RQG 66 - Loose Ends

## Content Warnings

Dismissive medical professionals, mild ableist joke (mobility), prejudice against fantasy races (gnomes), including conspiracy theories that mirror real-life racist conspiracy theories

## Summary

The party explores Prague and wrap up some unfinished business. Bertie goes shopping, Hamid does admin, and Sasha goes to see a "doctor".

## Synopsis

The party is still trying to figure out what to do in the absence of Zolf, after he left following the incident with Bertie on the airship. Sasha, Hamid, and Bertie have reconvened, after patching up the scene in the restaurant, on the streets of Prague. Hamid suggests that they figure out somewhere to stay for the night, and then they can head up to the university tomorrow morning. He mentions to Bertie that Zolf has left, and Bertie steamrolls past it as he begins to talk about their plans for tomorrow. Hamid mentions that they should advertise for another member of their group; Sasha suggests that they should find someone else who can do healing magic, and Hamid says they should find someone who fits in with their group.

There are still some admin matters to be taken care of - they need to sell off some of the treasures they’ve gotten since starting the adventure, and Hamid asks the others if they mind him taking over Zolf’s position in the mercenary company. Neither of them mind, and Hamid decides to take over more of the admin responsibilities that Zolf had managed in the past. Hamid also sticks to his decision to give Zolf 25% of the funds they receive from everything they sell off.

Hamid also suggests a new name for the party - the London and Other London Outstanding Mercenary Group, or LOLOMG for short. (Out of character, Bryn says he’s been waiting on making this joke for months.) They all head to the hotel and sleep, with plans to head to the university in the morning.

They all sleep well; Hamid and Bertie wake up fine, but Sasha’s wounds have reopened and she has a grey pallor as she looks in the mirror. Her wounds have bled through her shirt, but she’s able to hide it well enough that no one else notices. She doesn’t feel terrible; maybe a bit hungover, but that’s it.

The city of Prague is split into two levels: the academic/university level, and then the city level. Hamid is the only member of the party who has been there before, but Sasha is able to find her way around decently well. In addition, there are two Meritocratic offices - one on the university level and one on the city level. (This universe’s Prague Castle is known as Bolla’s Roost.)

Before heading off to university, Sasha suggests that they all go shopping separately, and the other two agree. Hamid decides to handle some admin matters (bank accounts, payment, liquidating assets, etc.). He actually lived in Prague two years ago, for a couple months, so he starts out by shopping a bit around the market. As he walks past the opera house, he notices a poster of his sister being advertised for an opera taking place currently. It’s running for the next week, a special European tour, and Hamid heads inside to the box office to purchase 4 tickets for the opera (for 100 gold), as he’s forgotten Zolf is gone. After purchasing the tickets, he heads to the bank and attempts to make deposits into his, Zolf, Sasha, and Bertie’s accounts. However, since the world broke after they turned off Mr. Ceiling, there’s a queue at the bank as it's backed up. Hamid decides to deposit Zolf’s share into his account, then gets the rest of the shares in cash to give to Sasha and Bertie. Finally, Hamid heads off to the Meritocratic offices. Along the way is art of Bolla Smok looking intimidating; there are no action shots, it’s mainly art of them watching ominously.

Hamid is able to skip the line and receive their paperwork, and transfers the contract into his name, and then changes the name of the mercenary company to L.O.L.O.M.G. He explains that they’ll be looking for another member of the company, making sure it’s pre-approved.

Bertie is looking for some boots. He goes to fence his pile of Carthaginian jewels, and starts off at the more up-market areas of the city. No one seems very willing to buy, until a man with a relatively humble stall calls Bertie over. The random man (a gnome, short by Gnomish standards) has a stall that just has “MAGIC ITEMS” written across the top. Bertie is slightly suspicious of him, but he seems legitimate, so Bertie tells him the long story of his adventures. The gnome’s first offer is 6,000 gold (in platinum) for all the jewels, and Bertie agrees on the price; he pulls two bags up on the counter and Bertie counts both of the bags - still all seems legit. The gnome thanks Bertie for his business and then gives him a ring on the house - a ring that he says will repel the undead. Bertie thanks the gnome in return; he’s almost surprised, having had no positive interactions with gnomes in the past. The gnome offers Bertie the chance to look through the rest of his magical items, and it seems as if Bertie needs a magical item, he could probably get it from this guy at a fair price. Instead of going through every item, the gnome offers him a wand with 10 charges of *cure light wounds* for 20 gold, and Bertie agrees, and then purchases a Bag of Holding for 100 gold. There are a lot of items for him to get through.

Sasha goes off to find a healer at a nearby Temple of Artemis. The building looks a bit more like a fortress than a temple; it doesn't have the ostentation of the Apollo lot, or the severity of the Poseidon lot. She’s waiting around outside a room as she waits to be seen by one of the healers, and listens in on the conversation happening on the other side of the door. We hear Grizzop for the first time, as he reports that he’s visited the university looking for a rogue magician, a guy called Franz Kafka. Kafka is on the board of the university, and we don’t hear why Grizzop is looking for him. He and the person he’s conversing with decide that he’ll need to go back up to the university and figure out where Kafka went and why the board is being so cagey about it.

The door opens, and Grizzop exits. Grizzop is Ben’s new character; he is a goblin, about 3’4’’, with ashen grey skin, red eyes, bald, long floppy ears that stretch straight up, and a large mouth that stretches ear to ear filled with sharp teeth. He has a goblin-sized longbow across his back and a longsword, with a buckler on his arm with a symbol of a crescent moon pointed down and three arrows crossed through it - the Artemis symbol. He also has a breastplate with that symbol on it as well, with practical boots, a half robe, and trousers that almost look like the combat gear of the time. He basically runs out of the door and almost hits Sasha, but she dodges out of the way.

Sasha gets called into the room and sees a woman sitting with her boots up on the desk in front of her, sharpening a dagger. There are bows and daggers hanging all around the room, and in the corner is a fully-grown leopard, just lounging there. It bares its teeth. Sasha, who hasn’t really been to professional healers before, is still a little taken aback. The healer directs Sasha onto the bench and tells her to take her jacket off; Sasha does, and then the healer spits in her hands and places them on Sasha’s back as Sasha protests, saying that she knows it can be healed, but explains that the wounds open every day. The healing spell works, and she feels better (the wounds heal and she doesn’t feel slightly hungover anymore). Sasha explains that she needs to find a way to stop it happening every day, and the healer heads back behind her desk. The leopard hops down from the rafters and sniffs at Sasha before heading over to the healer.

The healer says that long-term, recurring magical diseases don’t just come about, and asks for Sasha to tell her how it happened; Sasha resists a bit, saying it’s a pretty long story (about 63 hours worth). The healer presses, and Sasha basically says she fell, got squashed (which explains the falcon), and now her back bleeds every day and she wants it to be fixed. She mentions that she was resuscitated as well recently, which left other scarring, and mentions that her autopsy scar also bleeds (Sasha calls it a surgical scar). The healer doesn’t seem to take her seriously, saying there’s probably nothing she should be worried about. Sasha tries to make her listen, saying she can’t keep getting weaker every day, and wants to know what’s going on. The healer says if Sasha doesn’t tell her what happened, she can’t help, and Sasha says she got killed and brought back to life, and the healer says it was probably a botched resurrection. She suggests keeping a healer around her for a while, and that long term it would be helpful to see a specialist; the Artemisian lot isn’t super cut out for this bit. She suggests finding someone at the Aphrodite temple who can help, or to try at the university and see what they can do. Sasha leaves.

Time skips a bit forward; it’s mid-afternoon at this point, and the party meets up at a central meeting point. Hamid hands out the money he got from the bank, and they decide to head off to university.

There’s a queue of people waiting to go up to the higher level; one of the people in the queue with them is Grizzop, who is practically vibrating with impatience. Hamid decides to speak to the person at the front to see if they can let him up for free, banking on the fact that all their systems are down as he lies about still being an associate student at Cambridge. The person at the front doesn’t really care, and is willing to let them up for free. They join the queue again and a mage guides them through the teleportation up to the university level.

The second before they teleport away, there’s a scream of abject terror in the square around them, and then they’re teleported up to the university as the episode ends.

## Quotes

**Hamid**: "You know, in some ways I have eaten enough today, perhaps we don’t need dinner, Sasha."
**Bertie**: "My god, Hamid are you alright. Hamid, Hamid, I’m here, follow my finger, can you see my finger?"
―Hamid suggests they find somewhere to sleep, instead of getting food.

**Hamid**: "I’ve also been thinking about the name."
**Sasha**: "We’re working on it."
**Hamid**: "I just don’t like it very much. I’ve come up with an alternative. So, the London and Other London Outstanding Mercenary Group."
**Bertie**: "Is there an acronym?"
**Hamid**: "Well, the acronym is L.O.L.O.M.G., which I don’t think is very good. It doesn’t really mean anything."
**Bryn**: "Guys, I’ve had that in the barrel *soooo* long, waiting for the perfect moment."
―Hamid suggests a new name for the London Rangers.

**Ben**: "Isn't there supposed to be a Meritocrat in the university?"
**Alex**: "Oh yes, I mean ... Knowledge (Local) everybody."
**Ben**: "Well I mean, *(whispering)* we know they're dead."
**Alex**: "Quiet you."
―Mr. Ceiling told the party that Bolla Smok was dead in Paris.

**Bryn**: "What's happened you start rolling well on Perception rolls?! I don't wanna live in this world anymore!"
**Ben**: "He's taken my power."
―Bertie is more perceptive than normal.

**James**: "He hates Gnomes. He just thinks Gnomes control all the world's banks, that's, that's—"
**Alex**: "Which is ironic cause he hangs out with someone who *does*."
**Ben**: "Which is also weird because there's a banking group called the Halflings of Zürich so ..."
―[add context]

"Bertie is surprised because he's either been tricked so well he doesn't realise, or he's just had a positive and honest interaction with a Gnome, and he's not sure which unsettles him more."
―**James**

"See, normally, if i wanted to repel the Undead, I would just ... offend them in some way."
―**Bertie**

"So, the problem, I guess, here, with magical healing, is that no one actually has any clinical knowledge."
―**Lydia**

**Healer**: "Clearly you've got some kind of magical disease, but if you're not gonna tell me how you got it properly, then there's only so much I can do."
**Sasha**: "I got killed, and I got brought back!"
**Healer**: "Right, thank you. Something I can work with, okay—"
**Sasha**: "I just said I got resuscitated!"
**Healer**: "I don't know what that means!"
―Sasha goes to the Cult of Artemis to see if they can heal her.

**Sasha**: "You're... over-sharpening that blade."
**Healer**: "Yeah... I am doing this more as a kind of get-out-of-my-office thing..."
―Sasha goes to the Cult of Artemis to see if they can heal her.

## Dice rolls and Mechanics

The party rolls a will save to see how well they sleep: Hamid gets a nat 20, Sasha gets a 19, Bertie gets 18.

Sasha rolls a fort save upon waking up: natural 1.

Sasha rolls a disguise check to see if she can hide the blood: 15.

The party rolls a knowledge local to find their way through Prague.

Bertie makes a perception check: 19.

Bertie makes a sense motive check on the gnome with the stall: 11 (adding a ‘racist against gnomes’ deduction).

Bertie makes an appraise check: 14.

Bertie makes another sense motive check on the gnome with the stall: 5 (adding a ‘racist against gnomes’ deduction).

Sasha makes a perception check in the temple: 26.

Sasha makes a perception check to listen in on the conversation: 25.

Sasha makes a reflex save to not get hit by Grizzop: 16.

Hamid makes a perception check: 18.

Sasha makes a perception check: 20. (?)

Hamid makes a diplomacy roll to get teleported to university for free: 21.

## Plot Notes

First appearance of Grizzop.

The mercenary company changes their name from the London Rangers to the London and Other London Outstanding Mercenary Group (LOLOMG).