A Faerie Affair - IC III: In the Court of the Faerie King

[Pyon]

Returning to the others Kyu shakes her head. "I saw her yesterday, but not today. We were given mountains of paper work to join this guild and that. I slipped out as fast as I could to do something more fun. I found a secret passage with some rooms and treasure though!"

[Majin]

"Yeah, but we don't really have to obey if they want us to do something nasty".

"Hey, that was a nice performance! You really got friendly with the king, huh?" Kor says to Kyu. "A secret passage? That sounds fun! You have to show that to me! How secret is that treasure? Do you think anyone would mind if some went missing?"

Kor glances around. "But maybe we could some more quiet place to talk. And grab bite. All the serious talk this morning made me hungry"

[Pyon]

"I just wanted to talk about our adventures a bit. I bet if I had more than verses I could have told a story that the king would have loved." Kyu pouted. "The treasure was in this room and it smelled. I bet your nose could pick out what it was, we can go there later!"

[tgva8889]

Orianna nods at Kor's notion, glad to have a friend at these times. She seems to loosen a bit at his suggestion of disagreement; it was an option she hadn't really considered but now found quite reasonable.

Orianna nods, suddenly finding a hunger she had suppressed in all the excitement. "Yes, perhaps food might be in order. Does anyone know of any place good to eat that we might find some quiet?"

[Stan]

Opal nods enthusiastically at at Kor's suggestion. "Yes, we should fill each other in on events so far in a private setting. And I'm always up for eating, especially if it's more than trail rations. But I guess we should wait until Court is over, so as not to appear rude."

[Majin]

"Smelled?" Kor sniffs the air, trying to catch any odd scents.

Spoiler: OOC

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Perception: (d20+6)[17]

"Let's just ask someone about a eating after the court's finished".

[WindStruck]

Instead of trying to commit any one recipe to memory, Astra takes out her six sheets of parchment paper and begins jotting down the recipes with her ink and quill. At least she was somewhat focused on also maintaining legible handwriting.

She copies down, in the order of what caught her fancy the most:

Bottled Starlight
Potion of Animal Friendship
Oil of Slipperiness
Dust of Disappearance
Feather Powder
Dust of Dryness
Bottled Twilight
Invisible Ink
Dust of Sneezing and Choking
Potion of Fire Breath

Astra quickly realized she wasn't going to have enough paper. So the brilliant thing she did was flip the oldest recipe over and write on the back. She gave the last a few moments for the ink to dry. Now with a bunch of alchemical recipes copied down on loose parchment paper, she tried to neatly tuck them in her book, making a haphazard ad hoc recipe tome.

Hm. How long had all this taken? Was there anything else she might be able to do today...?

[Ninja_Prawn]

Spoiler: In the Court

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Courtly business continues. Among other things, there is an intense stand-off between the King and some representatives from the Honourable Guild of Blacksmiths regarding the allocation of resources. Eventually, the King relents on his demand of a new set of instruments for his brass band and agrees that weapons production should be stepped up. At this point, Lady Applehoney kicks up a fuss about who will have access to the new arsenal, receiving only obfuscations and excuses in return.

Spoiler: Kor's Perception

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The only thing you can smell at the moment is the bewildering array of perfume being worn by the faerie nobility. There are all sorts of scents: not just fruits and flowers, but also more earthy tones like nuts, leather and... possibly even literal soil. That's some impressive dedication to fashion right there.

As the Court winds down, you obtain a few recommendations for places to eat this evening. From what you can gather, Shimae's Grand Hall of Grander Songs is the place to trade gossip and swap stories, but The Bittersweet Buffet has the best chefs in the conclave.

Spoiler: In Astra's Mind

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The loose pages stuffed into your book give it a somewhat ragged appearance - just like the spellbooks of the famous wizards of old! Hopefully they'll come in handy in the future.

You check the time (there are magical clocks in the Guildhall) and determine that you have a few hours left this evening to use however you please.

[WindStruck]

Hmm, what to do now. Astra realized she hadn't seen the others for the whole day. Maybe it would be best to try and find them.

So, Astra spends the rest of the evening asking around where her friends are. She figures that Orianna, Opal, and Kor would stand out a lot, and someone ought to have seen them...

[Stan]

"Does anyone have any objections to The Bittersweet Buffet? It sounds like it will be quieter and have fewer people intentionally trying to overhear our conversations. We can all fill each other in."

[Majin]

"Mm, yes, folk also said they've got the best chefs. So let's head there! Also, find Astra on the way"

[tgva8889]

"I could go for some truly good food. It feels like too long." After a moment's pause, Orianna coughs and says, "And yes, also less eavesdroppers."

[Pyon]

"Food!" Kyu says nodding in agreement and following after the others.

[Ninja_Prawn]

As Kor, Kyu, Opal and Ori leave the Court, news of their movements travels ahead of them. Astra soon learns that they are headed to The Bittersweet Buffet for a quiet meal. You rendezvous on the way, arrive shortly after and proceed to negotiate a private room for yourselves.

The first course is a delicately flavoured salad of leaves and nuts. You are left in peace for a time.

[WindStruck]

"Hey guys! So how did your day go?" Astra says, not particularly caring if someone else happened to be in the room at the moment.

[Majin]

Kor munched on the meal. It was pretty good, though a bit light. He hoped they'd have some good sweets here.

"Well, we met this guy who's also a worshipper of Hefeydd's, Daved. We talked with him about these spider attacks. He mentioned this Bronzeshield guy who's a big shot in the army. We ought to talk to her at some point. She's not really in king's favor, but maybe we could do something to change that"

"So, how was staying with the merchants? Did they make you work the whole day?"

[Stan]

(sorry for the infodump and the interrupting, may not have time to post tomorrow or Friday.)

Opal looks around for obvious eavesdroppers. At Kor's words, she perks up.

"um, sorry to interrupt, we'll get back to the merchants, but I met with Bronzeshield this morning. And Cloverfield. And Goldfeather the high wizard. They realize the seriousness of the problem but cannot move the king. They think the nobles must be satisfied that they have had the upper hand on Reena before they will move onto the drow. Under all those esteemed eyeballs, I cracked and proposed something risky. But they said it might work."

Opal takes a quick swig of wine and continues. "I proposed an idea to them to try to get back at Reena, bring Reena's forces into the fray, and begin the attack on the drow. We get the King to challenge Queen Reena to a competition. It will be two part competition. The first part is a monster hunt. Then everyone writes a short poem about their trophy. That way, the powerful and the witty both have a chance. A great quatrain about stepping on a spider might be as good as a simple statement about killing a drow priestess. We can insinuate that the poems are a chance to hide insults against rivals to get more people involved - you could do things like compare the hideous trophy to an outfit many will recognize. Scoring is both individual and group. Maybe the best 3 or so individuals get a prize. Then the individual scores are totaled and the court with the most points would win. This would give everyone an indirect war with minimum fighting between. We could also set the boundaries for the competition to where there is Drow activity to both start the fight early and encourage nobles to travel about in the forest and see for themselves the destruction going on. I know it's stupid but it's already in motion, kinda. "

"Cloverfield arranged for me to have lunch with King Soren. I'm sure that I was not impressive. But he said that he might go for a competition - I didn't give all the details. I suggested our neutrality and he made us envoys on the spot. We're all supposed to meet with him in the morning to be briefed. The first thing we need to do is negotiate for the return of some human children - I don't know how. We can also challenge Reena to the competition. We'll probably be teleporting to Queen Reena's court soon so we need to be ready to present Queen Lydia's greetings and start the ball rolling."

Another swig of wine. "There are several things we should do to pull this off. I've been thinking all day about who would be a neutral judge. Orianna, do you think you could talk to Prince Hefeydd about providing judges for the competition in the name of peace? I don't know who else both courts might accept as a neutral observer. Another wrinkle to the competition that occurred to me at court today is that monster kills must be within a certain range of a judge to be witnessed. I'm not so much worried about cheating, though that's going to happen, as I'm worried about less violent fey getting in over their heads and getting killed. Being close to a judge will encourage travelling in small groups."

"I'm sorry I wound up being the talker to royalty person. For court two, lets plan together and someone more persuasive can be the talker." Opal looks at the others but mainly Kyu. Also, it turns out that King Soren cannot remember why the feud started and has lost his diaries. If someone good at sneaking and looking can find them, it might help. Kor, your transformation and magic might work here. We also need to get the nobles and guilds moving towards war. Astra, have you had any luck on that - your practical nature might move them the most. I'm not sure if we should all go to Queen Reena's court or some of us should continue working on things here."

Finding her glass empty, Opal grabs the bottle and takes a few gulps. "One more thing. I'm not sure if it's so stupid as to be clever, or just stupid. We need both courts to agree to the competition but we can't have the loser actually lose anything that would create an imbalance between the courts or the whole thing will start again. Here's something that is deceptive but not a lie. We will say the competition is 'for all the marbles.' In the mean time, we buy up every marble and similar cheap stone in the markets of both courts. I can present them to the winner in case it doesn't go over well. Either they'll appreciate the misdirection or they'll all try to kill me, but if it works, it'll be worth it."

Opal glances around wildly for reactions. "I don't mean to be pushy and tell you what to do. I was trying to figure things out and it just kind of happened. Mostly because Cloverfield decided to help me and nudged things. Feel free to tear it apart and change everything around."

[WindStruck]

Opal kept talking and talking and talking! This wasn't like her at all. Astra tried to pay attention but felt she'd probably have to have a bunch of details repeated. Then she noticed how much Opal was actually drinking at the same time.

"Are you drunk, Opal, or have you lost all your marbles??" She said quite worried and perplexed. But that didn't last.


"Haha! I hope neither. So, you think a competition will..." will do what exactly? Hopefully bring the two courts together to fight the drow, but then what after? "Uh, are you sure that's such a good idea for the long run, though? The winner gets gyped, the losers still lose their pride... I get the feeling no matter how hard we try to find neutral judges, someone will cry foul. What do you guys think?"

[tgva8889]

Orianna is distracted at first by the appearance of food, starting to take a sip of the wine and a small bite of the salad, but then once Opal starts talking she seems to forget her food and drink entirely, focused entirely on her words. Astra's comments resound with her, but Orianna doesn't yet speak, taking the time to truly think through everything Opal said.

After taking a long moment to soak it all in, Orianna says, "It sounds absurd, but from what I've heard of the courts from Daved and from just a moment ago, it seems like only something like that would work. Something grand needs to change for the courts to move, and frankly given the nature of their disagreement I can't possibly imagine how else we might quickly bring both courts into the fold. The conflict is so utterly entrenched now that I have little hope in shifting them out of it in time to deal with the Drow threat, so we'll likely be forced to use the feud to get the courts to help. We might have to be careful about how we set up the result and how we administrate such a thing, but without using the feud to drag both Reena and Soren's courts into the same conflict, we'll likely have trouble getting anything done quickly enough to stop whatever the Drow are planning."

"I do agree, Astra, that the plan itself has some flaws. We would have to be extra careful if we were doing exactly this. And no matter what, we would need to find some sort of neutral party to help. I can certainly talk to Hefeydd, though on such short notice I'm not sure he'll be able to find neutral judges unless we can find someone to summon beings from other planes. Perhaps the druids we met along the way might be willing to be neutral arbitrators in some fashion?" She takes a moment of pause to think about the entire situation, then considers, "Perhaps I might be considered neutral myself as Lydia's representative?"

After thinking a bit longer, Orianna adds, "In any case, I feel like I will need to go to Reena's court, if only to present myself as Queen Lydia's messenger. We need to learn more about their side before we can be sure any plan wouldn't just lead to more conflict between the courts."

[Stan]

Opal sighs. "Yea, it's not a great idea. It probably won't end the dispute but if it pushes back the drow, that's a big something."

[tgva8889]

Orianna shakes her head. "It's not a terrible idea, really. It certainly has a lot of the elements we'd need to include in any plan we enact. At worst, it provides a good place for us to start from if we can't find out more details."

[Stan]

"I think the key point is to get the courts to go out into the world and see the destruction first hand. That will hopefully galvanize them into action."

[Pyon]

"The contest sounds like fun though, I'm sure we can make it work!" Kyu intervenes. "We can even make the contest run through places hit by the war. We can trick the nobles into settling their problems AND helping out the villagers. If we scared them good they might avoid accusing anyone of cheating too!"

[WindStruck]

"That's a good point," Astra says, munching on some sweet nut. "They really need to see what's happening out there.. and now... so, yeah. I think that'll have to do!"

[tgva8889]

"Well, what obviously seems problematic? We have to find a good area for the fey to see the destruction and be able to fight the Drow without getting into too much trouble."

[Stan]

"So, it sounds like everyone is mostly ok with a contest? I don't have a feel for how many participants there would be or how many judges we can round up. We can keep working on the plan, though we might be in a position to present it to Queen Rena tomorrow. Pinkleaf might be a good place to liberate as we know it was attacked. Orianna, if you can contact Hefeydd and run it by him, that would be extremely helpful. Sorry to dominate things. What have the rest of you found out?"

[Pyon]

"I found some secret treasures and some secret rooms. But I don't think it will help us unless we want to eavesdrop on some conversations."

[Majin]

Kor nods approvingky at the contest idea. "Yes, the contest sounds good. We just have to find a good middle ground, where the courts can let off some steam, and where things don't get so competitive that they find new reasons to bicker about".

"Oh, I found out one thing. It's not that interesting, just gossip really". Kor lowers his voice. "This morning I read a love letter from Mistychime to our host, lady Applehoney. That's sort of scandalous, I think?"

[Stan]

Opal pauses while eating a pear and raises her eyebrows for a moment at the revelation. After she swallows, she replies, "Hmm, somewhat scandalous, yes, but that sort of thing is probably common in a big court. Still, any info might be useful. Eavesdropping also sounds fun, though it's not my thing - I'm too big and loud to get away with that sort of thing."

[Ninja_Prawn]

"Speaking of," says a waitress as she brings another course, "you might want to check around for listening devices. The people in the next room looked like... rather suspicious characters." Her voice is soft and whispery, for obvious reasons.