Tales from Talaveroth

As Si'Juul lands and takes his share of the gold, he turns to the bishop.

"Thank you. This will help me cover the costs of repairing my pepperbox. I will also say one thing. Keep an eye on the woman, the one who also has one of these." 

Si'Juul taps his holster.

"She herself may or may not be a bad person, but the Black Brand could be, and will likely stop at nothing to take her weapon from her."

With nothing left to do on this tower, Si'Juul makes to fly down to the base. With Elhanna's reaction and demeanor, he feels it's unlikely she will want a flight down with him. And unsure how Poinki and Twitch feel about him, he just assumed it's better if he go down alone.

"Elhanna, maybe," says Poinki. "Poinki has wind bottle already. Unless someone want to trade?" He sees Si'Juul go without too much concern. Si'Juul is always flying away on his own.

The Bishop nods. "I shall tell the local authorities. Outside of the church I really don't have any authority here, being from Dastarius and all. And I doubt after this the church has much of a place here either. Whatever his motives the Father has spelled an end to the trust of the people in this village." 

About this time you see the woman come back out, the man that the two acolytes were carrying drapped on her shoulder as she helps him walk back towards the village.

(So unless I am mistaken, this marks the end of Tales of Talaveroth part 2. :) )

Twitch looks at the Bishop: "If we were to ever make our way to Dastarius, how can we seek you out?"

(That it does. Part 3 is yours Nemo!)

"The Temple of Ilmater is in the Western Ward of the city, near the Harbour Gate. I should be there, and if I am not then there are many others who would be happy to greet and host you all." He gives a warm smile. 

"Thanks father." Twitch says, waving them farewell.

After a long while Elhanna finally calm down and returns to the group. She finds Si’Juul and walks over to him. “I’m sorry Si’Juul, it wasn’t fair of me to attack you like that. It’s just that seeing someone who has gone down the same path as me turning out that way, it was scary. I didn’t handle it very well. And losing someone whom I was trying to save, that will haunt me a long while. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry..” looking down in the ground she turn away and walk over to where Oleg is and is handed her gift. 
“thank you for this Oleg. It will come in handy, I’m sure of it.” 

Elhanna cast ptayer of healing lv3 on anyone she can see up to 6 targets. 

18

all back to full health

Before Elhanna walks away, Si'Juul just gives a nod.

"In my line of work, I have seen my share of death. For what it's worth, the man had already killed himself, in a way. All we did was silence a corpse. And I don't believe you will end up like him."

Deception: 7

Elhanna can easily tell that Si'Juul is not saying something, not quite lying, but not revealing something as well. For a moment, he is visibly disturbed as he stares off to the side, but composes himself a moment later.

Twitch catches the deception as well, but chooses to leave things be. She was on Elhanna's side of the argument, but had seen herself how she had come to terms with what had to be done. Si'Juul might simply be quicker to see things for the facts than they were. As the group gathered, she looked at the others in turn, glad to have Paren among them as well. 

"You couldn't have rejoined us at a better time, Paren! It seems that the Black Brand is after Si'Juul, and they have a presence in the area. But we also found out a secret some already had to die over, and I'm certain it won't stop there." Facing Si'Juul, she says: "We discussed this before, but to my mind, the best way to protect you from the Brand is to find out more about them." Facing Elhanna and Poinki, both very shaken up by the events that transpired surrounding Father Ephesian, she adds: "I'm also convinced that we can do something about this corruption that the Father found. If Poinki here can still hear his god, then I don't believe that all is lost. If Father Ephesian discovered this conspiracy through research, I suggest we try the same. Now, I don't know where we'd find any major libraries or anything of the sort, but I figure maybe Elhanna, Poinki or Oleg could help us out with that. Either way, if we're headed to a remote monastery or a densely packed city, we're likely going to have an easier time evading the Brand until we learn more. What do you say?"

"They headed west rather quickly. Their name has even spread just as well, it seems. I'm sure that I'm high on their list of targets. They will find us eventually, we need to make sure we are as prepared as possible when they do. And be ready for the toughest battle we've had to date. For me, obviously I will get to repairing my pepperbox once we have settled somewhere. I also have this."

Si'Juul gestures with his head towards the rifle slung over his shoulder, held up by the strap hanging from it so it doesn't fall.

"With this, I can scout even easier and do even more devastating damage. Not many in the Black Brand had these, only those who had managed to craft one themselves, or like me, were lucky enough to find one."

"So many bad things to sort out, so many bad people," Poinki sighs. "Ilmater, give Poinki strength."

Paren nods and he crouches down and rubs his shin. "More intrigue and espionage eh? I thought I had escaped that when I left the Barkeep behind. I guess just point my in the direction of who needs punching. Or if they're further away I picked up some new tricks." He pushes his hands together and when he pulls them apart a ball of flame shimmers for a second before he puts it out.

"We can't exactly take them head on, we will be killed before we even take a shot. Espionage is necessary. We also need to make sure that woman doesn't have us followed. She thought I was with the Black Brand. Understandable. I didn't bother correcting her. She seemed like she was set to just believe what she wanted. We need to gather information on the Black Brand itself. We need to know how many of them we need to be concerned with, and if they have placed a price on my head."

"Agreed. Do we know where to head to next though? We didn't find anything on the Black Brand member inside, right?" Twitch asks the others. "Well, at the worst, I'd suggest we follow the road to Arkos, it's only about a day or two from here. Maybe we can find some more clues there, or we might establish a base of sorts."

"Arkos, I am not familiar with that town. But I agree, we need to get somewhere to have a temporary base. And the sooner I am able to repair my pepperbox the better. There are also a couple things I would like to get, but I think they can be easily found if Arkos is a large enough place."

Oleg chimes in: "Twitch is right, Arkos is one of the few cities not yet overrun by drow, just a little further to the south. I can imagine it being quite a lot more bustling with all the refugees from the gnomish riviera there now though. We could probably blend in easily enough"

Paren nods. "Shouldn't be too hard to look like a refugee, I am one after all. My question is what kind of information are we looking for? Names of people? Where they money has gone? Proof of coverups? I just need a bit of direction i guess."