RP 02 - Phandalin downtime

[DM Babis]
Pine found the Rockseeker Brothers at the Miner’s exchange, while they were trying to haggle for a good price for the diamonds that they had recovered from the excavation. He expressed his desire to learn from them how to work stone and as the brothers intended to stay in the town for a while. Under the tutelage of Nundro and Gundren, Pine found Masonry a hard and thankless endeavour, the stone refusing to yield without the required strength and it punishing a badly angled strike with it shattering and destroying a day’s work. Days passed, Pine’s muscles burning with exertion and seemingly making little progress.

And then, after five days, Pine woke up, headed to the makeshift masonry yard and felt… at peace. The work hadn’t changed. But his perspective had. Every success was a victory, every failure simply a learning opportunity. While there was still a lot of learning left to be done, Pine emerged the tenday being able to use a Mason kit if not proficiently, good enough for most basic functions if he had the time.

While they didn’t speak too much, he could feel that the Rockseeker brothers were familiar to him now and saw him fondly, as a teacher sees a student. He heard much about their future plans on how to protect the town – landing on finding and then reclaiming the old Dwarven fort called Axeholm theorising that the town's stores of food could be kept there and it could serve as an entirely dragon proof shelter.

[the majority of learning would be making blocks that would be of use for fortifications. Maybe not the walls but definitely the manor]

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[Zenari]
Zenari would during these days seek out Pine, probably where he set up camp and say: "Hi, sorry, I don't want to intrude If you want to be alone. I just wanted to ask you something if I may?"

[Pine]
Days would have passed from when the group had returned to the town, and although Pine did not frequent the overpacked Inn, he could be seen about Phandalin enough.  It wasn't as though he was difficult to spot, after all, despite the surge of people to the town; he was the only tabaxi most had ever seen.

The first five days they lingered around the town showed his mood, previously seen after they had spoken to Sildar, to have remained poor and ornery.  He and the Rockseeker brothers spent their days chipping and splitting stone, his tail often lashing behind him in irritation.  Still, as those days wore on his mood seemed to improve with his skill in the task, and from time to time he could be seen talking or listening with the dwarven brothers about this or that, his fur smooth and his tail relaxed; a far more auspicious temperament to instigate conversation than before.

One evening once he was done with stonework for the day, he was just rekindling his campfire beside his tent, one that he'd set out on an unused patch of land within the town, away from central thoroughfares.  He would look up and over to the quietly spoken spellcaster, ears pricking in her direction.

"You can ask," he would say, although whether he would answer might be another thing entirely.  Still, he appeared calm and at ease there as he sorted out his mess kit with what food he had.

[Zenari]
"When I used that spell in Gnomengarde I could see all the magic in that place. It was just a light everywhere including in myself. I could see it in you too but I couldn't help notice it seemed concentrated around something around your neck." She looks down both shy and apologetic. "I just wanted to ask If you always had magic or where did it come from?"

[Pine]
"Hmm," he said, not answering immediately, but thoughtful on the subject.  He was not one to rashly spout words, not typically, and it showed in the more lax way he considered the subject while he tipped in some rations to heat in the tin while they spoke.  "The magic is not mine.  I am not a wizard or sorcerer.  I'm a cleric; a conduit and shaper of power granted for me to wield, and this is the focus I use to do that."

He drew out the small stone pendant from the folds of his shirt, a new shirt, his previous clothing having had to be set aside as largely unusable for the meantime after all the damage they had incurred.  He didn't take the pendant off, or invite her to touch it, but he held it in view.  It was a small stone on a leather thong, old and worn by time, nothing could be seen of any divine inscribing on it, likely worn away by its age and constant use.  He would drop it back onto his chest once more in order to stir the meagre rations in his tin.  

"I found it on a mountain when I was younger.  Dropped in the snow.  It had been a mild year, that year, and the snow had receded enough that I found it laying, likely dropped by a traveller unused to such weather.  Few are.  The mountains are harsh, and death claims many in them."

[Zenari]
Zenari is intensely listening to every word and can't hide her curiosity. "Someone granted you that magic? Like a deity?"

[Pine]
He would nod, absently stirring the food.  "Yeah, that's how it works.  My spells are more like prayers that are answered.  Your spells are different.  Innate, yes?  I've seen you with no spellbook.  I have no intrinsic spellcraft to call upon, only my prayers, such as they are."

[Zenari]
She would look down. "... yes, they've always just been there, inside me. I don't know how I got them. For some time now I thought I had understood and got control of it but then it's like something inside me just explodes." She would turn to leave. "Like in Gnomengarde, all magic was chaos, what happened there could happen to me everywhere, all the time... just wanted you to know, it wasn't you. Thank you." She would start to walk away.

[Pine]
"I do not envy you in that," he offered, his voice mellow and slow in his consideration of the topic, his tail swaying back and forth in a lazy manner behind him as he thought on it further before she left, "The magic in Gnomengarde did not sit well with me.  I like reliability.  And yet your magic is indeed powerful in forms I had not before witnessed or heard of.  I had heard stories of another sorcerer once, if that is what you are, but the magic was not the same.  It hailed from shadow and no mention of such unreliability was told, but the tale came second-hand and I know little of such things.  Perhaps another spellcaster may have some knowledge that might help stabilise your magic, or be able to craft something to help regulate it.  Much can be done with such things, I think, for my own amulet helps me in my duty in the mountains.  An artificer would have had to have crafted it.  Perhaps one might be made to aid you too."