The shackled city - chapter 1, Life's bazaar

[The Great Skenardo]

Moon
Moon thinks about the question, her small head tilted to one side.
"Yeah," she decides, "It's intruding."
"But," she continues, a smile on her lips, "if you're nice to me, maybe I'll tell you sometime."

[The Bushranger]

Dan'yel nods in understanding and returns the smile, hoping the night hides the slight colour in his cheeks...

[mdsoze]

Trocken

Trocken follows the Thecla.

Lady Priestess, how far to the temple? Are we there yet?

[insecure]

The group that's heading to the temple:

As Ruphus follows behind the rest of you, constantly looking back over his shoulder, you comes to a temple made of white marble with blue agates decorating the walls. The entrance, a wooden double-door, to the temple is covered by two pillars with the symbol of St. Cuthbert on. Above the door is a sign reading:
"By law should cities be build"

It's here! Ruphus said excited, Now we just need to find Jenya.

Ruphus walked over to the door and pushed it open, reveling a grand hall with blue and white colors everywhere. The temple was lit by torches along the walls and lanterns hanging from the roof, that is about 30 ft. above you. The temple is empty, except for you. Several wooden doors could be seen along the walls, leading to other places in the temple.

Immediately, Ruphus walked towards a single door placed in the left of the room, pushed it open, and walked into a little room with two benches. In the room, another door could be seen.
Come, Ruphus said. You can sit on the benches and wait till I come back.

---------------------

And for the orphanage group:

The orphanage wasn't looking good. In fact, it was in a general disrepair, to put it mildly. A single two-story house with a garden surrounding it was all. A single fountain could be seen in the garden, but it looked dry and dusty. In only a single window, one could see some light creeping out from it.

[wxdruid]

Thecla

Thecla sits down to wait, seems life is full of waiting with brief periods of fighting. She wishes there was more of the latter. Then she thinks better of that. I prefer to pray, waiting is such a waste of time. She kneels down by the bench and prepares herself.

Spoiler

Show

Thecla will pray for guidance on the current situation.

[The Great Skenardo]

Moon
The elf looks glumly at the dilapidated structure.
"There, see? It's still a dump. I guess you wanna go inside, then..."

[The Bushranger]

Dan'yel pulls his glasses down and peers over them in astonishment.
This place is an orphanage? Its... he's momentarily lost for the right word... It's shameful!

[The Great Skenardo]

Moon
Moon nods. "Yeah. The grub sucks, too. But who's gonna look after them? No one cares, so you just gotta care for yourself."
The young elf watches the building, almost warily.

[Ascension]

"One might indeed be tempted to question the generosity of the Cuthbertians..." Pindinbar grumbled.

"On the other hand, it is almost assuredly better than whatever fate those... those people have in store for the orphans. Come, let's check on the children. Perhaps we can be a spot of joy in their dismal life this evening."

Pindinbar dismounts from Peter and, assuming she's willing, helps Seraphina to the ground. Once that's done, he leads the pony over to the orphanage and ties him to a post by the door.

He knocks gently on the orphanage door.

[The Great Skenardo]

Moon
Moon hoists her parasol nervously.
"Yeah, tell you what. I'll just wait outside while you go in, okay? I'll catch you up when you leave."
With that, she begins trotting hurriedly down the street a little ways, looking over her shoulder every now and again.

[The Bushranger]

Dan'yel stands there, looking back and forth between the two smaller members of their expedition at the door, and the nervously departing elf, clearly having a mental debate.

[Ascension]

Pindinbar chuckles.

"You fear children?" he asks, in a jovial tone, "Well, suit yourself. I suppose you'll just have to miss out on the fun."

As he turns back to the door, a thought occurs to him.

"Friend," he says, turning to Seraphina, "have you any food you could spare for the children? When I'm on the road, I hunt or gather all my fare, so I'm afraid I don't have anything I could give to them."

[mdsoze]

Trocken

Trocken will move to the front, and seek healing from a priest, he can pay a little, or donate some to the church if necessary.

[SoD]

Seraphina

Seraphina gladly accepts a hand down, and watches Pindibar as he boldley knocks on the door, and Moon as she retreats down the street.

"Spare food? No, I generally buy what I need when I need it. Well, sometimes I buy it...I've got some spare coin though, but I fear it may not be put towards the orphans themselves..."

Seraphina looks up at the light shining from the window up above.

"If nobody answers, I could get inside for us." Nervously, Seraphina tries searching for an open window.

Spoiler

Show

spot - (1d20+3)[6]

[The Bushranger]

Dan'yel

The sorcerer comes to a decision and looks around, whistling. A fairly large rat, which has been discreetly following the group, comes scampering out of a nearby trash pile.
Apophis, go with those two.
He points at Pindinbar and Seraphina.
The rat bobs its head a little and scampers in their direction as Dan'yel addresses them.
My familiar will be accompanying you inside, make sure they don't cudgel him or anything, would you?
And he turns to follow in the direction Moon went.

[The Great Skenardo]

Moon
Watching from around a nearby corner, Moon blinks as she sees Dan'yel approach.
"Uh, welcome? I thought you were going in with the shortstacks?"

[The Bushranger]

Dan'yel

Well, really, this is their thing, and if anything went pear-shaped I'd just be mostly in the way...
He trails off and looks a little sheepish.
Also I noticed you looked a little, well, upset and wanted to be sure you were alright, he admits.

[The Great Skenardo]

Moon
Moon stares up at the man in desert robes, her mismatched blue eyes looking for...something.
"Uh...huh. Who are you anyways, mr. magician? Not to be mean or anything, but uh...you're not from around here. "
Moon twirls her parasol, reflexively.

[The Bushranger]

Dan'yel

Yeah, I grew up in a little village about a hundred klicks east of here. My folks were students of history, not that there was much around there...they were pretty surprised when I started showing magical abilities. They wanted me to follow the family work, and it's really kind of interesting, but I thought it'd be better to develop my natural talents first and then work on learning about things long dead and gone...
Dan'yel is cheerful and enthuiastic in his speech.

((And it might be noted that this is, perhaps, my only character who doesn't rely on Sense Motive... ))

[The Great Skenardo]

Moon
"Oh."
Moon looks around the corner again, just to check on the two by the orphanage.
"That's nice, I guess. What's it like, casting magic spells?"

[SoD]

Seraphina

"Well, Pindibar...and rat. Shall we go in?" Seraphina asks, picking up the rat. This thing better be clean... She grins. She's now in her element. She throws a wink at her Gnomish companion. "What are you like at entering discretely?"

[The Bushranger]

"Squeak"
There's no fleas on this rat.

-------------

Dan'yel shrugs.
It's...pretty much impossible to describe, really. Not so much because of it feeling great or anything, it's just...well, how would you describe breathing? It comes just as naturally.
He leans against a convienent wall and offers a friendly smile.
So what is it like being able to sneak around like a ghost?

[The Great Skenardo]

Moon
Moon giggles, unexpectedly.
"Who says I do that? I'm just making my way. Y'know, I talked to another magician once, and he said that doing magic was like...eating a cake that took years of baking to make. Yeah."
She taps her heel on the cobblestones, absently.
"So I guess you're really trying to mess with the Last Breath, huh?"

[Ascension]

Pindinbar blushes slightly at the wink, and hopes the light is bad enough for Seraphina not to notice it.

"Entering discretely? I'm pretty good at sneaking up on prey... I imagine that the same skills one uses to avoid making dry leaves crunch would help in avoiding making loose boards creak... but don't you think it might scare the children if we snuck up on them like that?"

Pindinbar suddenly realizes that the two of them haven't been properly introduced.

"Oh, I forgot to ask for your name. I'm Pindinbar. Pindinbar Suttles."

He extends a hand.

[The Bushranger]

Dan'yel

That's a pretty interesting assessment, I guess he must have been a wizard, using book-magic? I can see how it might feel that way, the way I use magic is a little different, it just spontaneously comes to me. Not quite as varied perhaps but a lot easier to use...
He shrugs, then looks a little puzzled
Last Breath...oh, the assassins.
Dan'yel sobers a little.
I guess so...I dunno about the others, but, the way I see things, if you know something bad is going on and you just turn away, well, in a way you're guilty of that bad thing yourself, since you could have tried to do something about it but chose not to, just to let it happen, y'know? Too many people do that...I guess I just can't, I'm not made that way.

[The Great Skenardo]

Moon
The elf moves a lock of wet, reddish hair behind her ear, looking puzzled.
"Wow. Are you like a priest or something back home?"

[The Bushranger]

Dan'yel

This draws a chuckle from the young arcanist. Not hardly. In fact the priests all hated me, they said I asked too many questions and should just shut up sit down and listen like a good little boy.

[insecure]

The temple group:

Ruphus walks out of the room with the benches, and off into somewhere in the temple. It doesn't look like there's a lot of life in the temple right now, but Trocken finds a priest in spite of that, who gladly heals him if he just promise to pray for St. Cuthbert.

-----------

The orphanage group:

You can hear something that sounds like a man or woman coming down from the stairs, stumbling a bit. A short moment afterwards, the door opens, but only enough to allow one to look in through a small gap. At the other side of the door stands a woman, about sixty years old, and observes you for moment, before she begins to speak.

Hello? Who are you? You don't want to do anything to the children, do you? Please say who you are and what you want, or I won't let you in, if you want to come in? Is it something about the missing children? Have you found them?

She looks both puzzled and a bit frightened.

Spoiler

Show

Trocken's healing: (1d8+2)[5]

[mdsoze]

Trocken

Trocken accepts the healing and agrees to pray, and then goes to an appropriate location in the temple to do so. If anyone is listening to him as he prays though, he is praying that St. Cuthbert see the wisdom of Moradin and the dwarf gods, and accept their guidance.

[Ascension]

Pindinbar sighs a little as the door opens. He'll have to wait a little longer to find out the charming halfling's name. Anyway, business before pleasure. He'll worry about his social life after the children are safe.

"Oh, no ma'am, I'm afraid we haven't found the missing children yet. I'm very sorry. We're just here to do what we can to make sure no more children go missing. I'm Pindinbar Suttles, and my friend here is... well, we've only just met, and I'm not sure what her name is, but she's not here to harm you either. I'm actually from out of town, but when I heard about your plight I felt obligated to do what I could for you. I'm afraid I'm not much good at dealing with people, but I've got sharp eyes and I'm good with a bow... I could keep watch outside, perhaps..."