HLoM: The Firebird, Chapter 2

[NeoTiamat]

"Oh. My deepest apologies -- I imagine I've seen a ghost..." Lena said, but once again it was already too late. She rubbed her forehead. This was, as appropriate for Tristenoira, one of the less successful meals encountered. She glanced up at the sky -- what time was it? They had arrived in the morning, but what was left now...

I needed to roll 3 or better to get the Sense Motive. So what do I roll? A 2.

[The Whistler]

"Didn't your mother teach you anything? Don't eat spirit food!"

Avram, too, had spent the last twenty minutes nonchalantly pushing his food around his plate — albeit while chatting politely with the other low-level service staff. Travel stories, mostly, with the chronological details stripped out. You wouldn’t have necessarily expected a rural Rashemani chieftain to be decent at deep-cover blending with retainers who didn’t know they were dead, but…well, he’d probably been at an awful lot of town meetings, you guessed? Transferrable skills, and all that.

"I think she wants to talk to us. She did, anyway."

The hetman leaned in, nodding. Under his breath: “It might not be noticed if ones such as us were to approach her — but then, perhaps she would only say what she wishes to one nobly born. Whether by us or by the freiherren, though, she should be heard…what are your thoughts, Gudyf?”

Sense Motive +17:

[dice]0[/dice]

[Nerit]

Nuray shook her head at Avram. "We're not her servants. She's no more likely to divulge to us than strangers...even noble strangers, I guess."

She peered over the table of intermingling humans and spirits. One could hardly tell the difference, stuck in this phantasmic scene. "I think she wants to discuss the very thing our Barovian friend stumbled upon," she said lowly.

[Nathan of the FoS]

Colin comes over to direct you to your chambers, in the fine large keep beneath the two great towers, his expression rather pinched; he seems to have taken your reducing Lady ApBlanc to tears rather badly. Gathering you up with a gesture, he leads the way to the massive double door which, when you first saw it, had been wrenched from its hinges and lay among the weeds.

Opening it, he gestures you forward and the late summer evening becomes full night, pouring rain in sheets and a steady breeze gusting to a strong wind, lightning flashes, flickering through the branches of the great oak, and thunder follows immediately after, and Colin has become a younger and taller man dressed in armor, his face marked by evil passions, and a tall man with a full black beard and an equally unsavory expression approaches you, one hand outstretched in greeting.

"Ye'll be the new arrivals, then. Be welcome. The Laird will see you in the morning. I'm Avard ApFirth, captain of the Laird's Men."

[NeoTiamat]

Lena paused. Well this situation was getting from bad to worse, really. She wasn't shocked by this second transferral as she had been by the first, probably because she was still getting over her first bout of confusion. She was annoyed by it, however. Dreadfully inconvenient, and they appeared to have fallen in with military types now.

Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. They needed the lay of the land, and swiftly.

"Thank you." Lena said, fluttering her eyelashes at the two men. "Though please, could you tell us how things are here? We've been on the road a good and long time, and our news is dreadfully out of date."

Diplomacy +23!
[dice]0[/dice]

Offering up Strength of Purpose, Stout Heart, and Resilience in exchange for getting a really nice and detailed explanation. In other words, go and impress the pretty lady with what you know, guys.

[Nathan of the FoS]

"We've finally got that whoreson ApFittle," Avard replies, with no small amount of pride. "Morrigan's tits, but he's a fierce one. No armor, no shield, supposed to have no weapon but he got a blade from somewhere and killed three of my men before we got him in irons. He dies at dawn…"

There is a tremor, slight but noticeable, and Avard and the man who opened the door for you exchange glances before the captain continues. "We've had several just like that in the last month or so," he notes. "Nothing to be skeery of, but it may wake ye before ye get accustomed. I was saying, we've got the last of the ApFittles in irons now, and he'll die at dawn. That should break their backs, but it's just as well ye've come regardless. There'll be mopping up to do. The Laird will tell you if he's got something specific in mind for ye, I don't doubt. For now ye may as well come in and have somewhat to eat, ye'll be fashed after so long a journey. Then Colin will take ye to your quarters. Ye'll have heard stories about the place, I know, but if ye stick to barracks ye'll see naught amiss. Never ventured to the north tower except the Laird invite you, keep out of the south tower and the tombs, and ye'll not come to grief."

All Diplomacies gratefully accepted! You may continue to probe for information, of course. Knowledge (history) at DC 25 will allow you to figure out how this information relates to Forfarian history.

[Isabella]

"U-understood, sir," Richard replied, quietly. He straightened his shoulders and followed them inside, at the offer. "I-I-I think we've all heard stories. Though it-it's hard to say on hearing which are false and which are-are true. I-I imagine you would know better than-than anyone else."

[Nathan of the FoS]

"Oh, I've seen a few things," the captain replies, ushering you through the entry chamber and through double doors into a great hall. "'Tis an unchancy place, to be sure. There's the ghost of the lad savaged by wolves, and the half-man, and the weeping woman, and the poisoned man, and the white mist, and a half-dozen others I've heard tell of from one or another, though of all of them I've seen but two, both women." Avard's tone is studiously light, but a careful listener can tell that he's not quite as blasé about the ghastly apparitions of the castle as he would like to be seen as being.

"I seen the one as got et by wolves," Colin notes suddenly, rubbing his jaw. "Just out the courtyard there, next to the tombs. Howled like a wolf, I did, and off he went like the bean sidhe were at his heels. ApKie told me of it, that anything to do with wolves sets that one skeery." He spits into a corner. "Ghosts skeery of folk, who'd think it?"

[NeoTiamat]

"How is the Laird taking his victory?" Lena asked, before she saw Richard's approach. Well now... she suddenly saw what the man was playing at, and she approved. Clever man. "I suppose a ghost is but a memory of a man, and a child's ghost but the memory of a child's. Poor thing. Does anyone know his story?"

"Oh, a more important question. Where precisely are the tombs?" Lena smiled. "I'd rather not accidentally wander there in the middle of the night."

Sense Motive (Empathy) +23!
[dice]0[/dice]

Assuming no Bluffing, that's five questions. They follow in order of priority (if for some reason I get less, just chop them off from the bottom):
•What would make this person more inclined toward me?
•Is there something unusual about this person's actions or reactions?
•What is this person's mood?
•What would make this person less inclined toward me?
•What does this person currently expect from me?

[Nathan of the FoS]

"Excuse me," Tara says. "You say the tombs are in the courtyard? Doesn't that make it rather difficult to avoid them?" She gives Marcel a significant look.

Colin grins; having the rapt attention of two woman, one quite good-looking and one spectacularly so, is having the expected effect. "Ye might see somethin'," he says. "But if ye don't go in, it's not likely aught'll befall ye." His grin, already rather sinister, takes a twist for the downright villainous. "No promises, o' course."

[Isabella]

"You've a-you've a steely soul about you both, good sirs, never any-any doubt there," Richard replied, with a grimace. "Back where I-I-I am from, there was a-a lady who'd appear in mirrors. Most the time she would-she would just stand and watch. But one time she-she caught a man alone and-!"

He twisted his arm for emphasis.

"Shattered his arm like-like a dropped pot," he said, rolling his shoulders back and shaking his head. "That's an-an image that never left my-my mind."

[Nerit]

Nuray did a double-take. It seemed the rest of the party had done quite well at adjusting to the change, but she had never been so caught up in apparitions like this. (Any Godfearing citizen of the Domains of Dread ought to be afraid of all that is supernatural...unless you were this bunch, apparently.)

"Who is this Avard man?" She asked bluntly. That grin was as good as a poisonous snake's. She leaned in toward Avram. "Is he another spirit? Self-aware?"



Perception +18
[dice]0[/dice]

[Nathan of the FoS]

Both Colin and Avard stare at Richard--apparently they hadn't expected for someone to top their ghost stories so readily. "You saw this…lady?" Avard asks. "And the man whose arm she broke, you saw that too? Belenus' balls. I've never had worse than wakin' to find the cauld lass by me bed gesturing me to come away with her. Which I never did, of course, and she faded like fog on a glass. And I've seen the weeping woman two or three times, but never close."

Colin overhears Nuray's question and jerks a thumb toward the captain. "That's Avard, lass, saving we're to call him captain." He passes over the remark about "self-awareness," possibly because he hasn't understood what she's really asking.

"This way," Avard says, leading you through the kitchen and into a long hall with a long table running down the center of it. There is a great chair at the far end and benches along either side; two men wearing leather armor are finishing a late meal, and a few used pewter plates and cups sit at the near end of the table, together with a half-eaten leg of beef, bread, cheese, and a keg of what is probably ale or cheap wine. Clean (or relatively clean) plates and cups stand on a small table to your left. "I've got to go check on the prisoner," Avard says. "Duncan, Ross, these're the new recruits. Colin, once they've et show 'em the barracks."

Duncan and Ross make vague gestures of greeting and go back to their repast; Colin says he's be back in a moment and disappears (by walking through a door on the far side of the hall, not through any supernatural means) as well.

So--back outside, to the tombs? Talk to Duncan and Ross? Or something else?

[NeoTiamat]

Lena rolled her eyes a little at their new Rashemani companion. Peasants. Still, it seemed to have been misinterpreted safely enough... and now opportunity was knocking. Namely, in the form of an absence of supervision.

"We-ell." Lena said with a roll of her shoulders and a glance at Duncan and Ross. "I'm not entirely hungry yet, so I think I'll step outside to look about some more. Anyone care to join me?"

At this same moment, a very small, very red fox was slipping after Avard. Ushka was still annoyed at having lost the ghost-boy, but hopefully she could follow this fellow. And who knows, find the prisoner, steal some keys... interesting things could yet occur.

Stealth +27, following Colin to see the prisoner.
[dice]0[/dice]
That's Stealth 45. Can we just say Ushka is riding along on Avard's shoulder and no one notices her?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

If Nuray thinks this group is taking the situation well in hand, she must not be paying close attention to Vasili, who has spent the better part of the last minute white and speechless. In truth, Vasili appears to have been paying extremely close attention to everything but the residents and the conversation. The most recent shift appears to have confirmed some nagging questions, and he freezes with his eyes on the night sky, even as Leila snaps to attention and dashes to his side from her distant scouting position. Ignoring propriety, she zips up her master's side to his shoulder, settling in to glower a little at anyone who catches her eye.

"I'm not entirely hungry yet, so I think I'll step outside to look about some more. Anyone care to join me?"

<Wait a moment, Lena!> Vasili hisses through his whisper-spell for everyone to overhear. <We mustn't separate! Another shift might leave some of us behind.>

About to sit down next to Duncan, Vasili stops and looks at the others. Unless someone made a good excuse, it might look suspicious that they were all suddenly leaving together.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sense Motive +10 just to round out the questions on Colin and Avard. Vasili's role here is mostly peripheral--he'll follow someone else's lead.
[dice]0[/dice]

Perception +5 to examine the surroundings, especially inanimate objects.
[dice]1[/dice]

Bluff +22 to palm some small bit of food to see what happens to it later.
[dice]2[/dice]