As the others start to play their hands, he speaks to the card players, "So who here is trying to court the favor of Lady Tymora? Myself, when I started trying to do the things she says, I found my luck increasing elsewhere in life. You know, stuff like setting difficult personal goals, trying to cause positive change in the world you see around you, and taking risks but trusting your personal skill, and a little luck, to see all of that through."

[remetagross]

Spoiler: OOC

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Gentlemen's agreement. I did not roll a Bluff check, I won't roll a Sense Motive check.

Arielle

Fair enough. He endured the blow and let it go. Either he will come back at it later, or he bought it. We'll see. His explanation is, if not true, as credible as mine in any case.

As the human did not push his investigation further, Arielle decides to be fair game for the moment and not to chase at him either. Moreover, that could prove a slippery slope, as she might need to defend her lie in the ensuing conversation. Arielle eyes the wooden gauntlet, it does seem to be made of some sort of bluish wood.

The verbal joust has taken her attention fully to this bratty redhed.

The Ranger has no idea who this Lady Tymora is. As Red seems eager to speak, she encourages him. Because making strangers speak lets you learn many things, and because that teenager's mannerism is actually quite funny.

"Sorry about that, but I've only heard that time once or twice. Care to enlighten me a bit more ?"

Arielle folds her cards into her hands and her hands on the table. "Because given the skill of my opponents tonight, I could make use of a bit of luck.", she says with an ironic tone. As expected, the two cheaters flinch a little and lower their gaze. "Half-elf, I didn't put copper on the table, but you did. You might want to have a word with those two lowly card swappers."

The three of them rise and quickly start to argue over, moving in the open behind the human. Now, Arielle is alone with him.

[Gavinfoxx]

He blinks, apparently somewhat surprised that a person spending time here, of all places, wouldn't know of Lady Tymora. "Well, ahh. I don't know if you were joking about that, but Tymora is Lady Luck. Goddess of Good Fortune. She has in her portfolio concepts of chaos in the sense of positive, disrupting change, success via pure skill, and is patron of adventurers and gamblers. And she's one of the many deities that I venerate. This whole place -- well, the games of skill more than the others -- is a bit of a shrine to her. And as far as your hair," he drops his voice a little more quietly so only she can hear, "Silverbrow, us sub-species of humans have to stick together. I could tell because your iris has the glint in the light of the double lens from your draconic ancestry, you only see that with poliosis if someone has a bloodline of a Silver, Steel, or Mercury dragon. Myself, because I'm Azurin, though I look 19 and have as much life experience that I can remember as a 19 year old human, I'm actually 16 years old, chronologically."

[remetagross]

"Crap. As far as I can tell, he doesn't seem to bluff at all. Well, it happens. I have to know more about how he found out, though."

Arielle uncrosses her hands and put her palms upwards in a sign of acceptance. "You got me there. Silverbrow, indeed. Most people to whom I tell the Drow tale start imagining disturbing things and generally don't want to dig deeper." The Ranger purposefully does not detail from which dragon bloodline she comes from: she salvages what she can.

She then feeds the Azurin with some data, in order to ask more from his part in return. "About the Lady of Luck...eh. I pray to Astilabor, draconic goddess of hoard gatherers. I'm more interested in the draconic pantheon in general, hence my lack of knowledge about human deities. I've heard ruffians swear by Tymora's name a handful of times around here, but I never figured out it actually was a goddess".

She now counterattacks. Gathering information his her bread and butter, after all. "But how did you guess without even standing close ? That double lens of yours ? Is that an Azurin special trick ? By the way, though I've heard about Azurins, this is the first time I meet one. Do they all look older than what they are ?"

[DontEvenAsk]

Kaer smiles. A down payment of information, how sweet. She also stores the knowledge that the elf uses a shiftweave for general purposes. Leaning out of the way of the spilled drink with a wrinkled nose, she considers how much to give away.

"Kaer," she says, inclining her head. "I dance." That's plenty enough information for someone she's not yet sure of. And yet, his self-description sounds... promising.

"This isn't my favorite place to perform, though. Too noisy." Which is true; her sensitive ears are typically assaulted the moment she steps through the door. "When I'm dancing someplace else, where the patrons know what an inside voice is, sometimes I'll make a toast." Which is also true. Many a speech of hers has been enabled by a raised glass. She'll let him draw what conclusions he wishes for now, and get the measure of him as he talks.

[redzimmer]

Thenacus

Thenacus is happy to play the part of the drunken fop, hoping no one notices how much of his drink ends up on the floor at night's end.

"You're pardon, do beg. The Kiss of Sharess compels me to speak with passion at times. So Maestra Kael, if not to dance in this cacaphonic cesspool, what pleasures do you seek?"

And if it's my purse, you'll find your pert tail alight.

Thenacus drops another gold coin for the replacement tankard. He'd not noticed the buxom elf-maid serving before. Not her fault, he couldn't keep on top of everything after all. he favours her with a smile, and addresses her in their shared tongue.

Spoiler: To Lux, in Elven

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"Well good evening! I knew not of a Sister working here! Pray tell, what news do you have of the Old Country?"

Thenacus had no single fig to give about the Old Country, and he hope fervently she wasn't his sister, as that was one taboo he wasn't about to challenge.

[Geeksthenewsexy]

Lux

Responding in kind to Thenacus in a fluid and melodic language, the buxom bar maid glides to his side, brushing against him with a curvaceous hip.

Spoiler: To Thenacus, in Elven

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"Good evening, Brother. News? I'm sad to say that patrons with such to spread are few and far between in places such as this. I'll be moving on as well soon. Just need traveling expenses to keep traveling, you understand. Another?"

Sliding the gold coin from the table on front of Thenacus, it's in her left hand only briefly before it disappears somewhere in the vicinity of her cleavage. Bending much more than needed to refill the Thenacus' tankard from the half-full pitcher carried in her right hand, most of his line of sight is taken up by pale and ample flesh doing it's best to pour from a black dress as if to mimic the ale pouring from the elven maiden's pitcher. Despite the ample view, no trace of his gold coin can be seen. Flashing a smile, and touching him lightly on the shoulder, she straitens fluidly and sashays away before he can respond...with absolutely nothing said about change for the gold coin given for the refill.

[DontEvenAsk]

"To dance is my great joy," she says, adopting a self-deprecating form of an actor's grandiose tone and waving her arm in a vague, expressive manner. "Even the simplest of venues a delight as long as I may move to the pulse of melody." She cracks a broad grin and drops the pretension. "I come here to people-watch, as it happens."

She raises an eyebrow at the waitress's behavior; slightly risque even for this den of ill repute. "I heard that," she says to Thenacus in Elven, understandable but with a gnomish accent sharpening her consonants and broadening her vowels. "What cares an outcast for the Old Country?"

Following the elven barmaid with her eyes for a few seconds, she's distracted when she spots the newcomer at white-hair's table. His hair is hard to miss, as is how, in the space of a few moments, their companions seem to have been driven to quarreling, leaving the two most distinctive seated there to discuss more or less privately (since the noise, blessedly, tends to obscure conversation from eavesdroppers.) She makes a note of him as well; his armor shows him to be entire orders of magnitude above the average thug fighters that frequent this place.

[redzimmer]

Thenacus

A pleased smile crosses his lips at the gnome show twisting of his mother tongue.

"I seek Truth, Justice and the True spirit of Love, as would any poet. But allow me to join your safari of anthropology!"

Thenacus casts his eyes about; the dim light no hindrance for his elfsight.

"And what a fascinating study people are! Yon gamblers there, for example: if I was a betting man-and I am-I would wager they are the most interesting personae within. What do your sharp eyes tell you?"

[DontEvenAsk]

Truth and justice, eh? If this elf's deeds are as good as his words she may be forced to rethink her assumptions.

She turns back to the gamblers, studying them.

"The woman is perceptive and cunning. She caught her compatriots cheating ages ago, I think - I spotted her keeping track as they swapped cards under the table. Pays to be short, you know; not many people look down. But she waited instead of calling them out on it right away; smart enough to know that someone's always cheating in a place like this. Now the other gamblers are arguing, and she has the new fellow to herself; seems like she used the information to her advantage." She purses her lips. "Her hair is unusual, but that could be anything from magic to blanching with lemon juice, so it's difficult to tell if there's anything interesting behind it."

She moves on to the newcomer. "The man, on the other hand, isn't afraid to stand out. Walks in with his purse singing a siren song to all these ruffians, eyes so blue from the inside out you can spot them from the other side of the room, wood armor instead of steel? He's a cut apart from the rest, and he knows it, and he doesn't care who else does. He's so fearless, he's either very foolish or very powerful. Possibly both."

[Xanyo]

The halfling waitress continues flitting around, and the card players continue arguing. A strong man with a smaller person in a headlock walks over to the bar, tosses the guy on the bar and speaks:
"'ey barkeep! 'ow many drinks can I buy with this guy!" he grins.
The gnome laughs. "You'd 'ave to catch a much bigger one if'n you wanna buy a drink with 'im!"
The man laughs and releases the headlock.

Spoiler: Spot Check: DC 17

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The halfling waitress is picking the Azurin's pocket. What did you expect?

[Gavinfoxx]

Spoiler: OOC

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Responding to events as they happen, I'll do this in chronological order. He failed the spot, which he would've even with a take 10 (passive) too.

Quietly, he responds to the Silverbrow comment, "I take it most of your friends don't have a bit of a fetish for arcane lore and ethnology. Funny thing about silverbrows, any silver-scaled dragon can commonly cause it. You find the other social-amongst-humanity dragons cause them too. I forgot one, by the way. It's Silver, Steel, Mercury, and Song. Brass causes it too, but you don't end up with white hair from that."

He continues to talk to his new friend, slightly more loudly, "You should consider honoring more deities. If only the rest of the Draconic pantheon, perhaps? Aasterinian and Hlal in particular have many virtues worth emulating. I have a story I picked up about them, but that will require me to have more drink in me."

A bit more quietly again, he answers her question, "You'll note, I did actually have to stand close. I had to approach the table, see you from several angles, and sit close to you at the table for a bit, to be sure it wasn't a more mundane cause of poliosis. And there was no trick. Most types of dragons have a second lens in their eyes, that gives them their racial telescope vision when needed. When a human is down to below, oh, one eighth dragon, they can't do that, but they still have the glint from the remains of the different eye structure even as the blood thins. You can see it if you know what to look for. And yes, we all age quickly, and our lifespan is significantly less than a pureblood human. Souls burning brightly, et cetera et cetera. I intend to solve that problem for myself sooner or later."

Spoiler: OOC: This didn't happen, player misunderstood an event

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It's about this point when anther conversation mentions him again, and suddenly, there's a very attractive gnome lady spending some time fawning over him, "Well, about that 'siren song', you'll find my purse less interesting than the rest of my kit would indicate. I ah, invest my money in my personal projects as soon as I get it. And gods know those are going to be much more difficult to steal. And I've made damn near everything I'm wearing with my own two hands. As far as the fearless or foolish, well.. let's just say that I tried to be subtle once. It ended with a barn on fire and me being run out of that town. I still can't go back. Mostly, I don't even try any more." He gives a roguish grin and a wink at her.

He looks over at the 'brawl,' "You don't see a brawl that friendly every day, huh."

(1d20)[5]

[remetagross]

Spoiler: OOC

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Taking 10 on the Spot check, I get 23.
I also take 10 (also 23) to overhear what the gnome and elf are saying.
Moreover, this time I am taking 10 on my Sense Motive check against what Valen tells me, since I don't actively try to determine if he's lying. This is a 22 check.

Many things are starting to happen at once, now.

First, this classical brawl at the bar as a distraction for the waitress to pickpocket the Azurin. Well, he deserved it for being careless, and she does not want to be registered by the tender as a troublesome customer - she does not want to be registered at all, in fact. Moreover, he brags about not having much to be stealen. All good, then.

Second, this elven maid she has never seen before - and she has been in this place quite a few times recently, under various disguises. Arielle is not sure her way of pickpocketing customers that think with their pants (the vast majority of the male population here) is how the bartender usually proceeds to earn an extra cash bonus. Elves are rarely so directly seducive, she must have spent quite some time out of the elven realms.

Then, the elf and the gnome who, amusingly enough, have begun to eye her table, too.

Spoiler: If Arielle manages to overhear what they say

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For what she can eavesdrop, they have not actually heard what she and the teenager have been saying, thanks to the general noise. The gnome woman's analysis about Red rejoins hers, but fortunately enough, she seems not to have an encyclopedic ophtalmologic knowledge of the different humanoid races and did not bust her right through.

The elf has resumed playing the drunk man, probably to bring the gnome to lower her guard; but she seems too cunning to fall for that.

Fourth, this Azurin was very knowledgeable, and was not afraid to show it off, loudly. Though if true, the information he provided her was actually very useful. Arielle made a mental note of double-checking this one later on; given how by-heart he had churned out the explication, the youngster seemed to have swallowed it whole from a book or a teacher without really questioning it before.

Arielle can feel that the four of them are about to collide anytime soon, and she is not sure she wants that. She will try to prevent her interlocutor from inviting the others to her table by getting his focus back at their conversation.

"Well there, you seem to be quite the daring hero. You put the barn on fire by rubbing your hair against the strand ?"

Arielle the seizes the opportunity to get a closer look at this strange waitress while keeping the Azurin to talk. She waves her tankard at the elven maid. Now that she has rubbed the Azurin the wrong way (she mentally chuckles at her own joke), she flatters him a little to bring things back on track. He has already proven to be the type of guy who will not resist displaying his knowledge.

"Though I must say, I was unaware of that detail about the eyes of Silverbrow humans. It does make for a handy trick to find them, I thank you for that. Now, you said your lifespan was shorter than average humans ? Bad luck, Red. You shouldn't waste your time with me and should go back studying about immortality, no ? Unless you want to tell me that little story about the dragon gods of prank. I must admit, you're one little learned fellow for you age, and I suppose even by Azurin standards."

[Gavinfoxx]

Spoiler: Sense Motive vs Bluff on Valen

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As best as you can determine, this is the truth as he knows it. What he doesn't know, and you can tell by his demeanor and the way he holds himself and talks, is he is the type to be taken in by the allure and elegance of something amazing he read by a relatively reputable scholar-- who might still be quite wrong.

[Gavinfoxx]

He winces to the first comment, "Ugh, nah. A mishap with some shapechanging magic I was using causing a bit of a panic, and some escalation, and then everything went all to hell. Ask me about it when I'm drunk."

To the second comment, he responds much more favorably. "I read everything I can, milady. And have a useful divination trick for finding tidbits of random lore I may tell you about at some point. And studying is useful, but it's far too slow. Magic is fastest learned alongside growth of the soul; the soul is strengthened due to overcoming adversity; in order to become powerful enough to become immortal before it's too late to matter, I must live life to the fullest. The worst that could happen is I die trying, and that was going to happen anyway. Anyway, I need to be a little more drunk before telling the dragon-goddess story. A bit more ale over here!"

[redzimmer]

Thenacus

Spoiler: Spot

Show

(1d20+3)[22]

"Interesting observations, my intriguing new friend. It looks like it is about to get more entertaining than I ever hoped!"

[remetagross]

Hehe, he is quite enjoying his time here, this one. And, to be honest, I am too.

Arielle makes a surprised gesture.
"Maybe it was not clear enough, but the beer I ordered was actually for the two of us, in order to bring you to that story. But well, I suppose that will make more for me then."

"But, if I may ask, what kind of adversity do you expect to have to face in a place like this ? I am not convinced there is a lot to be learned by the frequentation of that sort of folk." Arielle indicates at the room behind the Azurin, and finishes her movement by including herself in it.

[Gavinfoxx]

He blinks, and notices the beer, "Ah, wait, of course. Thank you. And adversity in a place like this? No, perhaps not. But comrades, those with whom I can achieve greater things than mere pranks? Maybe even idealists? I might be able to find that among the ne'er-do-wells here. I have to be able to achieve more than vandalizing a golem-making shop that's representative of everything wrong with the practice of magic in this land. Stuck up, stick in the mud, hidebound traditionalists, doing everything in the most inefficient, wrongheaded way possible because of 'that's how it's done' pah! How about you, what are you here for?"

[Geeksthenewsexy]

Lux

Sashaying over to Arielle and Valen, the buxom elven barmaid smiles, jiggling her pitcher of ale with her right hand as she places her left hand lightly on the table. "Both of you topping off then?" Waiting expectantly, she smiles and brushes Valen lightly with a curvaceous hip as she leans over the table slightly.