The 110th year of the second Ravensblood dynasty
Upon returning to Noroiras, Quimarel catches Tamarie up on the events of the fairie-finding mission, making sure to mention how “shifty” Zubynna Chief Muck-Laugh had been. She further speculates, based on the mention of “black robes” in the fairies’ report, that this is all to keep an eye on the Kech. She then explains her plan to get additional reports by promising to find Silvermoss and keep him safe.
Tamarie expresses some confusion about this, since they already have Silvermoss drunk in a cage in the chapel, at which point Quimarel gleefully explains that “nobody knows we’ve got him; we’re playing both sides.”
Out-of-character, it is explained that Hiddlebatch’s player is in China for… reasons. Something family-related. Quimarel’s player notes that H’s player is supposed to be watching her younger relatives over there, and that this is a better idea than it sounds because “she has the same energy level as your average toddler”.
Since it’s been a while between sessions, we also recap the incident in the Marketplace of Rats when Quimarel “won the hearts and minds of the people” and also made a citizen’s arrest of one of the prisoners from the underground complex, since it turned out they were mostly Capran criminals being shipped north for their sentence.
Quimarel: My new thing is apparently doing something and then getting credit for fixing it.
⁂
Due to the recent crime wave, Lord Noroiras (that would be the hereditary title of the governor of this particular Capran territory) has declared a curfew. Anyone who is out after sundown is liable to be fined and/or arrested, depending on their relative shadiness.
Quimarel is deeply concerned about this, seeing as it is liable to cut into her profits at the Squirting Squid. She briefly kicks around the idea of digging hidden tunnels under the town, but decides that the best way to handle this is to get the curfew lifted entirely. She ruminates on how to do this [Knowledge(local): 22] and decides that she needs to go to Lord Noroiras -- respectfully, in a formal meeting -- and convince him either that the crime wave has ended and the curfew is no longer needed, or that the curfew is making the situation worse.
Noting that it’s hard to prove a negative, and that it would be hard to do any of this without breaking the curfew herself and getting fined, Quimarel begins to formulate a Plan.
Makpov interjects with some ideas about getting additional funds through the stealing and smashing of non-specified “stuff”.
Quimarel assures Makpov that there will be time for smashing, and asks how big the fine is. Mssr. 20-sider tells us that is is 18 gold per person -- ridiculously steep for your average citizen, but an acceptable expense for successful business owners like Tamarie and Quimarel.
Tamarie points out that this is probably bad for the economy of the town -- businesses other than the brothel make a sizable part of their profits at night. In addition, it’s a mostly evil town (albeit in a petty kind of way) and “evil likes the dark.”
They decide to go to the other establishments in town and see if they can get some support from other business owners. First up is the Broken Stone, the town’s inn. They’ve had dealings with Drugoz the innkeeper before, so this should be fairly straightforward.
Quimarel: I’m a little concerned about this curfew that’s happening. Have you noticed a drop-off in customers?
Drugoz: A little bit, but since most of my customers are staying in rooms above the dining area anyway, I still get enough to keep the place afloat.
Quimarel: Well, for now, but for how much longer? If word gets out about this, travellers aren’t going to want to stop here if they can avoid it.
Drugoz: Well, maybe they can’t avoid it. There’s no other town for twenty miles around.
GM: [quoting something Quimarel’s player said about the town where we live] “Just fruit stands and murder sheds from here to Jackson.”
The conversation drifts off for several minutes, as someone points out that there are also Waffle Houses. Quimarel’s character suggests that’s just a specific type of murder-shed, and discussion follows as to whether “murder shed with waffles” does in fact, as I assert, “sound like a really good time”.
Tamarie: Look, do you want to just “keep afloat” or turn a profit?
Drugoz: This business has been successful for three hundred years, and will be successful for three hundred more. [The rest of the town kind of grew up around the Broken Stone, which was orignially just an inn at a strategic point along a trade route.]
Quimarel: I’m glad that you’re so confident in your inn’s ability to survive in these rough economic times.
Drugoz: It helps that I have amazing amounts of booze. And also, I am pleased that I will not have to deal with hooligans bursting in and getting drunk and stealing my stuff.
GM: Make a Diplomacy check.
Quimarel OOC: Um… 8.
Drugoz: I think perhaps you are just worried that I will outcompete you in our market share.
Quimarel: Well, to be fair, we don’t offer exactly the same services.
Drugoz: It’s the same general idea -- I have wenches, you have wenches. I have mind-altering substances, you have mind-altering substances. I have beds, you have beds.
Quimarel: I daresay your wenches lack the finesse and training mine have.
Drugoz: Well, it’s not exactly the same business model, but if people can’t go to your place, they’re likely to come to mine. Where they will hit on my wenches and drink my booze -- and since the curfew prevents them from leaving, they’ll rent a room.
Makpov OOC: I think the GM has spent a lot of time thinking about this and is planning to open up a bar. With wenches. Maybe actually called “Wenches”, just to get to the point.
Quimarel OOC: Ale and whores!
Again, the conversation drifts off-topic, wherein we wonder whether Hooters is a bar (according to Makpov’s player, it’s a “breastaurant”), Quimarel’s player notes that there’s a similar business confusingly named “Twin Peaks”, and Makpov’s player ends up reading the recruitment page of a place called the “Tilted Kilt” aloud to the group for reasons unclear. There is some brief discussion of whether the fact that kilts are a traditionally masculine piece of clothing means that the business in questions offers “equal-opportunity lechery”, of which the table soundly approves -- this is shut down when Makpov ‘s player finds a page on the website with a “featured kilt girl”, whom we all agree appears “dead in the eyes”.
Quimarel thanks Drugoz and (probably insincerely) wishes him luck.
Quimarel: And let me know if you notice a drop-off in customers.Quimarel walks away grumbling that they could have had a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Drugoz: I will. Unless I think you’re just trying to edge me out of the market.
The players ask if there are any other businesses in town that make profits after sundown, and I point them to the Flayed Faerie Tavern and Dance Hall. The players are universally entertained by the existence of a “dance hall” in this town, despite my reminder that this is a medieval setting, and that’s the kind of entertainment available to them.
Quimarel OOC: Twerking goblins everywhere.
Tamarie OOC: Is there twerking in this setting?
GM: It’s spelled with an “o” and only done up in the mountains.
Tamarie OOC: Tworking?
GM: Toe is an expert. [Toe is the orcish barbarian from the previous campaign -- he now rules the united orcish tribes in the western mountains.]
The party goes back to trying to formulate a Plan.
Tamarie: Can I kill somebody?
Makpov: Can I lick somebody?
Tamarie: Will killing somebody solve the problem?
Quimarel: Depends on whom we kill. Now, one of the options for getting rid of this curfew is proving it ineffective. So…
Tamarie: So we could go do some crime.
Quimarel: Since the peaceful petition isn’t likely to yield any results, we could just go on a crime spree. And as long as we’re not caught --
Tamarie: Yes. I have so many arms and nothing to do with them!
GM: Well, five arms and a claw.
Tamarie OOC: Well, the claw could act as --
Makpov OOC: [impression of the aliens from Toy Story] The claw… it has chosen…
The party goes back to planning, and wondering if they could “work their way up” to murder, and/or blame it on Drugoz the innkeeper, and/or just kill Drugoz the innkeeper.
Tamarie: I could write something. Like… blood.
GM: You want to just write “Blood”?
Tamarie: No, a note in blood.
Quimarel: Just “BLOOD”. Or maybe, “YOUR BLOOD”. [mimes examining something] “Wait, this is jam.”
Tamarie: A note in blood always gets their attention.
Quimarel: A note in jam really gets their attention. The ANTS…
Tamarie: No, it needs to be real blood.
GM: So you don’t want to kill anyone until later, but you’re okay with taking their blood now? How’s that going to work?
Quimarel OOC: We could just, like, borrow it. Pop ‘round for a cup of blood.
The PCs determine that they have at least a few days to work this through before they can expect to hear back from the Kech with a new assignment. (They insist on just calling them “the hooded figures” -- I blame “Welcome to Night Vale” for this.)
Quimarel: I say… we bother the guards. If we can make it too annoying for them to enforce this, they might either convince the lord to officially call it off, or just go, “yeah, there’s a curfew” and walk away. [pause] Or… what are our other options? Kill everyone in the garrison. Blood notes -- that’s a consideration.[long pause]
Tamarie: [looking at her Int score] I’m really smart.
Quimarel: True.
Tamarie: So…
[laughter]
[Discussion of whether a 15 Int is “really smart”. It is.]
[Discussion of whether a 7 Int makes Makpov mentally disabled. It doesn’t, but the table places him around the level of “stereotypically dumb frat boy” -- something familiar to the players, since nearly all of us have taught freshman Composition classes during our time in grad school]
Quimarel: So how are they enforcing this curfew? Are they just patrolling?[Tamarie’s player gets excited]
GM: Yeah.
Quimarel: But there’s only, what, thirteen of them?
GM: But it’s also a really small town.
Quimarel: If we were to, say, divide their attention -- cause a ruckus in two other parts of town while one of us sets fire to the garrison… is the garrison made of stone?
GM: Roll a die. Low means stone, high means wood.
Quimarel OOC: Seven on a d20.
GM: Stone.
Quimarel: Not going to burn.
Makpov: I could run in and lick everyone.
Tamarie: Throw in a bomb and close the door…
Quimarel: Could we weaponize Makpov’s hallucinogenic saliva somehow?
GM: Um… probably? It would take someone skilled in the mixing of strange liquids, and, you know, alchemy, and that sort of thing… do you have someone like that?
Quimarel: Tamarie, your time has come![The party spends some time discussing delivery methods for Makpov’s saliva.]
GM: It depends on what exactly you’re trying to do, how well you roll, and… any other variables that may arise.
Tamarie: So what kind of weapon do we want?
Quimarel: We could spray it over a large area. If we were to take the saliva and paint it on a surface, how long… does it have to be wet?
GM: Yes.
Quimarel: So we need to mix it with something that stays wet longer. Like, something oil-based.
Makpov: I have lots of oil.
GM: What? Why?
Makpov: Because I live in a brothel!
GM: Wait, do you mean, like, lamp oil, or, like, baby oil?
Makpov: Baby oil!
Quimarel: You know, any sort of lubricant is designed to not dry out… I bet we have a bunch lying around we could use as a base.
Tamarie: So what exactly are we doing with this stuff?
Quimarel: I’m not sure. We got distracted again.
 |
| A new age in bio-weaponry |
Makpov: What if we talked to the guy who instilled the curfew, right? And got him to give the whores some kind of “be-out-late” pass? And then they come to the garrison with cold saliva drinks…
Quimarel: The first part’s a good idea. I may set up a meeting with the governor and plead my case. Point out that we have long been a supporter of the garrison…
Tamarie OOC: Was he elected?
GM: It’s a hereditary position. His grandfather was appointed to it.
Quimarel: … point out my status as a pillar of the community, and ask if there’s anything I can do to help change the circumstances so that the curfew is less necessary.
Quimarel goes to try to get an audience, but has some difficulty. [Diplomacy: 11] She manages to secure one, but it’s going to have to be brief.
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