On finding all is well with Varinth, and in a near immaculate tribute to sawn lumber everywhere, Strix collapses rigidly backwards onto the nearest surface that will sustain his weight, not bothering to recall whether or not he's paid for a room or not. He does not cry Timber as he falls. That would be gauche and might wake someone up.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Insight 20
Dekhan nods Alright, fair enough. Listen, Scup, I know you can handle yourself and you navigate the seamy underbelly of society like no other, but these are dangerous times, I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d let me come with you to watch your back next time. There’s safety in numbers, brother.
And jest like that you tink ye can walk in a pirates shoes? Worse yet, ye tink I can accomplish what I needs wit a Paladin Harper shining light in me shadows? Ye knew me ways and knew me path. Don't go mistaking our so called friendship if'n ye can't trust me to keep my counsel. Oh sure you're plenty lucky te have around when I needs a heavy sword lopping off heads! You and the wild animal and our resident mind witch! Least Vaz knows to blast em to ashes and then drink and forget it all! Well I know perfectly well how useless I can be and where my uses lay.
I'm off! Worry yerself te sleep if that helps but keep yer nose outta me business!
He storms out of the Mermaid, leaving the fumes of strong rotgut in his wake! He's pretty clearly avoiding something and lashing out more than usual.
It's around two hours after midnight right now. Absolutely nothing is open, certainly not any shops like that. Scupper is supposed to meet Harrow the day after tomorrow. It's still the night of the same day as you met her, so basically you have a full day, then another night, then most of a day before you are due to meet her.
Is Scupper going to stomp around without any sleep, or fall asleep in a ditch somewhere?
So we have Varinth and Incantis still in the common room, Strix and Varinth both asleep, and Scupper has just left to go out into the night. Please have a think about what you want to accomplish tomorrow, and how you're going to go about it, and we'll move on to the morning as soon as we can.
When Vaz finally wakes he will try to find out what happened from his comrades. With the addition of a few sturdy knocks to the head on top of his usual inebriation, he is a little fuzzy on the details. He will follow the plans of the party, feeling a little too delicate to use his own free will.
He's drunk so he'll stomp back inside after a few minutes and say, "I sleep here!" Before stumbling up to bed. He'll wake with everyone else, try to avoid conversation of his outburst.
He needs to see Harrow. Something's gotta give and he doesn't like that his actions are starting to work against his friends. If everyone is going somewhere, then he'll go with them, positively paranoid that he's painted himself in a corner. If people split up, he'll head to Harrow's early.
Morning comes. It's a new day in the big city of Waterdeep, and you have a thousand options. The five of you sit together in the common room of the Blushing Mermaid, and can make plans for the day if you wish...
(OOC: Just a heads up. As this last in-game day coincided with our hiatus, please do let me know if you need a further update on where we are in the story and what options you might want to pursue. The plan for this Waterdeep interlude was for you to have a bit more freedom than was offered in the LMoP module, but let me know if you'd like me to push you a bit more in a particular direction. There is a story happening here - you've bumped up against it a few times, and have some leads to go more in that direction. You might want to take another look at the summary here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/30964-waterdeep-camel-heist-2020?comment=7251
As it stands for this day, you have nothing urgent that you need to do, but lots that you could do. I would encourage staying together, unless there's a specific story-based reason why you shouldn't, as I think it works better when the characters can interact with each other at the same time as getting things done.)
Being entirely devoid of desires and without gorm, and knowing only that he has had the tar beaten out of him twice in the last couple of days by angry fire-toting mages, Strix's goal will be to condition his body against the ravages of those flames. To this end if there's a lit candle in the common room, he'll start holding his hand over the flame to test his endurance.
(no, before you ask, this is not a cheap "can I have free fire resistance" ploy. Unless you'd say yes :D)
Given the events of the preceding day, he will be very reluctant to leave the sides of the squishier members of the team, except when scouting ahead on any and every street they try to walk down, looking for suspicious characters that resemble the bandits they faced yesterday and making aggressive - almost feral - approaches towards any innocent citizen who even vaguely matches their description.
If the group sits down to break fast together, Scupper will sit and stare at his meal. Something has been bothering him quite obviously for the last 24 hours and he seems torn between talking and running. He eyes the door more than a few times and avoids the glances of his team. He pushes around his food and casts rather guilty looking glances at Vaz when he thinks no one is looking. This is all most unpiratical.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Incantis watches Scupper go wordlessly, his face an impasse that betrays none of the cultural offense he feels at being called a mind witch, nor the guilt-inducing pride he feels at the might of such a label. His eyes narrow. [Insight: 22 ]
"Well that was an alestrom if I ever saw one. Odd..."Incantis follows suit and goes upstairs to bed, contacting Zhudala from his room as he does so.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Incantis, half-elf warlock (great old one) 4/bard 1 ● Thorok Earthhand, hill dwarf mountain druid 6/grave cleric 2
Cragmyre Ironseed, earth genasi ancestral barbarian 3 ● Cyrus Natriallae, aquatic half-elf warlock of the deep 3
As day breaks and the night's fast follows suit, Incantis sits watching Strix with a bemused face, resisting a powerfully capricious urge to influence the flames with magic. He eats and chews mechanically, more interested in the faces of his party members. He can't help but notice Scupper's shiftiness and unwillingness to meet his eye, and bites his mind's tongue as he remembers the halfling's words from the previous day on his own mental agency. "I'm glad to see us all rested and in good spirits. Pass the salt, would you Scup?"
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Incantis, half-elf warlock (great old one) 4/bard 1 ● Thorok Earthhand, hill dwarf mountain druid 6/grave cleric 2
Cragmyre Ironseed, earth genasi ancestral barbarian 3 ● Cyrus Natriallae, aquatic half-elf warlock of the deep 3
In terms of the insight check, Incantis can see that there's a lot of turmoil going on inside Scupper that he's not really making much effort to hide, or so it seems. You can't really say more than that though.
You've been on the square about readin' minds. That's clear.
It's the Zhentarim.
He pulls the black coin from his pocket and places it on the table.
They're not responsible for these attacks, but they want te be...or wish te hire the bastards. I joined back in that wee shite mining town and thought it some simple tieves guild. I tink their much bigger and much worse. It the two times I've dealt withem, they seem interested in large, powerful, evil.
This coin doesn't seem te buy nothin but trouble and weighs more than you'd tink.
I'm te meet with them in a day and help broker the services o' this mage gang. I don't tink they need me so much as wish to pull me in further past a point of leaving... I'd not see myself suddenly against you lot...leastwise since our friendship has grown te such annoying levels o trust and such shite.
Incantis' crooked teeth pause poised over a forkful of eggs. "I...I'd not pried into the past but that's a concerningly present problem. And whether or not they need you to make the it, the commission itself is surely something they desire..." He smiles genuinely in thanks. "Friendship and trust are burdensome allies are they not? I'm glad you agree they're worth it."The half-elf finally takes his interrupted bite and frowns with disappointed curiosity, as if looking for a book on a crowded dusty shelf having forgotten its name. He stands up and makes his way to the kitchen, returning after a short moment with a shaker of some amber-colored seasoning.
Aye. I bring it up now and shoulda brought it up afore. I'm sorry, lads. This bit o' havin honesty is nearly burdonsome as caring bout yer opinions and what, just like. I'm not used to being all that arsed about what anyone tinks of me.
Tis new, and vexing, and loads less fun than just creating chaos with shipmates, but then, I seen shipmates fall and would tink little after a farewell drink. I can't say twould be so easy to lose you lot so I'm owning up to future trouble in hopes ye can help me from causing it. I can't apologize fer all the tings I done, just. The list is far too long. But if ye can help me decide how to use this fer good, I'm bound by friendship te try. Leastwise I'll jest quit the Zhents ifn that's all ye wants but I leave that to you.
Dekhan stops tucking into his breakfast as his friends begin to speak. He listens in rapt attention as Scupper relates his story. Finally, when he is finished, Dekhan looks at his friend and after a moment says There's no use agonizing over the things you've done in the past, Scup, there's no changing them. The fact that you want to see about doing good tells me all I need to know about what's going on. If you'd like, I can make contact with my network of friends and we could seek their advice on the matter. If you're more comfortable leaving them out of it and simply trying to withdraw from the Zhents, I'm fine with that too. Whatever you decide, you'll have me standing by your side.
Strix chews breakfast and considers offering to contact his network of friends too. But they're already right here.
(Aw, you guys! Actually, now that I think about it, he does have that criminal background that would let him get a message to other criminal elements. But it would take a while to send and receive, we're a long way from home. I'm hoping it's safe to assume given his background feature though that he knows who and what the Zhentarim are?)
Something is sticking in his craw and it's not the eggs. Although he does wish he'd noticed it was eggs before he put it in his mouth, there's something not quite right about eating them. No, it's something less proteinous and more foreboding.
"Hmmm... Zhents want burners. Gang want stop burners. Gang stop burners, zhents want gang. Scupps in gang, Scupps ruin plan, Zhents want Scupps more. Not rest. Zhents big. Not safe. Nowheres. Quit, not quit, Zhents not care. Rep. Is 'portant. When stop burners, need som'else take thanks. Guards, mebbe?"
He sits back to give his brain and mouth a rest, that was quite the workout.
(Suggesting that they are probably a "once in - never out" type organisation. If we let the Dwarf guard captain take the credit for breaking the mage gang and ensure there are no witnesses to contradict that version of events - assuming we pull it off, of course - we keep Scupper's name away from it, which keeps him at least lower down the Zhent shitlist?)
Deception 14
I had dealings with some ne’er do wells and stopped for a drink or two on the way back.
Scupper is vague and maybe even a bit cagey but it wouldn’t be the first time he kept his own counsel.
On finding all is well with Varinth, and in a near immaculate tribute to sawn lumber everywhere, Strix collapses rigidly backwards onto the nearest surface that will sustain his weight, not bothering to recall whether or not he's paid for a room or not. He does not cry Timber as he falls. That would be gauche and might wake someone up.
Strix, Shifter Shadow Monk in Lost Mines of Phandelver ¦ Sihegiall Human Soulknife Rogue in In Search of Molly McGuffin
Insight 20
Dekhan nods Alright, fair enough. Listen, Scup, I know you can handle yourself and you navigate the seamy underbelly of society like no other, but these are dangerous times, I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d let me come with you to watch your back next time. There’s safety in numbers, brother.
And jest like that you tink ye can walk in a pirates shoes? Worse yet, ye tink I can accomplish what I needs wit a Paladin Harper shining light in me shadows? Ye knew me ways and knew me path. Don't go mistaking our so called friendship if'n ye can't trust me to keep my counsel. Oh sure you're plenty lucky te have around when I needs a heavy sword lopping off heads! You and the wild animal and our resident mind witch! Least Vaz knows to blast em to ashes and then drink and forget it all! Well I know perfectly well how useless I can be and where my uses lay.
I'm off! Worry yerself te sleep if that helps but keep yer nose outta me business!
He storms out of the Mermaid, leaving the fumes of strong rotgut in his wake! He's pretty clearly avoiding something and lashing out more than usual.
I don't remember when I'm supposed to meet Vaska Harrow or where. I know she has her sundries shop. Is that open?
(OOC: It's here :https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/30964-waterdeep-camel-heist-2020?comment=7121)
It's around two hours after midnight right now. Absolutely nothing is open, certainly not any shops like that. Scupper is supposed to meet Harrow the day after tomorrow. It's still the night of the same day as you met her, so basically you have a full day, then another night, then most of a day before you are due to meet her.
Is Scupper going to stomp around without any sleep, or fall asleep in a ditch somewhere?
So we have Varinth and Incantis still in the common room, Strix and Varinth both asleep, and Scupper has just left to go out into the night. Please have a think about what you want to accomplish tomorrow, and how you're going to go about it, and we'll move on to the morning as soon as we can.
Dekhan watches Scupper leave, then turns and heads up to bed.
When Vaz finally wakes he will try to find out what happened from his comrades. With the addition of a few sturdy knocks to the head on top of his usual inebriation, he is a little fuzzy on the details. He will follow the plans of the party, feeling a little too delicate to use his own free will.
He's drunk so he'll stomp back inside after a few minutes and say, "I sleep here!" Before stumbling up to bed. He'll wake with everyone else, try to avoid conversation of his outburst.
He needs to see Harrow. Something's gotta give and he doesn't like that his actions are starting to work against his friends. If everyone is going somewhere, then he'll go with them, positively paranoid that he's painted himself in a corner. If people split up, he'll head to Harrow's early.
Morning comes. It's a new day in the big city of Waterdeep, and you have a thousand options. The five of you sit together in the common room of the Blushing Mermaid, and can make plans for the day if you wish...
(OOC: Just a heads up. As this last in-game day coincided with our hiatus, please do let me know if you need a further update on where we are in the story and what options you might want to pursue. The plan for this Waterdeep interlude was for you to have a bit more freedom than was offered in the LMoP module, but let me know if you'd like me to push you a bit more in a particular direction. There is a story happening here - you've bumped up against it a few times, and have some leads to go more in that direction. You might want to take another look at the summary here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/30964-waterdeep-camel-heist-2020?comment=7251
As it stands for this day, you have nothing urgent that you need to do, but lots that you could do. I would encourage staying together, unless there's a specific story-based reason why you shouldn't, as I think it works better when the characters can interact with each other at the same time as getting things done.)
Being entirely devoid of desires and without gorm, and knowing only that he has had the tar beaten out of him twice in the last couple of days by angry fire-toting mages, Strix's goal will be to condition his body against the ravages of those flames. To this end if there's a lit candle in the common room, he'll start holding his hand over the flame to test his endurance.
(no, before you ask, this is not a cheap "can I have free fire resistance" ploy. Unless you'd say yes :D)
Given the events of the preceding day, he will be very reluctant to leave the sides of the squishier members of the team, except when scouting ahead on any and every street they try to walk down, looking for suspicious characters that resemble the bandits they faced yesterday and making aggressive - almost feral - approaches towards any innocent citizen who even vaguely matches their description.
Strix, Shifter Shadow Monk in Lost Mines of Phandelver ¦ Sihegiall Human Soulknife Rogue in In Search of Molly McGuffin
If the group sits down to break fast together, Scupper will sit and stare at his meal. Something has been bothering him quite obviously for the last 24 hours and he seems torn between talking and running. He eyes the door more than a few times and avoids the glances of his team. He pushes around his food and casts rather guilty looking glances at Vaz when he thinks no one is looking. This is all most unpiratical.
Incantis watches Scupper go wordlessly, his face an impasse that betrays none of the cultural offense he feels at being called a mind witch, nor the guilt-inducing pride he feels at the might of such a label. His eyes narrow. [Insight: 22 ]
"Well that was an alestrom if I ever saw one. Odd..." Incantis follows suit and goes upstairs to bed, contacting Zhudala from his room as he does so.
Incantis, half-elf warlock (great old one) 4/bard 1 ● Thorok Earthhand, hill dwarf mountain druid 6/grave cleric 2
Cragmyre Ironseed, earth genasi ancestral barbarian 3 ● Cyrus Natriallae, aquatic half-elf warlock of the deep 3
As day breaks and the night's fast follows suit, Incantis sits watching Strix with a bemused face, resisting a powerfully capricious urge to influence the flames with magic. He eats and chews mechanically, more interested in the faces of his party members. He can't help but notice Scupper's shiftiness and unwillingness to meet his eye, and bites his mind's tongue as he remembers the halfling's words from the previous day on his own mental agency. "I'm glad to see us all rested and in good spirits. Pass the salt, would you Scup?"
Incantis, half-elf warlock (great old one) 4/bard 1 ● Thorok Earthhand, hill dwarf mountain druid 6/grave cleric 2
Cragmyre Ironseed, earth genasi ancestral barbarian 3 ● Cyrus Natriallae, aquatic half-elf warlock of the deep 3
In terms of the insight check, Incantis can see that there's a lot of turmoil going on inside Scupper that he's not really making much effort to hide, or so it seems. You can't really say more than that though.
Scupper passes the salt.
You've been on the square about readin' minds. That's clear.
It's the Zhentarim.
He pulls the black coin from his pocket and places it on the table.
They're not responsible for these attacks, but they want te be...or wish te hire the bastards. I joined back in that wee shite mining town and thought it some simple tieves guild. I tink their much bigger and much worse. It the two times I've dealt withem, they seem interested in large, powerful, evil.
This coin doesn't seem te buy nothin but trouble and weighs more than you'd tink.
I'm te meet with them in a day and help broker the services o' this mage gang. I don't tink they need me so much as wish to pull me in further past a point of leaving... I'd not see myself suddenly against you lot...leastwise since our friendship has grown te such annoying levels o trust and such shite.
Incantis' crooked teeth pause poised over a forkful of eggs. "I...I'd not pried into the past but that's a concerningly present problem. And whether or not they need you to make the it, the commission itself is surely something they desire..." He smiles genuinely in thanks. "Friendship and trust are burdensome allies are they not? I'm glad you agree they're worth it." The half-elf finally takes his interrupted bite and frowns with disappointed curiosity, as if looking for a book on a crowded dusty shelf having forgotten its name. He stands up and makes his way to the kitchen, returning after a short moment with a shaker of some amber-colored seasoning.
Incantis, half-elf warlock (great old one) 4/bard 1 ● Thorok Earthhand, hill dwarf mountain druid 6/grave cleric 2
Cragmyre Ironseed, earth genasi ancestral barbarian 3 ● Cyrus Natriallae, aquatic half-elf warlock of the deep 3
Aye. I bring it up now and shoulda brought it up afore. I'm sorry, lads. This bit o' havin honesty is nearly burdonsome as caring bout yer opinions and what, just like. I'm not used to being all that arsed about what anyone tinks of me.
Tis new, and vexing, and loads less fun than just creating chaos with shipmates, but then, I seen shipmates fall and would tink little after a farewell drink. I can't say twould be so easy to lose you lot so I'm owning up to future trouble in hopes ye can help me from causing it. I can't apologize fer all the tings I done, just. The list is far too long. But if ye can help me decide how to use this fer good, I'm bound by friendship te try. Leastwise I'll jest quit the Zhents ifn that's all ye wants but I leave that to you.
Dekhan stops tucking into his breakfast as his friends begin to speak. He listens in rapt attention as Scupper relates his story. Finally, when he is finished, Dekhan looks at his friend and after a moment says There's no use agonizing over the things you've done in the past, Scup, there's no changing them. The fact that you want to see about doing good tells me all I need to know about what's going on. If you'd like, I can make contact with my network of friends and we could seek their advice on the matter. If you're more comfortable leaving them out of it and simply trying to withdraw from the Zhents, I'm fine with that too. Whatever you decide, you'll have me standing by your side.
Strix chews breakfast and considers offering to contact his network of friends too. But they're already right here.
(Aw, you guys! Actually, now that I think about it, he does have that criminal background that would let him get a message to other criminal elements. But it would take a while to send and receive, we're a long way from home. I'm hoping it's safe to assume given his background feature though that he knows who and what the Zhentarim are?)
Something is sticking in his craw and it's not the eggs. Although he does wish he'd noticed it was eggs before he put it in his mouth, there's something not quite right about eating them. No, it's something less proteinous and more foreboding.
"Hmmm... Zhents want burners. Gang want stop burners. Gang stop burners, zhents want gang. Scupps in gang, Scupps ruin plan, Zhents want Scupps more. Not rest. Zhents big. Not safe. Nowheres. Quit, not quit, Zhents not care. Rep. Is 'portant. When stop burners, need som'else take thanks. Guards, mebbe?"
He sits back to give his brain and mouth a rest, that was quite the workout.
(Suggesting that they are probably a "once in - never out" type organisation. If we let the Dwarf guard captain take the credit for breaking the mage gang and ensure there are no witnesses to contradict that version of events - assuming we pull it off, of course - we keep Scupper's name away from it, which keeps him at least lower down the Zhent shitlist?)
Strix, Shifter Shadow Monk in Lost Mines of Phandelver ¦ Sihegiall Human Soulknife Rogue in In Search of Molly McGuffin