Tales of Faerun

[mythicdawnmaster]

"Indeed m'ady that is the task at hand- Should you possess the hand would you care to assist me? Two keen eyes in unison are far more formidable than one." Xallistine rummaged through his satchel and produced another lens, handing the strapped headgear to Rhaine he gave her direction. "Once it is over your eye you simply close the one that is not staring down the glass, and adjust the focus until you can clearly observe the shapes of the symbols. They are mostly uniform it seems, but if you see anything odd or out of character, then we may have found ourselves another phlactery."

 

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Ravenna grinned widely in return to Sefris. "And so, you life begins anew. Come then, my dear, we have all of Faerun before us to explore in our eternity ahead. The roads shall run red on our approach and fall black at our departure... this world will feel our tremors, however small they may be. But first, I believe we are in need of new attire." Clicking her slender fingers, a large, solid gold wardrobe broke through the tiles of the church floor, and stood vigil in it's glory. Opening the gilded doors, the otherwise unextraordinary object revealed itself as a portal, stretching on within was a vast chamber full of unimaginably ornate articles of clothing, chained devil craftsmen worked the tables as they produced more finery for the Queen to don.

 

Ravenna stepped through nonchalantly and walked onwards as she browsed the mannequins. "Sefris darling... I do like your current choice of colour, but why not increase the quality?" Ravenna gestured to a deep crimson corset, quite alike to the one the Fey'ri was already wearing, however it was adorned heavily in rubies of the finest cut.

[Deleted6317247User]

"Right. Let's go." Shalena took her cutlass and a hand-crossbow and left her cabin. For a moment she thought about taking a few of her men with her but changed her mind and left the ship only with Lyria.

 

The tavern they were looking for, The Black Eye was near the docks so they didn't have to walk far. "Didn't he see my ship?" She thought as she made her way through the docks. Shalena wondered if she's walking into yet another ambush or was he even bigger fool than she thought.

 

The Black Eye, as usually, was crowded. Shalena looked around the common room and she saw him. "There he is." She pointed at the bald man with the red bandana on his head and silliest looking black mustache. He was sitting in a far corner of the tavern, playing five finger fillet and occasionally eyeing the women walking past his table.

 

Shalena grabbed a knife from another table and approached the bald pirate. "Here, let me help." She said as she stabbed him in the hand. The knife went through his hand and stuck to the wooden table. He screamed in pain and tried to pull the knife out but Shalena held it firmly and had no intention to pull it out. Not yet. The bald pirate hurled insults at her, filthy half-breed being the nicest one but the redhead pirate only smiled. She sat on the table and looked straight into his eyes.

 

"Let's talk."

[Flipout6]

Weyland stood up, having finished his breakfast, and went for the door.

 

"Azuris, if we're going for the loot, let's go."

Amendale came along as well, and after a (very) long walk, they arrived back at Valthanarax's treasure horde and began piling everything good (not so much gold as the gear.) into the wagon. Weyland didn't find much interest in many of these items, but one thing that caught his eye was a very powerful-looking blade that he picked up. It was white, with a golden hilt and guard, and carvings of lightning bolts with incredibly striking cobalt sapphires etched into the shapes to make the lightning bolts look blue. Despite relying on night vision for sight, Weyland already knew that if the light hit this blade at the right angle it would indeed look like a flash of lightning. What was more, it glowed a dark blue with a powerful electricity enchantment similar to Weyland's own blade. He replaced his own sword with it, grinning happily, and continued piling more loot onto the wagon.

[nethgros]

Othos smiled at Nawen's comment, "I'm quite sure that he wouldn't throw you out the window."

 

Othos followed Nawen over to Kowolj's side, picking up the nondescript bottle on the floor that had likely held whatever poison he had drank.

 

"Once, about a year ago now, we were sitting in an inn somewhere and we overheard a man talking about 'the nature of alcohol'. He said something along the lines that it was a poison that ruined lives, and blah blah blah... But Kowolj, instead of wanting to drink less, wanted more, and on top of that he made the connection that if alcohol makes you feel kind of good then real poisons must make for a great time. Naturally, I told him that wasn't the case, but it would seem that this idea never really went away. At least, that is my take on what is happening here."

 

Othos took control of the breeze coming in through the window and moved it through Kowolj's black mane, lightly moving his hair around his head.

[GrueMaster]

Tak'we shifted nervously in his seat when Rhaine said Kalin was gone. "Gone?" he chattered to no one in particular, "how?" The thri'kreen got up and walked over to the table where Rhaine had set done the missing softskin's belongings and started looking at them. He picked up the paper his clutch-mate had been looking at and tried to interpret it, but he couldn't understand the strange symbols scribbled on there.

 

*Nak'chik!* he muttered in thri'kreen, cursing his inability to read. "How do softskinss tell what these scratchingsss say?" the warrior spoke in frustration. " None of them even look like anything! Can't softskinsss draw proper signsss like animalss or treessS?"

 

Setting the paper down in aggravation, Tak'we listened to Rhaine and Orthos and tck-ed at the mention of adamantine and smith-work. He had some skill at smithing. He had crafted several sets of armor and weapons during his enslavement, but he'd never worked with the dark metal. Sun-burnt metal, he thought with a slight shiver. According to his elders, the material, and the spirit inside it, was incredibly strong, but the adamantine spirits had been cursed by Mighty Sun and burned by his light before being banished deep underground from his touch as punishment for some grave offense.

 

Who would even touch such a thing? He didn't even like the thought of working with the cursed metal, and so refused to say anything. It made him feel guilty to be that way, but he didn't want to deal with bad spirits.

 

Not wanting to think about it anymore, the thri'kreen went back to his table and ordered some bacon and some fruit. He heard screaming about some 'beast' and assumed that someone had found Kowolj. Wemics, he thought, shaking his head a bit, then began eating as his food was brought out.

[Deleted6317247User]

Nawen only nodded as she listened to Othos's words about alcohol. She had little to add to it anyway.

 

She bent closer to Kowolj's face and sniffed his breath. She could smell the alcohol, all right, a lot of it. There was also another faint smell that was awfully familiar but she could not remember what it was.

 

Nawen looked around the bottles scattered on the floor beside the bed. She couldn't find any that contained something other than alcohol and it didn't look like any of them were spiked. While the bottles were of no interest to her, something else was.

 

After taking a closer look at the wemic she noticed a cut on his arm. "That's where the faint smell is coming from!" She realized and looked at Othos with a proud smile on her face.

 

"I know what poison Kowolj... consumed." She said. "It's called Darfly-sting essence. He must have gotten some through this injury," Nawen said as she pointed to the cut on wemic's arm, "I can make an antidote but we'll have to find the right ingredients first."

[AurianaValoria1]

Rhaine took Xallistine's device and adjusted it as instructed, peering once again at the map before her.

 

Some of the symbols were oddly blurred, as if other, semi-transparent symbols were floating on top of the ones already there. This blurring occurred in eight places.

 

"Look," Rhaine pointed to one particularly fuzzy emblem, "The one near Sarshel, in Impiltur...and the one in the Deepwing Mountains close to Turmian lands...do they not look particularly out of place? Those are the ones closest to us...Valthanarax's likely destinations, do you think?"

 

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Lyria watched Shalena and the pirate with a wicked grin, her slightly pointed teeth sparkling in the low light, "Yeah...let's talk..."

 

Her slur had, quite surprisingly, disappeared. The appearance of blood on the table had abruptly sharpened all of her senses, and her pink eyes glowed brightly.

[josh900]

Tannin returned to the inn a short while after he left. Noting that some of the others had returned he went to sit with them. "So, what are we plotting now?" He asked, looking around at the others with a smile on his face.

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Azuris had miscalculated just how much treasure there was. It would take them several trips to retrieve all of it so he decided to load up the most expensive looking things first. Art work, weapons and jewels all piled onto the wagon, within the pile he had put a suit of armor that had caught his attention, it was large enough to fit him and was much lighter than his current suit. He briefly considered taking another sword but thought against it for the time being. He would rather wait until it had all been inspected before he took anything from the collection.

[tokyobiohazard]

Alphonse patted the side of one of the horses in the stable's yard. "You know," he muttered to Reona, in close enough earshot of the stable's workers so that he was sure they could overhear him, "Someone would pay a hefty sum for our camels, as they're the only ones for miles. Look at all these horses. By common sense, which one would you say is more common and therefore less expensive?"

Reona stood next to him and pretended to think, then placed a hand on the horse's muzzle, "I'd say the horses, but that sounds a bit funny."

 

"Well, imagine how much more it would cost for someone to get a camel out here than in some town closer to a desert." Alphonse knew the nearest stable boy could hear them.

 

Just as Alphonse had thought, someone approached them. A gangly human boy of no more than fifteen, he was dirty and sweaty. He wiped his brow, before opening his mouth to speak, and no sooner than he had done so, the owner stepped in.

 

"Now, I see what you're doing here, and it may fool one of my boys, but not me, no sir." The burly man was shorter than Alphonse by a whole foot, and yet was three times his thickness. All of it seemed to be muscle. "Now, you have a look about you that says you know a thing or two about stables. You thought I was out of earshot, didn't you? Do you have enough gold to pay for a horse or not?"

 

Knowing he had failed, Alphonse pulled his share of the coins from his pocket and flashed them for a moment, "I've got enough for one good horse here. Perhaps we could cut a deal on trading these four camels for two horses, at the very least."

 

"Two horses for those four beasts?!" The man scoffed. "Why, I'd sooner eat them for supper! And I hear camel is awful. All fat, really."

 

Reona bit the inside of her cheek, then came to a realization. "What if I told you that you would be selling them to nobility?"

"You? Noble?" The man once again scoffed, seeming to believe this truth about as well as he had believed Alphonse's lies.

 

She straightened her back and walked over to her camel, pulling an elegant blue dress out of the saddlebag on its right side. "Now, tell me a commoner would wear such finery. The stitching is marvelous. Cormyrean seamstresses crafted this for me on order of my mother, Adelaide Dala'ess. I could give all of these dresses in here to you for your daughters or granddaughters. These would be the finest dresses they ever owned."

 

"Now, Dala'ess, you say... That name sounds familiar." The man chewed on his rugged beard for a few moments, before nodding his head, tongue in cheek. "I'll take them in exchange for one horse."

 

"One horse?!" Alphonse exclaimed, "This is robbery, Reona!"

 

She waved a hand at Alphonse and said, "The camels, plus the dresses. They're worth more than even your home, I assure you. Four horses."

 

And so, Reona and Alphonse saddled up their new horses and were free of the camels. The horses would be there for them the next time they left town.

 

As the two walked away and toward the inn, without having spent a single piece of gold, she muttered, "Only one of those were made in Cormyr, and the others I bought on the road."

[Flipout6]

Weyland and Amendale arrived back in the Teshford arms. Amendale went to go sit down, while Weyland announced the wagon outside.

 

"Hey, we made the run, wagon's full! Go get some!" He gestured out the door. Arland had fallen asleep at the table, and Weyland pulled his chair out from under him, and his brother plopped face-first onto the floor. He groaned. "Payback! You wake me up early, and I'll get you back. Let there be NO doubt."

 

"Uggghhhh......" Arland's groggy complaint was muffled by the floor.