Fetch Quest

[Ceidon]

This thread is open to all. If we get to 200 posts before calling it quits, I will abuse my powers and give everyone with ten or more posts a little something extra (exactly what is TBD). There's an OOC thread here detailing the quest. There are only two rules: 1) keep your posts short (no need for quality) and 2) there is no posting order, so post when you can. If you have any questions, post in that OOC thread or shoot me a PM

The Iron Horse Saloon in Jadet was unusually busy that evening. Last week, a large deposit of Dehlar was discovered up north in the Comb Mountains and the small coastal town in Corone was playing host to a cadre of traveling miners looking to strike it rich. Ceidon Lore, adventurer extraordinare, had just returned from Lornius on business with the Order of the Golden Dawn and was pleased to see all the commotion in his usually dull hometown.

Always at the center of attention, Ceidon sat on a stool at the bar with a 40 oz. mug of Coronian Light Ale in his hand. He was sharing a laugh with two usually short bearded dwarves while their mercenary, an orc, stood silently behind them. "Does he ever talk?" Ceidon asked with a snort. "Only if you're a hairy dwarven midwife," one of the dwarves replied. Ceidon didn't get the joke, but laughed hysterically anyway.

When the laughter subsided, Ceidon took a swig of his ale and spun around in his stool. Most of the regulars were scowling from the corners of the bar, clearly annoyed by the town's visitors. One regular, though, was eating up the extra attention. Town drunk, Gary Etrl-Berry, was surrounded by at least ten people. "Do ya'll want to hear a story?" He asked. No one in his group answered. "C'mon guys," he slurred. Ceidon felt bad for the guy, so he yelled out, "Tell us a story, Gary!"

Soon his dwarf companions joined in. "Yeah lad, tell us a story." Within moments the entire bar, sans the regulars and a few mercenaries, had turned to Gary and were eagerly awaiting his tale.

[Allennia]

Allennia could think of only one thing when a loud, boisterous voice filled the tavern. She knew better than to say it aloud, lest someone take offence. One thing she had learnt in her short time outside her secluded kingdom was that somebody always took offence.

She watched the man she assumed to be ‘Gary’ intently. Her brow furrowed, beading with sweat caused by the fiery whiskey she had selected from amongst the few clean bottles behind the counter. After three days ride through the shale forest, it was exactly what she needed. Tall tales and drunken bravado, on the other hand, were uncouth distractions for which her noble inclination had little tolerance.

“This should be entertaining,” she relented. She leant her arm on the back of the rickety chair, set her gauntlet at ease, and hoped to find some sort of relief from the tedium of duty, honour, and station.

[Wilfred]

All ears turned towards the drunk, save for one rather green pair. The orc became aware of a heavy panting sound around his knees, and looked down into the most ludicrously wide grin he had ever seen. A black-and-brown mottled dog was sitting by his feet, staring happily up at the mercenary, its tongue waggling back and forth from a gaping maw. The animal licked its chops - making a sound like two raw steaks being slapped together in the process - and began to sniff the orc's boots. He frowned, and pushed it firmly away with one heavy foot. The dog merely grunted, picked up some unidentifiable debris it had previously looted from the waste out back, and slunk away under Gary's table.

"Alright, lessee 'ere", Gary slurred, as a wet slurping noise at his feet grew in intensity. "This 'un's fer all a youse newcomersers... ers. 'S impotent. Ver' impotent".

The two dwarves sniggered behind their mugs, and even the orc cracked a faint smile. Gary took a deep breath, hiccuped, made a slightly panicked-looking face, promptly took a few more gulps of ale, and continued.

"Y'all ever hear of The Grinning Man?".

[Krausus]

Arron wanted nothing but some good food and fresh ale. So he wandered into the tavern in the little seaside town and sat down next to a man. He flipped a couple gold coins onto the table and yelled "Get me some ale and a good bowl of thick stew!"

Once his food and drink arrived he plowed through it. He shouted for another mug of ale and tried to talk to the man next to him. Who was apparently telling a man named Gary to tell a story. "Hello, good ale right?" Arron said. After the man didnt reply he gave up and listened to the man tell his story.

[Ceidon]

"Was that a dog?" Ceidon mumbled when something brushed past his leg. He shook his head and turned to Gary, who'd just begun his story.

"Aye, the 'Grinning Man'. He's a real person you know. Name was Derek Garrett. T'was a miner from right here in Jadet" he burped the first syllable of the town's name, causing more laughter. "Bout 10 years ago, ole' Garrett come back from the mines one day looking like he'd seen a Thane. His hair was standing straight up an' it looked like he'd aged 20 years in a hour. The thing was, though, when he came back he had this shit eating grin locked on his face. It was like his jaw was broken..."

Ceidon's attention weigned. He'd heard this one before. In fact, the Order did an investigation on the "grinning man," coming to the conclusion that old Garrett was exposed to a deadly amount of magical radiation when one of the Alerarian drilling devices malfunctioned. Ceidon yawned and took a quick glance around the bar. His eyes immediately fell on the beautiful young lady sipping on a glass of firewhiskey. She must be one of the mercenaries. As a bachelor, Ceidon knew most of the twenty-something women in Jadet, and none of them were as striking as this young lass.

After taking another sip of liquid courage, Ceidon climbed to his feet. He motioned to his dwarf companions that he would be right back, and walked over to the lady knight. "Hey," he said when he arrived, but before he could finish, Ceidon tripped on a bar stool and went sprawling to the ground. His drink, unfortunately, went flying right at the woman's chest. "Oh no!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "I'm so sorry. Let me get you a napkin." Ceidon reached over the bar to grab a napkin, knocking over two more drinks in the process. "Woops, sorry." he said. "Here you go," he said, turning back to the woman, napkins in hand. "I'm Ceidon Lore!" he said with a sheepish grin.

"...you want to know what I think really happened?" Gary finished in the background. "I think ole' Garrett found himself some bit of evil magic in that mine that done killed him."

[Ashley]

The bartender approached the newly occupied stool at the main counter, where a young cheerful looking little elf sat, staring up at him with a cheeky smile.

"You're not allowed to be in here little miss." The man put his hands on his hips, and glared at her sternly.

"Why's that?" She replied with a cute mock pout, rocking back and forth childishly in her seat.

"It's too rowdy. Not a place for little elves. You might get yerself hurt, or worse, and I can't have that giving me a bad name, so scram."

Ashley giggled, ceasing her rocking back and forth, only to begin swaying her legs. "Oh please." She couldn't help but let out another giggle. "You think I can't handle a couple of drunk oafs?" The look she gave him almost had a hint of condescension. She raised up her gloved hand, and summoned a little wisp of wind that began to dance across her fingertips. "I wont get into any trouble, I promise." She gave him another childish grin, and reluctantly the bartender let her be, going off to serve the other patrons.

It was then that the commotion in the tavern quieted some, and Ashley turned her head to listen to the tale of the town drunk.

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

Sitting in a shadowy alcove, at the back of the crowded bar, Aurelius chuckled to himself.

Every time one of these backwood little anthills 'as somethin' go tits up, he mused, throwing back another shot of Aleraran T'keela, they always blame it on "evil magic".

Sadly, it was rarely as exciting as all that. He turned his serpentine eyes away from the drunk story-teller, and back to the card game he was enjoying with two other cutters who had arrived with the recent influx of miners. They were grinning away like a prize pair of gullies, not realising the half-demon was cheating them of their meager wages. So far, since he had set foot in this neck of the woods, Aurelianus hadn't had to spend a single penny of his own jink- in bars like this, there was always someone addle-coved enough to play one of his games.

Shifting in his seat, bladed armour scratching into the wood, he kept his ears parked, listening to the tale more out of idle amusement than actual interest. Perched on his shoulder, hissing quietly in its master's ear, Junior toyed with one of the copper coins from Aurelius' winnings-pile. Its tiny scalpel-fingers scraped against the metal, while the needle-teeth lining its maw clicked against the coin in an infuriating staccato rhythm. The familiar- an albino elf foetus, animated through real evil magic- stretched the crow wings emerging from its pale back, and let out a bored yawn. More than one patron glanced at the vile little creature, before turning away in disgust.

Inhaling a lungful of smoke from the cigarette dangling between his lips, he laid out his cards for the other two to see. A winning hand. Again. They cursed fluently, and finally called it quits, leaving the table grumbling under their breath. The tiefling smirked, gathering his small mound of coins in front of him before he started shuffling the cards again. He paused at one point, to throw a small strip of dried meat to the dog that was wandering about. He liked dogs. He did. But, with his half-breed heritage most animals disliked him. Aye, but then again, most people 'ate your guts too, the little voice in the back of his head chimed in merrily. He ignored it, scanning the crowds for a likely body to peel.

Surely there was another sod in here with pockets that could use lightening.

[Lasair Anubail]

Lasair glanced around the crowded bar filled with all sorts of humans, tall and short, drunk and sober and plenty of those in between. She’d been in plenty of places like this before, they were the best place to meet someone after all. Oh, and to get herself in lots of trouble, which she seemed to do quite often these days. Ever since leaving Dheathain, though if she thought hard enough about it she’d probably realize she got in plenty of trouble before leaving Dheathain. She just didn’t bother to think about it.

Most of the seats in the place were taken, but she spotted a table where a couple men quickly vacated and a rather interesting looking fellow now sat alone, playing with some little pieces of paper or some such. He looked like no other race on Althanas she’d ever met before and immediately her interest was peeked.

“Come on, Godhand, let’s go meet him!”

Grabbing the twelve inch plushie by the waist, Godhand barely had time to let out a garbled ‘gah’ before being hauled off the counter, away from his prized ale and dragged towards the table. She slipped her slight frame into the seat opposite the strange looking guy--were those really spikes for hair?--and did the one thing she was exceedingly good at; ignoring all danger signs.

“Hi!” She said rather cheerfully. “I’m Lasair, what’s your name?”

[Libertine]

“You’re cheating,” snarled the man across the table.

Sceatt smirked a little and tried not to feel too self satisfied. This was difficult. Particularly when you’re a person practically made of pride and self satisfaction the way most living creatures were made of pounds of meat and gallons of blood. The most she had succeeded in was not purring like a cat.

Goddamn it and she was cheating, but the thing about cheating was that everyone did it, and the dishonest man always fell for it faster than you could say go fish. Even Fate cheated, except that son of a bitch refused to let his self be cheated back, though Sceatt figured there would be a way around that eventually, and preferably by her hand.

The occasional honest man wouldn’t cheat and couldn’t be cheated, but Sceatt saw no honest man in her near vicinity—just a dog, many a drunkards, the rare woman or two, and other miscellaneous creatures. Your usual tavern mix, thank you very much. One of them was telling a story about a grinning somebody or the other, and Sceatt caught a word of ‘evil magicks’ somewhere, but none of it sounded very interesting.

Instead, she stuffed another sachet of hard won coins into her brassiere with agonizing slowness, inch by slowly inch. Then with palms out and a not very reassuring grin, she swept her eyes across the table.

“Another game, gentlemen?”

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

The tiefling raised an eyebrow, looking over the slight little thing that sat opposite him.

The first thing to grab the half-demon's attention was the pair of butterfly wings emerging from the chit's back, shimmering in the dim light of the tavern. The second was the plush doll in her arms- it turned it's head and stared at him. Perched on his shoulder, Junior let out a short screech at the doll, managing to glare malevolently despite the fact its eyes were stitched shut. Aurelius brought up a finger to hush his familiar, before running a hand over the shaved sides of his head; ever since the ride up in Radasanth with Otto and the other Coronian Armed Forces, the plane-touched warlock had changed his appearance slightly. Not that it'd make a blind bit of difference- he was, if nothing else, unique looking.

"Look, luv, if you're not 'ere to play cards, then there's no point parkin' your arse there. I'm 'ere to make jink, not mates," he sneered, blowing a thin stream of smoke from between his lips. He turned his cold, snake-like eyes to the rest of the room, but there seemed to be no other takers for his rigged games. He sighed, running his black, forked tongue over his fangs. Well, that's that then.. And besides, if the chant held true, the creature before him was one of the Fae- one of the few races Aurelius hadn't managed to meet in his time on Althanas. A wicked smirk spread over his face as more of the chant came back to him- it was said, in whispered circles, that the blood of the Fae was rich in magickal potential.

Well now, maybe we can get some and find out.

"You can call me Aurelius, luv," he said, idly counting the coins he'd won over the course of the night.

Aurelianus tucked his deck away in a coat pocket, hanging from the back of his chair, leaving his vicious-armour on display. Everything about him screamed "threat!".. and yet, here this chit was, smiling away almost manically opposite him, still waiting for a name apparently. She's obviously barmy, then, he thought. He waved over a bar-wench, and pointed to his empty glass.

"Three T'keelas when your ready, luv," he said, taking another draw from his cigarette. He turned his gaze to the girl-- Lasair, he thought she'd said. "And what are you drinkin'?" he asked.