Post by Dwirhian on Jan 3, 2021 20:03:52 GMT
You and a few other residents of the Three-headed Ettin are sitting at a table tucked into the corner of the main hall discussing the rumours about a change of management – in hushed voices, as none of you are quite sure how the staff feel about it. Malun is insisting that Coll, Cecil, and Cobb are running the new castle thing near New Hillborrow now. Rashaseih is explaining, in a slightly patronizing tone, that it’s quite possible for three people to run two different businesses between them. Bargrun is saying that he was actually at Fort Ettin when that queen exploded and he heard from the stable-girl… or was it the girl at the pie stall… no, it was the soldier in charge of the archery contest, definitely… anyway, she told Bargrun that there was – no, wait, maybe it was one of the waiters...
Just as you’re thinking to yourself that this topic has probably yielded all the information and enjoyment it can, and will only go downhill from here, a figure appears at your side. It’s Dwirhian, the tall silvery-blue elf, sliding into the empty set next to you. She greets you with a smile and a squeeze of the arm, and seems ready to dive into the conversation already going on. You seize the opportunity: Hello Dwirhian, what have you been up to lately?
It isn’t long before you’re congratulating yourself on that decision. Dwirhian is telling a funny and lively tale of a trip to Port Ffirst in company with a handful of others. Some you know and some you don’t. There was Rosemoon, a small and hairless tabaxi; Ivan, the seafaring human whom you haven’t met but have heard Dwirhian mention before; Vordhan, a bookish goliath; Brochan, a grey-bearded dwarf; and Seraphina, an armoured tiefling. (Evidently someone has at last taken pity on Dwirhian and explained to her that tieflings are not just a type of horned human.)
It seems they were all being paid to help someone from the Daring Academy with some research. The ‘someone’ in question was Archibald Tumblefoot, whom Dwirhian hesitantly describes as a halfling (those are the ones who look like gnome-sized humans, right? she asks) from Neverwinter (she says the name as if it’s some odd little place that nobody’s heard of). She imitates Tumblefoot’s grumpy manner as she describes their meeting at the Academy, his papers and books spread out everywhere, blocking everybody’s way, which he made no attempt to tidy up before leaving the building – in fact he just drew a chalk line around them, over the floor and the desks and the chairs, and barked, Nobody touch my stuff! before leading the bemused adventurers out of the Academy and out of Daring Heights.
It turned out, Dwirhian explains, that the job was to help collect coastal plants and creatures for Tumblefoot’s big project to catalogue all the flora and fauna of Kantas. So they set off for Port Ffirst, reaching the town around night-fall and putting up in the Cavernous Seashank. Dwirhian vividly reports the evening at the shabby tavern with its shabby proprietor; the group enjoying a drink together; Rosemoon entertaining the customers with a folk-song about a runaway cow; Seraphina slipping away somewhere for a while; Ivan denying Dwirhian’s theory that there may be something between him and Greer; and all of them eventually retiring to bed in good spirits.
The next day they all went to the pebble beach south of the town and did their best to gather interesting examples of local wildlife. Well, Dwirhian admits, she probably didn’t do quite her best. The sea was so big and grey and restless, and the sky was so big a grey and still – she lost track of what she was meant to be doing and just wandered around taking in the scene. But Brochan did very well, and Seraphina and Ivan each found something as well, so Tumblefoot seemed satisfied.
That was when they all got attacked by a giant crab thing. (Bargrun already joined you in listening to Dwirhian’s story a while ago, but it’s at this point that Rashaseih and Malun also give up trying to hash out the future of the Ettin and start paying attention to the story of Tumblefoot’s research expedition.)
It was the scholar himself who provoked the crab by knocking on its shell, thinking it was just an odd rock. Dwirhian can’t really blame him, she says. She’d probably have done the same. Although she doesn’t claim to be an expert on flora and fauna. Anyway, he knocked, the crab didn’t like it, and suddenly there was a sea-creature the size of a small house pinning him to the ground with one pincer and swinging the other at Vordhan.
The fight was short but intense. Brochan and Ivan gave the thing a real beating, with Ivan running up onto its back and steadily hacking through the shell with his great-axe while Brochan focused on the legs. The crab seemed to focus on Brochan in exchange, battering him badly and even knocking him out once, though Rosemoon and Seraphina got him back on his feet with a quick spell plus one of the health potions that Dwirhian had bought for the group earlier. Dwirhian herself managed to hamper the crab by freezing the water around its back feet (do crabs have feet? she wonders) before Vordhan finally cracked the foreleg that Brochan had weakened, and a swirl of shadowy magic from Seraphina finally brought the creature crashing down.
The story now shifts from action and drama to comedy as Dwirhian describes Ivan enthusiastically and messily harvesting ‘samples’ from the dead crustacean for Tumblefoot’s collection and then trying to bully the scholar into paying the group more than had been agreed. Rosemoon tried to defuse the situation by giving Ivan some of her own fee, and then (when Ivan insisted it wasn’t about the money but about the principle of Tumblefoot’s gratitude) by trying to give the coins to Tumblefoot so that he could give them to Ivan. In the end Tumblefoot gave Ivan a silvered sword that he’d received from his former professor – which Ivan immediately sold when the group got back to Port Ffirst. As a matter of principle, of course.
Now then, says Dwirhian. What were you saying about the Ettin? Well, says Malun, right, so, Coll and his brothers are in charge of the new castle thing near New Hillborrow, right? Yeah, Rashaseih interrupts, but that doesn’t mean they’re ditching this place. No, says Bargrun, but I was talking to this gladiator from Kundar… no, wait, it was a dwarf from Vorsthold…
You sigh and order another drink.
Just as you’re thinking to yourself that this topic has probably yielded all the information and enjoyment it can, and will only go downhill from here, a figure appears at your side. It’s Dwirhian, the tall silvery-blue elf, sliding into the empty set next to you. She greets you with a smile and a squeeze of the arm, and seems ready to dive into the conversation already going on. You seize the opportunity: Hello Dwirhian, what have you been up to lately?
It isn’t long before you’re congratulating yourself on that decision. Dwirhian is telling a funny and lively tale of a trip to Port Ffirst in company with a handful of others. Some you know and some you don’t. There was Rosemoon, a small and hairless tabaxi; Ivan, the seafaring human whom you haven’t met but have heard Dwirhian mention before; Vordhan, a bookish goliath; Brochan, a grey-bearded dwarf; and Seraphina, an armoured tiefling. (Evidently someone has at last taken pity on Dwirhian and explained to her that tieflings are not just a type of horned human.)
It seems they were all being paid to help someone from the Daring Academy with some research. The ‘someone’ in question was Archibald Tumblefoot, whom Dwirhian hesitantly describes as a halfling (those are the ones who look like gnome-sized humans, right? she asks) from Neverwinter (she says the name as if it’s some odd little place that nobody’s heard of). She imitates Tumblefoot’s grumpy manner as she describes their meeting at the Academy, his papers and books spread out everywhere, blocking everybody’s way, which he made no attempt to tidy up before leaving the building – in fact he just drew a chalk line around them, over the floor and the desks and the chairs, and barked, Nobody touch my stuff! before leading the bemused adventurers out of the Academy and out of Daring Heights.
It turned out, Dwirhian explains, that the job was to help collect coastal plants and creatures for Tumblefoot’s big project to catalogue all the flora and fauna of Kantas. So they set off for Port Ffirst, reaching the town around night-fall and putting up in the Cavernous Seashank. Dwirhian vividly reports the evening at the shabby tavern with its shabby proprietor; the group enjoying a drink together; Rosemoon entertaining the customers with a folk-song about a runaway cow; Seraphina slipping away somewhere for a while; Ivan denying Dwirhian’s theory that there may be something between him and Greer; and all of them eventually retiring to bed in good spirits.
The next day they all went to the pebble beach south of the town and did their best to gather interesting examples of local wildlife. Well, Dwirhian admits, she probably didn’t do quite her best. The sea was so big and grey and restless, and the sky was so big a grey and still – she lost track of what she was meant to be doing and just wandered around taking in the scene. But Brochan did very well, and Seraphina and Ivan each found something as well, so Tumblefoot seemed satisfied.
That was when they all got attacked by a giant crab thing. (Bargrun already joined you in listening to Dwirhian’s story a while ago, but it’s at this point that Rashaseih and Malun also give up trying to hash out the future of the Ettin and start paying attention to the story of Tumblefoot’s research expedition.)
It was the scholar himself who provoked the crab by knocking on its shell, thinking it was just an odd rock. Dwirhian can’t really blame him, she says. She’d probably have done the same. Although she doesn’t claim to be an expert on flora and fauna. Anyway, he knocked, the crab didn’t like it, and suddenly there was a sea-creature the size of a small house pinning him to the ground with one pincer and swinging the other at Vordhan.
The fight was short but intense. Brochan and Ivan gave the thing a real beating, with Ivan running up onto its back and steadily hacking through the shell with his great-axe while Brochan focused on the legs. The crab seemed to focus on Brochan in exchange, battering him badly and even knocking him out once, though Rosemoon and Seraphina got him back on his feet with a quick spell plus one of the health potions that Dwirhian had bought for the group earlier. Dwirhian herself managed to hamper the crab by freezing the water around its back feet (do crabs have feet? she wonders) before Vordhan finally cracked the foreleg that Brochan had weakened, and a swirl of shadowy magic from Seraphina finally brought the creature crashing down.
The story now shifts from action and drama to comedy as Dwirhian describes Ivan enthusiastically and messily harvesting ‘samples’ from the dead crustacean for Tumblefoot’s collection and then trying to bully the scholar into paying the group more than had been agreed. Rosemoon tried to defuse the situation by giving Ivan some of her own fee, and then (when Ivan insisted it wasn’t about the money but about the principle of Tumblefoot’s gratitude) by trying to give the coins to Tumblefoot so that he could give them to Ivan. In the end Tumblefoot gave Ivan a silvered sword that he’d received from his former professor – which Ivan immediately sold when the group got back to Port Ffirst. As a matter of principle, of course.
Now then, says Dwirhian. What were you saying about the Ettin? Well, says Malun, right, so, Coll and his brothers are in charge of the new castle thing near New Hillborrow, right? Yeah, Rashaseih interrupts, but that doesn’t mean they’re ditching this place. No, says Bargrun, but I was talking to this gladiator from Kundar… no, wait, it was a dwarf from Vorsthold…
You sigh and order another drink.
