Ruins of Rubix (IC)

[boomwolf]

(Hexbox had a really big test today and thats why he didn't find the time to post, he told me at school.)

Taragos smiles and says to his companions "I told you they will fit. questions are always good in this line of work.", then he turns to you and says "We work for no house at the moment, there are forces beyond the houses, the tower, and the temples. we are such a force, we have no name as we refuse to admit we exist."

He takes out a note and goes on "The job we want you to do is to track down and kill the enemies of the city, mostly the riftmakers. in return to your service, you will be a part of one of the most powerful organizations in the surviving world, us. you will gain all benefits, protection and help from us all when you will require it, and you will gain access to our files, and resources."
He pauses, catching his breath. you can see it is hard to him to talk. "As for "Untrustworthy dogs of arcanists", not all of this group is related to arcane magic. in fact, almost any enemy that is not a riftmaker, is an arcane. and we do not spare them."

Taragos stops to rest. and the purple-robed man goes on "Regarding how long you will work, this is up to you. the door out is always open, but with leaving you lose access to our resources, and all payment stops. beyond this, we cannot tell anyone who is not yet part of us."

Another man enters. you all know this man, seen him before on many occasions, but never got to talk to him, he always disappeared before you got a good look or manage to catch a talk. he wears a black shadows suit, you know it is perfect for stealth. and that he is a master of it. he looks at you and says "These five? I thought I told you not the recruit these.", only the by silenced by the purple-robe. the black-wearing man seems to listen to him, but is not pleased.
The purple-robed now adds "You might want my name. my name is Jizeram. I doubt any of you ever heard it, most people think I died a decade ago."

[hexbox]

God I hate school so much.

"Sounds good to me, I am Nirshal the undying, and I accept this offer." I turn to my teamates, looking for their response.

[MammonAzrael]

Rovinel

Rovinel crosses his arms as he hovers above the floor. "Well...I suppose I can work with you. For now. And we," he gestures to the others, "will be working as a team, then? I suppose I can deal with that. What would our first assignment be?"

Knowledge Arcana - (1d20+14)[29]
To see if I've heard anything about any of this.

[Roland Deschain]

I agree as well. What kind of time frame will we have for killing each target? Joram says as he looks around at his new teammates.

[shaddy_24]

Joshua

Joshua takes sparse notes, most of them changed so that only he would understand them (mostly by using shorthand and such), since this seemed to be something big. Notes on this shouldn't by left lying around anywhere. When the black suited man says his part, Joshua looks at him closely. This man was a master of stealth, better at it than Joshua was, and any observations would help him to improve. When the instructions were finished, he slides his notes back into his bag, saying "Very well. I will accept this offer."

[boomwolf]

Another comes into your sight, a female rakizen (The void-coming demon elves if you forgot.) and says "Remember, not all that came from the rift are enemies, some of us fled from our world to here, and we do not wish these we fled from to follow us."

Jizeram responds "You first mission is not too complex. I want you to go to the broken district, find a man named Hekim, and get him in here, alive would be better. All info we have on him is that his gang is gaining power in the broken district, and they are mostly riftmakers, although Hekim himself seems to be a diviner. Other then that, we do not know, we lost contact with the last predator squad in there."

The black-dressed one removes his cloak and says "It will end up badly, I know it." as a small dragon some out of the same place he came from, swirling around him. But again, he was silenced by Jizeram, and the rakizen adds "Actually I am wondering why we took you from the firstplace."

With these instructions a staircase is lowered, seems like you were underground.


Some visuals of NPCS:

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The Rakizen:

The black robed: (After he took off his hooded cloak)

Jizeram:

[shaddy_24]

Joshua

Joshua looks at the rakizen with interest as she comes in. I've never seen one so close before...Returning to the topic at hand, he says "Hekim? Very well." He looks to his new teammates and asks "So how do you propose we go about this? How will we track this man down and capture him? I have some poison that may be capable of knocking him out for a short time. Delivering it to him may be a problem though." He sits back and waits for input from the others.

[hexbox]

"Thats ALL you know? a little bit more information would be helpful. like-how on earth does he look like?"

[Psionic Dog]

Jack

"Heh, Find'n, now that's the easy part. Someone will always be know'n where you are. Ask da right questions to da right folks and you'll be at da man's doorstep. It may take all day 'less we find a hard trail early, but he'll be found. No worries there." Jack replies easily and confidently.

He also searches his memory for anything about either the men in front of him or else their proposed target.

Knowledge Local - (1d20+7)[10] (Jizeram and others)
Knowledge Local - (1d20+7)[21] (Hekim)

[shaddy_24]

Joshua

"So you can track him down then? That will make things easier." He considers briefly and waits for a response.

[boomwolf]

Jack:

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Jizeram and the others-never heard of these guys, but you don't even know the names of the black-robed and the rakizen ATM.

As for Hekim, you remember the name, the man visited the golden drake inn when you "worked" there. the guy was pretty well equipped back then, and decent with magic. you assume each of your group is like he was back then.

[Roland Deschain]

Joram contemplates the names he has just heard and tries to remember if he has heard of any of them

Jizeram History - (1d20+7)[15]
Jizeram Local - (1d20+7)[17]

others local - (1d20+7)[10]

[boomwolf]

Why do you guys hope to know something on people you have not heard their name's yet? how can that work?

Joram

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You know that he was some sort of tradesman, and a very good one. he gained massive influence and wealth before a terrible accident where he fell into a fire pit, his body was so badly burned you could hardly see it was a human.

[Psionic Dog]

((Just checking to see if we recognize faces, remember whispered rummers, notice odd symbols, or connect otherwise connect any of the pieces of the Big Picture.))

Jack

"Sure can" Jack tells Joshua. "Heck, I even met the man myself years ago. Course, people change with time so no guarantee I'll recognize him without a bit more info, but dat'll be no problem what with all the other questions we'll have to ask to find the guy. Find'n'll be da easy part. Ha! I can find ya anything. Catch'n, now that's a different cat to bag." Jack says, pausing to chew a lip as he looks around. "I reckon he had more skill than you or me here today when I say him those years back, and it sounds like da man's only gotten better. Poison'll help, but we'll be need'n more. Y'll got any more ideas for bag'n him?"

[shaddy_24]

Joshua

"Hmm... We'll need to ambush him then. We can't have him be ready, or have time to get ready." Joshua thinks for a second. "Unfortunitally, I don't have too much else that's useful for capturing him."

[MammonAzrael]

Rovinel

"Before we start discussing the merits of various capture techniques, wouldn't it be better to find the man? Once that happens we can worry about taking him down."

[hexbox]

"I say we move into the broken district and find some sort of tavern, there has to be one even there. and drunk people talk."

[shaddy_24]

Joshua

Joshua frowns at the pixie's comment. "No. We need a plan for this. The man we are going after is a diviner, and, unless I misunderstood," he briefly looks to Taragos for confermation, "we have to be very careful. Surprising him will be very hard, as will finding him at all without his knowing. We need to be ready to act as soon as possible after we find him, or we risk his magic finding us first."

[boomwolf]

((eeem...you guys gonna DO something anytime soon?))

[shaddy_24]

((eeem...you guys gonna DO something anytime soon?))

(I've been waiting for one.)

Joshua looks at the others, waiting for a response. Failing that, he says "We should probably all take a break until tomorow. We can look into this a little more, make a plan, then start looking. How does that sound?"

[Psionic Dog]

Jack

Jack nods slowly. "That sounds wise. Why don't we meet up at da Golden Drake Inn, say, an hour so after dawn for a breakfast with a side of da latest news tomorrow? Just be a think'n there as ya dream tonight and come ready for a long day."

[hexbox]

"Sounds good to me." I say, heading to the exit. "Anyone needs to say anyhting else?"

[MammonAzrael]

Rovinel

"That's fine with me. It's about time something started going smoothly."

Boomwolf

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Once he leaves, Rovinel will see what he can learn about his new "teammates" and about their mark.

Gather information on party - (1d20+16)[18]

Gather information on Hekim - (1d20+16)[20]

[boomwolf]

Rovinel:

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sorry, that score yields no info.

I assume our last player agrees.

Nothing interesting goes in the night, you all get a fine sleep and meet up at the golden drake, you also meet the rakizen, but she pretends not to know you as she talks to others you have never seen before. they call her alizera.

You get a very-very good meal at 5 gp each. (if you want) the drake's meals can sustain a person an entire day, and they taste wonderful as well, so it is highly recommended to anyone who can afford himself-adventurer or mere townsfolk.

An attempt to gather information (rolled for you all) lets you know that Hekim was a "good guy" until a year ago, when he began to hang around with some necromatic dude. the necro dude is largly unknowen, but he is a human as well. they also talked with a metaling engineer, but nobody knows what is the "reclaimed" they talked about is. (you don't know it as well.)

[Psionic Dog]

Jack

After mingling with the other patrons Jack waves his new companions over to a vacant table where he is settling in to finnish the marvelous meal he had been nibbling over as he interviewed the other patrons.

"It looks to me we've learned all we can here, and I'd like to finnish up my food before we move on to collect'n more pieces to our puzzle. Now, anyone have any new ideals on how to approach our man? I'd give even odds or better that he learns we've been ask'n questions before we catch up, so complete surprise ain't someth'n we can count on. If we can block divinations for at least part of our group we might still achieve some surprise. Another option would be give'n a false reason for our questions, but I'm not a particularly grand liar and such a plan could just as well increase the odds he'll know we're a come'n.

So that brings me back to da first question: How do we bring him in alive once he's found? I'd rather not spend weeks hound'n him 'till he gets tired and makes a mistake of a kind. Thoughts?"

[hexbox]

"Why not jest make a visible assault on his forces? we can't hope to hide our presence anyhow." I claim, after all we are fighting a diviner here. "Best we can hope for is to look like even more criminals, then he might come to us."

[shaddy_24]

Joshua

Joshua orders his own meal when he reaches Jack's table. Listening to Jack's ideas, he responds "As I said yesterday, I have aquired several doses of poison that works to knock the victem out as opposed to killing them. I am well trained in the use of poisons, so, as long as he has no immunity to poison, I should be able to knock him out, even if it takes a few doses. I have 5 right now."

After Nirshal's thoughts "Hm. It has a small possibility. Draw him in and ambush him when he arrives? It's risky, especially since he is powerful diviner. I don't know if it would work.

[hexbox]

"How about we take it to the one direction divining won't help him? outright combat. anything too sneaky is doomed to fail."

[Roland Deschain]

Well Joshua Joram says, finally coming out of his recollections, If we do get protection from divination from our "allies" then you should be the one to get it, since you seem like you could sneak in and deal with him while we make a distraction somewhere. Now, how do we find him as quick as possible after we ask "alizera" for protection from divination for you Joshua. Who has the social smarts, for I certainly don't.

[MammonAzrael]

Rovinel

"Well whatever we do it'll have to be fast. Because the longer we take, the more likely is that he will have tried to see if anyone is looking for him. Our best bet is to find him before our questions reach his ears."

With his input, he proceeds to dig into his meal quietly, watching the others.