Nashkel

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Mar 13, 2023 9:55 pm
Edwin's scowl returns, but he tosses another, smaller gold pouch onto the table. "Fine, fine! (Bloodsucking mewlers) But with this advance pay I expect to depart immediately. Let us be off!"

He stands and imperiously waves a hand towards the door.
Mar 13, 2023 10:01 pm
Aiwë scowls. "We're assassins not bodyguards (Or babysitters)."
Mar 13, 2023 10:05 pm
"You are what I pay you to be! And..." he flashes that gold-toothed grin again, "it would be foolish to assume I need bodyguarding. (Be glad I don't leave a fireball in your bedroll...)

He blinks suddenly and squints at Aiwe. "Why do you speak in such a manner?"
Mar 13, 2023 10:12 pm
Aiwë squints back. In a voice as dry as drought she says, "I think it's funny. (They must not have jokes in Thay.)"
Last edited March 13, 2023 10:12 pm
Mar 13, 2023 10:28 pm
The blacksmith is more at ease now that they are finally out away from the mine and that his equipment repaired. Leaning back in his bat chair, he plays Stitch in a fun reverse game of fetch where he tosses her across the room as a ball before she sprouts her wings and zips back.

Sheemish blatantly ignores the wizard. Pompous arrogance at its worst.

Looking to Stella and Aiwe "I’d much rather go help rescue someone than be paid to hunt and kill someone." He catches stitch and tosses her again with a calm smile. "especially if the employer is a pompous moop not capable of doing the job themself. he catches Stitch again with an upraised hand.
Last edited March 13, 2023 10:47 pm
Mar 13, 2023 10:45 pm
Aiwë slowly turns to look at Sheemish, an uncharacteristic anger in her eye. "Pardon, Edwin," she says, holding Sheemish's eye. "I have to have some words with my subordinate."

She grabs Sheemish by the front of his armour and drags him some distance off.

"Frankly, Sheemish, I'm offended." Back to Edwin, her stance (and face, for any onlookers) remains angry and confrontational, but her voice is quiet and soft. "You think I'd kill someone for that guy? It's a con!" She gestures angrily. "True I didn't think he'd want to come with, but best case, we warn them he's coming and help them get assassins off their tail once and for all. Worst case, we take his money so he has a harder time hiring someone else." She wags a finger in his face. "Fold your arms and huff if you understand."
Mar 13, 2023 10:55 pm
Youre con." Sheemish says with a very realistic huff/sigh and folds his arms. "But I for one am not too happy with the last snot nosed friend we picked up." where was that creepy little creature any way? And with a nod to stella "I also think our actual friends could use some more reassurance, as this adventure may be more than some of us may have signed up for."

Sheemish takes a seat next to Stella and hands her Stitch to toss. "Try it," he says with a wink "it’s therapeutic . . . Especially when accepting jobs from arrogant self righteous tiny rich wizards that need to get something looked at."
Last edited March 13, 2023 11:02 pm
Mar 13, 2023 11:17 pm
"Hey!" Aiwë shouts at Sheemish from where she still stands across the tavern. "I'm not done talking to you yet." Her anger looks real, this time. "You wanna do this loud or in private?"
Mar 13, 2023 11:39 pm
At Sheemish's continued insults Edwin stands and straightens his red robes furiously. "(I will not tolerate such impudence!) I'll teach you a lesson, you ugly malcontent!"

The mage utters an arcane spell and gestures at Sheemish. The artificer turns into a tiny green lizard.
[ +- ] Polymorph

Rolls

Sheemish wis save - (1d20)

(3) = 3

Mar 14, 2023 12:04 am
"It doesn’t always need to be loud, you know that right?" Sheemish says from his leaned back chair. "But if we must" and he stands up his grin dropping as quickly as his chair to the floor.

"What if dealing with this imbecile is not what Stella or I signed up for? Who ever made that our groups decision?! Who decided to go deeper and darker into a nightmare cave regardless of who it effected? Who decided to force other team members to fight when it’s the last thing they wanted to do?" he shouts jerking his towards Stella "Did someone even ask her? Would you even listen if she disagreed? Or would you just beat a drum and tell her to cope?! We are not going to be the same by the end of this mission!" Sheemish clenches his left hand into a tight fist and his eyes turn a slightly different color. His voice lowers to a tight whisper"It might be wise choosing what we are to become-"

And with that Sheemish turns into a little green lizard.
Last edited March 14, 2023 12:06 am
Mar 14, 2023 12:20 am
Stella shrinks back, uncertain how to react with everything happening. It seemed Aiwë had a plan. She was speaking like he was to make herself more agreeable to him.

Aiwë drags Sheemish away. "I'm...not really a mercenary, aha," Stella says, chuckling nervously to Edwin. "Some of them are, though, but—Ack!" She fumbles with Stitch as Sheemish tosses the homunculus at her.

Why does Sheemish keep insulting the wizard?! He could blast us to smitherines!

She watches the argument escalate.

This is exactly why she was going to ask him if he would come...

Stella flinches each time the brawny artificer gestures to her. He was...having a experience than even she was, Stella realized. "Sheemish, I—" she begins, but Edwin cuts her off and he becomes a lizard.

She yelps, looking at the lizard then the mage in panic.

Rolls

Arcana (Recognize Spell) - (1d20+4)

(19) + 4 = 23

Mar 14, 2023 12:34 am
Aiwë grabs the lizard by the tail and smacks it against the table, snapping its little lizard neck. And ending the spell.

"Who asked? Who asked?" Aiwë thundered over Sheemish who lies flat on the table, dazed but fine. "Yeah, I made a snap judgement about this guy. I was trying to help! But I get it. No problem." She tosses the money bags back onto the table.

"But we all decided to go down there. We all decided to stay. And when you charged in like an idiot we were all behind you!"

She pulls him off the table and stands him up. "So don't you dare bring Stella into this! I've offered to take her home lots of times! I offered five minutes ago."

Aiwë sneers. "You're only one I've seen changing. And the scales suited you."

She bows to Edwin. "Apologies, I was too hasty in accepting your offer. Good luck on your quest."

"I'm going to go talk to my cousin and his dumb sword," she says vaguely to the group.
Last edited March 14, 2023 4:37 am
Mar 14, 2023 3:20 am
Dieter looks up from his whetstone. He sees Sheemish shrivel up into a lizard and promptly smacked. "Aiwë, he does have a point albeit a bit muddled. We do have quite the backlog of tasks to complete to be picking up new ones. What would our employers think? Besides this guy sounds like a tool."
Mar 14, 2023 3:44 am
What in the name of Nancy l?/ Sheemish stands awkward for a moment. Was he just a lizard?! He teeters for a moment under Aiwes barrage, dumbed and dazed. and did aiwe just kill him?!

Sheemish blinks a few times and then turns blankly to the wizard. "She may have a point you know" and then turns and walks silently out of bar doors.
Last edited March 14, 2023 3:46 am
Mar 14, 2023 5:03 am
Stella takes the opportunity to leave by following Sheemish out.

She opens her mouth to say something to him, but closes it, not wanting to risk an unexpected reaction.
Mar 14, 2023 2:18 pm
Edwin seems as taken aback as everyone else at Aiwe's treatment of the Sheemish-lizard. "(No one has ever reacted so quickly to one of my polymorph spells before.)" All he manages to convey as the party leaves one by one is a confused scowl.
Mar 14, 2023 3:37 pm
Aiwë stalks upstairs. After pacing wildly up and down the hall for a moment she feels somewhat more settled, so she stops and raises a hand to knock on Xan's door.

"I for one am not too happy with the last little snot nosed friend we picked up."

She stops before knocking, hands stinging with the insecurity of remembered pain. Maybe she should just go.

"...this adventure may be more than some of us have signed up for."

Shelur suddenly feels heavy, like shes carrying an orog. In her periphery, Keggruk's slack face gaping with Gruumsh's Mark almost seems to peer over her shoulder once more.

"He must be an artificer cuz he's so smart," Aiwë grumbles in Orcish. She takes a deep breath and mimes a glaive stomping the ground, creating the sound with her foot. Someone has to hold steady.

She knocks on the door, fear and weariness dissolving under a smile. "Cousin Xan?" she calls in Elvish. "Can I come in?"
Last edited March 14, 2023 3:53 pm
Mar 14, 2023 8:15 pm
Outside in the fresh air, Sheemish is able to a take deep but tired breath. He realizes Stella has joined him, but he stands quiet for a moment before reaching his left hand up in front of him. "Its ironic really. The hero I admired most chose to change himself to protect people." he sighs "He embraced his change and used it for good." "I never asked for mine, and I wish I never got it."Sheemish's gauntlet on his left hand retracts up to his elbow.

A spiderweb of sickly flesh becomes visible. "Dragons are known to leave their mark on occasion." Yellowish lines of boiled skin hardened into stained webs of black scales. "The condition can be worse the longer you are around them." There is no uniformity to it, just a patchwork of corroded black and yellow. "If you are abducted from your home as a child and forced to be chained and drenched in it . . ."It stretches in fingerlike tendrils from his elbow to the back of his hand, peeling in a gash off up his thumb and a lash across his palm. "And when the dragon is the Lord of Acid himself . . ." Sheemish clenches his fist, the infected skin cracks and a sizzling rancid liquid seeps through his fingers and hisses as it drips to the ground.

"Not something a young boy wants to grow up with, and there is no known cure." Sheemish sighs and unclenches his fist. "And so I looked for ways to hide it, though its a difficult job to do with with acid, or its other side effects" Sheemish looks down at the sizzled ground at his feet. "Regular armor wouldn't work, and so I needed to find something more, create something stronger." The armor at his elbow expands out again, reforming into a full gauntlet, covering up the grotesque sight.

"And so I became an artificer, specializing in armor. Nobody would question that choice from a blacksmith's son." He looks at his armored hand before him, his secret hidden once again. "Or question why the strange quiet kid always wore his gauntlets."

He finally turns to Stella, "I'm not trying to add my burden to any you carry. But I . . . I figured it might be better for somebody to know . . . in case others don't understand."

"I'm finally realizing why Ug was always so tired. This hero stuff is tougher than I thought." He gives a weak smile, "You ever been turned into a lizard before?" A slight grin returning to his face.
Last edited March 14, 2023 8:21 pm
Mar 14, 2023 8:57 pm
"Come in, cousin."

Xan sits upright in bed, with considerably more color to his face than when the party first found him. "How unfortunate that you come all this way, only to find me in dire straits and unable to offer so much as a cup of tea. Still. I am... happy to see you, Aiwë." He coughs into his fist. "Now that we have a moment of peace, please tell me about your family and how they fare. If there is... pleasant news to tell...?"

His moonblade is propped up against the nightstand, hilt up. It flickers briefly as she enters, its light ebbing to a dull glow, almost as though sleeping. Or ignoring her.
Mar 14, 2023 9:13 pm
Aiwë grins. "I would much rather help free my cousin from shackles during a remarkable chance meeting than have him serve me tea." She glances at the sword. "I'd be happy to tell you everything. Though whether it is pleasant news must be judged by the listener, I suppose."

She ignores the sword and focuses on Xan. "When was the last time you heard from my father?"
Last edited March 14, 2023 9:14 pm
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