Pizazz's Ravenloft and Beyond

Meepo is grinning when he returns from dropping his lost things off at the store. The strange Big at the store, as usual, called things after him, that Meepo chose to see as thanks, even though the words did not make sense. Bigs were so strange after all. Back at the inn he clambered up onto a chair at the table with Mordekai, smiling at the newest Big to join the group. "Meepo find home for all of Meepo's lost things." he announces to her. "Now Meepo like here your story too. Meepo brave dragon..." He casts minor illusion as he does his copper dragon roar. "Who you are?"

Ulthan sits at the main table, but otherwise does not order anything. As usual while in towns and resting, he tends to inventory his stuff in his bag as opposed to dumping it all over the place. It's possible he's listening, but hard to tell with him as he does not react as much to any conversation. He joins in when his name is called but is otherwise quiet.

Lionel was after that story from the start, he is definitely listening, hoping Mordekai's natural charm would help to make the girl talk, and also enjoying the beer (just a month ago he would not believe such thing is possible) and the possibility to get out of the armor for a short while.

Ezz grins at Mordekai, "We can go on a date another time Tiefling...but now I know who has the tongue of honey round here."  She slaps Ulthan on the knee....maybe harder than is necessary...and grins at Mordekai, "I prefer the strong silent type though."  She returns to her drink, giving the group none of the story telling they're looking for. 

Ketch's detect evil and good reveal nothing more unusual about her or anything around here, and his detect magic has the same result as last time, but there's no more enchantment on Ulthan. 

She looks a bit surprised when Meepo roars, and grins at him, "Very impressive. Say, don't take this the wrong way, but.....usually Kobolds get chewed up and spit out by groups like this. You must be something special. I'm Ezz. I'm a Pisces, I like long walks through the graveyard, and my favorite pastime is killing vampires. And what's so special about you, little guy?" 

In Lionel's mind, the voice of his spirits mutter to each other. They seem pretty evenly split. Half of them like her and think she's great. The other half are sure she's evil and would err on the side of chopping her head off right now. A familiar voice asks if he can have a turn with the dwarf body. "Pleeeeaaasseee...."

     After finishing his spells, and his ales, Ketch grunts, gets up, and tells the group he shall see them in the morning.  With that he turns and adjourns to his room for the evening so as to prepare his spells for the next day and to study the scripture of Gruumsh.  It is a lot more involved text than any non adherents would ever expect.

"No!" Quietly but firmly declared Lionel. "Never mind that, just thinking out loud," explained he before anyone asked. He was on the fence about the mysterious girl - not on the "chopping head" part, that was not on his mind (the personal part of it), but in his opinion "evil" and "impressive" could perfectly coexist. "You mean an undead flying cat and marching skeletons did not impress you enough? Tough crowd, as bards say."

"Well, Esmeralda, if you would not change your mind by morning, I'll see you then." On the way to his room he stopped to say a few words with Urwin, asking among the questions about the town if he knows the girl (Lionel was curious if the looks from the guards were due to their familiarity with her or because they saw her for the first time). Then he retired for the night.

Ezz responds about he skeletons and flying cat, "Oh...the skeletons are yours?  And the cat?  Well, yes...very impressive." 

When everyone retires, Lionel does a little checking with Urwin. He nods, "Actually, I did see her come through town, maybe a few weeks ago. She was looking for someone. Some guy. He actually was here when you were once, but I haven't seen him since. I can't remember the name she was asking after....just that he wore glasses, and walked with a walking stick..."

The next morning comes quickly enough, and everyone is there, on a fine day of.....pouring rain....which seems to be coming down in droves.  The mist outside cut thin by the falling rain, but not completely gone.  Ezz eats some eggs and sausage. Meepo enjoys the breakfast doubly, still just getting used to having his craving for food back. 

     Once everyone is at breakfast and digging into their food, Ketch will take a moment to stand, draw out his holy Eye of Gruumsh, and mutter a few words to his diety...  Once finished Ketch just mutters to all "Just a quick boon that I hope will help us going forward to work together as a team."  Zone of Truth is indeed up and working and Ketch does indeed hope that some truth will get them trusting one another.

     "So, Ezz...  Your goal is to end Strahd once and for all?" Ketch asks.

The night before, as Ezz fully shut down Mordekai's conversation, Mordekai would've replied, with absolute sincerity, "Oh, I can see Ulthan has drawn your eye.  It was not an attempt to woo you.  I simply wanted to know who we are working with."  Mordekai's tone signifies that he isn't expecting her to change her mind, or even respond at all.  But it's hard to tell whether he's trying to clear the air, or save face from being rebuffed.

 In the present, Mordekai will make a CHA save against the Zone of Truth (mostly to see what tone his Inspired Leader feat will take after the current conversation with Ezz is done.): 24

Lionel just nodded to Ketch's manipulations hardly noticing tingling of his aura ( Char save: 25 ). All he had to say or ask was already said and he was not sure how to bring that last piece of information about Esmaralda that he got from Urwing (and whether or not it was needed). At the end he decided to wait until cleric is done with his questioning and only then casually mentioned: "Heard you were looking for someone around here. We were all around the place, may be we met him? If you can tell the name..."

"Meepo special." Meepo would nod the previous night. "Meepo dragon..." He makes another roar as if that explains it all.

The nex tmorning he chows down, wondering just how vampires live without the food for so long. He would think they would go mad from the lack of tasting true food after only a few years.

The previous night she just shrugs with a smile to Mordekai but doesn't divulge anything further.

22

Ketch knows she's resisted the spell, though she doesn't seem to have noticed that it's been cast. She shrugs to Ketch as she shovels some food in her mouth, "Geez man, it's what I said right?"  She glances at him suspiciously suddenly, looking at him as if trying to figure out if there's something wrong with him, "What was the first body part of Ulthan's I slapped?"  She puts her hand on the hilt of her sword....waiting for him to answer. She kicks Ulthan under the table, "Look alive...something is up."

Zoned 3.
Ulthan stops securing the last items in his backpack and looks around suspiciously. It takes him a second or so to figure out the giant maul is probably a better weapon than the giant sword. Albeit he did have the little pokey sword too. Perception 13. Investigation 16. Basically trying to figure out who if anyone else other than our table is paying more attention to our group and is reasonably well armed. Does the barkeep look more nervous, did people clear out of the room. Not seeing necessarily anything odd he relaxes and finishes securing stuff in and around his backpack.

     Ketch shrugs and shovels some bacon into his maw.  "As if I'd know or care what you slapped or tickled before I even met you," Ketch says around his food.  "By Gruumsh, you're both consenting adults far as I can tell..."

          Ketch picks up a couple more pieces of bacon in his hand and considers it a moment.  He then jams the food into his mouth ignoring the fact the woman was fingering her weapon more hungrily than he his bacon. "Besides," Ketch says, looking at her sideways.  "Half Orcs ain't that bright.  I'm sure it's not the last time I'll ask the same thing twice..."

She looks at Ulthan has his head swings back and forth across the room in relative confusion, then sighs heavily.  Looking at Ketch, she narrows her eyes at him, then puts two fingers up pointing to her own eyes, and then swings them around to point them at Ketch.  Then she looks around, suddenly relaxed again, "Well, enough of that, shall we?"  She stands up, grabbing for her things. 

"Are you always that jumpy?" The question to Ketch hinted she suspected half-orc to be Strahd himself. Lionel fully realised his is by far not the worst lost cause here. "You did not say about that person you were looking for, by the way." It was still mere curiosity and he was ready to go, actually (fully armored and finally stocked on holy water and steaks).

She looks over at Lionel, "Hunh?  Oh. Ya...my old mentor. He came here ahead of me. I hoped to catch him and work with him. I found his old tower...but...I'm pretty sure he'd dead. It had been deserted for quite some time. Rick was his name. I'll miss him." 

((That quite a perception Ezz has! :)  ))

Lionel did not press on. "My condolences. This place claimed a lot of lives".The "tower" could indicate a wizard, though the girl looked more like a swift warrior type, but Lionel decided not talk about mad wizard - if it was truly him, she was better off without that burden. "Well, if we all ready..."

Mordekai thinks back on a name. "Rick? Rictavio, perhaps? We met a man who warned us that a group of Vistani were servants of Strahd and needed to be dealt with. We weren't really up for genocide though, and didn't follow up on that. He seemed pretty alive at the time though."

(Was that the Vistani group where we came across Kasimir just before the Amber Temple debacle?)

Ezz's eyes open with surprise, "Yes, yes, his name was Rictavio!  Maybe he is still around here somewhere then! Do you have any idea which way he went or where he was headed?"  

She seems genuinely pleased to hear news of him.  (Yes, that Vistani group was the one in the same.)