Mulligan's senses prickle as he circles the balcony, that great square mirror always somehow looming at the edge of his vision, too large, too still, too... interested. He forces himself to breathe and begins a methodical search, looking both for signs of arcane involvement, hidden access points, or mechanical tricks.
While he works, Break-a-leg speaks quietly about his recollection of Endelyn watching (the very few shows that he performed in) from the higher balcony... the one above this one. Mulligan recalls seeing that level from below, along with what is likely to be the ornithopter.
The bench yields nothing. The masks are just leering, alabaster things. The velvet curtains billow with the faint draft crawling in from the open stage. Then he moves back to the mirror... and the sense of wrongness sharpens. His own reflection is perfectly ordinary... no distortion, no magical shimmer, nothing like the Carnival’s trick mirrors, and yet the feeling remains. The reflection of the theater beyond is equally mundane.
Then he sees it. The frame sits ever so slightly away from the stone, not flush, not fixed, as though the wall behind it isn’t a wall at all. With a practiced fingertip, Mulligan finds the seam. A door. A secret door. Tracing the perimeter, the rogue's practiced finger soon finds where a central pivot hinge would be, where a latch would make sense, and tests a few carvings... nothing, nothing, then...
Click. The panel loosens pivots on its central axis, revealing a dark, semicircular chamber behind it, with a doorway at the rear of the chamber on the curved wall.
A small figure sits on the middle of three padded chairs which face the mirror, perfectly still except for the slow tilt of its head, which is shrouding in the hood of a dark cloak. Glittering eyes reflect the faint light from the outside... pale, predatory, curious, amused.
A darkling. And it has been there the whole time, watching Mulligan sneak and search and finally step through the mirror, which Mulligan can now see is completely transparent from the other side... a perfect one-way window.
The darkling does not speak. It does not rise. It only lifts one hand, slowly... and waves. A tiny, ambiguous gesture. Is it a greeting? A warning? A casual dismissal?
Rowan
The walls of this gloomy chamber are lined with black-veiled compartments that contain makeshift beds. The furniture is sparse: a few wooden tables and chairs, a box of junk in one corner, and flickering lanterns resting here and there. Five performers occupy the room. Two of them are on their feet - one is a female tiefling talking to a skull, the other a male human pacing angrily and muttering - but neither look up at Rowan's furtive peek. A male halfling is crouched in a corner, studying a sheaf of papers that are blotched with tears. Two others are difficult to see but appear to be on their bunks, sobbing into their pillows.
Barria
The hairy creature's head barely turns at Barria's greeting. It droops as though even lifting it is too much effort.
Huh. Good, evil. What does it matter? I've given up trying to remember my lines.
His voice is like despair dragged over gravel. Then he turns properly, and only then seems to register Barria's presence. A faint spark brighten his eyes as he says: Huh, you're new.Then after a thoughtful pause: What did she promise you?
He sniffs once, as if smelling the carnival air that still clings to Barria's cloak. Then, almost belatedly adds:
I'm Hurly, what's your name?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
Rowan pauses to look at the sad scene ahead of him. These were not happy people.
"Hi," Rowan says as he walks through the curtains. "Is this a tragedy you're rehearsing for?"
But something twigs in the back of his mind. Something about hope. Or maybe it was the lack of hope.
"Are you all feeling hopeless? I've heard that gets taken from you here. I'm curious how that happens. Does Lyn just talk you into despair, telling you really nasty things? My grandmother would do that, telling me about all the friends and relatives of hers who had already died. I always felt about down after that. Or is it some sort of magic, where Lyn literally sucks the hope from you? Do you know if she keeps it anywhere? Maybe then you could find yours and get it back."
Greg follows along as Rowan and Barria enter the rooms of what feels like a backstage prep area. Though the gnome doesn't take much notice of the frustrations and despairs of the other actors, he instead is very much in his own head about the plan. If there is a chair near the hairy dragonclad creature he too will slump down upon a perch and let the party get to what they might, adding merely, "find me a suitable costume would you?", to anyone who might listen.
Mulligan sighs. The higher balcony? he thinks to himself after Break-A-Leg mentions it. I thought this was the higher balcony!
Except no he didn't. After a moments reflection he realizes he wanted to go to the highest balcony but then settled for the first one he got to. Whatever, it's tough to keep track of everything when you're sneaking about!
And speaking of reflections... That mirror bugged Mulligan since he first entered this balcony. Even as he tried to dismiss it the thing somehow kept drawing his eye and his attention. Even searching and examining freaked him out, as if he was being watched despite all his efforts at being hidden and stealthy. Almost as if it was these action drawing the attention of an unseen...
Click. The panel loosened and pivoted on its central axis, revealing a dark, semicircular chamber behind it, with a doorway at the rear of the chamber on the curved wall. And a small figure...
A rather colorful curse floated through Mulligan's brain. One that would undoubtedly make even Break-A-Leg blush if he shared it.
Frozen in his tracks, Mulligan just eyes the figure for a moment. And then another. It seems like forever before the creature, a Darkling perhaps?, lifts one hand, slowly... and waves. And just what was Mulligan supposed to do with that?? Except respond in kind, of course. Slowly Mulligan lifts his hand in response and produces a lazy little wave in response.
Sorry to interrupt. The play will begin shortly. I just need to be on my way and make sure the lighting is set. Special lighting. Quite a dramatic and special surprise, just you wait and see...
Even as Mulligan is transmitting the thoughts he begins to slowly, almost carefully, replace the mirror to how it was and then creep back towards the door in the back of the room.
Three glum faces turn to Rowan as he enters and speaks. The first to respond is the human woman: Ah, the newest member of the cast! You'll learn soon enough. Tragedy is the only drama performed here, both on and off the stage...
From the corner, the gloomy halfling adds: No, friend, there's nothing mysterious about it. The hag finds the needy and desperate, and makes them an offer too tempting to resist... a solution to their problems! Too late we realise that the solution is worse than the problem.
Finally the red-skinned tiefling approaches and stands before Rowan: Twice, she tricked me! First she showed me two futures... one where my business failed and my family starved, and another where we became wealthy. Said she'd share the secret if I stayed here for one year. Then when I realised I'd been tricked and that time works different here, she offered to halve the time if I gave up my shadow. Only after I agreed did I discover that without my shadow none of my clients would do business with me again. So now I have to stay another three years to earn my shadow back.
The tiefling extends one hand (the one not still holding the skull) to shake, and adds: I'm Elegy, this is Klee and that's Puff. What are you called? What did Bitter End promise you?
Even in the subdued lighting, it doesn't take long for Rowan to notice that the tiefling casts no shadow!
Mulligan
Mulligan passes by the seated darkling and opens the door on the far side of the chamber. Immediately he is met with loud mechanical noises, and can see the source in a large chamber at the end of a short passageway...
The domed chamber is about seventy feet across at the floor, and houses a whirring contraption bolted to a revolving metal disk that serves as its base. Metal spheres and sickles are attached to the ends of long metal arms that sweep back and forth, clicking loudly and rhythmically like the hands of a giant metronome. The apparatus is inlaid with characters from strange alphabets, and smoky wisps in the shapes of these letters rise from the contraption as it revolves. The whole device hums and crackles with lightning. Three goblins wearing overalls and tinted goggles use brooms to sweep the floor, seemingly untroubled by the noise.
Rising from the middle of the mechanism is an eighty-foot-tall copper pole made of eight ten-foot-long lightning rods attached end to end. It extends upward past a ring-shaped gallery that forms the chamber’s upper level, and on through a hole in the fifty-foot-high domed ceiling. Standing on the upper-floor gallery is a creature unlike anything Mulligan has seen before.
The creature is frighteningly tall; it is clothed in an enormous black dress with a crinoline cage underneath that conjures the image of spider's legs, and a skeletal face half-hidden by a veil that looks more like a heavy curtain. It appears to be writing notes into a dark-covered book with copper binding. As its hands move, Mulligan catches glimpses of the bodice of the dress, which appears somewhat like a curtained stage for string puppets.
Four other passages are visible at floor level, leaving this chamber...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
Whatever this all is, Mulligan doesn't want to be seen here be it by cleaning goblins or the tall... creature. Could that be Endelyn? Mulligan tries to remember if he ever got a description of the three witches or not and cannot recall. He mentally asks Break-A-Leg if he knows who the tall creature is, reminding his boney companion to be very, very quiet in answering...
(Stealth: 18, will use if needed to give that a +4...)
Step 2 - What Next?
Whatever this machine contraption thingamajig is, it's not what Mulligan came for. He thinks. He surely doesn't think THIS is the flying Ornithopter thing he wanted to sabotage. This should probably be sabotaged as well but Mulligan has not one bit of faith that he could do so in a way that would go unnoticed... Surely anything he did to this would bring trouble down on everyone immediately. So... What next?
Well, what to do but check out the other passages, he supposes. The closest passage is to his right... ((Would that be the other balcony? Comparing it to the other map you showed me before I even went to the balcony I am thinking so? Can Mulligan do a check to see if he can tell by like spacial awareness and just being in the layout of the building? Perception: 9... Hmph. I don't think Mulligan would be sure....). The closest passage is to his right so Mulligan will slink off stealthily towards it to check it out... (I'm assuming still same stealth check but if you want another just lemme know.)
Rowan extends his hand and shakes that of the tiefling's. He nods at the skull.
"Nice skull. Hopefully it's a prop and wasn't a friend of yours." Rowan says.
He then looks down at his own shadow, waving at it, but failing to do so since the shadow moves every time he tries.
"I'm Rowan. Oh, I'm not here because of a deal. We're just passing through and trying to retrieve a few things. Maybe a garden tool, or a recipe, maybe even a voice. And while we're at it, there are a few missing people we're trying to find. Though I think I found one already. But he's still in a lantern. I'm guessing though that the others are too big for lanterns."
He gets ready to turn and find the others but pauses.
"Does she keep your shadows somewhere? Like in a jar or something? Maybe we can try and find them too."
"Hurly? Really?! I met your brother Burly at the carnival. He wanted me to give you a message, he says that he misses you." She pauses and looks at the depressed-looking bugbear, "and might I say you sure don't look happy here. Why don't you go back to the carnival and be with your brother?" she then smiles at him, "My name is Barria, and I am very pleased to meet you."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Mulligan
Mulligan's senses prickle as he circles the balcony, that great square mirror always somehow looming at the edge of his vision, too large, too still, too... interested. He forces himself to breathe and begins a methodical search, looking both for signs of arcane involvement, hidden access points, or mechanical tricks.
While he works, Break-a-leg speaks quietly about his recollection of Endelyn watching (the very few shows that he performed in) from the higher balcony... the one above this one. Mulligan recalls seeing that level from below, along with what is likely to be the ornithopter.
The bench yields nothing. The masks are just leering, alabaster things. The velvet curtains billow with the faint draft crawling in from the open stage. Then he moves back to the mirror... and the sense of wrongness sharpens. His own reflection is perfectly ordinary... no distortion, no magical shimmer, nothing like the Carnival’s trick mirrors, and yet the feeling remains. The reflection of the theater beyond is equally mundane.
Then he sees it. The frame sits ever so slightly away from the stone, not flush, not fixed, as though the wall behind it isn’t a wall at all. With a practiced fingertip, Mulligan finds the seam. A door. A secret door. Tracing the perimeter, the rogue's practiced finger soon finds where a central pivot hinge would be, where a latch would make sense, and tests a few carvings... nothing, nothing, then...
Click. The panel loosens pivots on its central axis, revealing a dark, semicircular chamber behind it, with a doorway at the rear of the chamber on the curved wall.
A small figure sits on the middle of three padded chairs which face the mirror, perfectly still except for the slow tilt of its head, which is shrouding in the hood of a dark cloak. Glittering eyes reflect the faint light from the outside... pale, predatory, curious, amused.
A darkling. And it has been there the whole time, watching Mulligan sneak and search and finally step through the mirror, which Mulligan can now see is completely transparent from the other side... a perfect one-way window.
The darkling does not speak. It does not rise. It only lifts one hand, slowly... and waves. A tiny, ambiguous gesture. Is it a greeting? A warning? A casual dismissal?
Rowan
The walls of this gloomy chamber are lined with black-veiled compartments that contain makeshift beds. The furniture is sparse: a few wooden tables and chairs, a box of junk in one corner, and flickering lanterns resting here and there. Five performers occupy the room. Two of them are on their feet - one is a female tiefling talking to a skull, the other a male human pacing angrily and muttering - but neither look up at Rowan's furtive peek. A male halfling is crouched in a corner, studying a sheaf of papers that are blotched with tears. Two others are difficult to see but appear to be on their bunks, sobbing into their pillows.
Barria
The hairy creature's head barely turns at Barria's greeting. It droops as though even lifting it is too much effort.
Huh. Good, evil. What does it matter? I've given up trying to remember my lines.
His voice is like despair dragged over gravel. Then he turns properly, and only then seems to register Barria's presence. A faint spark brighten his eyes as he says: Huh, you're new. Then after a thoughtful pause: What did she promise you?
He sniffs once, as if smelling the carnival air that still clings to Barria's cloak. Then, almost belatedly adds:
I'm Hurly, what's your name?
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
Rowan
Rowan pauses to look at the sad scene ahead of him. These were not happy people.
"Hi," Rowan says as he walks through the curtains. "Is this a tragedy you're rehearsing for?"
But something twigs in the back of his mind. Something about hope. Or maybe it was the lack of hope.
"Are you all feeling hopeless? I've heard that gets taken from you here. I'm curious how that happens. Does Lyn just talk you into despair, telling you really nasty things? My grandmother would do that, telling me about all the friends and relatives of hers who had already died. I always felt about down after that. Or is it some sort of magic, where Lyn literally sucks the hope from you? Do you know if she keeps it anywhere? Maybe then you could find yours and get it back."
Greg follows along as Rowan and Barria enter the rooms of what feels like a backstage prep area. Though the gnome doesn't take much notice of the frustrations and despairs of the other actors, he instead is very much in his own head about the plan. If there is a chair near the hairy dragonclad creature he too will slump down upon a perch and let the party get to what they might, adding merely, "find me a suitable costume would you?", to anyone who might listen.
Mulligan sighs. The higher balcony? he thinks to himself after Break-A-Leg mentions it. I thought this was the higher balcony!
Except no he didn't. After a moments reflection he realizes he wanted to go to the highest balcony but then settled for the first one he got to. Whatever, it's tough to keep track of everything when you're sneaking about!
And speaking of reflections... That mirror bugged Mulligan since he first entered this balcony. Even as he tried to dismiss it the thing somehow kept drawing his eye and his attention. Even searching and examining freaked him out, as if he was being watched despite all his efforts at being hidden and stealthy. Almost as if it was these action drawing the attention of an unseen...
Click. The panel loosened and pivoted on its central axis, revealing a dark, semicircular chamber behind it, with a doorway at the rear of the chamber on the curved wall. And a small figure...
A rather colorful curse floated through Mulligan's brain. One that would undoubtedly make even Break-A-Leg blush if he shared it.
Frozen in his tracks, Mulligan just eyes the figure for a moment. And then another. It seems like forever before the creature, a Darkling perhaps?, lifts one hand, slowly... and waves. And just what was Mulligan supposed to do with that?? Except respond in kind, of course. Slowly Mulligan lifts his hand in response and produces a lazy little wave in response.
Sorry to interrupt. The play will begin shortly. I just need to be on my way and make sure the lighting is set. Special lighting. Quite a dramatic and special surprise, just you wait and see...
Even as Mulligan is transmitting the thoughts he begins to slowly, almost carefully, replace the mirror to how it was and then creep back towards the door in the back of the room.
Rowan
Three glum faces turn to Rowan as he enters and speaks. The first to respond is the human woman:
Ah, the newest member of the cast! You'll learn soon enough. Tragedy is the only drama performed here, both on and off the stage...
From the corner, the gloomy halfling adds:
No, friend, there's nothing mysterious about it. The hag finds the needy and desperate, and makes them an offer too tempting to resist... a solution to their problems! Too late we realise that the solution is worse than the problem.
Finally the red-skinned tiefling approaches and stands before Rowan:
Twice, she tricked me! First she showed me two futures... one where my business failed and my family starved, and another where we became wealthy. Said she'd share the secret if I stayed here for one year. Then when I realised I'd been tricked and that time works different here, she offered to halve the time if I gave up my shadow. Only after I agreed did I discover that without my shadow none of my clients would do business with me again. So now I have to stay another three years to earn my shadow back.
The tiefling extends one hand (the one not still holding the skull) to shake, and adds:
I'm Elegy, this is Klee and that's Puff. What are you called? What did Bitter End promise you?
Even in the subdued lighting, it doesn't take long for Rowan to notice that the tiefling casts no shadow!
Mulligan
Mulligan passes by the seated darkling and opens the door on the far side of the chamber. Immediately he is met with loud mechanical noises, and can see the source in a large chamber at the end of a short passageway...
The domed chamber is about seventy feet across at the floor, and houses a whirring contraption bolted to a revolving metal disk that serves as its base. Metal spheres and sickles are attached to the ends of long metal arms that sweep back and forth, clicking loudly and rhythmically like the hands of a giant metronome. The apparatus is inlaid with characters from strange alphabets, and smoky wisps in the shapes of these letters rise from the contraption as it revolves. The whole device hums and crackles with lightning. Three goblins wearing overalls and tinted goggles use brooms to sweep the floor, seemingly untroubled by the noise.
Rising from the middle of the mechanism is an eighty-foot-tall copper pole made of eight ten-foot-long lightning rods attached end to end. It extends upward past a ring-shaped gallery that forms the chamber’s upper level, and on through a hole in the fifty-foot-high domed ceiling. Standing on the upper-floor gallery is a creature unlike anything Mulligan has seen before.
The creature is frighteningly tall; it is clothed in an enormous black dress with a crinoline cage underneath that conjures the image of spider's legs, and a skeletal face half-hidden by a veil that looks more like a heavy curtain. It appears to be writing notes into a dark-covered book with copper binding. As its hands move, Mulligan catches glimpses of the bodice of the dress, which appears somewhat like a curtained stage for string puppets.
Four other passages are visible at floor level, leaving this chamber...
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
Step 1 - Hide!
Whatever this all is, Mulligan doesn't want to be seen here be it by cleaning goblins or the tall... creature. Could that be Endelyn? Mulligan tries to remember if he ever got a description of the three witches or not and cannot recall. He mentally asks Break-A-Leg if he knows who the tall creature is, reminding his boney companion to be very, very quiet in answering...
(Stealth: 18, will use if needed to give that a +4...)
Step 2 - What Next?
Whatever this machine contraption thingamajig is, it's not what Mulligan came for. He thinks. He surely doesn't think THIS is the flying Ornithopter thing he wanted to sabotage. This should probably be sabotaged as well but Mulligan has not one bit of faith that he could do so in a way that would go unnoticed... Surely anything he did to this would bring trouble down on everyone immediately. So... What next?
Well, what to do but check out the other passages, he supposes. The closest passage is to his right... ((Would that be the other balcony? Comparing it to the other map you showed me before I even went to the balcony I am thinking so? Can Mulligan do a check to see if he can tell by like spacial awareness and just being in the layout of the building? Perception: 9... Hmph. I don't think Mulligan would be sure....). The closest passage is to his right so Mulligan will slink off stealthily towards it to check it out... (I'm assuming still same stealth check but if you want another just lemme know.)
Rowan
Rowan extends his hand and shakes that of the tiefling's. He nods at the skull.
"Nice skull. Hopefully it's a prop and wasn't a friend of yours." Rowan says.
He then looks down at his own shadow, waving at it, but failing to do so since the shadow moves every time he tries.
"I'm Rowan. Oh, I'm not here because of a deal. We're just passing through and trying to retrieve a few things. Maybe a garden tool, or a recipe, maybe even a voice. And while we're at it, there are a few missing people we're trying to find. Though I think I found one already. But he's still in a lantern. I'm guessing though that the others are too big for lanterns."
He gets ready to turn and find the others but pauses.
"Does she keep your shadows somewhere? Like in a jar or something? Maybe we can try and find them too."
Barria
"Hurly? Really?! I met your brother Burly at the carnival. He wanted me to give you a message, he says that he misses you." She pauses and looks at the depressed-looking bugbear, "and might I say you sure don't look happy here. Why don't you go back to the carnival and be with your brother?" she then smiles at him, "My name is Barria, and I am very pleased to meet you."