Chara feels the magical bond between her and her new familiar form. Ichabod says, in her head, “Our bargain is sealed. The wolf pup you named after your foolish father is dead. If you like, you could find most of it by the side of the road about an hour’s journey away on the road, back the way you came. But I wouldn’t recommend it; the scene is grisly and probably only interesting to enthusiasts. Now tell me more of your friends; any of them corruptible do you think? I’ve got my eye on the big knight looking one, but I think tempting any of them would be fun.”
"Oh...Okay," Lucian says, feeling rather relieved to put off trying to use his wolf senses. He follows Lenn hesitantly, glancing back at Chara with some concern before leaving with the paladin and Eithne.
“What can I say, some folks are good at stealth,” says Ichabod, indifferently. “Not to fret, though, because now I’m here. So, how are you going to establish dominance in the party? I say manipulate Mr. Tall, Blonde, and Stabby into falling in love with us and having him keep everyone else in line”
Lenn:
Your divine sense tells you there is some vile thing in the vicinity of Chara, although it doesn’t appear to be Chara.
Chara resists the urge to face-palm at the imp's statements. But she did glean some information from his statement... it sounds like whatever happened wasn't an accident.
"Well, if you can give me any more details, you might just be able to provoke me to the sin of wrath against whoever did this," Chara says glumly. She sighs. "Well, it's time to introduce you to the others... if you want to try to corrupt them to serve evil, you're kind of on your own with that. I literally sold my soul to an angel, in case you somehow forgot."
Chara looks up at her companions and waves them over. She lets the imp sit on her arm and tells him to become visible to the others. She looks completely defeated at the moment.
"Alright everyone, I think I'd better introduce you to my... my new familiar. His name is Ichabod... he was once my father's familiar, and it looks like now I've inherited him. He's informed me that... that Cyrus..."
Chara takes a moment to try to compose herself, and fails utterly as she just barely holds back a torrent of tears,
"...We're not going to find him alive. If you have any questions for Ichabod, feel free to ask him. He seems to know what's going on right now more than I do."
Chara falls silent then. She doesn't trust herself to say anything else.
Lucian comes over quickly, hoping that perhaps Chara had learned something promising...but his hopes are dashed as soon as he sees the look on her face. He stares for a moment, wide eyed as she introduces Ichabod, then he stammers, "W..what? How? When? We were watching..." He glares at the imp, forgetting his shock for a moment as he realizes something, "You...if you know what happened, that means you could have done something. ....Even...even if you couldn't have stopped it, you could have alerted someone! If you are Chara's familiar, aren't you supposed to look out for her!" Feeling his heart rate increase, he forces himself to calm down. The last thing he needs is to deal with the wolf at the moment--the last thing any of them needs is to deal with the wolf.
Letting out a breath, he walks up to Chara, "I...I'm sorry." He notices that she is fighting back tears, and he wishes there was something else he could do. If only he had just...not brought the wolf pups back with him. Then this never would have happened.
Not knowing what else to do, he wraps his arms around Chara in attempt to comfort her with an embrace the way Eithne had done after the fight with the wolves. The action is a little awkward considering that she has an imp sitting on her arm--though admittedly, Lucian hopes that he causes the creature to fall off. ...it was a strange realization, as he never before wished harm on any creature. But right now he feels nothing but contempt for the familiar. It doesn't help that Ichabod had been Chara's father's familiar, that actually makes it worse. It meant that he was linked to so much more of Chara's suffering.
"Lucian has a point, Ichabot" sighs Eithne. "You could have done something (don't deny it, because it would be pointless) and you haven't. I don't see why Chara would want to keep you anyway. Maybe she's too good for her own good. But keep in mind that many of us don't share this admirable quality of her. An ally invisible and as cunning as yourself could be very useful... if it's an ally. But if you prove useless or, even worse, treacherous... rest assured you won't be with us for long - in our situation, we can't afford it. So, from now on, help us willingly and never give us a reason to doubt you, okay?"
"And by 'from now on'," clarifies the savage stranger, after a short pause to catch her breath, "I really mean 'now', because, you see, there is immediately something you can do for us: Cyrus was dear to Chara... and also to me! You know, it seems, what happened to him and how. Tell us everything, please. The fact that one of us could have been killed without anyone noticing is very serious. Knowing how it happened, as well as allow us, in due time, to thank the murderer, perhaps will also allow us to improve our security".
"I still can't explain how I could fail to notice someone approaching Cyrus and also fail to notice Cyrus disappearing and also fail to realize, for the whole night, that he wan't here anymore! I mean… even if he had disappeared suddenly, I should have realized, at some point, that he wan't here anymore, shouldn't I? I could have sworn he was there, at Chara's feet, instead... until Chara started looking for him! There was magic involved?" the last of the dusk elf maidens fixes her azure eyes on the imp, waiting "Come on, tell us what happened, tell us what you know".
Chara feels Lucian's embrace... and pretty much melts into his arms, burying her head in his chest as she lets the tears flow silently. The imp presumably either hops onto the railing or onto her shoulder to avoid being squished between her and Lucian. She's too drained to think at the moment, all she can do is cling to the elf as if her life depends on it.
Lucian, having never been in an embrace as far as he could recall, has a moment of internal panic. How long should he stay here? Was he helping? Or making this worse? A sharp pain rises in his chest, as Chara's emotions start to rub off on him. He isn't terribly pained by the loss of Cyrus--it bothers him, yes, but he hadn't grown attached to the pup--he had intentionally kept his distance. But seeing how much the loss of the animal bothered his friend made him feel all the pain that she did.
He lets out a shaky breath, doing his best to not let his emotions get the better of him. He'll stay in the embrace for as long as Chara needs him to...though he shoots Ichabod a few glares whenever he notices the imp.
Nikolai stifles a perverse chuckle at the absurdity of it all. The gods are cruel, he thinks. Why give that poor girl a puppy, albeit a wolf cub, and then cruelly take it away? What had she done to deserve that? When I get to the afterlife, I'm definitely going to give whoever is in charge of Barovia a piece of my mind....
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Lenn moves towards Chara almost at the same time as Lucian does but he doesn't goes for Chara, but for Ichabod, trying to grab him with his iron gauntlets.
( 26 )
"You devil bastard!" he says "What have you done to the little pup? And yes.. "he says to Lucian's words " You could have done something... like warning Chara and us so we could have prevented it!" Lenn seems really angry, but it is unclear if it was by the presence of the devil or the death of Cyrus.
Something in the back on his mind tells him that Chara has said the words 'inherit' so that means that she not only had lost Cyrus. But he was so angry now by the death of the little wolf that decided to ignore that voice, at least for now.
Ichabod tries to escape Lenn's hand, but fails. Once grabbed, he relaxes into Lenn's hand, not fighting him at all.
"Good sir Knight," he says, "If you wanted my services, you should have asked earlier. I am bound to my lady Chara now. Only she may command me."
Turning to Chara, he says, "I know you are good now, having bound yourself to service to an...ahem...angel. Do you think it appropriate for your big, strong, handsome, virile friend to destroy my body in anger? Do you think you might convince him otherwise? He'll get no answers if my head is no longer attached to this body."
Turning back to the party, he says, "As for you all, you'll get whatever answers my lady demands of me once I am released."
Chara lingers for a moment in Lucian's embrace, before reluctantly untangling herself him.
"Please Lenn... that isn't necessary," Chara says, still wiping a bit of moisture away from the corner of her eye before reaching out to take Ichabod back. "I completely understand if you find him distasteful. But please, don't hurt him. Since he is my..."
Chara pauses, pushing back the sickened feeling in her stomach. "...my familiar, as long as he is bound to me, he has to obey my commands. Speaking of commands, Ichabod, I need you to answer whatever questions my companions have truthfully to the best of your ability right now."
"Well, Chara..." sighs Eithne, readying her heavy-bladed greataxe "...can't you see that this can not bring any good? Since he does not want to collaborate spontaneously, he is useless. Or worse".
"We won't be able to wait every time for you to ask him (or to guess) what he can do to help us and then to order him" starts explaining herself better the savage stranger. "In dangerous situation, quick and spontaneous action is needed. Plus, we can't even assume that you will always be there to order him not to do things that could harm us. Finally, we can not even be sure that you can effectively command him, because, you see, you just told us verbatim 'If you have any questions for Ichabod, feel free to ask him'. This is an implicit order for Ichabod... an implicit order that he answer our question. But not even this order brought him to cooperate. Now you gave him an explicit order... Maybe now he will obey. But I think we can not have with us an 'ally' who is so reluctant to do what is needed. It could really be the end of all of us! We'd better execute him. Here and now".
"Or this would bring harm to you, now that he is your 'familiar'?" the last of the dusk elf maidens asks "Would something bad happen to you, should we get rid of this useless, stubborn and evil-willed false ally?"
Lucian can't help but be satisfied by Lenn's actions. Admittedly, he'd considered at least hitting the little creature--but lashing out in anger would only lead to him losing control. He'd learned out of necessity to keep such impulses in check.
When Chara turns to retrieve Ichabod, Lucian lowers his head and rubs one arm...feeling a little awkward. He goes a quiet for a while, unsure of what else to do or say in this situation. Letting out a breath, he steps up beside Eithne and Lenn, "Come on...I don't like him either, but... Chara asked you to let him go... Shouldn't we let him speak before... threatening him further?" Part of him wants to just let the two warriors get rid of the vile creature...if he died would that free Chara so that she could have a better familiar? He can tell that she isn't particularly thrilled to have Ichabod as he familiar...but she had asked them not to hurt him, so they should respect that. Besides...if they killed him now they wouldn't get any information out of him.
"Both of you, seriously, please stop hurting him," Chara says, now actually genuinely starting to feel worried for the imp, no matter how annoying he is. "I get where you're both coming from... but even though this wasn't my idea, I did agree to take him on as a familiar and for that reason I do have an obligation to take care of him now. Eithne, I know he's a devil and probably doesn't have our best interests at heart, but he isn't going to do anything that would get us all killed."
Climbing up Chara until he is balanced on her shoulder, Ichabod draws himself to his full height (about 8 inches) and does his best to give off a dignified air. "I don't see the point of answering any of your questions if you are going to be paranoid and mistrusting about it, but my lady commands and I am her humble servant. So ask your questions, dhampir, werewolf, collection of dead, and...um...partial Vistani. What is so important that you must ask me about it when your friend, the witch, has disappeared?"
Seeing this, Eithne briefly thinks: 'Hey, nobody of you has migrated from my head to hers, right?'
But the voices in her head are quick to reassure the last of the dusk elf maidens... It is not with trepassed dusk elf female that Chara is speaking.
'Chara knows she can count on us...' concludes the savage stranger 'She will tell us what we need to be told'.
Chara feels the magical bond between her and her new familiar form. Ichabod says, in her head, “Our bargain is sealed. The wolf pup you named after your foolish father is dead. If you like, you could find most of it by the side of the road about an hour’s journey away on the road, back the way you came. But I wouldn’t recommend it; the scene is grisly and probably only interesting to enthusiasts. Now tell me more of your friends; any of them corruptible do you think? I’ve got my eye on the big knight looking one, but I think tempting any of them would be fun.”
Tamryn - lvl 4 Wood Elf Rogue - Circle of Light Campaign || Drusilla - lvl 1 Half-Elf Ranger - Sleeping Gods || Grrzark - lvl 1 Goblin Barbarian - Danger at Darkshelf Quarry || DM - LTG - Curse of Strahd
"How...?" Chara asks, her voice trembling. "That doesn't make any sense... Eithne was sitting watch all night practically right next to me."
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Lenn nods to Chara and closes his eyes just for a brief moment, trying to feel the presence of a fiend nearby.
PbP Character: A few ;)
Nikolai wonders if the halfling Rondic had something to do with the pup's death, but he keeps it to himself.
"Oh...Okay," Lucian says, feeling rather relieved to put off trying to use his wolf senses. He follows Lenn hesitantly, glancing back at Chara with some concern before leaving with the paladin and Eithne.
Chara:
“What can I say, some folks are good at stealth,” says Ichabod, indifferently. “Not to fret, though, because now I’m here. So, how are you going to establish dominance in the party? I say manipulate Mr. Tall, Blonde, and Stabby into falling in love with us and having him keep everyone else in line”
Lenn:
Your divine sense tells you there is some vile thing in the vicinity of Chara, although it doesn’t appear to be Chara.
Tamryn - lvl 4 Wood Elf Rogue - Circle of Light Campaign || Drusilla - lvl 1 Half-Elf Ranger - Sleeping Gods || Grrzark - lvl 1 Goblin Barbarian - Danger at Darkshelf Quarry || DM - LTG - Curse of Strahd
Chara resists the urge to face-palm at the imp's statements. But she did glean some information from his statement... it sounds like whatever happened wasn't an accident.
"Well, if you can give me any more details, you might just be able to provoke me to the sin of wrath against whoever did this," Chara says glumly. She sighs. "Well, it's time to introduce you to the others... if you want to try to corrupt them to serve evil, you're kind of on your own with that. I literally sold my soul to an angel, in case you somehow forgot."
Chara looks up at her companions and waves them over. She lets the imp sit on her arm and tells him to become visible to the others. She looks completely defeated at the moment.
"Alright everyone, I think I'd better introduce you to my... my new familiar. His name is Ichabod... he was once my father's familiar, and it looks like now I've inherited him. He's informed me that... that Cyrus..."
Chara takes a moment to try to compose herself, and fails utterly as she just barely holds back a torrent of tears,
"...We're not going to find him alive. If you have any questions for Ichabod, feel free to ask him. He seems to know what's going on right now more than I do."
Chara falls silent then. She doesn't trust herself to say anything else.
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Lucian comes over quickly, hoping that perhaps Chara had learned something promising...but his hopes are dashed as soon as he sees the look on her face. He stares for a moment, wide eyed as she introduces Ichabod, then he stammers, "W..what? How? When? We were watching..." He glares at the imp, forgetting his shock for a moment as he realizes something, "You...if you know what happened, that means you could have done something. ....Even...even if you couldn't have stopped it, you could have alerted someone! If you are Chara's familiar, aren't you supposed to look out for her!" Feeling his heart rate increase, he forces himself to calm down. The last thing he needs is to deal with the wolf at the moment--the last thing any of them needs is to deal with the wolf.
Letting out a breath, he walks up to Chara, "I...I'm sorry." He notices that she is fighting back tears, and he wishes there was something else he could do. If only he had just...not brought the wolf pups back with him. Then this never would have happened.
Not knowing what else to do, he wraps his arms around Chara in attempt to comfort her with an embrace the way Eithne had done after the fight with the wolves. The action is a little awkward considering that she has an imp sitting on her arm--though admittedly, Lucian hopes that he causes the creature to fall off. ...it was a strange realization, as he never before wished harm on any creature. But right now he feels nothing but contempt for the familiar. It doesn't help that Ichabod had been Chara's father's familiar, that actually makes it worse. It meant that he was linked to so much more of Chara's suffering.
"Lucian has a point, Ichabot" sighs Eithne. "You could have done something (don't deny it, because it would be pointless) and you haven't. I don't see why Chara would want to keep you anyway. Maybe she's too good for her own good. But keep in mind that many of us don't share this admirable quality of her. An ally invisible and as cunning as yourself could be very useful... if it's an ally. But if you prove useless or, even worse, treacherous... rest assured you won't be with us for long - in our situation, we can't afford it. So, from now on, help us willingly and never give us a reason to doubt you, okay?"
"And by 'from now on'," clarifies the savage stranger, after a short pause to catch her breath, "I really mean 'now', because, you see, there is immediately something you can do for us: Cyrus was dear to Chara... and also to me! You know, it seems, what happened to him and how. Tell us everything, please. The fact that one of us could have been killed without anyone noticing is very serious. Knowing how it happened, as well as allow us, in due time, to thank the murderer, perhaps will also allow us to improve our security".
"I still can't explain how I could fail to notice someone approaching Cyrus and also fail to notice Cyrus disappearing and also fail to realize, for the whole night, that he wan't here anymore! I mean… even if he had disappeared suddenly, I should have realized, at some point, that he wan't here anymore, shouldn't I? I could have sworn he was there, at Chara's feet, instead... until Chara started looking for him! There was magic involved?" the last of the dusk elf maidens fixes her azure eyes on the imp, waiting "Come on, tell us what happened, tell us what you know".
Chara feels Lucian's embrace... and pretty much melts into his arms, burying her head in his chest as she lets the tears flow silently. The imp presumably either hops onto the railing or onto her shoulder to avoid being squished between her and Lucian. She's too drained to think at the moment, all she can do is cling to the elf as if her life depends on it.
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Lucian, having never been in an embrace as far as he could recall, has a moment of internal panic. How long should he stay here? Was he helping? Or making this worse? A sharp pain rises in his chest, as Chara's emotions start to rub off on him. He isn't terribly pained by the loss of Cyrus--it bothers him, yes, but he hadn't grown attached to the pup--he had intentionally kept his distance. But seeing how much the loss of the animal bothered his friend made him feel all the pain that she did.
He lets out a shaky breath, doing his best to not let his emotions get the better of him. He'll stay in the embrace for as long as Chara needs him to...though he shoots Ichabod a few glares whenever he notices the imp.
Nikolai stifles a perverse chuckle at the absurdity of it all. The gods are cruel, he thinks. Why give that poor girl a puppy, albeit a wolf cub, and then cruelly take it away? What had she done to deserve that? When I get to the afterlife, I'm definitely going to give whoever is in charge of Barovia a piece of my mind....
Lenn moves towards Chara almost at the same time as Lucian does but he doesn't goes for Chara, but for Ichabod, trying to grab him with his iron gauntlets.
( 26 )
"You devil bastard!" he says "What have you done to the little pup? And yes.. " he says to Lucian's words " You could have done something... like warning Chara and us so we could have prevented it!" Lenn seems really angry, but it is unclear if it was by the presence of the devil or the death of Cyrus.
Something in the back on his mind tells him that Chara has said the words 'inherit' so that means that she not only had lost Cyrus. But he was so angry now by the death of the little wolf that decided to ignore that voice, at least for now.
PbP Character: A few ;)
Ichabod tries to escape Lenn's hand, but fails. Once grabbed, he relaxes into Lenn's hand, not fighting him at all.
"Good sir Knight," he says, "If you wanted my services, you should have asked earlier. I am bound to my lady Chara now. Only she may command me."
Turning to Chara, he says, "I know you are good now, having bound yourself to service to an...ahem...angel. Do you think it appropriate for your big, strong, handsome, virile friend to destroy my body in anger? Do you think you might convince him otherwise? He'll get no answers if my head is no longer attached to this body."
Turning back to the party, he says, "As for you all, you'll get whatever answers my lady demands of me once I am released."
Tamryn - lvl 4 Wood Elf Rogue - Circle of Light Campaign || Drusilla - lvl 1 Half-Elf Ranger - Sleeping Gods || Grrzark - lvl 1 Goblin Barbarian - Danger at Darkshelf Quarry || DM - LTG - Curse of Strahd
Chara lingers for a moment in Lucian's embrace, before reluctantly untangling herself him.
"Please Lenn... that isn't necessary," Chara says, still wiping a bit of moisture away from the corner of her eye before reaching out to take Ichabod back. "I completely understand if you find him distasteful. But please, don't hurt him. Since he is my..."
Chara pauses, pushing back the sickened feeling in her stomach. "...my familiar, as long as he is bound to me, he has to obey my commands. Speaking of commands, Ichabod, I need you to answer whatever questions my companions have truthfully to the best of your ability right now."
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"Well, Chara..." sighs Eithne, readying her heavy-bladed greataxe "...can't you see that this can not bring any good? Since he does not want to collaborate spontaneously, he is useless. Or worse".
"We won't be able to wait every time for you to ask him (or to guess) what he can do to help us and then to order him" starts explaining herself better the savage stranger. "In dangerous situation, quick and spontaneous action is needed. Plus, we can't even assume that you will always be there to order him not to do things that could harm us. Finally, we can not even be sure that you can effectively command him, because, you see, you just told us verbatim 'If you have any questions for Ichabod, feel free to ask him'. This is an implicit order for Ichabod... an implicit order that he answer our question. But not even this order brought him to cooperate. Now you gave him an explicit order... Maybe now he will obey. But I think we can not have with us an 'ally' who is so reluctant to do what is needed. It could really be the end of all of us! We'd better execute him. Here and now".
"Or this would bring harm to you, now that he is your 'familiar'?" the last of the dusk elf maidens asks "Would something bad happen to you, should we get rid of this useless, stubborn and evil-willed false ally?"
Lucian can't help but be satisfied by Lenn's actions. Admittedly, he'd considered at least hitting the little creature--but lashing out in anger would only lead to him losing control. He'd learned out of necessity to keep such impulses in check.
When Chara turns to retrieve Ichabod, Lucian lowers his head and rubs one arm...feeling a little awkward. He goes a quiet for a while, unsure of what else to do or say in this situation. Letting out a breath, he steps up beside Eithne and Lenn, "Come on...I don't like him either, but... Chara asked you to let him go... Shouldn't we let him speak before... threatening him further?" Part of him wants to just let the two warriors get rid of the vile creature...if he died would that free Chara so that she could have a better familiar? He can tell that she isn't particularly thrilled to have Ichabod as he familiar...but she had asked them not to hurt him, so they should respect that. Besides...if they killed him now they wouldn't get any information out of him.
"Both of you, seriously, please stop hurting him," Chara says, now actually genuinely starting to feel worried for the imp, no matter how annoying he is. "I get where you're both coming from... but even though this wasn't my idea, I did agree to take him on as a familiar and for that reason I do have an obligation to take care of him now. Eithne, I know he's a devil and probably doesn't have our best interests at heart, but he isn't going to do anything that would get us all killed."
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Tamryn - lvl 4 Wood Elf Rogue - Circle of Light Campaign || Drusilla - lvl 1 Half-Elf Ranger - Sleeping Gods || Grrzark - lvl 1 Goblin Barbarian - Danger at Darkshelf Quarry || DM - LTG - Curse of Strahd