Gilded Curtain - Celina Zabinski - 15/06/21
Jun 22, 2021 17:16:07 GMT
Angier Shantarathil likes this
Post by Celina Zabinski on Jun 22, 2021 17:16:07 GMT
What's in the box?
The answer to this question is... nothing for this rogue
Written by Celina Zabinski
As Celina arrives at Daring Heights, she spots some signs posted around.
"My dear friends,
I have not met all of you of late, but please let that be no barrier to our kinship. I was once a meager adventurer like yourself before stardom and business tore me away to instead spend my days as the humble manager of the Gilded Mirror in Daring Heights.
I have need of the services of just a few of your noble number to help me with a small task. Please do stop on by the Mirror at your earliest convenience - just listen for the sound of my glorious voice leading you, or perhaps the sound of rattling dice.
Yours, in no contractually binding way whatsoever,
Leocanto Regelo Costoso"
“Leocanto… that name is familiar. He’s a famous bard… which means he’ll have lots of money. I think this is a perfect job for me”, Celina smiles as she thinks to herself and heads towards the Gilded Curtain. When Celina first arrives she stares at the massive place. It’s not a subtle building at all. It’s slightly rounded. Some would called it tacky but not Celina. Celina loved the look at it and her eyes lit up staring at it. As she starts to head in, she spots some other people that also appear to be heading in the same direction and one very familiar face. Kelne, the Halfling she has met on many occasions. Celina nods to Kelne with a smile as they entered the building. As she enters she also gets introduced to the other people, there was Glint (a Fire Genasi), Hulian (a Half Elf), Angier (a Wood Elf) and Alonso (a Human). Leocanto then introduces himself. He comes out wearing his brown hat that has a purple feather and has a billowing cloak on. He is holding a lute that was made out of gold. “SOLID GOLD… he DEFINITELY has money”, Celina excitedly thinks to herself. He then offered a round of drinks to the group.
Leocanto then started to explain what his request was. He has a missing customer, a red dragonborn, who goes by the name of Steef Crimsonscale. He was a wizard apprentice and liked archery. “Missing… sure… probably has done something… I can appreciate discretion”, Celina thinks to herself and decides to keep her mouth shut while the others try and enquire more. Lecocanto then tells the group that Steef was last seen getting quite drunk and going into the Thornwoods Market in the Feywild with an Elf with Blonde Hair and a Goblin. Lecanto then proceeded to mention he would offer the group 20 gold pieces each for this mission. Before Celina had a chance to open her mouth, the dashing Glint decided to sweet talk his way into getting more money. With his talking everyone was going to get 30 gold pieces each. Celina smiled and thought “I like this person. They know the value of money”. After no one else had any further questions Leocanto lead the group down a hallway, through a curtain and then showed them a door. Leocanto then gave everyone last bit of advice: not open their eyes as they walked through to door. Celina wasn’t sure what he meant but once the door opened there was an intense bright light. After seeing that Celina had no intention of opening her eyes to that. Glint went in first, followed by Kelne and then Celina decided to help usher the others and was the last one through.
After opening her eyes, they started to adjust to the new place she was in. Celina could see some people sitting in decks chairs. They appeared to just be waiting there and watching the big shiny pretty thing. “That’s really odd. There’s no way I would just stare at a hole for hours”, Celina thought to herself. There were so many trees around they were all around 20 foot height and incredibly thick looking. Looking around at the ground there were lots of elaborate flowers and mushrooms all over the grass. It was so beautiful to look at. The group approached the people sitting in the chair. There was an elf who was wearing a striped bathing suit. The group asked if they had seen a red dragonborn around. He pointed in a direction and the group followed the lead.
The journey took over an hour to get there but once they reached the edge of the tree line they could see a bustling market place. And before their very eyes, they could see all sorts of shaped stalls in place. There was one that looked like a ship and another that was in a shape of a large witch’s hat. There were so many stalls. Celina’s eyes grew wide and she immediately felt at home with fellow business people. She thought about how she would even go about setting up a stall here. “A large glorious apple stall for my apple shop. What a beautiful sight that would be. All the customers I would get…”, Celina thought beaming to herself and daydreamed of possibilities as they started walking around this market.
The first stall that the group ventured over towards was with a woman by the name of Myriad. She was selling face masks and she mentioned whichever mask you would put on you would take the image of. Celina had no interest, since she was already skilled in disguising herself thanks to her tiefling bloodline. However what made it more interesting was to learn that this stall in fact didn’t accept gold as payment. In fact they traded in memories and secrets. Celina was very curious about this part and asked the woman to explain further. Celina learned the whole market place traded in this way as well. That they had buyers who were very interested in these memories and secrets. Celina was so fascinated by the whole thing. But then she became immediately paranoid about how she was going to trade for anything. For she had tones of secrets but none she was willing to share to anyone. Celina drifted off in a daydream about what she could give up. Would she give up her memories before she came to Port Ffirst? Her life with her parents? Her life with Ludwig? She had many happy times with her Tiefling partner, Ludwig. But she thought no to those. The thoughts of his death... his death... it always came quickly to focus in her head when she was alone in her thoughts for too long. She quickly snapped back into focus. She saw that Glint had decided to get one of the masks and traded a secret away for this. After that the group enquired if this woman had seen a red dragonborn. She said she hadn’t but she directed the group to a hat shop. Which was the next location to investigate.
As the group entered the hat shop they discovered that the owner was a goblin. In fact the same Goblin they were told accompanied Steef. Angier immediately tried to intimate him by hovering over him but unfortunately the goblin wasn’t looking at him at the time. Celina chuckled to herself at his attempted. Then out of nowhere Kelne managed to get the goblin to cooperate and tell us what he knew. Celina smiled in appreciation of this Halfling. The group learned that Steef only lived 2 miles from the market place, that he saw him go home and was the last time he saw him. He knew nothing else apart from that. Then he started talking about cursed boxes in another stall. The group speculated that Steef might have been cursed by one of these boxes so decided that was the next place to investigate.
As they arrived Celina could see boxes sky high with all sorts of shaped and sizes. Celina’s eyes couldn’t stop looking at the boxes. “What are in these boxes???… I must know”, Celina frantically thought to herself. There were two figures running this stall, an Elf and a Satyr who asked the group if anyone was brave enough to open a box. Celina straightaway shouted out “ME” and raised her hand. “This is an excellent time to show off our mage hand skills. No stinky curse will affect me. I can do this easily”, Celina thought confidently to herself. They told her she would get 20 gold for opening the box and Celina instantly asked them to raise it to 30 gold. They gladly agreed to this and immediately placed a box in front of Celina. Celina forgot that she was just a “normal shopkeeper” to the others. For today she was going to be glorious box opener and be amazing to all who could see. Celina pushed the box further away, about 30 feet. And then she cast her mage hand to open the box. As the box opened, a swirling mist came from out of the box and passed right through Celina. However nothing appeared to happen to her. Celina smiled wickedly and demanded payment for her work. Hulian who was watching in the background decided he also wanted to try and open one of the boxes. He also convinced them to pay his 30 gold. Hulian also opened a box and nothing appeared to happen either. The Elf and the Satyr paid Huilan and asked again if there were more volunteers to open boxes. No one replied. Glint then decided to move on the conversation and enquired if the Elf and Satyr had seen a red dragonborn. The two people were hesitant to say anything and mentioned that not everyone gets gold for opening the boxes. And that there were curses that turned people into animals, lizards in fact. If that did happen, they would then sell off the animals to the local pet shop in the place across the way. “What an amazing business idea”, Celina thought but didn’t share to the horrified group. So the pet shop became the next place to investigate for Steef. Who may or may not be a lizard...
As the group were on the way to the pet shop, Angier and Celina spotted a fortune teller stall and got side tracked for a bit. For knowing ones fortune would be amazing. Angier went in first. Celina could hear from outside. Angier had to give up his taste for fashion in order to get his fortune. Once he did that the person who went by the name Eladrin began reading his fortune. Angier was going to be a famous hero and was destined for great things. Celina smiled and was excited for her turn. Once Angier came out Celina went straight in. She mentioned she wasn’t going to give up her sense of fashion. However this fortune teller didn’t want that. He wanted something else from her. He told her she could get her fortune read if she gave up her sense of grief. Celina without hesitation agreed to this. “To not have to feel the pain of Ludwig’s death again would be amazing”, Celina thought to herself. Soon Eladrin started telling her future and mentioned to be careful of fires. Celina mentioned she was a tiefling and she’s perfectly fine with fires. But the fortune teller insisted this was going to be something she really would need to be careful with. Then he picked up that Celina was a shop owner. But that’s all he could see. “Unless there’s something else that I am not seeing, this is all I can see”, the fortune teller says. “That’s it? That’s it? I give up my sense of grief and that’s all he can see. Fire and my shop. This is stupid”, Celina thought unhappily. Celina gets up in a foul mood and calls the place a rip off. She storms out of the place without a second thought.
The group then head into the pet store and can see it’s run by a pixie. Some of the group decided to distract the pixie by enquiring about some of the pets there. Angier is immediately brought a hawk and the conversation mostly focuses around that. Celina is watching the rest of the people and can see that Alonso has spotted the lizard they were looking for. The lizard is wearing blue robes which make it easier to spot as the target but appears to be locked in a cage. “She seems to be doing sneaky things... I like her”, Celina thinks to herself. Hulian appeared to be getting some sort of acid spell ready, to which Celina advises that maybe it’s best he goes distract the pixie woman. That she would help Alonso. Celina uses message and tells Alonso that they can do this together and smiles at the human. Alonso nods back and they two work together to open the cage holding the lizard. With a small push the two open the cage without anyone knowing and Alonso immediately hides the lizard in their ropes and she leaves the shop. Celina quickly follows and eventually the rest of the party also come out of the shop. Angier appears to have purchased the hawk they were discussing. “I wonder if that hawk might have been a person as well…”, Celina thinks to herself but doesn’t share out loud. The group then quickly make their way back through the Market place. Before they finally leave, Celina decides to steal some glitter sweets along the way with the help of Glint. They managed to get handfuls of the sweets and Celina is excited with all the glitter. She shares the sweets around to whoever wants them. Then they head straight back to Leocanto at the Gilded Curtain.
When they arrive Leocanto greets them all. The group tell them about Steef and Alonso hands him over. Leocanto confirms this was definitely Steef and pays us all the money as mentioned. Celina then asks Leocanto if he could play them some music. To which he mentions that he’s playing in a show that night and that they were all welcome to join. Celina without hesitation agrees. She takes a seat in the front row and the others also join her. Celina is blown away at the talented Leocanto and smiles at the happy day she just had.
“The Feywild is a wild place and maybe I can set up a shop in there one day. Trading in secrets sounds fun”, Celina smiles happily to herself and has a big grin on her face.
The answer to this question is... nothing for this rogue
Written by Celina Zabinski
As Celina arrives at Daring Heights, she spots some signs posted around.
"My dear friends,
I have not met all of you of late, but please let that be no barrier to our kinship. I was once a meager adventurer like yourself before stardom and business tore me away to instead spend my days as the humble manager of the Gilded Mirror in Daring Heights.
I have need of the services of just a few of your noble number to help me with a small task. Please do stop on by the Mirror at your earliest convenience - just listen for the sound of my glorious voice leading you, or perhaps the sound of rattling dice.
Yours, in no contractually binding way whatsoever,
Leocanto Regelo Costoso"
“Leocanto… that name is familiar. He’s a famous bard… which means he’ll have lots of money. I think this is a perfect job for me”, Celina smiles as she thinks to herself and heads towards the Gilded Curtain. When Celina first arrives she stares at the massive place. It’s not a subtle building at all. It’s slightly rounded. Some would called it tacky but not Celina. Celina loved the look at it and her eyes lit up staring at it. As she starts to head in, she spots some other people that also appear to be heading in the same direction and one very familiar face. Kelne, the Halfling she has met on many occasions. Celina nods to Kelne with a smile as they entered the building. As she enters she also gets introduced to the other people, there was Glint (a Fire Genasi), Hulian (a Half Elf), Angier (a Wood Elf) and Alonso (a Human). Leocanto then introduces himself. He comes out wearing his brown hat that has a purple feather and has a billowing cloak on. He is holding a lute that was made out of gold. “SOLID GOLD… he DEFINITELY has money”, Celina excitedly thinks to herself. He then offered a round of drinks to the group.
Leocanto then started to explain what his request was. He has a missing customer, a red dragonborn, who goes by the name of Steef Crimsonscale. He was a wizard apprentice and liked archery. “Missing… sure… probably has done something… I can appreciate discretion”, Celina thinks to herself and decides to keep her mouth shut while the others try and enquire more. Lecocanto then tells the group that Steef was last seen getting quite drunk and going into the Thornwoods Market in the Feywild with an Elf with Blonde Hair and a Goblin. Lecanto then proceeded to mention he would offer the group 20 gold pieces each for this mission. Before Celina had a chance to open her mouth, the dashing Glint decided to sweet talk his way into getting more money. With his talking everyone was going to get 30 gold pieces each. Celina smiled and thought “I like this person. They know the value of money”. After no one else had any further questions Leocanto lead the group down a hallway, through a curtain and then showed them a door. Leocanto then gave everyone last bit of advice: not open their eyes as they walked through to door. Celina wasn’t sure what he meant but once the door opened there was an intense bright light. After seeing that Celina had no intention of opening her eyes to that. Glint went in first, followed by Kelne and then Celina decided to help usher the others and was the last one through.
After opening her eyes, they started to adjust to the new place she was in. Celina could see some people sitting in decks chairs. They appeared to just be waiting there and watching the big shiny pretty thing. “That’s really odd. There’s no way I would just stare at a hole for hours”, Celina thought to herself. There were so many trees around they were all around 20 foot height and incredibly thick looking. Looking around at the ground there were lots of elaborate flowers and mushrooms all over the grass. It was so beautiful to look at. The group approached the people sitting in the chair. There was an elf who was wearing a striped bathing suit. The group asked if they had seen a red dragonborn around. He pointed in a direction and the group followed the lead.
The journey took over an hour to get there but once they reached the edge of the tree line they could see a bustling market place. And before their very eyes, they could see all sorts of shaped stalls in place. There was one that looked like a ship and another that was in a shape of a large witch’s hat. There were so many stalls. Celina’s eyes grew wide and she immediately felt at home with fellow business people. She thought about how she would even go about setting up a stall here. “A large glorious apple stall for my apple shop. What a beautiful sight that would be. All the customers I would get…”, Celina thought beaming to herself and daydreamed of possibilities as they started walking around this market.
The first stall that the group ventured over towards was with a woman by the name of Myriad. She was selling face masks and she mentioned whichever mask you would put on you would take the image of. Celina had no interest, since she was already skilled in disguising herself thanks to her tiefling bloodline. However what made it more interesting was to learn that this stall in fact didn’t accept gold as payment. In fact they traded in memories and secrets. Celina was very curious about this part and asked the woman to explain further. Celina learned the whole market place traded in this way as well. That they had buyers who were very interested in these memories and secrets. Celina was so fascinated by the whole thing. But then she became immediately paranoid about how she was going to trade for anything. For she had tones of secrets but none she was willing to share to anyone. Celina drifted off in a daydream about what she could give up. Would she give up her memories before she came to Port Ffirst? Her life with her parents? Her life with Ludwig? She had many happy times with her Tiefling partner, Ludwig. But she thought no to those. The thoughts of his death... his death... it always came quickly to focus in her head when she was alone in her thoughts for too long. She quickly snapped back into focus. She saw that Glint had decided to get one of the masks and traded a secret away for this. After that the group enquired if this woman had seen a red dragonborn. She said she hadn’t but she directed the group to a hat shop. Which was the next location to investigate.
As the group entered the hat shop they discovered that the owner was a goblin. In fact the same Goblin they were told accompanied Steef. Angier immediately tried to intimate him by hovering over him but unfortunately the goblin wasn’t looking at him at the time. Celina chuckled to herself at his attempted. Then out of nowhere Kelne managed to get the goblin to cooperate and tell us what he knew. Celina smiled in appreciation of this Halfling. The group learned that Steef only lived 2 miles from the market place, that he saw him go home and was the last time he saw him. He knew nothing else apart from that. Then he started talking about cursed boxes in another stall. The group speculated that Steef might have been cursed by one of these boxes so decided that was the next place to investigate.
As they arrived Celina could see boxes sky high with all sorts of shaped and sizes. Celina’s eyes couldn’t stop looking at the boxes. “What are in these boxes???… I must know”, Celina frantically thought to herself. There were two figures running this stall, an Elf and a Satyr who asked the group if anyone was brave enough to open a box. Celina straightaway shouted out “ME” and raised her hand. “This is an excellent time to show off our mage hand skills. No stinky curse will affect me. I can do this easily”, Celina thought confidently to herself. They told her she would get 20 gold for opening the box and Celina instantly asked them to raise it to 30 gold. They gladly agreed to this and immediately placed a box in front of Celina. Celina forgot that she was just a “normal shopkeeper” to the others. For today she was going to be glorious box opener and be amazing to all who could see. Celina pushed the box further away, about 30 feet. And then she cast her mage hand to open the box. As the box opened, a swirling mist came from out of the box and passed right through Celina. However nothing appeared to happen to her. Celina smiled wickedly and demanded payment for her work. Hulian who was watching in the background decided he also wanted to try and open one of the boxes. He also convinced them to pay his 30 gold. Hulian also opened a box and nothing appeared to happen either. The Elf and the Satyr paid Huilan and asked again if there were more volunteers to open boxes. No one replied. Glint then decided to move on the conversation and enquired if the Elf and Satyr had seen a red dragonborn. The two people were hesitant to say anything and mentioned that not everyone gets gold for opening the boxes. And that there were curses that turned people into animals, lizards in fact. If that did happen, they would then sell off the animals to the local pet shop in the place across the way. “What an amazing business idea”, Celina thought but didn’t share to the horrified group. So the pet shop became the next place to investigate for Steef. Who may or may not be a lizard...
As the group were on the way to the pet shop, Angier and Celina spotted a fortune teller stall and got side tracked for a bit. For knowing ones fortune would be amazing. Angier went in first. Celina could hear from outside. Angier had to give up his taste for fashion in order to get his fortune. Once he did that the person who went by the name Eladrin began reading his fortune. Angier was going to be a famous hero and was destined for great things. Celina smiled and was excited for her turn. Once Angier came out Celina went straight in. She mentioned she wasn’t going to give up her sense of fashion. However this fortune teller didn’t want that. He wanted something else from her. He told her she could get her fortune read if she gave up her sense of grief. Celina without hesitation agreed to this. “To not have to feel the pain of Ludwig’s death again would be amazing”, Celina thought to herself. Soon Eladrin started telling her future and mentioned to be careful of fires. Celina mentioned she was a tiefling and she’s perfectly fine with fires. But the fortune teller insisted this was going to be something she really would need to be careful with. Then he picked up that Celina was a shop owner. But that’s all he could see. “Unless there’s something else that I am not seeing, this is all I can see”, the fortune teller says. “That’s it? That’s it? I give up my sense of grief and that’s all he can see. Fire and my shop. This is stupid”, Celina thought unhappily. Celina gets up in a foul mood and calls the place a rip off. She storms out of the place without a second thought.
The group then head into the pet store and can see it’s run by a pixie. Some of the group decided to distract the pixie by enquiring about some of the pets there. Angier is immediately brought a hawk and the conversation mostly focuses around that. Celina is watching the rest of the people and can see that Alonso has spotted the lizard they were looking for. The lizard is wearing blue robes which make it easier to spot as the target but appears to be locked in a cage. “She seems to be doing sneaky things... I like her”, Celina thinks to herself. Hulian appeared to be getting some sort of acid spell ready, to which Celina advises that maybe it’s best he goes distract the pixie woman. That she would help Alonso. Celina uses message and tells Alonso that they can do this together and smiles at the human. Alonso nods back and they two work together to open the cage holding the lizard. With a small push the two open the cage without anyone knowing and Alonso immediately hides the lizard in their ropes and she leaves the shop. Celina quickly follows and eventually the rest of the party also come out of the shop. Angier appears to have purchased the hawk they were discussing. “I wonder if that hawk might have been a person as well…”, Celina thinks to herself but doesn’t share out loud. The group then quickly make their way back through the Market place. Before they finally leave, Celina decides to steal some glitter sweets along the way with the help of Glint. They managed to get handfuls of the sweets and Celina is excited with all the glitter. She shares the sweets around to whoever wants them. Then they head straight back to Leocanto at the Gilded Curtain.
When they arrive Leocanto greets them all. The group tell them about Steef and Alonso hands him over. Leocanto confirms this was definitely Steef and pays us all the money as mentioned. Celina then asks Leocanto if he could play them some music. To which he mentions that he’s playing in a show that night and that they were all welcome to join. Celina without hesitation agrees. She takes a seat in the front row and the others also join her. Celina is blown away at the talented Leocanto and smiles at the happy day she just had.
“The Feywild is a wild place and maybe I can set up a shop in there one day. Trading in secrets sounds fun”, Celina smiles happily to herself and has a big grin on her face.
