At the Trip and Shuffle

Gumri, the room begins to fragment, as the oratory is over and the teams are beginning to coalesce. A log cracks into the fire as it burns down, and chairs scud across the floor, tables shift. The drow do some midgrade sauntering over to Vellyne Harpell to listen to their clues. Dzaan lights a pipe and stares out a window. Avarics sheds casual magnificence as she gathers up the gnomes and the elf to a table to plot. She keeps a sly eye on you, however, and doesn't bother speaking quietly or turning away for privacy.

"Listen, if the Zhents have the key, they'd likely not keep it local. They'd shunt it away south, or to another plane, for safe keeping. We need not fear that they'll be hoovering up keys with an eye on unlocking the vault, like... some wizards... we know. No. They'll just fluff up their feathers around their one little key, assing up the treasure hunt for everyone else, until someone strikes a bargain good enough to make them give it up. Unless, on the other hand. Unless the local agents that got it are keeping it quiet. Easthaven, maybe. And I don't know for sure, but I've long thought there must be a Zhent presence in Lonelywood. It's where the thieves and murderers go to hide, away out in the woods. Rustic." She says the word as if it smells bad. "You, pretty boy." The well-groomed gnome sits up straighter. "Go to Easthaven. Seek out a man named Mosk that haunts the docks. Ply him with this." She tosses him a something small, heavy, sparkling metal. "Find out how the Zhents can be reached." She sends the tall elf to Lonelywood, to sniff out the shady spots. "And you," she says to the older gnome. "Stay here. I'm waiting on an associate who has yet to arrive. Someone from my, um, wizard tower. Sure. My tower that I have for wizarding in. He's from there. And coming here. You'll know him because he'll be looking for me. Tell him to wait forever, and then I'll come." Then you see her look down at her long white hand.

Tru, the look that Avarice gives you when she raises her pale eyes from her palm and finds your gaze. The nunnery? Her eyebrows climb up and she gives her head a little shake, amused and incredulous. Then her voice, in your head. Do I not recall that I met you first in the basement of a fortress of the One True Lord and Master of the Fifth, Stygia's Prince, Levistus? Nearby was an icy altar to His holiness, recently ornamented with the severed heads of His fallen enemies. But now, for our next tête-à-tête, you invite me to the greenhouse... of a nunnery? Where there will be... posies? And perhaps, delicate edible fronds? Her mouth moves, whispering, inaudible except inside your mind. Oh druid, I do accept your invitation. And I eagerly anticipate that liquor of the priest. Her eyes, palest cream, locking onto yours, as if the rest of the world blurs, and there is only her whisper, and her snarl when she mentions him. And your secret. And my staff. I'll be there. In fact, nothing could keep me away.

You look for Dally. Any toe or elbow. Yes, Dally is a pretzel, when she wants to be. A shadow knot, in the corner of a spiderweb. She is so lithe, you have seen her stuff herself inside the skeleton of a knucklehead trout on a dare. She's so hard, you've seen her shoot an arrow through the straps of a barkeep's apron, while hanging upside down from one foot hooked over a gutter outside. Her stomach is hard as a washboard, for a Hin this is rare, and considered highly unattractive. She never sits in a saddle, but can stand on a galloping goat. She can leap into a window and land land with her legs stretched across the frame, already throwing a dagger. She is a show-off, a jape, and jealous, and proud, and possessive. She has definitely met Gumri, and probably challenged him to shoot an arrow through the slats of the shutters that hide the windows of Starrister's manor. And laughed at him if he lost. And pinched him if he won. She can do a handstand on her fingertips, and shoot a bow with just her toes. But she's not here.

Chizzich, Dzaan gives a breathy little whinny, shifting the thin strands of his mustache and beard. "See it too? Yes, I certainly did see it too." He shifts toward you, bending his pointy hat your way. His scarf is musty from him breathing into the wool, and his pipe smoke isn't pleasant at all, but carries a bitterness beneath the wood. "Goblin, I am the hunter, and it is my quarry. I will recover it, eventually, if I can find someone worth the rations to make the trek for me. Several have tried. None have succeeded." He jabs at the wight with his pointy toe. "This is Krintaas. If you want to try, you are welcome to work with him. If you knew the treasures that await us, you might not think of wasting your time on this silly little puzzle of the fat idiot Hin and what he's got in his larder. Your choice of course. The whinnying snivel.

You warg into Mr. Bojangles and scamper over toward the drow, who are in languid conference with Vellyne Harpell. One swings a grey hand at you halfheartedly when you approach, but they're distracted, the room is full of shadows, and a weasel is not dissuaded by one or two swats or poorly aimed boots. Plenty of room under the table, and the white witch isn't trying to be subtle. "The keys to the vault were dispersed amongst the adventurers of the original party, or at least that was the intention, although Iraser Flameroot either stole some back or talked his comrades out of theirs, maybe claiming he could keep the keys safer. True and false. We don't know which of his allies surrendered their keys, but we do know that their main muscle, a reghedman called Kar Darch, went missing shortly after the vault was locked for good. The barflies at the Northlook in Bryn Shander (now a pile of charred timber and broken bottles) said she went off looking to test her mettle against Arveiaturace, an ancient white worm. She hunts from the sea to the peaks of the Spine of the World, but she lairs in a ship trapped in thick ice, hundreds of yards from the shore, northwest of Bremen in the Sea of Moving Ice. If this idiot Darch was unsuccessful in her quest to kill Arveiaturace, and she was, her treasures, such as they were, including the ring, may be in that ship.

Dustavin, yes. Results-driven. That's wizards for you. There is no "means" that cannot be justified by an "ends" that finds one yanking open a secret vault and recovering a priceless artifact. The white-haired wizard Harpell practically salivates when she talks about it. Whatever it is. And the scheming and the plotting and the side eyes and the whispers and the subtext. Cultists justify means with ends as well, but the ends they seek are more usually the approval of some favorite entity, a boon from a god or devil, a manifestation of faith. The wizards want answers, knowledge, and they invest in themselves. The cultists who kidnapped you wanted... what? What did they want? Was it the same thing the illithid who kidnapped you wanted? You are a popular target for kidnapping. Could there be any connection? The symbol on the wall of the room where you were tormented: a bull's head with a serpent ringed around it. The cultists, seeking the favor of what entity? The wizards, seeking the knowledge of what artifact? The illithid, what were they collecting for?

Meanwhile the room is full of bodies, thrumming, pulsing bodies, filling the air with their warm mist. You slide into the radius of the drow mercenaries, with some booze and flattery, and find they are not unwelcoming. One pulls a chair out for you, and as they both listen to Vellyne Harpell expound on dragons and barbarians and keys, this one in particular cuts his eyes back at you repeatedly. His face is roughcut but his skin is smooth, the color of smoky pearl, veins taut on his neck and on the backs of his hands. "I am Valryn," he says, taking the bottle from you and tipping it into his mouth. "Darkness on wings. We cannot travel together. The Bregan D'Aerthe... we are held to our band.

Khyrra, the groups are forming for the quests. You have come to be called Khyrra Vzon, and you have come to be an emissary for The People. You have come to participate in the adventure-quests and make the friendship with the allies, and form communication bonds and Vellyne Harpell tries to touch you with her hand. A hand, part of an outself, can be used for the gesture of friendship, or the attack of violence. The outself itself can be a weapon or can communicate. The touch she tries to push onto your outself is gathering. Like the sweeps of a broom that pushes a spill into a pile. Like the orientation of stars in an arc that folds onto itself. Her thoughts are soothing-benevolence. Her intention is the friendship.

My Dears, she says in the halting, grinding thought-speech that makes dark dots across your thinking. Perhaps you should not danger. Perhaps you should -- now a different kind of thought-speech, that is magic and flows windier -- You aren't a fighter. You're a treasure. It feels like rectangles and the outself-containment of the pink goo of the stasis pod. Her intention is swallowing. You are lights, and movement. She is going to look-cut at every single one of the lights. The touch she puts on you is investigation-insight-perception. I won't hurt you, she says with her mouth. No, I'm going to help you.

Ziusudra, you are outside. In the cold. Darkness presses a relentless hand over the city of Targos, on the shore of Maer Dualdon, and you are cloaked, light-stepping, up high. You started your story on the ramparts of Bryn Shander, staring out into the tundra. You resume it on a roof, staring into a window. Staring at... Dzaan. He is your prey, your mission, your reason for freezing your face in this sunless dale, for ignoring your own interests for these weeks of relentless pursuit, as you subjugated yourself to the teachings of Migal and the demands of your order. You have seen him twice before. Once, on the pyre in Easthaven, where you examined his clothes and what should have been his corpse. Twice, in the spire where you hunted him, dug him out, caught him, and held him. Both times, your assassin hands touched a simulacrum, not himself. Is this really him, now, through a smoky window, past the dimming condensation? And then you see, behind him, impossibly, and yet... definitely... Ingetrude Frostblossom. The fierce little Hin who helped to save you from the sacrifice at Bryn Shander, fought hags and corruption beside you, then accompanied you to Icerazer to free you of your demonic possession. And there, nearby her, is Gumri Melnagroth, the pebbling you met while pursuing the white moose outside Lonelywood. What can it possibly mean, your fated target and your trusted allies, in the same room together?

Steuwardt, you stand on a creaky wooden step, halfway between floors in a grungy bar, in a rough little fishing town, in a frozen backwater, three freckles past a hair in the armpit of the North. You. It smells like mushrooms growing on the corpse of trout in here. You poke your head up past the floorboards and look around the upper room. Drow. Little folk. Cloaks and furs and boots and scowls and ancient mismatched furniture. Clumps of people mutter at each other, hunched on ugly chairs and lapping at questionable glasses of murky fluid. And then you see her. Her. She's holding court, in her usual way, a few devoted acolytes hanging on her every word, no doubt listening to her rhapsodize about her exploits and entanglements, or waiting to receive one of her charms. You've been sent here from the Black Swords to find her, to help her, to serve her. Her head turns toward you, unbothered, just aware of a new presence in the room. And she sees your face. You. But... not you. Her eyebrow goes up, she shrugs. She shakes her head and pulls at her braid, a bit of nonchalant impatience. That question on your mind is answered. She has identified your purpose, but she has no idea who you are. She beckons you with one sharp finger: Come.

OOC

Welcome to our new thread, Gumri, Tru, Chizzich, Dustavin, Khyrra, welcome back to the game, Ziusudra, and welcome to the game for the first time, Steuwardt!!

As you are building your stat blocks and action blocks in this new code, take a look at Dragoon's helpful guide to formatting for assistance. We can tweak and fine-tune them for a few rounds. If you make a roll, use Avrae in the Discord channel, and then just include the number in your action block. If you could please include your magic items in your stat block along with your spells, that would be very helpful to me. Onward!