Let's Play a Game IC

[Defiantnight]

Looking from outside in, the balcony is a thin wooden railing with occasional supports. Said balcony is small, overlooking the street and sticking out only a few feet - the supports creak faintly under the impact of the leaping goliath. The balcony door is already busted in, but the frame might need a bit more damage to fit someone so large if he doesn't want to carefully squeeze in.

Inside the upstairs room, the sunlight pours in through the doorway, motes of dust swirling inside from their recent disturbance in the rays of light, the room appearing plenty lit despite the lack of windows. A small table with a few chairs scooted into the corner, and a once-colorful rug in the middle of the floor, are the only evidence of previous habitation in the otherwise bare room. There is an open door straight ahead from the balcony that leads down and to the side as a stairwell, with two arrow-shafts sticking out of the wall next to it, and a closed door on the right.

The dimly-lit stairwell leads down into a furnace-room grey with soot, which in turn leads out into a more expansive hallway that connects the front door's entryway to the other rooms in the house; the furnace-room itself has a second door with daylight spilling out from under it, a door leading out to the other side of the house.

The downstairs windows from the street peer into what appears to be a barely-furnished bedroom on one side and an entirely bare room on the other, but are not boarded up like a few others on the street. A certain tattoo-faced pirate is mid-sprint halfway down the stairs, thoroughly wounded.

[More detailed description for anyone firing into or going into the house. After Korrog, Tattoo Face (if he's still alive), then Sylas have posted I'll respond with Pirate 4.]

[Stevesciguy]

With a herculean leap, Korrog jumps up onto the balcony, clearing the distance with relative ease.

"MEET YOUR END WITH DIGNITY, COWARD"

Squeezing his way through the balcony door, Korrog charges across the room, knocking aside any furniture that may be in his way. Catching up to the pirate, Korrog once again grabs him by the armor.

"NO RUNNING"

With these words, the enraged Goliath proceeds to hurl the man across the room, back out through the balcony door.

Spoiler: OoC

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Let me know if I need to make any kind of roll for this, I imagine it'd be a tricky shot

[Defiantnight]

Spoiler: OOC for Korrog

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Yeah, I suppose just make an improvised thrown weapon roll, and we'll see what happens based on the roll; I'd imagine you'll want to try and use dexterity instead of strength for the ranged attack to not have him smack into the side of the doorframe and die immediately, does that sound good?
If you've got another idea do mention it, but that makes sense to me (your grab attack has put him into negative HP).

[Defiantnight]

The bloodied and broken tattoo-faced pirate comes barrelling through the banister, not of his own volition, before tumbling to the cobblestones. He has mere moments to live if not tended to.

[Combat can be said to be over, I think. Tattoo Face is at -8 and bleeding.]

[ErebusVonMori]

Mordecai raises his faceplate as he stalks towards the tattooed pirate, kneeling down to tear his throat out with his teeth, infecting him to rise again, like he had. "Rise to embrace your new life." He says softly, "If you'll excuse me I need to bury him."

[Mathias1313]

Sylas watches Mordecai take a bite out of the tattoo faced man and giggles a small child like giggle.
Raising his hand upwards, Oh, I can help bury him

[Stevesciguy]

The Monster recedes. The fatigue returns.

As the Rage leaves his mind, only the bluriest memories of the last few moments remains. More men dead. More people terrified.

Those who are listening will hear a heavy thump as 340 pounds fall to the ground in a heap, exhausted from the exertion of battle.

[Urist Mcmage]

Annavaria begins dragging the slain pirate back to her lab. "I am terribly sorry, but I have experiments to perform that simply cannot wait. Perhaps we should determine a meeting place so we can reconvene later to discuss matters."

Spoiler: OOC

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Should I roll stealth to avoid being spotted carrying a dead body back to my lab, or is this a bad enough area that no-one will stop me?

[ErebusVonMori]

"Back where I was preaching, four and a half hours from now." Mordecai states firmly, "I'll have new information by then." He indicates the corpse, "I just wish there was a more dignified way to do it." He wipes his mouth in evident disgust.

[violet42]

Araqa comes out of the house where she’d been pursuing the pirate. Momentarily awestruck by the size of the man— beast— mountain in front of her, she steps around him carefully and slips off into the shadows, making a mental note to return to the site four and a half hours later.

[Defiantnight]

Mordecai has claimed Tattoo Face's corpse for his own unholy deeds; he seems almost to awaken at the bite before falling into the cold embrace of death.

Annavaria claims another and begins to take their body away. Stealth would be preferable, but it's doubtful anyone will stop you to ask what you're doing with a pirate's body at the literal edge of town.

The slumbering Monster returns Korrog's self-control to him, blood-stained fists becoming a new staple of these episodes. He didn't even acquire any new scars this time.

Araqa's disappearance goes assumedly unnoticed, the streets once more hers to stalk in the bright noonday sun.

Sylas remains in his mortal guise to terrorize the unwary once more.

[The party gains 980 exp each.] The possessions of the corpses are yours if you wish to claim them.

---
"You.. you're a vampire? A ghoul?" The only surviving pirate of the battle looks pale and horrified, in a curious way.

[ErebusVonMori]

"Nothing so tawdry or common." Mordecai informs him, tone conversational and polite, "That wasn't about food, it was a rite, or a curse, I'm not quite sure which if I'm honest. It... it lets those I turn into undead have a chance to keep their mind when they rise again, and they genuinely return to life, not just some rotten shambling form. I'm happy to walk and talk while I bury him, he's needs four hours underground to get the most out of it, there's some more coin in it for you if you can find me a shovel and lend a hand."

[Urist Mcmage]

When Annavaria gets back to her hidden laboratory with the body, she sets about the bloody task of dissecting and harvesting the body for grafts. The man who she imprisoned here earlier is forced to watch in mute horror as she begins cutting apart the body. "Do not worry, sir, when it comes your time to go under my scalpel, I will ensure that you are properly sedated. As I have told you before, am not a monster."

[Defiantnight]

"I.. believe I can get a shovel." He starts to shakily stand up, brushing off his knees with a stiff wince. "It'll take me a bit, but the blacksmith should have some."

[ErebusVonMori]

"Much obliged." Mordecai says, heading for the outskirts, "I'll be burying him outside the city."

[Defiantnight]

Outside of Lura, to the south and west are the farms, spreading for a couple miles over the lakeside farmlands, while north and east, a lightly wooded forest hugs the beach before giving way to a passage. The semi-direct route from Lascol to Maloran has been clear-cut to allow travel without going through Lura, though if one got up early in the morning one could visit either settlement and be back before nightfall.

Lura is a smaller coastal town than Maloran, and though Maloran technically isn't fit to send boats into the sea on their own (they have to take the rivers) it's also a larger trade hub. Interestingly, none of the coastal towns on the western edges have any temples to the Church of Light; though they might be preached and worshipped by their clergy, no shrines in their name have popped up.

Maloran and Lascol, however, do have their respective temples, and the only two roads leading out of it to the two ensure that if one wanted to avoid their church they would have to travel through the forest to the mountains.

[ErebusVonMori]

Once there was enough soil Mordecai would start digging a hole, using his gauntleted hands whilst he doesn't have the shovel.

[Defiantnight]

It takes kind of a while, but the man (who hasn't been asked his name, and so hasn't offered it) does wander by with two shovels when he figures out where you are. That you've been digging a hole with your hands for this long visibly surprises him but he offers a shovel wordlessly and helps you dig the man's grave. "I don't know enough about burial rites to offer him a funeral, but given what you want to do with him, it'd seem counterproductive."

----
Time passes. [Some socializing can still be done pre-timeskip but it's clear nobody's planning anything vital in the meantime.]
----
Korrog awakens with a blanket over him, or perhaps is still napping, when the four hours have passed. Nobody has seen fit to wake him, but one of the citizens seems to have thoughtfully draped an itchy wool blanket over the slumbering goliath to help keep him warm in the street, perhaps out of sympathy, or silent thanks for his focused destruction.

By now the tattoo-faced pirate had been thoroughly buried, Mordekai returning to his preaching, though nobody comes out to listen. Annavaria's dissection is assumedly complete, and Araqa is doing... something. Same with Sylas.

[violet42]

Araqa makes her way back to the place Mordecai had been preaching. The sleeping Teramach catches her eye, and she carefully goes over to examine him. Between the necromancy, thrown scalpels, tentacled abomination, and finally this mountain of a man, she determines she must find out who these people are.

Cautiously, she prods the shoulder of the Teramach. “Rise and shine, large friend. We ought to discuss a few things.”

[Stevesciguy]

Brilliant green eyes flicker open, bleary for a moment before first focusing on the human above him, then the blanket that covers him. A peculiar expression crosses his face, before he raises to his full height, towering over two feet above the one that awoke him. He looks down at his hands, covered in now-dried blood. He opens his mouth to speak, and out comes a shockingly gentle, rumbling voice compared to the near incoherent roar he displayed earlier.

"It happened again, didn't it? Mindless Rage unbound, forced upon some unwitting soul. Maybe they deserved it, maybe not. The Rage doesn't care."

He looks over to Araqua.

"Who are you? Did you see it? Is this yours?"

This last question he asks while motioning with the blanket.

[Mathias1313]

Sylas helps with the shoveling as best his little hands can. He seemed very interested in what this funeral rite was to bring about.

I thought we were getting tea and biscuits. can be heard every so often as the group waits.

Sylas looks up at the Giant of a man who just woke up and smiles, What's your name? I like you.

[Defiantnight]

Mordekai and his friend have been outside the town to dig the grave, while Korrog is still in the street. They're not close enough to converse with at the same time, but the pirate would obtain tea and biscuits while gravedigging if Sylas hangs around with them.

[violet42]

"It happened again, didn't it? Mindless Rage unbound, forced upon some unwitting soul. Maybe they deserved it, maybe not. The Rage doesn't care.Who are you? Did you see it? Is this yours?"

“No, I was not responsible for the blanket. But I was fighting the pirates alongside you when you were raging. The pirates— well, those scoundrels likely did deserve what they got.” Araqa extends a hand to him with a hint of a smile. “Araqa,” she says. “And who are you?”

[Urist Mcmage]

Annavaria wanders over to the spot were Mordecai was preaching. Seeing Korrog and Araqa, she walks over to them. "Hello and well met. I believe this is the meeting place that was agreed on, correct?" She turns to face Korrog; "I don't believe we were formally introduced. I am Annavaria Kells."

[Defiantnight]

Spoiler: Mordekai

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The screams of the waking dead are familiar to you, now; you've awoken to them twice from your own mouth, after all. The sounds are so much... Different, however, from someone else, and the mindless ones had awoken silently.

For a moment it seems like something might have gone awry. You catch a glimpse of a rotten, gangrenous hole in his forehead, and the misshapen and unholy tongue of something otherworldly as he claws his way out of the newly desecrated grave soil, but when he finally stands before you looking as he did in life it seems more like your twisted imagination might have been playing tricks on you.

The newly risen undead asks his master, looking slowly around the outskirts of the town and toward the ocean. "Why?"

[ErebusVonMori]

"Because there is work to be done." Mordecai replies simply, "Now follow." He starts the walk back to town.

[Defiantnight]

He lurches into motion, following the command and following Mordekai, but his stare is locked on the other pirate as he passes by.
"S.. Sir." He mumbles and goes to pick up the shovels, trailing along behind the two and motioning for Sylas to do the same if he's been spending time with the two.

"Who is your friend?" Tattoo Face grumbles to Mordekai, returning his gaze straight.

[Stevesciguy]

“No, I was not responsible for the blanket. But I was fighting the pirates alongside you when you were raging. The pirates— well, those scoundrels likely did deserve what they got.” Araqa extends a hand to him with a hint of a smile. “Araqa,” she says. “And who are you?”

Annavaria wanders over to the spot were Mordecai was preaching. Seeing Korrog and Araqa, she walks over to them. "Hello and well met. I believe this is the meeting place that was agreed on, correct?" She turns to face Korrog; "I don't believe we were formally introduced. I am Annavaria Kells."

"...Korrog. I no longer have a tribe name, as my tribe is long gone. You were here when my Rage surfaced. Are you not afraid?"

Korrog again looks at the blanket in his hands, then surreptitiously tucks it into his belt.

[ErebusVonMori]

"Noone for you to concern yourself with. You've got a second chance at life, don't waste it on petty vendettas." Mordecai says, "Now we're going to meet some friends, and you're going to tell us everything you know about your former employers."

[Defiantnight]

"Noone for you to concern yourself with. You've got a second chance at life, don't waste it on petty vendettas." Mordecai says, "Now we're going to meet some friends, and you're going to tell us everything you know about your former employers."

"Hmn." He scratches at his stubble as if idly scratching an itch, despite his probably inability to feel itchiness.

The other nameless pirate looks confusedly at him, figuring he must surely recognize him. As the lot of you head back to the meeting area, he looks increasingly nervous about what might be revealed.