CH. 11: The Show Must Go On

[JadedDM]

Autumn Twilight 9, Gateway
Haahqae - He spends 5 silver at the Steel Tankard. He casts Change Self to look like a baaz, orders a drink and pays 1 silver and says "You see, I’ve been drinkin’ and I’ve been thinkin’. And my drinkin’s honed my thinkin’ so I was thinkin’ about how my thinkin’ can hone my drinkin’. And while I was thinkin’ about drinkin’ I was thinkin’: What makes Baaz so much better than the other people? Well, it’s ‘cause we’re dead sexy. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need ta think about this stuff. You see, this establishment isn’t run by a big badass baaz who protects the city, so it’s gotta pay taxes, which means its gotta make some money. And if the geezer isn’t here to make money off the room rent, and we aren’t payin’ for our drinks, then this place ain’t makin’ money. So why do I care? Well I care because if this place isn’t makin’ money then this place ain’t gonna be open for that much longer, and I sort of like the piss swill they serve here so I wanna make sure this place stays open. So I’m going to pay fer my drinks from now on." He then hurries out before the spell wears off. When he returns, the Baaz appear mostly confused as to who that was and what he was talking about. They had never seen that particular baaz before and don't seem smart enough to follow his reasoning so just shrug it off. He also advertises at several other taverns and practices his routine in the process.
Kendra - Kendra spends all day working with Tethys. She earns 1 steep piece. She then goes home and cares for Sadron. He regains 3 HP; his condition remains at 'near death.'
Tulbas - He prepares for his Test. He heals 1 HP; he is now fully healed.
Arulia - She works her father's forge, making 4 silver.
Grubnick - He pays 8 silver at the High Hand. He meets with Delharn.
Felran - He cannot afford to pay at the High Hand. He heals 3 HP.
Ne-Chanz - He pays 8 silver at the High Hand. He heals 3 HP.
Shima - He heals 3 HP.

==================================

It is the morning of Autumn Twilight 10th, Bright Eye, in the year 351 AC. It is First Watch.

Haahqae (Steel Tankard Inn, Room 15)
When Haahqae woke up that morning in his room at the Steel Tankard, he had one thought (well, aside from how cold it was in the poorly insulated room), and that was he needed a victory. Things had not gone well for him in the past week. He had been betrayed, stymied, thwarted and ignored by both friend and foe alike.

But today was going to be different. Everything had been set up, and his performance in the market square was scheduled to take place this afternoon. The weather was clear, at least; no storms or blizzards. It was cold, but actually a a few degrees warmer than the last couple of days. Tulbas had never shown for rehearsals, but he felt confident he could manage without the flighty elf child, who seemed more interested in padding his spellbook than helping anyway.

Speaking of spells, Haahqae glances at his own, secret spellbook and considers if he wants to renew spells today. He also has several hours before his performance, so he can take care of whatever he likes until then.

Kendra Synclair (2527 Market Street, Greylock's Gorgeous Gems)
Kendra woke up that morning not next to her husband, but her old elven lover, Sadron. She had done what she could for him over the past couple of days; changing his bandages with clean ones and making sure he was warn and well fed. But not having any healing skills herself, she was limited in what she could do. Still, Sadron was a survivor. He was already showing signs of recovery, but it may be awhile before he's at full health again.

She had a choice today. She had only earned 2 steel so far from working with Tethys and needed 20 more to care for her family for next month. So she could go in and earn another steel for that cause. Or she could take the day off, and instead focus on other things, like selling that ring. There were still 20 days left in the month, so one could make an argument for either.

Tulbas Erogund (Mageware shop)
Tulbas had spent the entire day with Magnus yesterday, preparing for his Test. Specifically, they trained in how to properly utilize the Grease spell. Not just making a puddle for enemies to slip in, but also how to apply it to ladders or stairways, how to grease specific items (like a sword hilt in an enemy's hand), and how the grease can be ignited with flame for extra damage. Magnus had drilled the young elf again and again, just on that one spell, and when the day was finally over, Tulbas collapsed in his bed in the attic, exhausted.

Today he woke up feeling better. The bruise from the gut punch he took from that baaz had healed up completely.

The Night of the Eye, the day Tulbas' Test begins, is only five days from now. There isn't much time left to continue training.

Arulia Seroth (323 Three Forks, Seroth residence)
Arulia woke that morning after having spent most of yesterday working at her father's forge. She had only managed to earn 4 silver pieces the whole day. This means that between herself, her father (before he was arrested) and Cassilda, the family has made a total of 4 steel and 8 silver. That's almost enough to cover one person next month. Hopefully things pick up, because at this rate, it didn't look like there would be enough money for the whole family.

As she sat down to breakfast with her mother and three sisters, she considered her options. She could go into the smithy today and try to earn another 4 silver. Or she could take the day off and gamble she could find another alternative to their money woes. She had not seen William at all yesterday, because she was so busy at the forge.

Gobax, Felran and Ne-Chanz (High Hand Inn, Common Room)
Gobax, Felran and Ne-Chanz wake up in their respective rooms that morning. Gobax prepares his new spells for the day, then descends into the common room. As soon as Green Tears sees him, she asks him for the 8 silver to keep his room tonight. "Also, I have a message for you. A dwarf left it last night. He says he wants to see you this morning, at the Haven Arms. That it was most urgent," she tells him.

Felran and Ne-Chanz spent all of yesterday in bed, resting. As a result, their wounds have healed some. Although they didn't suffer any injuries in the sewers, they were still quite beat up from the cultists. Today, though, they feel better. Better enough to return to the sewers today, if they should so wish.

However, as soon as they descend the stairs, Green Tears the innkeeper corners them. "I need another 8 silver for tonight, if you want to keep your room." Yesterday, Felran did not have enough and Ne-Chanz had to cover him. It looks like that will be the case today, as well.

(OOC: Not sure if Ne-Chanz will let it slide or expect Felran to pay him back someday. At this moment, Felran owes 4 silver to the minotaur, if he decides he will owe him.)

Shima Longfoot (300 Market Street, Gregeddin's House)
Shima wakes up in the spacious but empty (even more so now) home of Gregeddin. He had spent all of yesterday resting up, and trying to scrape all of the slime off of his body, clothes, armor and gear. He was still finding some in crannies and nooks today. At least it didn't burn any more. His wounds had healed some, although he was still hurting from the encounter with the gelatinous cube.

Gregeddin never came home that night, or at all yesterday. Something had clearly happened to him. Shima had not had time yesterday to investigate that or his missing weapons and armor. Perhaps he could do that today. Or he could find Felran and Ne-Chanz and return to the sewers.

[Chris1234]

Shima tries to scrape together another meal from whatever Gregeddin had left over and looks for a bucket or something suitable to fetch water from the river.

After eating, if there's anything to eat that is, the dwarf then goes to the High Hand to tell Felran and Ne-Chanz that he wants to finish the sewers job but his weapons & Gregeddin have disappeared so unless they know anything about either of those things he's off to the Steel Tankard to see if any of the associates can shed any light. Maybe meet up later? Unless they want to come. Frankly he could do with another day's worth of recuperation, but not sure if the job'll stay open that long.

[spyguy1503]

"You're paying me back..." Ne-Chanz snorts to Felran. "Let's go find Shima."

[Haahque]

Haahqae had figured out that the elf had ditched him as well when he didn’t show up for practice, nor even leave a note at the inn. It figures, the half-elf, for all his years, could be childish sometimes; making commitments and not following through with them. Well, add that to one more thing that’s gone wrong for him since the occupation. It’s hard to draw all the lines connecting his misfortunes to the occupation, but since the red army moved in Haahqae’s life has been getting steadily worse and worse as his goals, his simple goals that he was so good at getting done before, those simple goals have slipped farther and farther away from him.

He’s slowly bleeding money in a tavern, he was robbed in his trip into the Belzor hideout, he had used up some of his potion and he hadn’t gotten anything worthwhile from the trip, not even any useful information because the group had voted that they be burned. He’d even racked up a dept. The group that he’d put together like so many times before on successful adventures had robbed him and destroyed his only consolation prize despite how often he’d bravely lead them, nearly getting killed twice as he heroically downed countless cultists. Since then, things have just gotten worse and none of that group even tried to make amends for the trip. Tulbas swung by, but he was only interested in taking another one of Haahqae’s valuable possessions without any intention on helping out Haahqae in return. Greggeddin, once one of his closest friends hasn’t even come to see him ONCE in the last week and a half. Ismene is mad at him. Even the tavern keepers turned on him, refusing to help with very reasonable requests about his performances, even charging him for completely harmless advertisements for it. He’s helped out Cassandra multiple times when she was in distress, couldn’t she be the least bit grateful towards him?

Stupid Baaz can’t take a hint and start paying for their drinks. It was way too easy to convince them not to pay for them, why couldn’t they get it into their thick skulls that they need to pay for drink or it will all disappear?

Well, dwelling on such things can make a gnome go mad. Once Haahqae had heard the story of a gnome who had gotten so depressed that he had started talking to trees because he had no other friends. Dark thoughts. He had even given up all sorts of technology to “get back to nature”. Haahqae shudders, and not just because of the cold.

Haahqae needs to think about today. Today was a big day. Today he would find out if he was going to get into the circles of trusted entertainers for the army who could possibly spy where the army was hording all its gold… Or he’d be once again dumbfounded by the stupidity of Baaz if they don’t let him do that. Maybe the source of his woes is because these damn draconians are too stupid to run a city correctly, that would make sense given when they started. But that doesn’t make sense since many of his woes were caused by people that he had hired and trusted. Theft, neglect, absence, these things aren’t caused by a bad government, they’re caused by bad people.

ENOUGH OF THAT. There’s silver lining to everything. Tulbas might have bailed on him, but that means he hasn’t had to practice the show quite as much as he had planned. Yes, he’s been practicing the show every night and it will be far more exotic then anything anyone in the city has seen since the occupation. Probably more exotic then many of them have seen in their lives, but without having to plan out timings with another person he’s quite confident that his practice in the past three days has been enough to put on a good show, so he has the morning to himself.

The first order of business is to memorize the spells he’ll need for today. He’s not planning on using anything in the performance, but it might be prudent to memorize an audible glamor just in case he needs to prompt some applause.

Once he’s done that he’ll go downstairs and get breakfast.

(Replace grease with audible glamor, other spells unchanged)

[BishGada]

Tulbas wakes up. He thinks over the previous day and it suddenly occurs to him that if only that spell took him whole day to practice and made him so exhausted, practicing all his spells would not happen before The Test. On the bright side, he did got a lot of new ideas to use the spell and he might apply that 'out-of-the-box' thinking to other spells. For a moment he feels admiration towards Magnus, but then hatred returns.
What is sure is that he must practice a lot, and that means he can't hang out with his... "Damn! Haaque is performing today!" he blurts out loudly in his room. 'I never came to practice with him. I must do it today... but I need to prepare for the Test...' with this small conflict Tulbas decides to met Haaque for a short while to see how best he can help, especially the performance can be his training ground for his spells.
Having this idea in his mind he spends some time to learn his spells for today, goes down the stairs and runs off to the Steel Tankard to meet Haaque, hoping he won't be hold back by Magnus.

======================================================
(OOC: Tulbas learns Grease, Wall of Fog, Sleep, Light, Spectral Hand (in case he can use it to manipulate stuff from far, otherwise he will learn Mirror Image).
BTW, Haaque, you ninja posted me so consider my post independent to yours )

[HorizonsDream]

Kendra rubs at her eyes as she stares up at the ceiling from where she lays in bed. She knows she has to sell that ring that Norris mentioned to her if she wants to keep his shop and their home, but she also has to take care of her family as well. "I should have ran away," she mutters to herself. She finally pushes herself out of bed, and walks over to the other side of the bed to check on Sadron's bandages.

[chese780]

"Indeed... Let's just hope we get something out of this endeavor..." Felran says, following Ne-Chanz

[djhyland]

Arulia finishes her breakfast and stretches her sore muscles. Before her father's arrest, she'd worked hard at the forge. But now, as the master of the forge, she's working even harder, and she's doing everything by herself. And for such a meager sum! She imagines that before long her body will adjust to the work, but as of right now, she's not eager to return to the forge.

After she helps her mother and sisters clean up and scrub the plates clean, Arulia looks to the window to see the sun is just above the horizon. "We have a little time before you start at Una's," she says to Cassilda. "Would you like to go to the Seven Centaurs and bathe? Neither one of us has improved with another day at the forge."

After Cassilda answers, Arulia fishes out three of her remaining silver coins and gives them to her mother. "If Cassilda and I are going to bathe, you and Camilla and Niniva should, too. It won't do for a suitor to find us all filthy, will it?" She attempts a smile, hoping to cheer her mother. "I'm going to see Kendra today. Maybe she's found a way to have Father released."

[spyguy1503]

Ne-Chanz, seeing Shima, walks over to greet him. "Are you recovered from your misstep into the cube?"

[Chris1234]

"Not nearly enough, to be honest. Feels like half as much damage would put me in the ground. Thanks for coming to greet me though. We seem to be getting on a bit better than when we first met. Understandable though. Shady dwarf image, I know. But I get far, far worse from my own kind. Moving on, I'd offer to buy you another tea but I'm having to be careful with my money if I want to eat in a week or so's time," replies Shima. "Some bugger has taken all my weapons from Gregeddin's house. Looks like they've taken him as well. Heard anything about that?"

After hearing any reply, the dwarf adds, "I'd like to finish off the sewer job, might find some loot, failing which might get you the info you need to chase those two damn women that nicked your stuff. I'm still feeling a bit wobbly though, and want to see if anyone knows anything about my weapons and, of course, Gregeddin. Any idea how long the sewer job will stay open? I'd guess it's been open for at least a couple of weeks, judging from the remains we found. Meantime, want to come and find the others at the other tavern? See if they know about Gregeddin... And I could do with a bloody good wash too."

[TristenC]

Grubnick thanks Green tears and speaks quietly to the Minotaur (assuming they mentioned their little sewer trek during the down time) I'd like to help with the sewer, but I need to check on something first. Can you meet me outside the Haven Arms in a bit? With that he heads off to meet Delarn.

[JadedDM]

Haahqae (Steel Tankard Inn, Common Room)
After going over his spellbook for a bit, Haahqae then heads downstairs into the common area.

As it's still early, there aren't many people around yet. Mostly just residents like himself coming down to eat; a few humans and a dwarf. Not even any draconians have shown up yet. Cassandra tends the bar.

"Are you staying with us another night?" she asks. "That's five silver then. I've got some bacon and eggs on the oven, if you want some breakfast. It'll be a silver piece."

Kendra Synclair (2527 Market Street, Greylock's Gorgeous Gems)
Sadron blinks groggily at Kendra's light touch, looks up at her and smiles weakly. "Morning," he says. Well, that was to be expected. Sadron is one of the lightest sleepers Kendra ever knew. She remembers, back when she was 16, that even the slightest movement on her part would wake him. Odd to think that he still looks like he's 16, although Kendra has aged three years now.

Kendra changes out his bandages, since he's already awake now. His wounds have shown some improvement. However, it will be weeks before he's fully healed.

Tulbas Erogund (Mageware shop)
After studying his spellbook rather extensively, Tulbas hurries downstairs. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?" asks Magnus who is going over his own spellbook. "I'm still waiting on breakfast. And we have a lot more to cover after that."

Arulia Seroth (323 Three Forks, Seroth residence)
"Oh, that sounds wonderful," Cassilda remarks. "Even if I will be covered in soot by the end of the day anyway again." She grins.

"Sure, okay," Camilla adds, then discreetly sniffs at her own armpits.

"Seeker gods, yes!" Niniva answers passionately. "I'm practically a fright to behold, it's been so long. A bath is just what I need."

Vera offers a tight smile. "Um...do we have the coin for that?" she asks softly. She was always the worrier of the family and even though baths generally don't cost much, only she and Arulia knew just how dire the straits were financially wise, now that Thoron was imprisoned.

Grubnick (Haven Arms, Delharn's Room)
Grubnick, still neglecting to pay for his room, heads to the Arms and as soon as he does, the bartender approaches him. "He's expecting you, up in his room."

After heading up and knocking on the door (and Delharn demanding he identify himself before unlatching and opening up), he ushers the goblin in and locks up behind him.

"Big news, lad, big news," Delharn says with excitement, a gleam in his eye. "I did some digging around, and I found the perfect place and time to use that scroll." Rather then just tell him, he pauses here for effect and waits for the goblin to respond. He always did have a flair for the dramatic.

Felran and Ne-Chanz (High Hand Inn, Common Room)
Felran and Ne-Chanz prepare to head out, but Shima shows up before they can leave. The dwarf is still covered in acid burns, and they note that every now and again he'll scrape some slime out from behind his ears or that parts of his beard still stick together.

Green Tears stands nearby, still waiting for them to pay for their room for tonight.

(OOC: I'll leave it up to you on whether you ever told Gobax about the job. Keep in mind that the woman who hired you specifically said not to tell anyone, but it's your call.)

Shima Longfoot (300 Market Street, Gregeddin's House)
Shima manages to scrape together a meal with what little remains in the pantry. Gregeddin never got around to fully stocking it, though, and now it's empty. It appears this is the dwarf's last free meal, at least for awhile.

He searches the house, but doesn't find anything that passes for a bucket. The closest is his own waterskin.

He then heads to the High Hand Inn to speak with Felran and Ne-Chanz.

[Haahque]

"Yes and yes." Haahqae replies tartly, fishing out six more precious silver coins and placing them on the counter for Cassandra. She didn't even smile at him. He had risked discovery of his magical abilities so that she lived. He had made sure she remained employed and not enslaved when the innkeeper was taken away. He had even tried to get the baaz to pay for their drinks again, but did she ever so much as thank him for it? His precious, dwindling supply of silver coins was one of the reasons why the inn hasn't gone bankrupt yet. He could be spending his money on much more useful things, like paying back Ismene or calling a familiar or even pushing the known boundaries of magic to new limits, but instead he's forced to drop a daily fee on her counter and doesn't even get a smile for it?

As Haahqae recieves his food and sits alone at one of the table picking away at it he eventually qualifies his thoughts with At least she can cook well enough. For it's amazing how effective good food can be on the hearts and actions of men and gnomes alike. The food at the Tankard is usually a streach to call it good, but today was one of the better days.

Haahqae notices something else while eating breakfast. He can smell himself. He generally doesn’t like smelling himself on those rare occasions that he’s doing a larger performance. This time his audience is just a group of filthy unwashed baaz soldiers so it might be alright, but then again he has some extra time today. Surely he has time enough to take a bath for appearances sake. If a performer stoops to the level of his audience, then the edge on real art is dulled.

There isn’t a bath house near the Steel tankard, but there should be one in an inn as big as the Masked Dragon. Now does he have enough time to get there and to his performance in time? It's a long way and he wants to get to the performance early enough to warm up AND take care of all the details that need taking care of, but the Masked Dragon seems to be calling to him. It's one of the inns that he hadn't performed at earlier, really the only inn anywhere near the Tankard that he hadn't performed at to advertise the show. Today however, he was feeling lucky enough and brave enough to risk a confrontation there. After he has his bath.

(Haahqae, after eating, will leave for the Masked Dragon).

[HorizonsDream]

"Good morning," Kendra says lightly. "I didn't mean to wake you up," she admits. "But since you are awake, do you want something to eat?" she asks. "I have to go to work soon too, so do you think you'll be okay on your own?" Sadron mostly slept while she was gone from what she knew, but she had asked the same question each day that she left.

[djhyland]

Arulia nervously glances at her sisters before putting on a brave smile for her mother. "This...this is the last of the money that I've been saving for a long time," she quietly replies. "From when I was a Seeker guard, before everything went wrong. It's not enough to make much of a difference for long, but it can make a big difference in how we all feel for a little while."