Auber Ambitions – Marto Copperkettle – 11.01.2022
Jan 13, 2022 14:48:35 GMT
Henry (Felix/Sterling), Andy D, and 2 more like this
Post by Marto Copperkettle on Jan 13, 2022 14:48:35 GMT
Jean Auber was a piece of work.
On one hand, it seemed part and partial of all nobles to think they are owed everything and perhaps that was why Lord Auber’s grated on Marto. There were a few clients of the Copperkettle Lumber Company who were notable merchants or nobles and while the majority of them were easy to get on with as business partners, some had a little mark next to their name on the ledgers that Berton called extra “handling fees”.
On the other hand, since he had fairly extensive knowledge on account management and ledger balancing, Marto could understand the intent to keep money flowing within the Dawnlands, specifically Daring Heights. It would allow profit to stay close to home and would provide more opportunities for future collaborations. Yet Marto never got the impression Daring Heights was a struggling city. If anything, despite its size, it seemed to be a very well off town, almost on par to some of the more well known Faerunian cities.
So Marto was confused as to why the Lord and Councilman, Jean Auber, was acting cagey when Bella inquired as to how long he had been in possession of the letter from renowned sculpture Ardana that was asking for help. He still went along with the man and accepted the job but there was certainly something going on that Marto couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Then they had met Ardana in Kurzig Vondar, a small, one road mining town near the northern side of the Sunset Spine. The blue-scaled dragonborn was clearly disheartened over how long it took for someone to answer her call for help. But that wasn’t the only thing bothering her. A silver kobold by the name of Teddy Argentine, an environmentalist who had appeared in town not long after hearing of the creatures overtaking her sculpting workshop, insisted that Marto and his comrades should not under any circumstances exterminate the creatures.
“What are these creatures, exactly?” Bella asked.
“Gargoyles,” Teddy informed them. Yuli, the tallest and largest of all of them bar Lord Auber himself, went still as a deer in the woods. “They are nesting and should not be disturbed.”
“They are ruining my livelihood is what they’re doing! I’ve missed out on nearly a month’s worth of work because of this,” Ardana despaired, stuffing her face with the cherry tarts Beets had offered up. They had originally been bought for Lord Auber, but the young fairy saw this poor artist was clearly at her wits end and wanted to share them with her as a source of comfort.
“How long do gargoyles nest for?” Marto asked. “Is it something that can be waited out?”
“Well, I am no expert but I believe they nest for one or two years… Yes, that sounds about right,” Teddy answered.
Ardana vehemently shook her head. “I am not waiting two years for them to leave!”
And so they had put their heads together and come up with options. The first and obvious one was a simple extermination. This was instantly countered by Teddy who said something along the lines of killing creatures because they are just trying to protect their child was unnecessary slaughter. Marto agreed. It didn’t feel right to just go over to Ardana’s workshop and kill the gargoyles, but could there be a way for their group to convince the gargoyles they only wanted to move the egg into the mines? From the way Teddy explained it, it could be hatched in relative safety and in its proper environment.
The question then became how they could do it.
“I have a spell that will allow me to understand them!” Lolli offered up excitedly. The harengon seemed bursting with energy, something that was very infectious to Marto, which he liked a lot.
“Yeah that could work. Is there a way to move the egg safely?” he asked, turning to Teddy.
It was Ardana who replied. “There is a pulley and winch system in my workshop which I use to move the stone delivered from the quarry. If you can get it hooked up with that, we can get a cart and move it to an abandoned section of the mine.”
“I would just like to say,” Sterling interrupts, “I think this plan is foolish and we really should be looking to just eliminate these creatures. They are clearly a nuisance to these people.”
A memory came unbidden to Marto’s mind. A tree, once part of a dense, thick forest, now the last of its brethren, standing alone on barren land. The ringing tones as cold metal cut into supple bark, Marto’s arms tensing with the reverberations of each strike. Then a creaking groan as the last tree of a great woods falls, it’s cry a final death knell to mark the end of what once was.
“We will not kill them for trying to protect their young. We will try this method and only as a last resort will we fight them.” Marto gives the halfling a hard look. “Agreed?”
Sterling half shrugged and nodded, mumbling something about the fools of well intentions. Marto felt a warmth in his palm like a gentle pulse of encouragement, and so ignored the other halfling’s grumblings, keeping his resolve.
The young eldritch knight waves his hands around doing big gestures in an almost commedical fashion. Lolli, behind him, was using her magic to create small, wondrous illusions decorated in swirling sweet patterns to help. It was ridiculous and over the top but by Yondalla’s left foot Marto was determined to have this gargoyle aggressively t-posing in front of him to understand that they were there to help them, not hurt them.
He just hoped that Sterling wouldn't overly trigger happy with his own brand of magic before they were successful.
It almost didn’t work. Sterling and Bella got caught by Ardana’s front door because of the bell installed to help the sculptor hear when someone came in if she was in her workshop. So whilst Beets and Yuli had successfully (or so Marto hoped) had gotten inside, the other two were about to be pounced on by one very angry gargoyle.
So Marto did the only thing he knew how to and that was, when you see bears or other such large predators in the woods, you start making noise to scare them off.
Banging his axe on his shield got one of them to turn around – which just so happens to be the gargoyle standing in front of him in growing confusion. Lolli had been great in deciphering the rock sliding grunts and stone tumbling groans the two gargoyles were making, but she only just realised that her spell doesn’t help them understand her.
So now Marto was doing charades.
“We want… to help you… move your egg- Yes, eeeegg… your baby… to the mines. The mines?… To the cave! Yes, the cave…. We will work… together. To-ge-ther.”
And it seems to be working.
The three started to make their way over to the workshop entrance, large as a barn’s doors. As they approached, Marto could hear the sounds of a struggle happening within.
Oh Yondalla, please-
He didn’t get to finish the prayer. The gargoyle with him and Lolli threw open the large double doors. What they all saw is the other gargoyle flying above the stone slab that held their egg, in a full on brawl with Beets.
This was it. The plan was about to descend into a proper fight and Marto’s attempt at helping was going to be for naught. Then he felt an encouraging warmth in his hand, stronger than earlier, like it was encouraging him to not give up, there was still hope. Marto picked up his jaw, set his shoulders and stepped forward.
“Beets, stop this fighting!” he bellowed. “We are trying to help them!”
The beetle-like fairy gives him an apologetic look even as she tries to dodge out of the way of a swinging claw of stone.
“I’m tryin’, but they attacked me and well I just-”
The gargoyle beside Marto flew up and grappled Beets with surprising precision and strength. Marto tensed, wondering if his shouting moments before had been misinterpreted. But as they guided both Beets and the other gargoyle down to the floor, the creature hand held out a hand in the very clear universal sign of ‘Stop’.
Everyone held their breath. Marto couldn’t see where Bella or Yuli were, but he heard Sterling running closer before coming to a stop. Looks were exchanged. Marto asked Lolli what was being said. And finally, after a long, drawn out moment. Beets was let go and everyone seemed to be on the same page, finally.
It was a lot of work. Moving the nine foot slab of stone back to the mine took them nearly all day. Marto helped patch up Beet’s injuries, apologising for coming in sounding so angry, to which she playfully punched him in the arm saying it was actually pretty cool what he did and Marto had blushed.
Once the egg was back under the mountain the gargoyles didn’t even watch them depart. They started setting up their nest again, this time in their proper environment. Marto didn’t need the thanks from them, though he supposed in a way, their ignoring them once the egg was sequestered away was their way of being thankful. Still, it did make him feel like it was a job well done and he walked out of the mines with a lightness to his step he had not felt since his trip to the Angelbark last week.
Ardana thanks them, offering an adamantine weapon of their choice. Bella and Marto both eyed different weapons – her a shortsword, he a battleaxe. They play a quick game of dice that sees Marto the winner and he gratefully takes the axe.
As Lord Auber was handing over some final notes to Ardana for a sculpture he wanted to have as payment for their hard work, Marto noticed Yuli was not with them. Looking around, he eventually saw the owl aarakocra slowly making her way over to them behind the Councilman, as he was pulling out a scroll of Sending. Behind her, Ardana’s expression was changing from confusion to dawning incredulity.
“Everything alright?” Marto asked, slightly worried. He saw Ardana turn around and begin making her way back to her shop.
Yuli slowly blinked as she said, “Yes.”
Marto caught the smug look on Lord Auber’s face as he told them all to gather up. It was only as he stepped through the portal that Marto thought maybe the Lord and Councilman Jean Auber won’t be getting the flattering sculpture he commissioned.
Several weeks later, rumours did circulate of a sculpture being delivered from Kurzig Vondar to the Auber residence but no one has had the pleasure of seeing the masterpiece. Such a shame too because Marto heard the level of detail around the face of the figure stuffing cherry tarts into his mouth was particularly accurate, including the hypersalivation.
A real shame.
On one hand, it seemed part and partial of all nobles to think they are owed everything and perhaps that was why Lord Auber’s grated on Marto. There were a few clients of the Copperkettle Lumber Company who were notable merchants or nobles and while the majority of them were easy to get on with as business partners, some had a little mark next to their name on the ledgers that Berton called extra “handling fees”.
On the other hand, since he had fairly extensive knowledge on account management and ledger balancing, Marto could understand the intent to keep money flowing within the Dawnlands, specifically Daring Heights. It would allow profit to stay close to home and would provide more opportunities for future collaborations. Yet Marto never got the impression Daring Heights was a struggling city. If anything, despite its size, it seemed to be a very well off town, almost on par to some of the more well known Faerunian cities.
So Marto was confused as to why the Lord and Councilman, Jean Auber, was acting cagey when Bella inquired as to how long he had been in possession of the letter from renowned sculpture Ardana that was asking for help. He still went along with the man and accepted the job but there was certainly something going on that Marto couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Then they had met Ardana in Kurzig Vondar, a small, one road mining town near the northern side of the Sunset Spine. The blue-scaled dragonborn was clearly disheartened over how long it took for someone to answer her call for help. But that wasn’t the only thing bothering her. A silver kobold by the name of Teddy Argentine, an environmentalist who had appeared in town not long after hearing of the creatures overtaking her sculpting workshop, insisted that Marto and his comrades should not under any circumstances exterminate the creatures.
“What are these creatures, exactly?” Bella asked.
“Gargoyles,” Teddy informed them. Yuli, the tallest and largest of all of them bar Lord Auber himself, went still as a deer in the woods. “They are nesting and should not be disturbed.”
“They are ruining my livelihood is what they’re doing! I’ve missed out on nearly a month’s worth of work because of this,” Ardana despaired, stuffing her face with the cherry tarts Beets had offered up. They had originally been bought for Lord Auber, but the young fairy saw this poor artist was clearly at her wits end and wanted to share them with her as a source of comfort.
“How long do gargoyles nest for?” Marto asked. “Is it something that can be waited out?”
“Well, I am no expert but I believe they nest for one or two years… Yes, that sounds about right,” Teddy answered.
Ardana vehemently shook her head. “I am not waiting two years for them to leave!”
And so they had put their heads together and come up with options. The first and obvious one was a simple extermination. This was instantly countered by Teddy who said something along the lines of killing creatures because they are just trying to protect their child was unnecessary slaughter. Marto agreed. It didn’t feel right to just go over to Ardana’s workshop and kill the gargoyles, but could there be a way for their group to convince the gargoyles they only wanted to move the egg into the mines? From the way Teddy explained it, it could be hatched in relative safety and in its proper environment.
The question then became how they could do it.
“I have a spell that will allow me to understand them!” Lolli offered up excitedly. The harengon seemed bursting with energy, something that was very infectious to Marto, which he liked a lot.
“Yeah that could work. Is there a way to move the egg safely?” he asked, turning to Teddy.
It was Ardana who replied. “There is a pulley and winch system in my workshop which I use to move the stone delivered from the quarry. If you can get it hooked up with that, we can get a cart and move it to an abandoned section of the mine.”
“I would just like to say,” Sterling interrupts, “I think this plan is foolish and we really should be looking to just eliminate these creatures. They are clearly a nuisance to these people.”
A memory came unbidden to Marto’s mind. A tree, once part of a dense, thick forest, now the last of its brethren, standing alone on barren land. The ringing tones as cold metal cut into supple bark, Marto’s arms tensing with the reverberations of each strike. Then a creaking groan as the last tree of a great woods falls, it’s cry a final death knell to mark the end of what once was.
“We will not kill them for trying to protect their young. We will try this method and only as a last resort will we fight them.” Marto gives the halfling a hard look. “Agreed?”
Sterling half shrugged and nodded, mumbling something about the fools of well intentions. Marto felt a warmth in his palm like a gentle pulse of encouragement, and so ignored the other halfling’s grumblings, keeping his resolve.
The young eldritch knight waves his hands around doing big gestures in an almost commedical fashion. Lolli, behind him, was using her magic to create small, wondrous illusions decorated in swirling sweet patterns to help. It was ridiculous and over the top but by Yondalla’s left foot Marto was determined to have this gargoyle aggressively t-posing in front of him to understand that they were there to help them, not hurt them.
He just hoped that Sterling wouldn't overly trigger happy with his own brand of magic before they were successful.
It almost didn’t work. Sterling and Bella got caught by Ardana’s front door because of the bell installed to help the sculptor hear when someone came in if she was in her workshop. So whilst Beets and Yuli had successfully (or so Marto hoped) had gotten inside, the other two were about to be pounced on by one very angry gargoyle.
So Marto did the only thing he knew how to and that was, when you see bears or other such large predators in the woods, you start making noise to scare them off.
Banging his axe on his shield got one of them to turn around – which just so happens to be the gargoyle standing in front of him in growing confusion. Lolli had been great in deciphering the rock sliding grunts and stone tumbling groans the two gargoyles were making, but she only just realised that her spell doesn’t help them understand her.
So now Marto was doing charades.
“We want… to help you… move your egg- Yes, eeeegg… your baby… to the mines. The mines?… To the cave! Yes, the cave…. We will work… together. To-ge-ther.”
And it seems to be working.
The three started to make their way over to the workshop entrance, large as a barn’s doors. As they approached, Marto could hear the sounds of a struggle happening within.
Oh Yondalla, please-
He didn’t get to finish the prayer. The gargoyle with him and Lolli threw open the large double doors. What they all saw is the other gargoyle flying above the stone slab that held their egg, in a full on brawl with Beets.
This was it. The plan was about to descend into a proper fight and Marto’s attempt at helping was going to be for naught. Then he felt an encouraging warmth in his hand, stronger than earlier, like it was encouraging him to not give up, there was still hope. Marto picked up his jaw, set his shoulders and stepped forward.
“Beets, stop this fighting!” he bellowed. “We are trying to help them!”
The beetle-like fairy gives him an apologetic look even as she tries to dodge out of the way of a swinging claw of stone.
“I’m tryin’, but they attacked me and well I just-”
The gargoyle beside Marto flew up and grappled Beets with surprising precision and strength. Marto tensed, wondering if his shouting moments before had been misinterpreted. But as they guided both Beets and the other gargoyle down to the floor, the creature hand held out a hand in the very clear universal sign of ‘Stop’.
Everyone held their breath. Marto couldn’t see where Bella or Yuli were, but he heard Sterling running closer before coming to a stop. Looks were exchanged. Marto asked Lolli what was being said. And finally, after a long, drawn out moment. Beets was let go and everyone seemed to be on the same page, finally.
It was a lot of work. Moving the nine foot slab of stone back to the mine took them nearly all day. Marto helped patch up Beet’s injuries, apologising for coming in sounding so angry, to which she playfully punched him in the arm saying it was actually pretty cool what he did and Marto had blushed.
Once the egg was back under the mountain the gargoyles didn’t even watch them depart. They started setting up their nest again, this time in their proper environment. Marto didn’t need the thanks from them, though he supposed in a way, their ignoring them once the egg was sequestered away was their way of being thankful. Still, it did make him feel like it was a job well done and he walked out of the mines with a lightness to his step he had not felt since his trip to the Angelbark last week.
Ardana thanks them, offering an adamantine weapon of their choice. Bella and Marto both eyed different weapons – her a shortsword, he a battleaxe. They play a quick game of dice that sees Marto the winner and he gratefully takes the axe.
As Lord Auber was handing over some final notes to Ardana for a sculpture he wanted to have as payment for their hard work, Marto noticed Yuli was not with them. Looking around, he eventually saw the owl aarakocra slowly making her way over to them behind the Councilman, as he was pulling out a scroll of Sending. Behind her, Ardana’s expression was changing from confusion to dawning incredulity.
“Everything alright?” Marto asked, slightly worried. He saw Ardana turn around and begin making her way back to her shop.
Yuli slowly blinked as she said, “Yes.”
Marto caught the smug look on Lord Auber’s face as he told them all to gather up. It was only as he stepped through the portal that Marto thought maybe the Lord and Councilman Jean Auber won’t be getting the flattering sculpture he commissioned.
Several weeks later, rumours did circulate of a sculpture being delivered from Kurzig Vondar to the Auber residence but no one has had the pleasure of seeing the masterpiece. Such a shame too because Marto heard the level of detail around the face of the figure stuffing cherry tarts into his mouth was particularly accurate, including the hypersalivation.
A real shame.
