The Long Road of the Mage King (Game Thread)

Dog says hello and introduces himself and whoever's with him as politely as he can manage. He's not used to this but sees the necessity and does his best. He briefly summarizes what Lady Camman had told them about being good friends, and says, "so we are in the market for horses. May we speak with Lady Altham? They gave us a note of introduction, if that helps." He hands it over. "We're on a very tight schedule, expressly at the behest of Lord and Lady Camman."

Tock says, "Lady Camman spoke very warmly of their relationship."

Perhaps not believing Doggear, the servant accepts the letter and reads through it carefully, making the party wait on the doorsteps. After finishing, he  hands the letter back. "Very well," he says. "Please follow me."

The servant leads the group into a parlor, where everyone attempts to find a place to sit, albeit awkwardly in some cases. The parlor is a comfortable place, with a low fire burning in the fireplace. Pastoral scenes hang on the wall and fresh flowers adorn all four corners of the room.

The group has a lot of time to admire every aspect of the room as they wait. It feels like an hour passes but it has only been half that long when Jacoba Altham strides into the room. She takes the group in with a startled look on her face.

"Kelvio assures me that your letter of introduction is indeed from Lady Camman," she says, seeing there is no comfortable place to sit. "How may I be of assistance?"

 Tock says, "If I may repeat her words."

And he repeats in the voice of Lady Camman, ""Finally, my good friend Jacoba Altham," says Lady Camman, "has spoiled her daughters with a full stable of horses. I know she would gladly sell of half of them if only her children would allow it.""

He the points to the Dog, "Our tall friend here will fill you in on the details of why we turned to her and now to you in the first place."

"Well, yes, thank you Tock, that about covers it." Dog shifts his weight, clearly not used to this. "You see, we thought you might be a good option to buy some horses for a long journey, because you have so many, and we really have a way with horses, Keyrie here in particular. We'd take good care of them. If your daughters are reluctant to part with a half dozen and a carriage, they might feel better about selling them to us if they talked to Keyrie. If not, we have two possible other sellers. It's also rare for someone my size to find a horse that can carry me. How strong is your largest horse?"

"The journey, but the way, will go a lot better if we can proceed on horseback, and Lord and Lady Camman have made it a top priority for us to get moving as quickly as possible. They will be grateful to whoever can provision us with transportation."

He looks to the rest of the group with a questioning look, hopeful that he covered everything and did them proud with his first equine sales pitch.

A myriad of emotions flash through Mrs. Altham's eyes as she holds her hands to her mouth in astonishment. Surprise, fear, and anger or contempt are all quickly quelled in rapid succession. "Remarkable," she says at last. "I believe that Lady Camman referred you to me. But please do not do that again."

Kelvio brings a chair into the parlor and Mrs. Altham sits delicately upon it. "Lady Camman is correct, of course. I would be more than happy to reduce the size of our stable. Fifteen horses is fine for a breeder but we are not breeders." She sighs. "Our daughters are insistent, however. If you can convince them, then we will happily sell you however many horses you require."

Kelvio appears without his name being called. Mrs. Altham looks to him with a nod. "Please fetch Gracea and Kera. If you will excuse me, I have some other matters to attend. I shall check back shortly."

A few minutes later, a identical girls with their mother's blonde locks enter the parlor. They are dressed nearly identically as well and they look around the room in wonder. Kelvio has added another chair the room. The girls curtsy and sit. "Hello", says the one on the left. "I am Gracea."

"And I am Kera," says the one on the right. "How may we address you?"

"Hello, I am Gregory. You both have great manners, how old are you both?"

"We are eleven," says one.

"Almost twelve," says the other. "We've never met a goblin before. What circumstances bring you to a human city?"

They seem to ask with genuine curiosity and no malice.

"Almost twelve... wow. I sure hope you don't meet many more goblins, not many are as nice as I am." Gash waves his hands around uses minor conjuration to create a small toy horse and shows it to the children and hands it over. "That will fade in one hour, until then its yours to share with your sister." Whichever one will take the toy friend will hop to the other one and nuzzle at their ankle.

"I'm on a very important quest with my friends here. It is of great importance. And as much as I'd like to stay here with you nice girls. We have our own little girl to take care of. Bad people are after her, and to keep her safe we need to get to where we need to go quickly. And I hate to ask you two for this, but could you find it in your hearts to let your parents sell some of your horses to us? I know you don't want to but, I promise we will take the best care of them. We will bathe them in every town we stop in and feed them the best. And if you allow this, I will find a woodworker here to make your little horse toys just like that one, of the horses you let us buy."

Dog watches Gash speak to the girls at first with trepidation and as he speaks, with surprise that turns into admiration and delight.

"Gregory is right. Couldn't have said it better myself. Perhaps we could go talk to your horses? We wouldn't want to ask them to come with us without making sure they were okay with it first!"

He motions to Keyrie, "I think you're on. These little ones are going to love you and what you can do."

(OOC: What is the closer of the other two options to where we are now, and also to the temple? Trying to decide based on the time of day and how long it'll take which Dog will suggest going to next. The other two options are just expensive I think?)

The girls are delighted at the appearance of the toy horse and fawn over it and Friend as Gash speaks. Their giggles silence at the mention of the horses, though.

"We could never give up our horses," they say in unison with matching frowns. The list off the horses in alternation.

"Blackthorn."

"Ironfoot."

"Snowdrift."

"King Manus."

"Tribute."

"Twice Bitten."

"Pirate Parley."

"Rustleaf."

"Peakjumper."

"Sandstorm."

"Miss Melodia."

"Marionetta."

"Cherry Charm."

"Doll of Daughters."

"and Canterbury."

"We love each one dearly."

(The time is now 8:00 am)

"Of course, I understand this more than anyone. That owl there, his name is Friend, and if someone asked me to give him up, I wouldn't want to either. But if the reason was important, and Friend wanted to go and help, I would understand. I would let him go. Do you understand?"

"Oh, we understand," the one on the right says.

"We just think you should get your horses somewhere else," says the other.

"Two questions: what if the horses wanted to come with us? And what if we told you we could try to send the horses back to you after they take us to where we need to go? Think of it as an adventure for them." Dog says, kneeling down closer to their level. He looks up again at Keyrie with a hopeful expression.

"I'm sure you could find lots of horses who want to go with you," says the one on the left.

"And if you are being chased, we'd rather those other horses be the ones who go," says the other.

Tock gets more and more anxious as each minute passes without seemingly any progress. He takes a few steps to the side and says, "Of course you love each and every one of them. And your worry for them is understandable the same. Your mother loves the both of you as well, very much so. And she worries for the two of you. It's what any good person would do."

He walks a few steps back and forth and continues, "Your mother trusts you with the horses and with many other decisions. She has grown to trust you because she has given you a chance to show how you think and feel and how caring you are when making tough decisions. But you were first probably given a hamster or a duckling or even a dog to keep as your own, right? And only when you showed that you could were you given a horse. One of them was the first one, right?"

Giving the girls a moment to answer he proceeds, "Once you proved good owners of a one horse you were then given more of them. Now you have fifteen of them."

And he gets to his point, "What do you think your parents have planned for you next? After you have made the toughest decision of your lives - by having some of your horses help the group of us to keep another child safe. What other wondrous beasts do you know of that you could also call your own in the future?"

The girls look at each other and then back at the group. "We've only ever had horses," they say in unison.

DM shield:

 "But," says the one on the left, "We love llamas. Mother and father have said no, but if we would gladly give up some of our least favorite horses if we could have llamas."

"Ah, Llamas..." Gash says as he waves his hand again and changes the horse toy into a llama

Dog thinks to himself, so we now have to try to find llamas in less than 4 hours. What is my life anymore.

"We can try to look for llamas. Is there a place where you've seen them before?" He looks to whoever's watching this from another room (assuming that they wouldn't have left their kids in a room with a bunch of weird strangers).

Gash turns to Dog and says through message "Now might be a good time for us to split up."