She's also a playwright, so stationary would probably be appreciated
Nerys is like, :O a fellow playwright!?
Yeah, she's doing pretty well at the moment. Her play "Five Lives" is in the
Diamond Theatre now
Nerys has a fangirl(them?) moment, Charlie's friend is the writer of FIVE
LIVES!? THAT LUCA SYARA!?
Nerys gets a chair to get up to the Charlie's height, and shakes him by the
shoulders
Charlie what the fuck!
"Why didn't you tell me!?"
Damien enters the room while this is going on, with a bottle of wine
"Oh no, what is wrong with them?"
Nerys found out that Charlie is friends with a playwright that Nerys really
likes
Oh, Damien is drunk
"I don't have time for Damien's self destructive depression alcoholism, I
want to meet the playwright!"
"Oh you're going to watch a play?" he says, slurring his words
Yes, Charlie needs to apologise to Luca and she's at the theatre!
Damien is on board, "let's go drink!"
No, no no no
Ruckus tries to take the bottle off of him, and he teleports into a nearby
table
Nerys grabs him and yells "look at me! Look into my eyes! I need this, give
the bottle to Charlie!"
Damien drops the bottle, it's empty anyway
"We've fixed Damien, now we can go?"
"It's gonna take a bit more than that to fix Damien, I think, but we'll deal
with it later"
"No! We can't meet THE LUCA SYARA with a drunk Orien boy!"
Charlie takes hold of Nerys' face and says it'll be fine, Luca has seen way
worse than a drunk Aundairian. "Just be your fun, effervescent self"
Ruckus mentions he's never been to the threatre before. Huh
Yashira would probably have stuff to say too, but her player is currently
MIA
Charlie asks if they're okay to go, or does anyone else want to yell at him
first?
"Why would anyone want to yell at you?" - Nerys
"Maybe because he left a note for the people who want to kill us" - Damien
"Honestly I feel like all of us have fucked up pretty bad. We deal with it"
- Nerys
"I was dealing with it, but now I'm out of wine"
Charlie informs Damien that it's fine,
The Kind said it would be fine!
Oh, the necromancer said that? Then it must be true!
"Look, Damien, I know I fucked up but you don't need to be like that, I
trust him"
And if anything does happen, Charlie will take the fall for it.
"You're a good man, Charlie, but you make silly choices. We all do, I guess,
look at me"
"Oh I am looking at you"
It got weirdly horny for a second, but they brushed it under the rug and
then go to see Luca.
Nerys offers Damien a potion to make him not drunk, but he says if he didn't
want to be drunk, he wouldn't've drank, would he?
Nerys says this wasn't the character arc they expected for him. He says
"then you haven't been paying attention" and boops them on the nose.
Charlie herds his strays to the Diamond Theatre.
They arrive, and see that the next play is
Lost in Mourning. The staff ask if Charlie is going to be watching?
They will, it's free! It's who you know, you know?
Ruckus asks if these are always free? That seems like a bad business model
No, it's because of Charlie
Damien's hang over has begun, his metabolism, like everything else, is fast
Nerys offers another potion, but he doesn't want one. "You're about to watch
a really sad play with a hang over"
They sit down, and watch the play.
Nerys is SO excited. They have an old manuscript of Luca's that they want
signed.
Damien asks why Luca is so important to Nerys? Nerys explains that they
didn't use to like plays or theatre, but Luca's work inspired them to leave
the
Mror Holds and gather stories.
They've learned so much while they've been travelling! It's very scary, but
the world is such a big and wonderful place
They quiet down as the play begins
It's particularly rough for Damien, with his hangover and the very sad story
being told. He particularly struggles during the part where the play depicts
Aundair turning away the refugees, as the actor looks a lot like Damien's
dad
Nerys cries throughout, but does so quietly. They're so enraptured by the
play that they just let the tears fall, they can't look away to sob
Ruckus is really impressed and moved by this, the first play he's ever seen.
He particularly relates to the 7 year old girl who gets separated from her
family during the Mourning
Charlie's seen this play a few times, but it still gets him misty eyed.
At the end, staff members come around with tissues to wipe eyes, and
donation boxes gathering funds for
High Walls. Nerys drops a bunch of gold in, they aren't even sure how much through
their tears
Damien also donates, giving a single platinum coin.
Charlie then takes the others back stage, but tells them he needs to speak
to her on his own first.
"I don't think she's gonna hurt me, it'll be fine"
What!?
Damien asks if they should come in if they hear the sounds of violence?
Charlie says if they hear violence, they should leave
Anyway it'll be fine, Charlie goes into Luca's office
"Hi"
Luca, writing something, says it took him longer to come see her than she
thought it would
Yeah...sorry. He's been doing a lot of soul searching. Is she okay?
Luca is fine, she projected as much of her self as she could given the time
she had to save his life, but it didn't harm her
"You can't bring me joy if you're dead. You got in over your head, you all
did"
This isn't being made easier by the aura of palpable despair that Luca
projects
He's really struggling with the guilt
Luca puts down her pen, turns her chair to fully face him, and tells him
she's fine. She's unharmed.
He hugs her, and she freezes, unsure how to respond
Nobody's ever done that to her before
Ban is crying, somewhere
"People should, you deserve it. I know you're the embodiment of an idea, but
I can't help but try to make you smile"
Nerys is crying, somewhere
Anyway! He's brought some people who'd like to meet her
Nerys is shy all of a sudden, and hides behind Damien
"What are you doing? You were so excited a few seconds ago"
"Help me out, okay? Just be taller than me and stand here"
They all come face to face with the saddest girl in the world. Damien's
smile immediately drops when her aura hits him.
He pushes Nerys in front of him
"Umm, hello. We're friends, um, of, we don't want to bother you"
Oh Nerys
"Your play was very beautiful"
"Thank you, Nerys"
she knows my name
Nerys asks Luca to sign their manuscript, an old version of The Broken
Sword, one of Luca's first plays. It's clearly been well loved, and read
many times
Luca signs it wordlessly. Nerys loses their shit
Nerys hugs it and presses it against their chest
The aura of despair cannot dampen the fangirl
"We hope we're not bothering you too much!"
"This is putting me out significantly less than saving you from a giant bone
construct"
Oh, right! "Thank you so much!"
Damien says it was pretty impressive magic for a playwright
"Yes, it is"
Okay, she doesn't elaborate
Nerys says "she is the voice of a generation, you heathen!"
"That doesn't mean you can just transport yourself halfway across the
continent"
"Of course it does, what else would grant such an ability?"
"House Orien"
Nerys tells Damien off for being sassy with THE LUCA SYARA
Damien apologises, and Luca says "there is nothing any of you can say that
could dampen my mood"
Somehow it's less reassuring than it should be
Nerys asks if she accepts their thanks? Luca looks to Charlie, and asks "is
that wise?"
Charlie didn't tell them the rules...
Charlie tries to recover the situation, "maybe we should thank the cast and
crew, yeah!"
Damien has cogs whirring in his head, being from
Aundair. He draws the connection, that sounds like fey!
He looks at Charlie, then to Luca, and thinks to himself "you motherfucker"
Damien says "yes that would be good! I think we've taken up enough of Miss
Luca's time!"
Nerys doesn't understand, and thinks they've caused offence
Charlie says no! He should've better prepared them
Damien mutters "that was a pretty important fucking detail, Charlie"
They forgot about Ruckus, who is crying. Damn Luca is a downer
Ruckus is stuttering, unable to really cope with Luca's attention being
directly on him when he speaks, it makes the despair so much worse. He just
goes silent.
Damien ushers him out of the room, along with the others.
Nerys is upset, did they say something wrong? Did they offend Luca?
"No, but you need to be careful what you offer when speaking to A FEY!" as
Damien looks at Charlie
"A what?"
Charlie shushes him, "not so loud! Somewhere less public"
"Okay but we're definitely talking about this"
They head somewhere quieter to talk about this
Charlie asks Damien to keep it quiet, not everyone knows about that
Nerys is confused, can fey not be playwrights?
No, but when dealing with the fey, deals and offerings hold power. If you
offer a fey your thanks, you owe them a debt.
Nerys knows that, but they've never met a fey!
Actually, you just did
Oh
Nerys asks if that's why they felt so sad when Luca looked at them?
Damien asks Charlie what kind of fey Luca is?
...an archfey
"You're friends with a fucking archfey!?"
"Well, she's my patron. She finds me funny, and in return for being funny,
she helps me"
"Oh my gods, Charlie, you don't mean financially do you? What are you
doing!?"
"Look, it's a good deal. I don't want moralising from you! I do funny things
and I get power, and she gets cheered up a bit. Who doesn't want that?"
Damien isn't going to tell Charlie his business, he's a smart man, but this
worries him. Wow.
"How come everyone I've met has ended up in a gingerbread house or
something, and you get powers?"
"Luca's nice I guess"
Charlie tells them how he met Luca, she went to one of his shows as Trixie
Towers.
Anyway, Charlie wanted them to meet her because she's a big part of his
life, and they're a big part of his life (Nerys says aww) and he doesn't
want any more secrets
Damien agrees, he appreciates Charlie putting his trust in them.
It's a shame Ban wasn't here to meet her!
"Oh, Ban already met her"
"What!? When!?"
She tried his curry and she liked it
She ate Ban's food? Wait, she eats?
Charlie asks if Damien remembers one of their first adventures, in the caves
in Droaam, when Damien woke up with a cold shoulder? That was from Luca, and
she tried some of Ban's curry. Charlie took Ban to see her after that
Nerys asks for more details about the bargain. He tells her jokes? Like...a
clown?
"I guess"
Nothing hurts worse than when Luca doesn't find him funny
That's why he occasionally just does stupid shit, because Luca is watching
Nerys asks if he has a complex about this? He says he has a complex about
everything
Damien asks if that one was meant to be funny? Nerys hits him and tells him
to stop being mean
Damien then asks if anyone else has any secrets they'd like to reveal?
Nerys asks if Charlie needs some water? He looks a bit thirsty
Oh yeah, Damien has a bottle of water!
ANYWAY
Nerys says thank you to Charlie for trusting them with this
While they're clearing the air, Damien wants to apologise for earlier. He
was really shaken up in
Karrnath, and he was working through his feelings.
"When I'm sad, I like to run, and unfortunately I ran into a bar"
Nerys says he could've talked to them about it
Damien says he knows that, he's realising how close they've all become and
how special they all are to him
"Let's just try not to do that again"
Damien also apologises for belittling Charlie's relationship with
The Kind. "I guess not all Karrns are horrible undead fuckers, as my father would
say"
Damien is also unpacking some generational bigotry, it seems
Nerys asks if anyone else wants to be vulnerable?
Ruckus says no thank you
Okay then
"What about you, Yashira?"
"I think you're all fucking idiots"
Yep, that's what she would say
"Now that we're all emotionally healed, what's next?"
"No, we were just all opening up stop being a mysterious little bitch"
Ruckus pauses for a bit, and then sighs.
Okay, he asks them all to follow him
They already were, actually
Now they're doing it with his consent, though!
Ruckus takes them to the orphanage in the Cogs, that took him in as a child.
The building's seen better days, with parts of the building having
collapsed.
Ruckus leaves a bag of coin at the door, knocks on the door, and returns to
the group.
He just starts walking off, without explaining anything.
Damien comments that this smells of more sadness than Luca's room
"How is that possible?"
Once they get far enough away, Ruckus explains that's where he grew up, and
also his biggest regret.
Why?
Ruckus just goes quiet for a bit. "Because a young goblin who didn't know
his place in the world tried to dip his hand into a profession he didn't
have the skills for yet, and now he's paying for it"
Nersys asks if something happened with one of his inventions?
"You saw the collapsed side of the building?"
Oh, Ruckus
"I fucked up, and ran away"
He feels indebted to his caretakers, for taking him in and for the damage he
caused. He donates everything he can.
"It's funny right? I fucked up and then ran away. And then we did it again
in Fort Bones!"
Charlie is taken aback, Ruckus can't blame himself for what happened at Fort
Bones. They wouldn't have been able to escape without Ruckus
"We'd be rotting in some Karrnathi prison"
"Prison? We would've been built into the fucking wall"
They have another vulnerable moment. Ruckus didn't want them to see how he'd
fucked up because he wants to seem useful
Charlie wordlessly walks back to the orphanage and leaves three full pouches
of coin
Ruckus is stunned-3
Nerys does the same
Followed by Damien
and probably Yashira but we can't confirm
Nerys offers to help Ruckus with his odd jobs.
Charlie asks if he's paying rent. "Actually, where are you staying?"
"I have a little shed"
It was an abandoned building that he just moved into
Damien informs Ruckus that part of their guild benefits is rooms up in
Clifftop...
"What?"
"You don't have to live like this"
Charlie also has an empty bedroom in his apartment
Damien offers to do some fundraising! He has connections with a bunch of
nobles
Ruckus says they don't need to help him, this is his burden to bear
"We don't need to help, we want to. You're our friend" says Nerys
"Yeah you made a fucking grenade launcher, that was sick"
Damien taps his bracelet, "consider it payment"
Charlie says that
Lan Hazal told him to put his money to use, to do something worthwhile with it.
He was gonna throw it in his dad's face and call him a cunt, but this is a
more worthy cause.
Yashira also has noble and merchant contacts, but she's temporarily
lobotomised and can't provide that information.
Charlie does a Ruckus impression and says "it's not your burden to bear"
Ruckus says that's not what he sounds like!
Ruckus gets out a tiny wooden carving of a goblin.
"Oh my god you were so cute."
It's life sized
"I could put you in my pocket"
"Don't"
Ruckus gives up, he can't deter them from helping
Charlie marks Abandon on his "Big Ambitions" theme
We lose the plot a little bit joking about sending Fumbus to call Charlie's
dad a cunt
13th Sypheros, 998 YK
They all get a letter from
Lhara, detailing their next mission and telling them to meet her in
Thaliost. Lightning Rail tickets are enclosed.
They get the train and make their way there. Nerys informs Charlie that they
don't really like the
Blood of Vol or necromancy in
Thrane, so he probably shouldn't bring Warren (the actual rat, not
Warren)
Charlie has Warren deep in his bag, it'll be fine
Damien has feelings about
Thaliost. It used to be Aundairian, but Thrane took it during the war. He's trying
to work on his prejudices though, so he doesn't voice them.
He appreciates the Aundairian style buildings though!
Charlie asks him about it, and Damien mentions that his mother is from
Thaliost originally
Charlie's mother currently lives in Thaliost...
"Ah, the city of mothers"
Is that a bad thing?
Damien has a good relationship with his mother. Charlie doesn't really, he
hasn't seen her in a long time. She ran away with his dad's brother...
Woah
Nerys mentions that they were told a drinking game, which was to take a swig
every time someone tells you that Thaliost used to be Aundairian. They've
counted twelve times so far
They meet up with Lhara, and she explains their new job.
Nigel has corresponded with a member of the
Church of the Silver Flame in Thaliost and arranged to borrow an artifact from their collection.
The group will need to liaise with the contact, collect the item and
transfer it safely back to Sharn via the
Lightning Rail. All above board, all legal.
The artifact they'll be transporting is called the Duskgate Crucible, which
is connected to
Lamannia
Father
Calemi Iridanci can be found at the Temple of the Blessed Ascension, which is visible
from the plaza.
Nerys asks why Lhara is...here? In Thaliost?
Lhara says she just wanted to see the city. Nerys thinks there's something
more that Lhara isn't saying, but they don't push it.
Nerys does recommend a teahouse though
They start walking to the temple, and Nerys whispers to the others that
she's suspicious that Lhara held something back. She usually gives them
their next job in
Sharn
Maybe she's got some personal business? She doesn't snoop on their lives
The last job where they met her on site was the Fort Bones job, and we all
know how that went
Maybe she just wants to sight see?
"Who would want to sight see in Karrnath?"
Xenophobic Nerys strikes again
"It's all just woods and snow!"
"Even decay has a sort of beauty to it" - Charlie
Well, even if the rest of them aren't, Nerys is suspicious
Okay
As they walk, they're hailed by a gnomish bookseller who tries to sell them
a threadbare, secondhand books. Damien asks if they have any crystals for
the Sivis Scribl?
"What the fuck is a Sivis Scribl?"
Damien goes to show him, and accidentally plays a segment of some smut book
he had been reading. He quickly tries to turn it off and fumbles it.
The bookseller kicks him out of his shop
Charlie pretends he doesn't know them. He buys some raggedy ass books
Jebbedo tells him not to read em too quickly
"why?"
"cos then you'll be done with em, and I ain't buying em back"
Charlie says why would he do that? He's gonna read em and then read em again
and again and again
Jebbedo asks if he's on drugs?
Why?
Moving on
They walk a bit further down the street, and go passed a dwarven pub
called the King of Sypheros
A drunken goblin points at Nerys with his walking stick and yells "hey!
fuck you!"
Nerys yells back "fuck you!"
"NO, fuck YOU!" he yells as he lunges with his walking stick and sprawls
out on the street
Nerys tries to help him up and he bites them "hey! don't fucking touch
me!"
What is going on?
The goblin complains about "the fucking dwarves kicking me out of their
pub, saying I've had enough"
"And I have had enough! but not of the booze, of their fuckin
'tudes!"
Nerys asks if they need help?
They need booze
He says "fuck you" again and Damien says he's gonna let one more slide
and then he's gonna punch him in the face
Nerys says he can't do that
The goblin asks again for Nerys to go in and get him some more
booze
They refuse, and the goblin says "fuck you" again as he gets up and
starts walking away. He's gonna go to a different dwarven bar
"If you had other options, what was the problem?"
"fuck YOU!"
got it
Most of them are pretty confused by this interaction, but Charlie is used
to it. He clocks out pretty late usually as Trixie
Nerys didn't like that guy
They hear a distant "fuck you!" from a couple streets over
Nerys says they feel okay not making this their problem. Charlie says
good, it's not their problem.
They walk on, and a street vendor flags them down. She's selling
necklaces and bracelets, and "pebbles from The Face of Tira!"
Genuine
Trust
Nerys calls it out, these pebbles aren't even the right material! This
stone isn't even from remotely the right area, they're from Zilargo!
The street vendor tells them to hush down, what the fuck? They're gonna
cost them customers
"Actually, get the fuck outta here. That goblin was right about
you"
Nerys is starting to feel pretty self conscious, maybe they are the
problem?
The others would tell them if they were being an asshole
Charlie is getting the jitters, this all seems too easy
Nerys is expecting a dragon to just pull up on them
They decide if that happens, they should give the dragon the
artifact
Damien doesn't believe in dragons, he's an Argonnesson Truther
"What the fuck?"
They'll unpack that later
Yashira is getting an unsettling feeling like they're being watched,
makes her soul itch. She looks around but doesn't see anything unusual,
but Thaliost kinda sucks
Nerys becomes concerned that this is all a set up because they started
asking questions
They should just try and get this done as fast as possible
They enter the temple and see a portly half-elf man with salt and pepper
hair praying
Hopefully Charlie doesn't adopt this old man too
Nerys beckons him
He doesn't know who they are, but Damien presents the letter of
introduction.
Father Calemi Iridanci's demeanor becomes more businesslike, and he reads the letter. He seems a
bit incredulous about the group, but if Nigel trusts them...
He leads them into the undercroft, and knocks on a door before calling out
"Jeffi! Jeffi! Open the door, our...pilgrims from Sharn are here!"