1.6: Poisoning People. With Friendship!

Poisoning People. With
Friendship!

 So, once again we find our
heroes... oh wait, they slept in relative comfort this time and no
one died or was attacked in the night! Finally a peaceful place to
rest! After spending the night at Caervy's excellent Stag's Rest inn,
Sajaina and Perlapae with *company,* our
party found themselves in sore need of fashion for a felicitous foray
into Elvan politics. They had a meeting with the Earl of Linn, you
see, and were hoping to convince him to get the ball rolling on some
defenses against the Orcish Sky Pirates. Fortunately for us, Caireann
happened to know a tailor! Sal transmuted some basic materials into
more expensive versions for Marielena the Tailor, saving the party
some cost while helping out the shop. Marielena also mentioned the
passing of King Oga and his replacement by his brother. So, you know,
everyone just calls him King Oga. That's not confusing at all!
Gruk, naturally, disdained decent fashion and elected to go in armor
and cape to nobody's surprise. All decorated in delectable drapery,
the party sallied forth to slay that great dragon called Diplomacy.
Don't think that's an apt metaphor? Oh just you wait and see!

 Now numbering 11- if you
include Bagel the Great and Powerful, Wrynn the Ghostly Presence, and
Gadgette- Baygrith's new artificial life which he uses as a... work
bench (we have serious questions regarding slavery and indentured
servitude!) they walked through the portal to Linn**.** Greeted
by guards demanding information, each party member had to surrender
their name, occupation and reason for visiting. Rather more
militaristic a greeting than had been expected, the sense that
something was amiss began leaping up and down to be noticed, and was
immediately placed on a fiery, glowing pedestal when the guards
absolutely refused to answer any questions regarding a burned down
building clearly visible from the party's vantage point. The
party did not walk away entirely without information however, as the
Guards didn't believe that Sal was really a halfling. A number of
party members were quietly skeptical as well, though quite prepared
to punch someone if they made too big an issue over it. A magical
test of Sal's blood revealed, much to even our surprise, that he
really was a tall halfling. We REALLY want to meet his parents now.
For their part, the guards were really apologetic about their
accusations, which is just as well.

 Walking through town, our protagonists passed a scaffold from which
hung the bodies of several elves, publicly displayed for the
convenience of NOT EXPLAINING ANYTHING, but serving as a clear
warning against whatever it is they had done. The sense of something
amiss was immediately upgraded to profound suspicion. Nevertheless,
the team made their way to the Elf Lord's manor through the cobbled
and somewhat worse-for-wear streets.

 They were greeted in the opulent parlor where servants divested them
of their weapons and other gadgets (pun intended), then lead them
into the dinning hall to meet with the local lord. The table was
magnificent, or so we are told. It was filled with all manner of
delicacies from the lands around Dyffryn Caidris and was served with
wine. It was glorious, delicious, and pretty much a huge display of
how wealthy the Earl was. We find such ridiculous excess incredibly
tacky, actually. Now about that diplomacy dragon...

 Dinner was going more or less fine, with lots of small talk, big
talk and even medium talk, until Sal sneezed. Such a little thing, a
sneeze, and easily dismissed as unimportant. Unless of course you
sneeze multicolored goo all over your napkin. A little freaked out
about this, Sal hid the napkin and considered worriedly. When he felt
his ear start to droop slowly towards the ground and couldn't get it
to stay in place, he excused himself, quickly followed by Perlapae.
Sajaina eventually left to check up on them as well.

 Ignoring that tremendously interesting part of the story in order to
build suspense, the Dragon of Diplomacy was still being slain back at
the table. Oddly, it was not slain by our party, some of whom have
quite a knack for slaying Diplomacy Dragons of all sizes and
dispositions. Instead, the Earl casually mentioned that the Maharaja
of Mura'Kesz had placed a huge price on the heads of our intrepid
adventurers and called us in as international criminals. The crime?
Harboring a fugitive. Her crime? Leaving the city without asking
permission first. Permission, by the way, she would not have gotten
unless she was magically rendered infertile. Great Spark throughout,
there is something wrong with that man!

 So why mention this? Turns out the Earl had an offer to make, but he
wasn't yet done stating the terms. Turns out that he could also
confirm the capture of some of the party's close relations by the
Dragon Wings. Fricken' Orc Sky Pirates! Those captured were:
Sajaina's Brother-in-law, Baygrith's father, Perlapae's teacher and
pair-bond, and Timmeron's fiance. The Earl also had good reason to
think he knew where they were being held. His total offer included:
helping us evade the Maharaja's political claim to our lives and
telling us where the aforementioned family members could probably be
found. You don't start with an offer that good unless you want
something in return. He did, and it wasn't a small thing.

Recently,
he explained, the new king of the Elves had passed away due to
'mysterious causes'
\*cough\***assassination**\*cough\*
**and**
the new king did not like the Earl so much. Next in line to the
throne was a man who was much more inclined to strike a deal with our
new 'friend'. The request, of course, was that the party find a away
to either make the current king more amenable to his requests and
personal interests, or remove the current king and allow his brother
to take the throne. Well damn. The group was, generously, given time
to confer among themselves, during which they began to wonder if Sal
was alright.

 In the mean time, Sal had not been doing so well. Sajaina and
Perlapae took turns watching over him and attending the dining room.
For his part, Sal's entire left side was giving him trouble. It was
wobbly and oozed slightly down. Perlapae was able to massage his ear
back into place. Sal did some experiments with his arm and discovered
that it could squish and bend well beyond ordinary limitations. It
could also stretch if pulled. He and Perlapae discovered the hard way
that the arm would then have to be carefully pressed back into place.

 The two called in the Manor's in-house mage who could not detect any
magic taking place. According to him, Sal was completely normal and
he should call the healer. Perlapae led Sal to the healer who quite
excitedly recommended several remedies, including potions, skin
creams and inhalants, none of which worked, and all of which Sal's
body immediately rejected with unpleasant side effects, poor guy!The
mage was called back and shown Sal's oddly bendy arms and the blue
mucus that would leak if he was cut or when he sneezed. The man
decided it was worth alerting the Caervy mages, who would cart Sal
away to experiment on him. This was not a good thing and, later, a
quick word to the Lordling about how hard such a thing would make it
to accept his offer put a stop to it.

 At this point the dinning group arrived in the Mansion's Healer's
ward to see how Sal was doing. He sneezed his eye right out of his
head, which Perlapae was thankfully able to re-attach with a quick
application of magic. So gross! I mean, be considerate, man! Sneezing
your eye out like that is bound to give someone a heart attack! Bagel
and Timmeron investigated and concluded that this was definitely a
lingering effect from when Sal had been hit with a high-intensity
magical ray while they were retrieving the Key. He seemed able to
function normally as long as he wasn't undergoing intense stress,
which could cause his body to deform or ooze. How do you even fix
that? Wrynn recommended that the group search out the mind of the
Tower of Apotheosis biology expert who would surely have some idea of
what to do. He, or she, or it...? was, naturally, locked behind one
of the Doors, requiring a Key and a Password to get to.

 While worrying about Sal, the group considered the Lordling's offer.
They eventually decided to accept, contingent on him proving he had
knowledge of were the missing family members were. He showed the
group exactly that, playing for them the first half of a magical
recording of the scene where they were captured. He promised to show
another recording with clues to their location if the group
succeeded. The group was justifiably unhappy about this, and we agree
with them! It was extortion pure and simple! Holding the safety of
innocent people hostage for nothing more than personal gain.
Scoundrel! With no good way to get around it, the group agreed to
attempt the task,though they would do their absolute best not to
actually hurt anyone, no matter the Lordling's preferences. Gruk
hurled the bastard across the room for his blatant manipulations. We
don't approve of violence, but this...? It's hard not to feel at
least a little good about that. Consider the Dragon dead and buried!

 Leaving the mansion somewhat tense about the upcoming coronation
they were supposed to crash, the group was escorted back to the
portal to Caervy by a mounted guard who was promptly shot through the
head in the middle of explaining about the recent revolts (which in
turn explained the burned buildings and the hanging bodies). Poor
guy! It's almost as if he entered the party's lives only to provide
exposition and, when drama served, be cut down. This did leave the
group in something of a spot, since they were being attacked by the
rebels! Immediately picking up the pace, they sprinted towards the
Caervy portal, trying to dodge arrows and the like along the way.
Perlapae spotted a burning building with diplomats from other nations
inside. She diverted her course, running into the building. Timmeron,
Travize and Sal broke off to follow her while Sajaina, Baygrith,
Bagel and Caireann ran on ahead without noticing their allies had
stayed behind. Gruk? He had already drawn his sword at the first sign
of trouble and was looking for a way to attack the archers on the
roof while the others had been deciding what to do.

 Many stupid, brave, insightful, and skillful things were done by
all, but in brief: Travize and Gruk did their best to stop the
archers on the roofs of the buildings. Travize tried to scare off his
archers or disable them, or knock them off the roof, while Gruk cut
them down. Timmeron and Perlapae entered the embassy to save those
trapped inside. Through a combination of wind, time and healing
magic, persuasion, and undesired combat, they disabled the rebels in
the building and let the diplomats out. Sal provided some healing to
Timmeron and Travize, in addition to freeing some golems which had
been disabled with magical rods. Most proved worrying unhelpful,
though a locksmith was called, we are assured. The golems did put out
fires and chase away some of the rebels, though. Sajaina Caireann and
Baygrith, on their way out, discovered that the rebels were hiding
bombs in the ally ways. They managed to disable the rebels they found
with a combination of stealth and strength, while also disabling the
bombs courtesy of Baygrith's quick fingers. Bagel? He was around.
Somewhere. Maybe he hid during the fight.

 In the end, Sajaina, Caireann and Baygrith made it through the portal
to Caervy and tried to recruit the help of the guards in stopping the
rebels. Apparently they had been told to stay where they were and to
allow the Linn guards to take care of the problem. Sajaina got fed up
with the delays and sneaked into the guard's sleeping quarters to rub
her newly brewed Goldenroot poison onto a sleeping guard's arm. As the
poison took hold, the man was possessed of sudden friendship with
Sajaina and rallied the garrison to help, simultaneously giving us
the name for this story! Would you look a that! Caireann met with her
friend, Allister, who also helped dredge up some support from the
surprisingly unhelpful guards. The force charged into the portal to
help put down the rebellion.

 Baygrith, Caireann and Sajaina met up with Travize and Sal as they
were going into the embassy after Timmeron and Perlapae who had yet
to come out. Together they charged in and helped to rescue the
Mura'Kesz ambassador from the rebels, making it out just before the
building collapsed. Gruk, on the other hand, sought out his sword,
which he had dropped during the conflict with the rebels. He
eventually found it in the hands of a man who, after some
interrogation by the group, turned out to be an assassin for hire
looking for Sajaina. Uh Oh! Gruk subdued him and brought him to the
group for said interrogation where Sajaina used her goldenroot poison
again so that he would be friendly and talkative towards Gruk. Gruk
also found out that the leader of the rebellion was apparently named
Darktree.

 A little too exhausted to deal with everything right at that moment,
the group dropped the would-be assassin off with the guards and
returned to the inn for the night. Gruk bought a magnificent feast
with money he'd taken off of the assassin, which everyone delighted
in! But it was also at this feast that the group met Derek. Derek
was a very interesting character. Derek had a hand cannon. Sounds
really dangerous to us, but Baygrith was fascinated and decided to
help fix it in return for a favor later. While Baygrith did that,
Derek talked with the group about the political climate and some
suspicions about the current king and the upcoming coronation. Damn
the group needs to figure out what to do about that...

 Wrynn had some things to say as well. First off, she really wants the
group to pick an object for her to rest in. No big deal. Just get her
a body. They all knew how to do that. Naturally. That said, Wrynn did
mention that the party should be careful about which mind they choose
to free next, since some would be worse for the Dragon Wings to get
hold of than others. The biology specialist from earlier, she
mentioned, would be bad, but there were also two members of the Tower
of Apotheosis that specialized in necromancy and mind control. What?
That's a little gross, actually. Mind control? Seriously? Ugh, no
wonder they locked that guy away! That said, the necromancy expert
might be able to help Timmeron with his... trouble.

 Trouble? Why yes, Timmeron DID have some trouble. Trouble from a
number of years ago, actually, when he experimented with a dark magic
ritual to impress his would-be girlfriend and the magics involved ate
away his arm. His now fiance cut it off to stop the corruption from
spreading to the rest of him, hence the 'brasshand' part of his name.
Get it? Because now his hand is made of brass? We crack ourselves up.
But anyway, now the corruption was back and, while its spread is
slow, it IS spreading. Perhaps the necromancy or biology expert could
help reverse the problem. Many things to consider as the group headed
off to bed in a comfortable inn. Comfortable though the beds were,
their minds were surely occupied by the troubles of their friends and
the hard choices ahead.