Chapter 11 - Why I went to the woods and ate brains

[Gralhruk]

Some years ago, Shade was coerced by her old theives guild to steal two items from a church: a scroll and a goblin relic. Once the deed was done, they magically wiped her memory of all traces of the event.

Now the church wants the scroll back and the goblin witches want the relic back. Shade has neither. What she does have, though, is a nice curse laid upon her by the angry goblins, which will essentially turn her into a mindless zombie with the only goal of returning the relic to the goblins.

To cure her, we need the relic which is now in the hands of the church. They have agreed to trade the relic for the scroll, so now we just need to find the scroll.

To start off, we decided to set out for her old thieves' guild and were waylaid by big ants along the way.

For our next step, we need to find Skathros, find some contact from her old guild, or find someone else who was involved who can give us some clue as to who fenced the scroll after it was stolen.

[Kelemyn]

How much of this do we all know? I don't think I remember much of this story coming out In Game. Do you want to take the opportunity to get some of it out in the IC now? Juni could question Shade a bit as we walk along.

[Gralhruk]

I don't think anyone knows anything other than that Shade stole something from the Church of Pelor and now she has been cursed by goblins, and somehow our travelling will fix it.

As far as where we are going, I deliberately kept it vague because I'm not exactly sure. Shade only knows a little bit more than everyone else - namely, that she stole some scrolls and a goblin artifact, and that both the church and the goblins are unhappy about it. From my conversations with J, I think the most interesting tack is that Skathros sought her out because he is cursed too, so he had some part in the theft or subsequent fencing of the goods. Ricard also may have been indirectly involved, so I'm thinking that Shade has some lead or inkling of where to look for one based on something that passed between her and Ricard or her and Skathros.

Another facet of this is hooking up with Cadrius - I'm thinking that we run across the same plague stricken village that Cadrius was at - perhaps the sickness there is some side effect of the curse or something, and Shade gets some piece of information that - combined with something Ricard or Skathros did or said - gives her a real clue about where to start looking for answers.

As far as bringing stuff out in the open, it probably isn't a bad idea.

[itches]

Was there a church in the villiage Cadrius stopped at?

We could do a very long and fast marching today in order to get some distance from the mant-ambush and stumble across a villiage at night that is mysteriously empty with a church. Issac said something about finding a church that could help him help Shade. We also poke around the villiage and either find the clues about Cadrius and maybe indications that it was a plague villiage and we can freak out.

Good roleplaying opportunities for all.

[Black Plauge]

Sounds good. We might also consider some evidence of orcs in the town so that the storyline around the Church and the orcs can be advanced a bit.

[-J-]

Sounds good - Lisa you want to start out the question and answer with shade?

[Gralhruk]

Okay, next step. After considering how we'll get our clue I came up with this:

1) We return to Tradeholm (Shade and Juni can talk along the way)
2) We break into Ricard's former residence (now siezed by the thieve's guild but abandoned and under lockdown, since he's dead)
3) Shade uses her intimate knowledge of Ricard's habits to discover the location of his secret documents
4) Said documents contain a clue about the route the stolen items took or the courier who transported them
5) Skathros spies on us and overhears our conversation, clueing him in to where we'll go next
6) Skathros escapes after a skirmish
7) We venture out to chase down our newly found lead

The only thing I'm not sure of is when we run across Cadrius' village - before or after Tradeholm. Any thoughts?

[-J-]

i say before, the more the merrier

[Gralhruk]

Problem is, I don't think Cadrius is there anymore.

[itches]

I'm with doing it first/on the way.

We weren't going there to meet up with Cadrius. Were we? Cadrius?

[Gralhruk]

Well, we can go there first. I'm just not sure what it nets us if Cadrius is no longer there. If we go there after Tradeholm, we can use the village to kill two birds with one stone - we get our next clue for Shade's curse and we get on the track to find Cadrius.

[Gralhruk]

Okay, so it looks like Shade and Juni (well, especially Shade) are going to want to pursue Isac. How do we hook Nicos and Blarth back up?

BP / itches: Where are you thinking of going with the angry villager plot?

At this point, Shade is going to want to pursue Isac straight away. I'm thinking of having her collapse in convulsions or something, and then maybe seeing if Juni will run back to find Nicos (or Blarth) to try and heal her enough so she can keep moving.

I don't know what you guys have in mind, or if that seems too forced or what. Thoughts? From anyone?

[Black Plauge]

Where I was going with the angry villager plot was still up in the air a bit. I was simply trying to pass the time for Blarth and Nicos in an interesting manner until Shade and Juni got out of their predicament.

Given the added complications of your storyline, however, I'm thinking that the mob might be a convenient plot device for getting Blarth and Nicos back into town. Nicos could use disguise self (and Lynn might have the same ability) to blend into the mob, while Blarth is captured by the mob and taken into town for a "trial" (not for any real crime, but simply as a convenient cover for sating the mob's bloodlust). During the course of his imprisonment, he might encounter Isac (who might have been "found" "robbing" Ricard's house and carted off to prison), unless there's some other plan for him floating around.

After that we might have Nicos and Lynn and Shade and Juni working on parallel tracks to free/find the two prisoners in a way that ends up with everyone coming back together at once.

[Gralhruk]

Hmmmm. Well, the guy that Cadrius dragged out of the river is Isac - I didn't realize that when I first read his post either. The real issue at this point I think is time: namely, Shade doesn't have much of it. With Isac gone and a clear trail to him, she's going to want to leave right now.

At the same time, I don't want her storyline to drive a premature conclusion to Blarth's. Shade just going catatonic for a few days might solve the problem.

[Black Plauge]

You know, I saw that possibility when I first read Cadrius' post, but then dismissed it as too absurd.

Okay, so if Isac's already out of town and Shade and Juni have a planned escape that follows after him, then there's no need to try and use the mob to force a party reunion in Tradeholm. I can then revert back to ideas more along the line of what I originally thought where the mob simply forces Blarth (and Nicos and Lynn by extension) away from Tradeholm in order to avoid it. This could then lead to a "random" regrouping somewhere downstream.

[Kelemyn]

Just out of curiosity, why would Cadrius finding Isac in the river be too absurd?

:)

[Black Plauge]

I don't know that it necessarily is, it was simply my reaction because when last I "saw" Isac he was in Tradeholm. Likewise, my last view of Cadrius didn't place him anywhere near Tradeholm, his location was associated with a nameless town somewhere on a river. For these two characters to suddenly come together went against the location associations that I had and was thus judged as absurd and discarded as a possibility. Given that it did happen, I'm forced to adjust the location associations that I had (by adding in the bit of information that the town where Cadrius is is down river from Tradeholm) and the absurdity disappears.

It's a great literary maneuver because my expectations are being met (the group is coming back together) but not in the way that I expected.

[itches]

BP / itches: Where are you thinking of going with the angry villager plot?

This doesn't help. but I was thinking of trying to disguise Blarth from the mob. But I realised I have no spells to do that and dont have ranks in the disguise skill, and didn't know what to pretend they were doing out in the forest (argg! treasure be 'ere!) so the post kinda got left hanging.

[-J-]

Seems like a waste of a perfectly good mob. Could you verbally spar with them a bit instead of necessarily getting captured or being run off? It might allow for a window into the racism (specie-ism?) that we have been building into human culture.

[Cadrius]

Apologies for any confusion surrounding my post.