CH. 13: Consequences

[HorizonsDream]

"Yeah, I think I'll go home. Um, thanks for looking out for me." Kendra says. She finally stands up and stretches a bit before she grabs her stuff, and makes the journey home.

[djhyland]

Arulia sighs. "You're probably right," she says. "With as little time as we have and without knowing where we're going or who will meet us there, we don't have much of a plan. And the chances are that we won't get much money out of them, either. If you don't want to help, I can't say I blame you."

[JadedDM]

Haahqae, Arulia and Gobax (Masked Dragon Inn, Common Room)
"It's not that I don't want to help," Miriam says. "I sympathize with you, I really do. But I have a lot on my plate at the moment and I'm not one for 'winging' it. If you can come up with a solid plan, I'll be happy to help back you up. As it stands now, you don't even know what it is you are asking me to do yet."

Jaymes adds, "If you can guarantee some coin, even if there is failure, I'll help, too. But I just barely have enough to survive the winter, and can't afford to waste time and energy on something that probably won't pay off. Sorry about your misfortunes, though."

Kendra Greylock (Prefect's Mansion)
After gathering up her gear, Kendra makes her way outside. In the courtyard, she finds six kapak soldiers waiting for her. "Afternoon, ma'am," says one. "We have been assigned to escort you home by the prefect himself."

[TristenC]

Grubnick lets Arulia take lead for a while since Myriam seems to instantly dislike him. After a while he feels the need to speak. Well we did just find out about the opportunity ourselves. And it's not like we have a lot of time to scout the location and build a plan before going in. I'd offer something for compensation myself if I had it... he looks to the others, hoping his last comment might stir something.


[Ooc: how long would it take to get to the meeting point and back?]

[HorizonsDream]

"But I really don't need an escort," Kendra says. "I wasn't hurt that badly."

[Haahque]

These words of Miriam inspire Haahqae to rejoin the conversation. Something about what she said resonates with Haahqae’s own feelings and desires, but he’s already faced that decision, and made it. Lifting his head from his knees Haahqae looks at Miriam to make sure she understands exactly what he’s saying.

“Sometimes that happens. Sometimes you have a tasks so large on your plate that you can’t bring yourself to help in a cause you believe in because you can’t figure out how it helps you with your own problems. But you can’t make any progress on your own task, no matter how much you try, because your problems are so insurmountably huge that no one can be reasonably expected to complete it.”

“You can’t let that stop you. Maybe if you help out others with their task, it will give you what you want. Or, maybe if you help them out there will be some people willing to help you with your own task that you were unable to make any headway on alone. But if you putter around for a day at your own task and make no significant progress again for the eighth day in a row, you’ll just end up regretting turning down an opportunity to do something other than stew in your own despair.”

Maybe Haahqae wasn’t only talking about Miriam.

[djhyland]

Arulia shakes her head at Gobax's implication. "I don't have any money to spare, either. Unless something changes, my family won't survive the next month, let alone the whole winter." Turning to Gobax, she says, "But you're right, Gobax. We should go and look at the warehouse ahead of time, whether or not we're on our own. Maybe we'll find some advantage."

Arulia looks strangely at Haahqae, but says nothing in response to his cryptic words.

[Haahque]

At Arulia’s words, Haahqae has a passing thought:

Arulia doesn’t have any money and needs to support a family? Was that why she was so keen on asking to be paid twice for the cult job? No, that couldn’t be the case, if it was she would have fought harder to get some of his newly won cash and wouldn’t have realized how insane her proposal sounded immediately and rushed off in shame.

But, discarding it he turns his mind back to more pressing issues; like the task at hand, and the fate of Ismene.

[JadedDM]

Haahqae, Arulia and Gobax (Masked Dragon Inn, Common Room)
Miriam shakes her head. "It's not that I am worried helping you won't help my own goals. It's that you aren't even sure what you are asking me to 'help' you do. You aren't sure if you plan to fight these thieves, torture them, reason with them or ask them nicely. You are asking me to risk my life and you aren't even sure what you need me to do. I need a solid plan of action before I can act. Come up with one and return, and I'll consider joining you."

(OOC: Not long. Remember that time passes in this game based on page count, not player action. Every 2 pages is an hour)

Kendra Greylock (Prefect's Mansion)
"You may find it difficult to get home without us," the kapak says. "This way, I'll show you what I mean."

After leaving the mansion grounds, the kapak honor guard walks with Kendra to the entrance to the noble district. A large crowd has gathered near here, kept from entering by the checkpoint guards. "Look, it's her!" one shouts out. "The Hero of Haven! She's okay!" A cheer roars out from the crowd and the baaz guarding the checkpoint have to work overtime to keep from being trampled while keeping the crowd out of the noble district.

[HorizonsDream]

"Woah," Kendra says softly as she looks out of the crowd. She didn't expect to see so many people so worried about her. She lifts her hand up and waves to the people to let them know that she is indeed okay. ~I hope that they don't actually follow me home,~ she thinks to herself.

[djhyland]

Arulia nods in acceptance at Miriam's words. Turning to Gobax, she says, "Well, should we go and scout out the warehouse? I don't know what we can find, but we won't find anything if we don't look."

[spyguy1503]

Kill the doity rat.

[Haahque]

"Yes, I should go scout the wearhouse. My suggestion had been that we all go, I scout then we formulate a solid plan that Miriam could agree with, instead of having to walk back across the city a few times to attempt to fetch them once we know what we're up against. Time is short and I fear that sitting here could jeopardize our chances of having an agreeable outcome to this encounter, and limit our possibilities of what we can do."

"It sounded to me like they would begrudgingly do this, but they wanted to learn more anyways. Well, now you know more, and there really isn't any more to know about this topic, so let us be off."

(Haahqae will travel down to scout out the warehouse if people are ready to go now)

[TristenC]

Grubnick agrees and joins them.

[JadedDM]

Haahqae, Arulia and Gobax (Abandoned Warehouse, Exterior)
The three make their way to the warehouse where the meeting was supposed to take place. It is on the docks and looks abandoned, to be sure. The main door hangs open a bit, but the windows are all boarded up. The paint is peeling and there are some holes in the ceiling.

Haahqae recognizes the place immediately, because he's been here before. Before the occupation came in and swept them all away, this is where the Cult of the Master stayed. Haahqae had been here several times before, to meet with Darewind and other cultists, although he had not been here since the occupation started.

Kendra Greylock (Blade Street)
"This way, ma'am," says the lead kapak as they lead her through the crowd. They have to do a bit of pushing and shoving to keep the people from mobbing Kendra. Questions are being shouted at her from every direction, about what she was thinking in the battle, if she knows who was behind the attack, how she's feeling and a bunch of others that are lost in the noise.

Ne-Chanz and Shima (Central Haven Sewers)
Ne-Chanz and Shima continue attacking the strange looking rat, but it seems capable of taking far more punishment than the other rodents. Although badly wounded, it's still kicking.

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

Initiative
Ne-Chanz (1d10+3): 1+3 = 4
Shima (1d10+5): 9+5 = 14
Giant Rat 06 (1d10+3): 6+3 = 9

Round 6!

Ne-Chanz swings his long sword with great skill (+1 hit/+2 dmg) and strength (+1 dmg) at Giant Rat 06 [TN 10] (1d20+1): 13+1 = 14, hit for (1d8+3): 4+3 = 7 damage. Giant Rat 06 is critically wounded.
Giant Rat (?) 06 bites at Shima who is using a masterwork shield (-2 hit) [TN 11] (1d20-2): 6-2 = 4, miss.
Shima swings his long sword at Giant Rat 06 [TN 11] (1d20): 16, hit for (1d8): 1 damage.

(OOC: Actions for Round 7?)