"Most try at some point." Bryn answers the simic's question matter-of-factly, gesturing around the room. "It won't get you anywhere, but you're welcome to try as well."
He watches Veronica with equal parts amusement and concern, raising a fuzzy eyebrow as she comes back to. "That's alright, nothing to be sorry about. The Disjunction is disorientating for everyone, especially when you're new." He glances back towards the taproom, holding up a finger as he walks back into the other room. "Pretty sure I've got one back here, hold on." He calls out. After a few moments he returns, tossing a clean white cloth to the dhampir.
"It's just nonsense." Bryn says quickly of Lori's question, but it doesn't stop the dwarf from talking again.
Kai: The bartender's response is curt...But it could just be annoyance. You certainly don't suss out any malicious vibes from him.
Gerund lets out a mighty burp, slamming down a now empty tankard onto the table. "Well thar's part of the trick ye see. Brynolf is righ' about one thing. It's damned dangerous up there. And everytime someone goes lookin' fer it, the damn attic has switched rooms!"
"Thank you... I really do appreciate it," she tells the bartender with a genuinely grateful smile as she catches the cloth he tossed to her.
At the back of her mind, the same question hits her that occurred to Lori... where exactly will she get a supply of blood? She won't die without it... but if that craving isn't satisfied regularly, she might well go into a frenzy the next time someone gets a shaving cut. Well, on the bright side it seems that even if she were to drain a patron of all their blood they would probably get up and be pretty much fine besides the psychological trauma.
She sighs as she does her best to reach a reasonable standard of cleanliness, wiping her face as clean as she can before returning to her seat.
"You did say that there is an endless supply of food here, if I remember correctly," she says, still dabbing a bit of blood off her chin. "But I don't know if this place somehow takes into account the... unique... dietary requirements of its unwilling guests."
Valanthe watches Veronica lap the blood off the floor with barely concealed shock and disgust. Shaking her head, she gives the vampire a wider berth than the others.
"You said you've been here the longest?" the Simic asks Brynolf. "How long is that, exactly?"
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf - Lvl. 3 Halfling Rogue (Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk) ♦ Evelyn Drake - Lvl. 3 Human Wizard (Rule of Change) ♦ Aranea Kendrick - Lvl. 4 Human Warlock (Where the Cold Winds Blow) ♦ Elsenia Vesper - Lvl. 2 Shadar-kai Druid (Strixhaven)
Lori ignores Bryn's interjection, listening intently to the dwarf. It sounded far-fetched, nonsense as the bartender put it...But she had risked life and limb to escape one cage, she was not going to resign herself to being trapped in another.
"What's so dangerous about the upstairs? If we go looking for this attic, what can we expect?"
"Yes...The kitchen is well stocked, by truth be told I don't actually cook anything. The meals just sort of appear, ready to be served on the butcher's block." Bryn scratches the back of his head, considering the dhampir's predicament. "I'm not sure if the tavern will take your special diet into consideration. I suppose we'll see at supper."
For the question about his time here, he shrugs. "Longer than anyone else. It's pointless for me to give you a number, like I said, time is strange here." He points to a young boy sitting at the far end of the bartop reading a book. "Mouse has been here for forty years but if you ask him, it's only been a few days." Hearing his name, the brown-haired human boy perks his head up, looking at your group for the first time. He studies you all for a moment then goes back to his book, rapidly flipping through pages.
As Gerund begins to answer the question, Bryn cuts him off. "Death. Death is what you can expect." The bartender says forcefully about the second floor. "The people within this tavern cannot kill you, but the tavern itself and whatever creatures it summons up can. The second floor is openly hostile to patrons. Try to sleep in a room upstairs and the pillows themselves will smother you" The dwarf grumbles under his breath, grabbing another full tankard of ale and taking a long drink, chastised for now.
Kai folds his arms across his chest, glancing between the dwarf and Bryn. "I've handled worse than animated furniture as of late, and I can't afford to be stuck here forever."He needed to get out of here, to get back to the order. If there's even anyone left to get back to. The intrusive thought crosses he mind suddenly and he frowns for a moment before squashing it with a light shake of his head. He raises his voice above the background murmur of conversation going on in the tavern common room. "I intend to go upstairs and find this attic, to see if there really is a way out. If anyone else wants to do more than stand around waiting for eternity to pass they're more than welcome to join."
The Simic glances at the human boy. Could it be true he's been here forty years and yet has aged only a few days? What sort of strange magic infuses this place? And who is behind it? For surely there is a purpose to this place, this Disjunction.
Valanthe regards Kai for a few moments, her arms crossed. She decides she likes what she sees, a man of action. There is no use waiting around down here on the first floor when it seems perhaps their only chance of escape lies above.
"I am with you," she says. "It seems to me that the tavern has made the second floor dangerous for a reason. There is something there it doesn't want us to find, something like an escape."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf - Lvl. 3 Halfling Rogue (Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk) ♦ Evelyn Drake - Lvl. 3 Human Wizard (Rule of Change) ♦ Aranea Kendrick - Lvl. 4 Human Warlock (Where the Cold Winds Blow) ♦ Elsenia Vesper - Lvl. 2 Shadar-kai Druid (Strixhaven)
Veronica glances at the two who are already planning to make a break for it.
"Not to dampen your spirits... but wouldn't it be a better idea to try to get an idea of how this place works before testing the boundaries too much? You won't do anyone any good by getting yourselves killed rushing in blind. I would like to stay at least long enough to see how the tavern stocks itself."
"I'd go as well."Lori speaks up, just as eager to get out of this place as they are. "Unless there's an instruction manual hiding in the kitchen back there, I don't know what else we could learn down here."
"Although..."
Skittishly, she approaches the table of ruffians that had just caused a scene, tapping the man who had his head lopped off on the shoulder. "Aren...Right? I thought I heard someone say you've been upstairs before. We were going to go take a look, and I was hoping you could tell us what dangers you've faced before."
Bryn throws his hands up in mock surrender, taking a step back. "As you wish, don't say I did not warn you." He casts an appreciative glance at Veronica for suggesting restraint. "The food stocks when the hourglass flips." He says, pointing towards such a device sitting behind the bar. "It kind of just...Appears, you're welcome to watch inside the kitchen if you wish."
The gruff man Lori approaches turns to look over his shoulder, looking the half-elf up and down as if to size her up. Finally he sniffs, and holds out a hand. "Whatever kind of coin you got, I want a sample."
"I don't think watching food blink into existence will inform us of anything important,"Kai says with a shrug. "We don't have to fight our way through no matter what. If we take a peek up there and it looks hairy, we leave."
"There's no telling what this place is doing to us while we sit here and wait. I doubt the purpose is to just trap people here forever for fun."
He waits to see what Lori's conversation yields. If the man called Aren ends up wanting more coin, he'll flip a few gold pieces of his own over.
"Perhaps... but my point was simply that it isn't wise to rush in without thinking. If nothing else waiting for dinner will give us the time to adjust a bit so that we are thinking more clearly."
She sighs. Well, at very least she tried to convince them to stop and think before jumping into what is likely a meat grinder. She spent much of her early life in the abbey while her parents tried (and failed) to find a find a cure for her condition, and the nuns taught her the value of patience and caution. Even if her bloodlust sometimes won out over the monastic training, she has seen the wisdom of her mentors' teachings in practice more than a few times.
"What is the purpose of trapping us here?" Valanthe wonders out loud. "I am with Kai on this. I cannot simply sit around and wait for something to happen."
The Simic still doesn't trust the vampire. For all she knows, this Veronica could be in on the whole thing somehow. Maybe she doesn't even want to escape.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf - Lvl. 3 Halfling Rogue (Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk) ♦ Evelyn Drake - Lvl. 3 Human Wizard (Rule of Change) ♦ Aranea Kendrick - Lvl. 4 Human Warlock (Where the Cold Winds Blow) ♦ Elsenia Vesper - Lvl. 2 Shadar-kai Druid (Strixhaven)
Lori fishes in the coin pouch at her belt, pulling out two gold coins. On one side is the closed fist of Vohdis, the other face a profile view of one of the famed emperors of old from her land, a shrewd megalomaniac by the name of Deon. "Not sure how much it'll be worth to you here, but sure."She says, laying the coins down in the man's palm.
Aren pulls his hand in front of his face now, flipping the coins over as he inspects them closely. "Ugly mug on this one, must have been miserable." He pockets the coins, turning partially in his chair to properly address the young woman. "Changes every time ye go up there, but there is one constant." He lets out a short whistle, waving his hand to Bryn. "We got a slab of meat back in the kitchen right now?" The bartender's shoulders rise and drop with a sigh, and he nods his head before disappearing through the door behind the bar. He returns shortly with a decent hunk of beef wrapped in paper, bloody liquid still dripping from it. "One of the doors up there is a hungry one. Feed 'im this and he'll leave you be."
"As for the rest..." He shrugs his shoulders, "could be anybody's guess. One time I opened a door and came face to face with a bleeding ghoul. Another time it was like a jungle had sprouted in the room, with the biggest snakes ye've ever seen hanging from the limbs."
"Best thing ye can do is just be on yer guard. Even if a room looks empty or harmless."
After waking up from what felt like a 30 year coma, Westra groaned in agony. Her insides were twisting as if inside of some kind of Limbo, and stumbles over to the bartender. "The heck is Disdumpton? Or whatever." She snatches the drink off of the table and chugs it down, her hair flaring up with fire as she drinks. She sits down, feeling even worse than before, and tries to remember what happened. Who even was she before then? Had she died? Had she just passed out from getting drunk again? The more she thought about it, the more angry she got. Why couldn't her stupid brain just remember? Her anger eventually got so strong that her fiery hair flared up so high that it started heating up the Tavern to an uncomfortable heat.
(If there are any doors or windows, I would like to leave the building, if not, then instead that's the end)
It wasn't as enlightening as she had hoped, but it was better than nothing. "Thank you." Lori leaves his table, heading over to Bryn at the bar and gingerly picking up the paper-wrapped meat. She inspects it for a moment, then hands it off to Kai. "Here you go, fearless leader. I imagine you'll be up front anyway. Hand this over to whichever door tries to eat us. Other than that, it sounds like we should expect anything and everything. The upstairs rooms are randomized each time, no way of knowing what's going to be behind them."
"I don't think they're going to listen to me... but maybe I should tag along and at least try to keep them from getting themselves killed," Veronica says tiredly. "Hopefully they're at least smart enough to try to be stealthy instead of attacking anything that moves... thank you for doing your best to help. Are there any other things I should know about that might be helpful?"
And she had really been hoping to stay long enough to have some dinner, if for no other reason than to find out whether or not this place will feed her properly. Oh well.
(Is it okay if I join this or is it more of a private thing? Or is no one on thia anymore?)
A dwarf figure lifts his head from the table grunting as he wakes up "I drank to much again I have got to stop" he goes to say something to the bartender then stops " who are you, where's daniel" then looks around "WHERE AM I!!" he angrily stands looking to the bartender.
He wears chain mail with a shield on his back and a Warhammer at his side.
"Most try at some point." Bryn answers the simic's question matter-of-factly, gesturing around the room. "It won't get you anywhere, but you're welcome to try as well."
He watches Veronica with equal parts amusement and concern, raising a fuzzy eyebrow as she comes back to. "That's alright, nothing to be sorry about. The Disjunction is disorientating for everyone, especially when you're new." He glances back towards the taproom, holding up a finger as he walks back into the other room. "Pretty sure I've got one back here, hold on." He calls out. After a few moments he returns, tossing a clean white cloth to the dhampir.
"It's just nonsense." Bryn says quickly of Lori's question, but it doesn't stop the dwarf from talking again.
Kai:
The bartender's response is curt...But it could just be annoyance. You certainly don't suss out any malicious vibes from him.
Gerund lets out a mighty burp, slamming down a now empty tankard onto the table. "Well thar's part of the trick ye see. Brynolf is righ' about one thing. It's damned dangerous up there. And everytime someone goes lookin' fer it, the damn attic has switched rooms!"
"Thank you... I really do appreciate it," she tells the bartender with a genuinely grateful smile as she catches the cloth he tossed to her.
At the back of her mind, the same question hits her that occurred to Lori... where exactly will she get a supply of blood? She won't die without it... but if that craving isn't satisfied regularly, she might well go into a frenzy the next time someone gets a shaving cut. Well, on the bright side it seems that even if she were to drain a patron of all their blood they would probably get up and be pretty much fine besides the psychological trauma.
She sighs as she does her best to reach a reasonable standard of cleanliness, wiping her face as clean as she can before returning to her seat.
"You did say that there is an endless supply of food here, if I remember correctly," she says, still dabbing a bit of blood off her chin. "But I don't know if this place somehow takes into account the... unique... dietary requirements of its unwilling guests."
Valanthe watches Veronica lap the blood off the floor with barely concealed shock and disgust. Shaking her head, she gives the vampire a wider berth than the others.
"You said you've been here the longest?" the Simic asks Brynolf. "How long is that, exactly?"
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf - Lvl. 3 Halfling Rogue (Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk) ♦ Evelyn Drake - Lvl. 3 Human Wizard (Rule of Change) ♦ Aranea Kendrick - Lvl. 4 Human Warlock (Where the Cold Winds Blow) ♦ Elsenia Vesper - Lvl. 2 Shadar-kai Druid (Strixhaven)
DMing: Curse of Strahd
Lori ignores Bryn's interjection, listening intently to the dwarf. It sounded far-fetched, nonsense as the bartender put it...But she had risked life and limb to escape one cage, she was not going to resign herself to being trapped in another.
"What's so dangerous about the upstairs? If we go looking for this attic, what can we expect?"
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"Yes...The kitchen is well stocked, by truth be told I don't actually cook anything. The meals just sort of appear, ready to be served on the butcher's block." Bryn scratches the back of his head, considering the dhampir's predicament. "I'm not sure if the tavern will take your special diet into consideration. I suppose we'll see at supper."
For the question about his time here, he shrugs. "Longer than anyone else. It's pointless for me to give you a number, like I said, time is strange here." He points to a young boy sitting at the far end of the bartop reading a book. "Mouse has been here for forty years but if you ask him, it's only been a few days." Hearing his name, the brown-haired human boy perks his head up, looking at your group for the first time. He studies you all for a moment then goes back to his book, rapidly flipping through pages.
As Gerund begins to answer the question, Bryn cuts him off. "Death. Death is what you can expect." The bartender says forcefully about the second floor. "The people within this tavern cannot kill you, but the tavern itself and whatever creatures it summons up can. The second floor is openly hostile to patrons. Try to sleep in a room upstairs and the pillows themselves will smother you" The dwarf grumbles under his breath, grabbing another full tankard of ale and taking a long drink, chastised for now.
Kai folds his arms across his chest, glancing between the dwarf and Bryn. "I've handled worse than animated furniture as of late, and I can't afford to be stuck here forever." He needed to get out of here, to get back to the order. If there's even anyone left to get back to. The intrusive thought crosses he mind suddenly and he frowns for a moment before squashing it with a light shake of his head. He raises his voice above the background murmur of conversation going on in the tavern common room. "I intend to go upstairs and find this attic, to see if there really is a way out. If anyone else wants to do more than stand around waiting for eternity to pass they're more than welcome to join."
The Simic glances at the human boy. Could it be true he's been here forty years and yet has aged only a few days? What sort of strange magic infuses this place? And who is behind it? For surely there is a purpose to this place, this Disjunction.
Valanthe regards Kai for a few moments, her arms crossed. She decides she likes what she sees, a man of action. There is no use waiting around down here on the first floor when it seems perhaps their only chance of escape lies above.
"I am with you," she says. "It seems to me that the tavern has made the second floor dangerous for a reason. There is something there it doesn't want us to find, something like an escape."
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf - Lvl. 3 Halfling Rogue (Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk) ♦ Evelyn Drake - Lvl. 3 Human Wizard (Rule of Change) ♦ Aranea Kendrick - Lvl. 4 Human Warlock (Where the Cold Winds Blow) ♦ Elsenia Vesper - Lvl. 2 Shadar-kai Druid (Strixhaven)
DMing: Curse of Strahd
Veronica glances at the two who are already planning to make a break for it.
"Not to dampen your spirits... but wouldn't it be a better idea to try to get an idea of how this place works before testing the boundaries too much? You won't do anyone any good by getting yourselves killed rushing in blind. I would like to stay at least long enough to see how the tavern stocks itself."
"I'd go as well." Lori speaks up, just as eager to get out of this place as they are. "Unless there's an instruction manual hiding in the kitchen back there, I don't know what else we could learn down here."
"Although..."
Skittishly, she approaches the table of ruffians that had just caused a scene, tapping the man who had his head lopped off on the shoulder. "Aren...Right? I thought I heard someone say you've been upstairs before. We were going to go take a look, and I was hoping you could tell us what dangers you've faced before."
#ff7070
Bryn throws his hands up in mock surrender, taking a step back. "As you wish, don't say I did not warn you." He casts an appreciative glance at Veronica for suggesting restraint. "The food stocks when the hourglass flips." He says, pointing towards such a device sitting behind the bar. "It kind of just...Appears, you're welcome to watch inside the kitchen if you wish."
The gruff man Lori approaches turns to look over his shoulder, looking the half-elf up and down as if to size her up. Finally he sniffs, and holds out a hand. "Whatever kind of coin you got, I want a sample."
"I don't think watching food blink into existence will inform us of anything important," Kai says with a shrug. "We don't have to fight our way through no matter what. If we take a peek up there and it looks hairy, we leave."
"There's no telling what this place is doing to us while we sit here and wait. I doubt the purpose is to just trap people here forever for fun."
He waits to see what Lori's conversation yields. If the man called Aren ends up wanting more coin, he'll flip a few gold pieces of his own over.
"Perhaps... but my point was simply that it isn't wise to rush in without thinking. If nothing else waiting for dinner will give us the time to adjust a bit so that we are thinking more clearly."
She sighs. Well, at very least she tried to convince them to stop and think before jumping into what is likely a meat grinder. She spent much of her early life in the abbey while her parents tried (and failed) to find a find a cure for her condition, and the nuns taught her the value of patience and caution. Even if her bloodlust sometimes won out over the monastic training, she has seen the wisdom of her mentors' teachings in practice more than a few times.
"What is the purpose of trapping us here?" Valanthe wonders out loud. "I am with Kai on this. I cannot simply sit around and wait for something to happen."
The Simic still doesn't trust the vampire. For all she knows, this Veronica could be in on the whole thing somehow. Maybe she doesn't even want to escape.
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf - Lvl. 3 Halfling Rogue (Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk) ♦ Evelyn Drake - Lvl. 3 Human Wizard (Rule of Change) ♦ Aranea Kendrick - Lvl. 4 Human Warlock (Where the Cold Winds Blow) ♦ Elsenia Vesper - Lvl. 2 Shadar-kai Druid (Strixhaven)
DMing: Curse of Strahd
Lori fishes in the coin pouch at her belt, pulling out two gold coins. On one side is the closed fist of Vohdis, the other face a profile view of one of the famed emperors of old from her land, a shrewd megalomaniac by the name of Deon. "Not sure how much it'll be worth to you here, but sure." She says, laying the coins down in the man's palm.
#ff7070
Aren pulls his hand in front of his face now, flipping the coins over as he inspects them closely. "Ugly mug on this one, must have been miserable." He pockets the coins, turning partially in his chair to properly address the young woman. "Changes every time ye go up there, but there is one constant." He lets out a short whistle, waving his hand to Bryn. "We got a slab of meat back in the kitchen right now?" The bartender's shoulders rise and drop with a sigh, and he nods his head before disappearing through the door behind the bar. He returns shortly with a decent hunk of beef wrapped in paper, bloody liquid still dripping from it. "One of the doors up there is a hungry one. Feed 'im this and he'll leave you be."
"As for the rest..." He shrugs his shoulders, "could be anybody's guess. One time I opened a door and came face to face with a bleeding ghoul. Another time it was like a jungle had sprouted in the room, with the biggest snakes ye've ever seen hanging from the limbs."
"Best thing ye can do is just be on yer guard. Even if a room looks empty or harmless."
After waking up from what felt like a 30 year coma, Westra groaned in agony. Her insides were twisting as if inside of some kind of Limbo, and stumbles over to the bartender. "The heck is Disdumpton? Or whatever." She snatches the drink off of the table and chugs it down, her hair flaring up with fire as she drinks. She sits down, feeling even worse than before, and tries to remember what happened. Who even was she before then? Had she died? Had she just passed out from getting drunk again? The more she thought about it, the more angry she got. Why couldn't her stupid brain just remember? Her anger eventually got so strong that her fiery hair flared up so high that it started heating up the Tavern to an uncomfortable heat.
(If there are any doors or windows, I would like to leave the building, if not, then instead that's the end)
It wasn't as enlightening as she had hoped, but it was better than nothing. "Thank you." Lori leaves his table, heading over to Bryn at the bar and gingerly picking up the paper-wrapped meat. She inspects it for a moment, then hands it off to Kai. "Here you go, fearless leader. I imagine you'll be up front anyway. Hand this over to whichever door tries to eat us. Other than that, it sounds like we should expect anything and everything. The upstairs rooms are randomized each time, no way of knowing what's going to be behind them."
#ff7070
Veronica sighs and glances at the bartender.
"I don't think they're going to listen to me... but maybe I should tag along and at least try to keep them from getting themselves killed," Veronica says tiredly. "Hopefully they're at least smart enough to try to be stealthy instead of attacking anything that moves... thank you for doing your best to help. Are there any other things I should know about that might be helpful?"
And she had really been hoping to stay long enough to have some dinner, if for no other reason than to find out whether or not this place will feed her properly. Oh well.
(Is it okay if I join this or is it more of a private thing? Or is no one on thia anymore?)
A dwarf figure lifts his head from the table grunting as he wakes up "I drank to much again I have got to stop" he goes to say something to the bartender then stops " who are you, where's daniel" then looks around "WHERE AM I!!" he angrily stands looking to the bartender.
He wears chain mail with a shield on his back and a Warhammer at his side.
You better watch out you better not cry you better not pout I'm telling you why. Murderers are coming to town.
This is definitely a private game, as indicated by the "private" tag.