Renew the Pact: Time of our Lives, part 18
Log Info
- Title: Renew the Pact: Time of our Lives, part 18
- Emitter: Whirlpool
- Characters: Paenitia, Aryia, Seyardu, Lyme
- Place: Goldcoast of Veyshan, Tashraan, City Cafe
- Time: Friday, October 01, 2021, 9:30 PM
- Summary: The Time Trippers continue to question Akoniril, and finally admit they need her help and share enough information to convince her to give it. She rents them a safe house, which they retreat to, and discuss the Auction list, their prior experiences, and what they might focus on for the next few days. The Star of Rune, remains an interesting object, that Akoniril is very cagey about. The auction list is nearly completely different from the one they remember on the day. Paenitia proposes that they could bribe, borrow, or steal the locations of the items from the Auction House, and then steal those and stack them where Akoniril can watch them. They review the murder they were accused of, and find the guards didn't give them much information at all. While still several steps behind, they are at least moving forward.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Paenitia 3'0" 34 Lb Halfling Female A Lucht knight, dark skinned in bold feathery finery. Aryia 4'8" 110 Lb Shadow Elf Female A heavily scarred mul with a curious look about her. Seyardu 5'6" 150 Lb Sith-Makar Female A friendly silver sith-makar with a perpetual squint. Lyme 7'2" 435 Lb Orc Butch Black-skinned oruch of suitable stature. Fallon 5'6" 145 Lb Half-Elf Male A short hooded man. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= NPCs of Note =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Akorinil 4'5" 98 LB Shadow Elf Female Diplomatic Delegate, Priestess of Taara -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Whirlpool 5'0" Otyugh I am stinky! -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
Previously
Aryia, Paenitia and Seyardu corner Akoniril in a cafe and question her extensively. It is a case of the adventurers knowing more than the priestess, except for one crucial detail. She suggests they are there for the Star, and denies it is a Shard of Animus. There is some aloof back-and-forth, Akoniril has recognized Aryia as a former slave, but does not remark on it. There is some further banter before Paenitia spills the coffee beans and explains Akoniril is in a time loop, and has to help them. Seyardu discovers she can tell Akoniril when and where she has to be too.
"We keep you informed, so you know what to keep from us when you meet us." Paenitia glances at Aryia, Seyardu, her other silent companions who seem to have wandered off looking for coffee.
The Tashraan blend is excellent, but still, they should have returned by now.
"Some things are go missing, we have to get them before they do this time." The Red Knight looks up at the Red-Haired Priestess, "and that Star, it not on the auction list last time, nor the one we get now. It may be the first to be rescue."
"We need to know what is going on with the auction. And you seem to have an understanding on what is going on." Seyardu offers, tapping a hand against the table. "But we need you to not withhold information, and be willing to be of assistance."
A thought passes her mind, of what would happen if Shaevin and Akorinil were in the same room. Probably nothing, as they both attempted to be smug and superior over the other in increasingly annoying ways. "You were planning on showing up late to the auction for only the object you were interested in, were you not?"
"...well apparently I am *now*," remarks Akorinil, her forehead creasing like she has an impending migraine.
Now
Aryia crosses her arms at Akorinil from her seat. Good. The priestess was growing annoyed. Which mean they were striking the right chord. But what was the plan of action now? They had the woman on the ropes and paying attention to what she was saying now. If only they could get just another piece...
"Welcome to ending up working with us again," she quips with a hand. <Handspeech>
"Yes." Paenitia's grin is fully apparent behind that mask of hers. She sounds as cheerful as... well Akoniril did when she met them when they returned with the Reliquary. She knew something they didn't.... and now, they know something she doesn't.
The possibilities for pranks are endless. Tarien be praised!
For the moment, the Paladina contains her ebuilence. "It is okay. You can pretend you are still in charge. Do you want speak here more, or we go someplace with the fewer ears?"
"Yes, here, or elsewhere, but, we will likely need to speak more." Seyardu agrees. "And by doing so now, it may lead to us not needing more of your time again, yes? So it is the best course of action, I believe. For your sake as well as ours." "I am always Her servant, so it's going to be difficult to rile me about going along with your story over another for the time being,"
Akorinil shrugs her shoulders, then combs ehr fingers through her hair gingerly, floofing it. $
"Yes, elsewhere is best. I can prepare a secure location ... assuming you want me to."
As much as Aryia did not want to be consorting with the Tarran Priestess, she leans back in her chair and raises a brow to her companions, her shrugging and deferring to their judgement.
"I think that the good idea, yes?" Paenitia looks at Aryia and Seyardu, then around, "We do not want to lose the men."
She is not thinking about Ramirez, for now. He will be fine.
There are the confirmation shrugs required, "Yes, it is decided. We go to the secure place you say."
"If that is the case, then we will join you there." Seyardu agrees with a nod to the small paladin. "If you can, that would be ideal. More than one place is best, especially as there may be times we cannot be seen one place or the other."
The silverscale turns back to lady Akorinil and nods to her as well. Seyardu thought for a moment, if the priestess had been pretending to not know handspeech before or not. She did not wish to test that this moment.
Akorinil, of course, gets up and walks away from business now that it's complete. You can follow her or not, seems she doesn't care! But she does rent a new suite at one of the fancier residences in Tashraan, more than happy to pay for it out of her own considerable, it would appear, funds.
Into the home you go, into an entire wing she's reserved just for herself just now. To call it 'sumptuous' is mild.
"Well, then," she says, as she sits down on a cushion on the ground.
"It seems I am not done with you yet. Given that this involves time, and you're apparently arriving a week from now, I'd suggest you use this residence as a place to lay low and figure out what you're to do next."
Aryia is, for lack of a better word, uncomfortable with the glitz and glamor of the fancier residence. She enters the room and wallflowers off to the side, her glancing between her companions. It's clear she has a dozen questions in various forms of 'why' written on her face, but she doesn't gestures them, instead her massaging her hand. What was safe to talk about again? What wasn't? Did the walls have ears? "Thanks," she lamely ends up signing with a simple gesture. <Handspeech>
Paenitia likewise follows along. Sumptuous apartments for a full sized person are doubly extravagant for one of her stature. The benefits of being right-sized! The Red Knight hops up into an overstuffed armchair and practically sinks into it from the weight of her armour.
"The laying low, we shall do, but also the sneaking about." She says happily, "The Tashraan guards question us very particular about where we have been, so we must have been to the places." Her head turns, her grinning mask presented to Seyardu, Aryia and Lyme, "So, what you think? Last time well tell her too much and fail, or we tell the not enough and fail? Ha! The solution, it is clear!"
"The last time, maybe we not tell enough, and Akoniril figure it out on her own because she is so smart." There! A compliment. The little Lucht is capable of them, "So, we should say all the things. And, if saying all was the wrong thing, then this time we will fail again, so it will also be forgot."
"What you think?"
GAME: Seyardu rolls sense motive: (4)+7: 11
It was something worth exploring, and perhaps they could learn more about Akorinil's goals in the process. But she did not feel trusting either. When they entered the building, she sat down as well on one of the cushions.
"No, it is not done yet." She agress, and she looks to Paenitia, one brow raised. "Last time, all the things at the auction were distorted it seems, due to the wares being so varied. So, we need to make sure the correct things are at the auction?"
Then she turns to the others. "There is also the thing told to us, though I know not if it is actually true. About the tear in time which needed repairing." <Handspeech>
it Akorinil will keep her distance, for a time, pointedly giving you the time you need to discuss amongst yourselves your goals.
Aryia eyes Akorinil as she keeps her distance, and once she was certain she was out of eye/earshot, she gestures back. "But how do you do that? We don't really have any finger wagglers here for that. I've never heard of a time needle to fix a time tear. Do we just have to find something wrong in this loop and take that out of it?" Aryia tries to figure out, the oddity of their predicament straining her brain. <Handspeech>
"Okay, okay, let me put the chickens in the batter." Paenitia says, holding her gauntlets up in the air, to wave them as she talks and thinks. "The things that vanish. If they vanish because we steal them, they would just be stolen."
"Auctioneers would say, 'so sorry, that lot be half-inched', and strike from the menu. So, the thing that steal them, steal in a way that take them from time. Like they fall in a hole, is gone. Is never exist at all."
Her grinning facemask turns towards the others, "That sound a lot more like how Shaevin throwing the Navosians into the void spiders. It take pieces, just right out. So maybe, we are to stop this other time thief."
"We do not have the mages with us, but we have Friend Dragon, and the Priestess of Lies. Maybe you have the way, see the person out of time. Are we glow? Smell of elderberries?"
"So if I am understanding correctly," says Akorinil to Paenitia, "Several items that were on the menu auction, are not. However, it is possible you're back in time *before* they were stolen, so the list might not even be the same as the one you saw. Fortunately, given that I've been paying attention to the auction, I have the list. So if I were to give this to you, you'd be able to discern what items are the same and what items are different, yes?"
She asks, looking between the lot of you.
"We did not investigate last time. But Farland was convinced of what he was there to pick up, even as it changed." Seyardu notes. "So things changed because they were out of sort. Perhaps, sooner rather than later, we should find out where the auctioned items are stored. See if anyone is staking them out, to steal them? This star we did not hear about once. It was not brought up once. Perhaps it was stolen quickly. And there is the matter of the scrolls and the wand. It seems the wand was the one we saw auctioned, yes? Which means the scrolls were taken."
She turns, and reluctantly nods to Akorinil. "Yes, we should reference this list."
Aryia crosses her arms again and gives a slight nod at Akorinil's question. She didn't take her gaze off the priestess. "And of the supposed murder?" she throws out. <Handspeech>
Lyme nods slowly. "Yes. Please. The list would be very helpful." He rouses from his brooding silence, because it makes his head hurt so very, very much.
"Yes, tell me about the murder," says Akorinil with a flash of interest.
She's a true crime buff and crimson pen aficionado on top of it.
"I like a good story. Please." She sniffs, then proceeds to hand over the list.
A brief perusal of it reveals a list that is *almost nothing like the one you received*. Most of the items are different! The initial item you were sent for, however, remains. Interesting.
"Well... the night after the auction, after we go see the Navosians, the guards pull us from the beds at the inn." Paenitia says, "They take us, say Farland wanted for a murder, and ask us all these things, but we do not see him."
"I get the few details, I give the few answers. It a long day of back and forth follow by the poison food."
The Dark Lucht sighs happily, then laughs, "it make me homesick for the abuse of the Iron Baron's guards. Ha! If the air was not so sticky I would have thought I am back in Isobar!"
"But who die, how and why, they are not saying." She turns to examining the list.
Seyardu reads the list, and squints. She looks to the others. "This is almost nothing like what we saw, yes? This, I do not know how things work, and I am still confused. But by the sounds of it, something huge happened to what the auction had for sale. Perhaps it was covered up by them to maintain their reliability."
Though she does point at the one name that is the same. "That is the object we came for yes? So perhaps at least, we can confirm it is what we did actually come out here for."
Lyme nods slowly. "That is. Everything else is different, though." He pauses. "That's a lot of change."
"That seems an awfully big coincidence, that the item that brought you here didn't change," remarks Akorinil. She narrows her eyes.
Aryia squirms a bit as Seyardu and Lyme identifies the item. Was she the only Charnese person in the party? Could have pointed to any item and say that was it. She covers her discomfort up with a sigh. At least the priestess addressing the murder directly meant she knew sign. "One of the people buying something apparently was killed. Allegedly," she explains off of Paenitia. <Handspeech>
"Apparently. The guards asked such vague questions I can not help but wonder what they were actually trying to learn. Yet they seemed confident someone was murdered." Seyardu sighs. She was still getting confused. "They said nothing useful.
She looks to the others. scribbles something in her book and holds it up. "The object we came for changed though. So we need to make sure it is secure. And this orb as well. Perhaps lady Akorinil stole it before the event started? She may think she can get away with it now, after all." It read.
"Time tends to take a track of least resistance when it's been subverted. It is possible what brought you here has greater weight and is therefore harder to remove from time's sight due to the number of changes it would cause -- though such a loop, as you've postulated you're in, may ultimately make that possible too ... in which case your presence here would be ultimately erased and you along with it."
Akorinil clears her throat. "In any event, it sounds like you have a lead: the items vanishing. I can't tell you where they're stored. I don't know. the auction house tends to ensure they're secure until such time as they can be brought up for their sale and then to their new owners."
Lyme nods slowly. "Right. So, we watch the auction house and look for other thieves?" A pause. "Thieves." He shifty-eyes a moment, then shuts up, waiting for the inevitable look of scorn from Aryia.
"It sounds like they did a good job about that." Seyardu sighs as she listens and stows the journal back away. "So we need to find the things, and make sure they are not taken. Since they can not be counted on to do so. And then, if that is the case, keep things there, as stealing it will cause problems with the guards."
Paenitia nods slowly, looking at Lyme, "So, she say they not store at the Auction house, but they know what they sell. So someone there, know where they will be, or who have. Friend Dragon is right."
"I think, we try to find that. The soft words, the drink, the money changing hands. Someone there will tell us where all the list items are hiding." She waves at the list, looks at Akoniril, "So, the little things change easier, and the big heavy weight items of time, not as much. We can see who is take these things, and stop them, or take them ourself."
Once more she looks at Seyardu and Akoniril, "Okay, so the magic eyes, when you look at us, you see anything different that tell you we time trip? We can use for finding others who have?"
Lyme pauses. "Makes you wonder if the thing causing all the craziness isn't what we're here for, but is what's being stolen." He nods to Paenitia. "Sounds right, if we can find it. I'm not... subtle by nature," says the seven foot tall yrch, "so others maybe should lead."
Aryia leans forward to read the note, her squinting and raising a brow. Lyme is spared any scrutiny, as stealing was not beneath the once-slave. She waves a dismissive hand about the topic of stealing and murder, thinking it was red herrings. The Lucht Paladin had the right of it, and a good notion. But she had just one... last... thing to ask. "And this Star?" she gestures to the priestess. "Do you think that's related to this time bullshit? Please don't lie, I really don't want to go through this again." <Handspeech>
"I was hardly going to look at you with such things without consent, but since I have it..."
Akorinil invokes a soft prayer to her Goddess and then studies the lot of you intently. She eyes the star a moment, "What about it?" she asks, "What do you know about it?"
Aryia gives a flat stare and holds up a fat 0.
"We are asking what you know of it. We can not rule you out as having stolen it, after all. And if that was the case, then this time loop could very well be partly your fault." Seyardu suggests bluntly. "I wish to trust you, so I would know what you do, since you said you came here for it, yet it was not something even considered before."
Akorinil bursts out laughing.
"I don't know anything about it. That's why I'm asking. It's magical, that much I can tell you, but without study I don't know anything off hand about it. Is it from the auction?"
GAME: Lyme rolls sense motive: (8)+3: 11
Lyme nods. "Okay. Well, let's work this through..."
"Ha!" Paenitia laughs loudly, a genuine laugh, one that makes her mask seem alive and its crazy expression all too appropriate. She slaps her armoured thigh with her gauntlet, ringing it clearly. "That is what we do."
She looks at each party member, each conspirator in this little time trip, and includes the Priestess of Lies. "So the plan is this: Everything, we steal. We bring here. The day of the auction, we give back, 'here you go'."
Her eyes glint behind the mask, especially as she aims the grin at Akoniril, "You get to be the watchful savior of the auction at the last minute when you happen to find."
GAME: Aryia rolls sense motive: (11)+14: 25 GAME: Seyardu rolls sense motive: (16)+7: 23 GAME: Paenitia rolls bluff: (5)+11: 16
Aryia groans silently and rolls her eyes before signing, "Do you really think this is the time to fuck with us? You and I are used to having time, but not right now."
Paenitia's idea makes Aryia smile a bit. It seemed a touch like a solid one. <Handspeech>
There is a heaved sigh.
"Very well," she remarks, tiredly. "The Star is one of the items up for auction, yes, and it was one of particular interest to me. Really, I had assumed you'd be here for it as it belongs to Rune -- but it was looted during the Rune-Dran conflict some years ago by Dran soldiers. How it wound up here in Tashraan, who can say? But it might be we ll what draw Farland and Griva's eyes originally, or it could be what they sent you here for is what they sent you here for and it's all a big coincidence." She smiles.
"I do have to live down to expectations on *occasion*."
Lyme pauses for a moment. "What did it do?" A pause. "Assuming it was more than symbolic because Rune."
Aryia raises a brow at the explanation, her nodding at Lyme's push for an answer.
Paenitia mountain-climbs her way out of the upholstery, leaps to her feet and clanks about looking for something to drink. "I know nothing of this thing. It not even what they ask us here to buy, and the things Farland say he for, at least one of them change before we buy it."
Seyardu listens, growling a bit at the lie. "Did we not just say we need to work together? Please be clear with us. And by acting like that, you put everything into question again. So yes, tell us what you can about the star. Why do you care about some bauble from rune? There is a reason you are not saying."
The silverscale chuffs, and looks around the room. "This may work, but , I may be able to attempt a divination. Ask a question, but I should think what to ask. About the course of action we should be taking?"
"Ah, yes. A divination could help you," agrees Akorinil. "I'd suggest my own but somehow i doubt you'd trust the results." She smiles, eyes full of amusement.
"The Star was an item of ritualistic significance but little more. It was said to be a touchstone for the Sea of Mana. Unlikely, but possible." She shrugs.
