Post by Celina Zabinski on Jan 14, 2022 2:34:44 GMT
Hold On To Your Sweets...
Celina has a confection to make
Written by Celina Zabinski
One quiet evening at Appley Ever After, a letter passes under the door addressed to a 'Natalia Petrova'. Upon seeing the name, Celina panics. Trying to see who delivered it she sees no one outside. The street is empty, cold, and dark. She shivers, pulls the curtains closed, then opens the letter.
Celina gets concerned. One one hand, if this Patriot person can help get rid of her problem with her old gang, Celina would be very happy. On the other hand, she feels there's a catch. If only there was someone she could discuss this with. That evening, she thinks about who she would discuss this with and who she would invite. She quickly comes to the conclusion that she wants to ask Glint, a fellow rogue, for advice. After all he knows some of her secrets. Celina also remembers she had organized a special job during the week for herself to blow off some steam. She thinks, maybe Glint would be the perfect person to join her. Either way, she’d been meaning to catch up with him. And she’ll have to see what mood she’s in when talking to him. (Continued here: thekantasexpanse.boards.net/thread/2275/ships)
After her chat with Glint, Celina continues to think of other people she could ask. The Patriot wants people who don't mind getting their hands dirty. Celina focuses on that and she thinks of the perfect people to ask. Celina reaches out to Kelne (her mischievous Halfling friend who could pull out some tricks or two), Varga (her half-orc barbarian friend who is a fierce warrior and great at being intimidating), Ivan (her Human barbarian ally who’s always had Celina the apple sellers back and who is just as strong warrior) and lastly Toothy (Celina had been on a few adventures with the drow barbarian, she knows he’s also incredibly strong and Glint also trusts him. Celina also thinks Toothy would be great because he can talk to the chickens).
She asks them all to meet her in Daring Heights at the Three Headed Dragon in a few days’ time. She tells each of them that she needs their help with a task and that she’d explain when they meet her. On a damp cold evening, everyone assembles. Celina gets a booth at the back of the room, away from potential eavesdroppers. One by one, her allies arrive and gather around the booth. Celina smiles looking at everyone and thinks to herself, “Three strong barbarians, a magical cleric and an apple shop seller/rogue. I think this will do nicely… now to see if they’re up for the task”.
Celina begins to tell everyone about the note she received and that she needed people who didn’t mind getting their hands dirty. Everyone was curious as to why Celina would receive a note like this. This was the moment Celina was dreading. She realized if they were to help her with this task, she would have to come clean and tell everyone here her secret she had been hiding from them all for months. Out of everyone there Kelne knew the truth. Celina remembered telling her Halfling friend about her secrets a few weeks ago but when Celina actually thinks of it, she wasn’t actually sure if her friend actually remembered that conversation. They had been out drinking at the time and there was lots of booze involved. So this might also be new to Kelne. Celina would have to wait to find out.
Celina looks around to everyone at the table, she takes a deep breath and starts talking. After dancing around the subject, she eventually bursts and comes clean. She admits that she’s not just an apple shop seller. That she is actually a rogue, that’s paid to steal stuff, break into places and gather information. There’s a moment of silence as everyone at the table tries to process what Celina has said. Some of them are shocked as they were not expecting it. However Ivan appears to be the only one that gets visibly upset with learning the truth. Celina awkwardly apologies to everyone for lying for so long. She shows them all the letter she received and places it down on the table to read. However she keeps the part on the envelope with her real name a secret. She thinks to herself that’s far too many truths to share for one day. Celina mentions she has no idea what to expect when she gets to the Red House and meet The Patriot person. But she needs backup and ones that are ready for anything. Slowly everyone comes around to the fact Celina was lying and seem to accept it. However Ivan still has some anger about her lies and attempts to flip the table everyone is sitting at. Toothy luckily manages to keeps the table in check. It’s at this stage the bartender comes over to the table and politely asks the group to leave. They all do so. As they leave the bar, Celina tells everyone that if anyone wanted to leave they can. She’s not forcing anyone to join her but she could really do with their help. Celina knows she need her allies with her. She can’t do this alone. To her surprise, everyone agrees to stay and follows her along, even Ivan.
The group head towards the Red House. As they approach the building, Celina pays closer attention and notices it’s a strange looking building. Almost out of place and misshapen. Everyone decided to enter the building, they think stealth isn’t needed here since Celina has an invitation. As they all walk in, Celina notices the place is much bigger than what the outside portrayed. The vibe in the place reeked of being seedy. Also everyone can see there were many floors in this building. Celina looks around the room and spots a goblin girl sitting at the bar and the bartender. Varga approaches the barman and starts talking. He offers our group a round of drinks. Celina agrees. However Ivan refuses and takes his drinking helmet out and slurps it while staring at Celina. Celina smirks and turns back to the bartender. She decides he is probably the best person to ask. She asks him would he know where to go in this place if you have an invitation? He shakes his head and says no he has no idea. It’s at this moment the goblin girl at the counter turns to Celina, smirks and says “Invitation huh? I believe that would be me you need to talk to”. She smiles and as Celina looks closer at the girl she can notice the chicken tattoo she has on her forearm. That’s when Celina clicks that it’s not an actual chicken Celina needed to talk to as per the note. Toothy also notices this and gets a brief moment of sadness realizing that he’s probably not going to get a chance to talk to a real chicken. The goblin girl introduces herself as Cluq and asks who everyone is. Celina mentions her name and the goblin stares at Celina for a moment, then she grins widely, “I wondered when you’d show”. She gets up from the barstool and ushers everyone to follow her upstairs. She leads the way up to the first floor and in through a set of double doors.
As the group enter the room, they noticed it is set up in a strange way. The room appears to have a stage set up in the center of the room. The light is only directed to the stage, everything else aside from the stage is just darkness. However in the middle of the stage, sitting on a barrel is a light blue skinned women with piercing white eyes wearing a fancy pink frill hat. Cluq leds them to the stage and they get to see this woman up close. She grins widely to everyone and stares at Celina.
“Miss Zabinski you came”, she says, which sends a shiver down Celina’s back. The Patriot notices this in Celina and she continues to refer to her as Miss Zabinski in every sentence. Celina understood that she was making a point that this woman knows her real name, this was not it and she liked rubbing it in. It felt like a small knife stabbing her each time her name was uttered. The Patriot then asks a question with glee.
“How much do your friends know, Miss Zabinski?”
“Enough”
This seems to amuse The Patriot and she moves on. She starts to address the rest of the group. One by one she sizes them up. She appears to know all their name, without being introduced and some relevant thing they have done on previous adventures. Celina stands there staring at this woman, trying to work out how this woman could possibly know so much. “She must have really good spies…”, she thinks to herself and also hiding back how worried she was feeling in this moment.
After The Patriot is done, she turns to the group and mentions she has a task for them. If they complete it successfully, she mentions they she will pay a reward to the group along with a few items. However especially for Celina, the Patriot mentions that she would sort out Celina’s debt to her old gang, the Silver Vipers. Celina stands there for a moment processing all of this, she wasn’t expecting that. To her, it is almost too good to be true. To finally be clear of that debt and not have to worry about it. She was in. Celina asks what the job involved. The Patriot smiles and mentions she’d heard that the Silver Vipers have set up shop in an abandoned OMTC warehouse on the outskirts of Daring Heights and there were rumours that they were starting up their business again. “Nitro…” Celina thinks “Not those stupid addictive sweets”. The Patriot mentions that she wants the group to go pay them a visit and make sure they are stopped. That the operation is shut down. Celina smiles, she hasn’t wanted anything with that gang in years. She would happily put a stop to it. She looks to the others to see what they think. They also nod and agree to this. A cloaked shadow comes from out of the corner of the room and hands something to the Patriot. After everyone agrees, the Patriot clicks her fingers and Cluq comes back to lead everyone back downstairs.
The group leave and decide to make their way over to the warehouse. On the way, Celina tells the group about Red Blades. That Red Blades is the one who usually owns chickens and she hates her. That is is the reason why Celina freaks out around chickens. Celina feels awkward. How many truths was she telling today? This is definitely a new record. Toothy immediately understands the chicken thing and mentions that he’ll definitely deal with any chickens that come up. Celina smiles awkwardly and tries to distract herself with something else.
Just before the warehouse, the group come across an alleyway. Toothy says he wants to do something before heading into the warehouse, but it might take a few moments. Everyone agrees its fine and they head down the alleyway out of sight. Toothy stands in the alleyway concentrating on a spell. Varga goes to one side and starts to sharpen her axes. Ivan continues drinking from his beer hat while throwing random glares over at Celina. Kelne and Celina get bored, so Celina uses her mage hand to pick up empty cans from the bins and Kelne uses their their magic to hit them. Kelne manages to hit each can Celina throws in the air perfectly. They all laugh and giggle. Varga even comes over to join in smashing some. After some time, Toothy is ready with his spell and suddenly he starts talking to some mice. He chats with them for some time, he says their names are Squeaky and Sneaky and they are going to join the group. Celina stares at the mice and thinks if anything they could be great distractions. Celina quickly gets an idea and uses disguise self and changes her appearance. She makes her hair black, her skin blue, her eyes black and her chin and face completely different. Subtle changes but enough to make her look different, she doesn’t want anyone in her old gang to notice her. The group then make their way towards the entrance to the warehouse.
As they approach, Kelne uses the spell “pass without a trace” to allow everyone get around stealthier. Celina loves that spell of theirs and this was the perfect time to use it. Celina smiles and makes her way in with all her stealthiness. Celina takes a look around her surroundings and she spots a strange creature. She sees a reptilian animal but she can’t place it, and as she looks closer, to Celina it also looks like a dog. Then she realizes it looks like a dragon dog. This is when Celina remembers that Red Blades had mentioned getting these creatures at some point. Celina immediately panics. She knows she must be here. Celina curses and whispers loudly to everyone “Red Blades is here. She’s freakin here”. Ivan asks if he can kill the dog things and Celina mentions she doesn’t care but she’s moving away from them. As Celina darts off away, the group splits. Varga and Kelne follow after Celina and they head further into the depths of the warehouse. While Ivan and Toothy stay behind to deal with the dragon dogs.
Varga leads the way through the warehouse, she appears to be ready to hit anything that might appear. Celina appreciates this and also gets herself ready. As Celina, Varga and Kelne enter the first one room, Varga points to a trap she spots on the floor. Celina just manages to avoid it and points it out to Kelne as well. They all make it through the first room with no trouble.
However, as they enter the next room, suddenly there’s a trap that Celina and Kelne don’t spot in time. Dust comes down from the ceiling and everyone starts sneezing. Celina remembers this being used by her old gang before. In between sneezes, Celina mentions to everyone they need to stand away from the dust and to even hold up their elbows to block the dust. This works for Varga and Celina. However Kelne appears to not get better. They are now constantly sneezing. Celina thinks if they don’t stop sneezing soon they are going to struggle to breathe. Celina tries to look around the room for something useful but she can’t see anything. Eventually, Celina notices the door at the back of the room. It has three unique locks. Celina deices that they need to get out of this room. That if they could somehow manage to open this door, maybe it’ll stop Kelne sneezing. Celina quickly goes over to the door and examines the locks in detail. Celina was fascinated. She sees one lock that appears to be a snake, another which looks like candy and the third that just has a depiction of a lock shape. Celina had no clue where to start but for some reason she felt drawn to the candy shaped one. “The stupid nitro sweet is probably the key”, Celina thinks to herself. Celina takes out her thieves’ tools and starts working on the door. She hears a click and suddenly a mist comes from the key hole followed by an ear piecing sound. Then everything goes quiet for Celina. She can’t hear anything, almost like she was deafened. Celina curses to herself realizing she should have used her Mage Hand to do it and open it from a distance. Maybe she’ll try it now. However suddenly, Varga is picking up Celina and moves her away from the door. She does a gesture with her axe and before Celina knows it, Varga smashes into the door. The door completely comes off its hinges and falls. Celina snaps out of whatever effects she had done with the lock and she can hear. However Celina looks to Kelne and can see they’re still sneezing. Nothing is helping them and they look like they’re on the brink of passing out from lack of oxygen. Celina thinks that since its magic making her sneeze maybe magic can be the solution here? Celina grabs her friend by the shoulder and tries something out of the box. She casts ‘Suggestion’ and tells Kelne to stop sneezing and to breathe normally. This works and Kelne appears to be out of effect they were under. Celina smiles happily with her working spell.
Out of nowhere, Ivan and Toothy appear and join the group. They ask what happened, everyone laughs and says they’ll mention it later. The group head on and go behind the now broken door. They all enter a dimly lit room, to Celina it’s obvious the silver vipers were here. There were wooden crates all over the room. They all appeared to be completely filled with small boxes. Each crate holding a specific coloured box. Celina knew these were Nitro, the candies. There were three distinct colours in the sweets: Ruby Red, Emerald and Indigo. Everyone heads towards the crates and looks closer. However Celina spots in the corner of her eye the door in the back of the room slowly closing shut. Like someone just left. Celina quickly uses her mage hand to hold the door open. Kelne sees what Celina is doing and joins her. Celina focus is mainly on the door. As Celina makes her way to the door she feels she should probably warn the others about the sweets. Celina quickly mentions that they’re addictive and they should probably stay away. Celina knows from her past to stay away from those sweets. She used to sell them and knows they do all kinds of weird stuff but are super addictive. And since supplies were probably going to be short it would be a pain to try and get more of. Celina wanted nothing to do with them again. She makes her way to the door and hears the others in the group talk about setting the whole place on fire. She shouts over to them that that if they’re setting the place on fire that it was probably not a good idea to stand around the sweets. She thinks to herself that she can’t say she didn’t warn them. Then she smiles and quickly heads out the door to see what is there.
As Celina looks she quickly spots her old nemeses, Red Blades dart into the corner. Celina is furious and is just filled with rage all of a sudden. She takes out a dagger and throws it at Red Blades. It lands straight into the wall beside her. Red Blades flips her fingers towards Celina and disappears into a portal and vanishes out of site. Celina just glares at the last place Red Blades was. “That bitch wouldn’t even let me stab her! The absolute cheek… UGHHH. I HATE YOU RED BLADES”, Celina growls angrily in her head and she storms back into the room towards the others.
As she enters, she can see the fire has already started. Everyone runs and they all make their way back through the warehouse towards the entrance. They all make their way out of the warehouse successfully and watch it burn from a distance. Someone passes the group as they watch on, noticing the light from the warehouse. The group convince they were imagining it and the person moves on however looking quite confused.
After the group spend some time watching the warehouse burn down, they eventually head back towards the Red House. As they arrive, Cluq leads the group back upstairs to the Patriot. Everyone walks over to her and mention the task is done. Ivan even holds out and offers roughly a dozen of the indigo sweets he pocketed from the warehouse. The Patriots smiles happily and takes them. She looks pleased to the group and asks did anyone see them? Celina looks her dead in the eyes, lies and confidently says no. The Patriot for whatever reason seems to be able to tell Celina is lying. The Patriot stares down and Celina starts to feel confused as to how she can see right through her lie. Celina caves and admits that maybe there might have been a person. She looks at Celina and thanks her for her honesty. Celina rolls her eyes. The Patriot mentions that they really do protect their own here and she grins. She snaps her fingers and the cloaked figure appears beside the Patriot again. However, this time Celina finally spots who’s under the hood and she’s stunned. As hood gets pulled back, Celina instantly recognizes its Sammy. Sammy awkwardly looks towards Celina and says hey. Celina stands there completely shocked. Seeing Sammy here, in a place like this was the last thing she expected. The Patriot seems to be smiling with glee and is ecstatic watching Celina and Sammy interact. However she shifts her attention to the others and they start talking.
Celina ignores the other conversations around her and her sole focus is Sammy. She hadn’t seen him since their last conversation, since their fight. Celina has no clue what she’s feeling. She feels so many things like hurt and betrayal. Eventually words come to Celina and she asks angrily “What the hell Sammy? What the absolute hell are you doing here?”.
Sammy shifts uncomfortably and says he can explain. Sammy begins to tell Celina how this happened. That when he went out looking for Celina with the fliers and that’s how The Patriot found him. The Patriot asked how he knew the woman in the flier and he mentioned that he was her husband. She was pleased with this and mentioned they had to talk. She offered him a job working with her and that when he joined he could ask for one thing. Sammy’s one thing he requested was to help Celina get out of her debt with her old gang. He knew how scared and worried she was of them and he wanted to help her in any way her could. This seemed like the best solution at the time. Celina realized then that getting her old debt paid off wasn’t the task she was asked to do today, but it was because of Sammy. When Sammy finishes explaining, Celina is speechless. She stands there staring at him. Unable to express her gratitude. Unable to come up with a sassy remark. Unable to figure out what this all meant. Unable to work out why someone would do something so selfless, for her? This was far too much weight Sammy had taken on. Poor Sammy who wanted to help so desperately with Celina’s past that he selflessly endangered his own.
Out of nowhere, Ivan suddenly comes up and punches Sammy in the face. He tells Sammy that he wants him to leave Celina alone. He has no business hurting his friend. Sammy looks to Celina for support but Celina continues to stand there motionless. Celina wants to help and shout at Ivan. But she’s paralyzed with her emotions, she’s unsure what to do in this situation. To Lie, To Tell the Truth. Sammy gives Celina one more looks and walks off. She desperately wants to shout out how sorry she is for everything. She wants to help. But she feels he probably won’t believe her. She remembers she’s still angry with Sammy from their last conversation but she starts to question is she actually still angry.
The Patriot turns back to Celina smiling. She seems pleased with how everything went. She mentions to Celina that her debt is officially paid and that she might have a job opportunity for Celina. It was something for Celina to think on. With another snap of her fingers Cluq is back and starts to guide everyone back downstairs.
Celina walks in a zombie like state trying to process the event of what happened. Celina thanks her friends for joining her today, she pays for a few rounds of drink and she makes her way home. She doesn’t discuss what happened with Sammy to anyone.
That night she tosses and turns in her bed trying to get to sleep. But Sammy’s confession to her won’t get out of her head. Celina realizes there’s one thing she wants to do.
She wants to have private chat with The Patriot.
She needs to talk to her.
(Continued here: thekantasexpanse.boards.net/thread/2314/new-deals-tattoos-celina-zabinski)
Celina has a confection to make
Written by Celina Zabinski
One quiet evening at Appley Ever After, a letter passes under the door addressed to a 'Natalia Petrova'. Upon seeing the name, Celina panics. Trying to see who delivered it she sees no one outside. The street is empty, cold, and dark. She shivers, pulls the curtains closed, then opens the letter.
Miss 'Zabinski',
This will be my final invitation. Come to the Red House and speak my name to the chicken. You will be shown to the door. We have some business to discuss regarding a mutual intrepid serpent.
I'd advise to bring some fellows with you. Those who don't mind getting their hands dirty if necessary.
– The Patriot
Celina gets concerned. One one hand, if this Patriot person can help get rid of her problem with her old gang, Celina would be very happy. On the other hand, she feels there's a catch. If only there was someone she could discuss this with. That evening, she thinks about who she would discuss this with and who she would invite. She quickly comes to the conclusion that she wants to ask Glint, a fellow rogue, for advice. After all he knows some of her secrets. Celina also remembers she had organized a special job during the week for herself to blow off some steam. She thinks, maybe Glint would be the perfect person to join her. Either way, she’d been meaning to catch up with him. And she’ll have to see what mood she’s in when talking to him. (Continued here: thekantasexpanse.boards.net/thread/2275/ships)
After her chat with Glint, Celina continues to think of other people she could ask. The Patriot wants people who don't mind getting their hands dirty. Celina focuses on that and she thinks of the perfect people to ask. Celina reaches out to Kelne (her mischievous Halfling friend who could pull out some tricks or two), Varga (her half-orc barbarian friend who is a fierce warrior and great at being intimidating), Ivan (her Human barbarian ally who’s always had Celina the apple sellers back and who is just as strong warrior) and lastly Toothy (Celina had been on a few adventures with the drow barbarian, she knows he’s also incredibly strong and Glint also trusts him. Celina also thinks Toothy would be great because he can talk to the chickens).
She asks them all to meet her in Daring Heights at the Three Headed Dragon in a few days’ time. She tells each of them that she needs their help with a task and that she’d explain when they meet her. On a damp cold evening, everyone assembles. Celina gets a booth at the back of the room, away from potential eavesdroppers. One by one, her allies arrive and gather around the booth. Celina smiles looking at everyone and thinks to herself, “Three strong barbarians, a magical cleric and an apple shop seller/rogue. I think this will do nicely… now to see if they’re up for the task”.
Celina begins to tell everyone about the note she received and that she needed people who didn’t mind getting their hands dirty. Everyone was curious as to why Celina would receive a note like this. This was the moment Celina was dreading. She realized if they were to help her with this task, she would have to come clean and tell everyone here her secret she had been hiding from them all for months. Out of everyone there Kelne knew the truth. Celina remembered telling her Halfling friend about her secrets a few weeks ago but when Celina actually thinks of it, she wasn’t actually sure if her friend actually remembered that conversation. They had been out drinking at the time and there was lots of booze involved. So this might also be new to Kelne. Celina would have to wait to find out.
Celina looks around to everyone at the table, she takes a deep breath and starts talking. After dancing around the subject, she eventually bursts and comes clean. She admits that she’s not just an apple shop seller. That she is actually a rogue, that’s paid to steal stuff, break into places and gather information. There’s a moment of silence as everyone at the table tries to process what Celina has said. Some of them are shocked as they were not expecting it. However Ivan appears to be the only one that gets visibly upset with learning the truth. Celina awkwardly apologies to everyone for lying for so long. She shows them all the letter she received and places it down on the table to read. However she keeps the part on the envelope with her real name a secret. She thinks to herself that’s far too many truths to share for one day. Celina mentions she has no idea what to expect when she gets to the Red House and meet The Patriot person. But she needs backup and ones that are ready for anything. Slowly everyone comes around to the fact Celina was lying and seem to accept it. However Ivan still has some anger about her lies and attempts to flip the table everyone is sitting at. Toothy luckily manages to keeps the table in check. It’s at this stage the bartender comes over to the table and politely asks the group to leave. They all do so. As they leave the bar, Celina tells everyone that if anyone wanted to leave they can. She’s not forcing anyone to join her but she could really do with their help. Celina knows she need her allies with her. She can’t do this alone. To her surprise, everyone agrees to stay and follows her along, even Ivan.
The group head towards the Red House. As they approach the building, Celina pays closer attention and notices it’s a strange looking building. Almost out of place and misshapen. Everyone decided to enter the building, they think stealth isn’t needed here since Celina has an invitation. As they all walk in, Celina notices the place is much bigger than what the outside portrayed. The vibe in the place reeked of being seedy. Also everyone can see there were many floors in this building. Celina looks around the room and spots a goblin girl sitting at the bar and the bartender. Varga approaches the barman and starts talking. He offers our group a round of drinks. Celina agrees. However Ivan refuses and takes his drinking helmet out and slurps it while staring at Celina. Celina smirks and turns back to the bartender. She decides he is probably the best person to ask. She asks him would he know where to go in this place if you have an invitation? He shakes his head and says no he has no idea. It’s at this moment the goblin girl at the counter turns to Celina, smirks and says “Invitation huh? I believe that would be me you need to talk to”. She smiles and as Celina looks closer at the girl she can notice the chicken tattoo she has on her forearm. That’s when Celina clicks that it’s not an actual chicken Celina needed to talk to as per the note. Toothy also notices this and gets a brief moment of sadness realizing that he’s probably not going to get a chance to talk to a real chicken. The goblin girl introduces herself as Cluq and asks who everyone is. Celina mentions her name and the goblin stares at Celina for a moment, then she grins widely, “I wondered when you’d show”. She gets up from the barstool and ushers everyone to follow her upstairs. She leads the way up to the first floor and in through a set of double doors.
As the group enter the room, they noticed it is set up in a strange way. The room appears to have a stage set up in the center of the room. The light is only directed to the stage, everything else aside from the stage is just darkness. However in the middle of the stage, sitting on a barrel is a light blue skinned women with piercing white eyes wearing a fancy pink frill hat. Cluq leds them to the stage and they get to see this woman up close. She grins widely to everyone and stares at Celina.
“Miss Zabinski you came”, she says, which sends a shiver down Celina’s back. The Patriot notices this in Celina and she continues to refer to her as Miss Zabinski in every sentence. Celina understood that she was making a point that this woman knows her real name, this was not it and she liked rubbing it in. It felt like a small knife stabbing her each time her name was uttered. The Patriot then asks a question with glee.
“How much do your friends know, Miss Zabinski?”
“Enough”
This seems to amuse The Patriot and she moves on. She starts to address the rest of the group. One by one she sizes them up. She appears to know all their name, without being introduced and some relevant thing they have done on previous adventures. Celina stands there staring at this woman, trying to work out how this woman could possibly know so much. “She must have really good spies…”, she thinks to herself and also hiding back how worried she was feeling in this moment.
After The Patriot is done, she turns to the group and mentions she has a task for them. If they complete it successfully, she mentions they she will pay a reward to the group along with a few items. However especially for Celina, the Patriot mentions that she would sort out Celina’s debt to her old gang, the Silver Vipers. Celina stands there for a moment processing all of this, she wasn’t expecting that. To her, it is almost too good to be true. To finally be clear of that debt and not have to worry about it. She was in. Celina asks what the job involved. The Patriot smiles and mentions she’d heard that the Silver Vipers have set up shop in an abandoned OMTC warehouse on the outskirts of Daring Heights and there were rumours that they were starting up their business again. “Nitro…” Celina thinks “Not those stupid addictive sweets”. The Patriot mentions that she wants the group to go pay them a visit and make sure they are stopped. That the operation is shut down. Celina smiles, she hasn’t wanted anything with that gang in years. She would happily put a stop to it. She looks to the others to see what they think. They also nod and agree to this. A cloaked shadow comes from out of the corner of the room and hands something to the Patriot. After everyone agrees, the Patriot clicks her fingers and Cluq comes back to lead everyone back downstairs.
The group leave and decide to make their way over to the warehouse. On the way, Celina tells the group about Red Blades. That Red Blades is the one who usually owns chickens and she hates her. That is is the reason why Celina freaks out around chickens. Celina feels awkward. How many truths was she telling today? This is definitely a new record. Toothy immediately understands the chicken thing and mentions that he’ll definitely deal with any chickens that come up. Celina smiles awkwardly and tries to distract herself with something else.
Just before the warehouse, the group come across an alleyway. Toothy says he wants to do something before heading into the warehouse, but it might take a few moments. Everyone agrees its fine and they head down the alleyway out of sight. Toothy stands in the alleyway concentrating on a spell. Varga goes to one side and starts to sharpen her axes. Ivan continues drinking from his beer hat while throwing random glares over at Celina. Kelne and Celina get bored, so Celina uses her mage hand to pick up empty cans from the bins and Kelne uses their their magic to hit them. Kelne manages to hit each can Celina throws in the air perfectly. They all laugh and giggle. Varga even comes over to join in smashing some. After some time, Toothy is ready with his spell and suddenly he starts talking to some mice. He chats with them for some time, he says their names are Squeaky and Sneaky and they are going to join the group. Celina stares at the mice and thinks if anything they could be great distractions. Celina quickly gets an idea and uses disguise self and changes her appearance. She makes her hair black, her skin blue, her eyes black and her chin and face completely different. Subtle changes but enough to make her look different, she doesn’t want anyone in her old gang to notice her. The group then make their way towards the entrance to the warehouse.
As they approach, Kelne uses the spell “pass without a trace” to allow everyone get around stealthier. Celina loves that spell of theirs and this was the perfect time to use it. Celina smiles and makes her way in with all her stealthiness. Celina takes a look around her surroundings and she spots a strange creature. She sees a reptilian animal but she can’t place it, and as she looks closer, to Celina it also looks like a dog. Then she realizes it looks like a dragon dog. This is when Celina remembers that Red Blades had mentioned getting these creatures at some point. Celina immediately panics. She knows she must be here. Celina curses and whispers loudly to everyone “Red Blades is here. She’s freakin here”. Ivan asks if he can kill the dog things and Celina mentions she doesn’t care but she’s moving away from them. As Celina darts off away, the group splits. Varga and Kelne follow after Celina and they head further into the depths of the warehouse. While Ivan and Toothy stay behind to deal with the dragon dogs.
Varga leads the way through the warehouse, she appears to be ready to hit anything that might appear. Celina appreciates this and also gets herself ready. As Celina, Varga and Kelne enter the first one room, Varga points to a trap she spots on the floor. Celina just manages to avoid it and points it out to Kelne as well. They all make it through the first room with no trouble.
However, as they enter the next room, suddenly there’s a trap that Celina and Kelne don’t spot in time. Dust comes down from the ceiling and everyone starts sneezing. Celina remembers this being used by her old gang before. In between sneezes, Celina mentions to everyone they need to stand away from the dust and to even hold up their elbows to block the dust. This works for Varga and Celina. However Kelne appears to not get better. They are now constantly sneezing. Celina thinks if they don’t stop sneezing soon they are going to struggle to breathe. Celina tries to look around the room for something useful but she can’t see anything. Eventually, Celina notices the door at the back of the room. It has three unique locks. Celina deices that they need to get out of this room. That if they could somehow manage to open this door, maybe it’ll stop Kelne sneezing. Celina quickly goes over to the door and examines the locks in detail. Celina was fascinated. She sees one lock that appears to be a snake, another which looks like candy and the third that just has a depiction of a lock shape. Celina had no clue where to start but for some reason she felt drawn to the candy shaped one. “The stupid nitro sweet is probably the key”, Celina thinks to herself. Celina takes out her thieves’ tools and starts working on the door. She hears a click and suddenly a mist comes from the key hole followed by an ear piecing sound. Then everything goes quiet for Celina. She can’t hear anything, almost like she was deafened. Celina curses to herself realizing she should have used her Mage Hand to do it and open it from a distance. Maybe she’ll try it now. However suddenly, Varga is picking up Celina and moves her away from the door. She does a gesture with her axe and before Celina knows it, Varga smashes into the door. The door completely comes off its hinges and falls. Celina snaps out of whatever effects she had done with the lock and she can hear. However Celina looks to Kelne and can see they’re still sneezing. Nothing is helping them and they look like they’re on the brink of passing out from lack of oxygen. Celina thinks that since its magic making her sneeze maybe magic can be the solution here? Celina grabs her friend by the shoulder and tries something out of the box. She casts ‘Suggestion’ and tells Kelne to stop sneezing and to breathe normally. This works and Kelne appears to be out of effect they were under. Celina smiles happily with her working spell.
Out of nowhere, Ivan and Toothy appear and join the group. They ask what happened, everyone laughs and says they’ll mention it later. The group head on and go behind the now broken door. They all enter a dimly lit room, to Celina it’s obvious the silver vipers were here. There were wooden crates all over the room. They all appeared to be completely filled with small boxes. Each crate holding a specific coloured box. Celina knew these were Nitro, the candies. There were three distinct colours in the sweets: Ruby Red, Emerald and Indigo. Everyone heads towards the crates and looks closer. However Celina spots in the corner of her eye the door in the back of the room slowly closing shut. Like someone just left. Celina quickly uses her mage hand to hold the door open. Kelne sees what Celina is doing and joins her. Celina focus is mainly on the door. As Celina makes her way to the door she feels she should probably warn the others about the sweets. Celina quickly mentions that they’re addictive and they should probably stay away. Celina knows from her past to stay away from those sweets. She used to sell them and knows they do all kinds of weird stuff but are super addictive. And since supplies were probably going to be short it would be a pain to try and get more of. Celina wanted nothing to do with them again. She makes her way to the door and hears the others in the group talk about setting the whole place on fire. She shouts over to them that that if they’re setting the place on fire that it was probably not a good idea to stand around the sweets. She thinks to herself that she can’t say she didn’t warn them. Then she smiles and quickly heads out the door to see what is there.
As Celina looks she quickly spots her old nemeses, Red Blades dart into the corner. Celina is furious and is just filled with rage all of a sudden. She takes out a dagger and throws it at Red Blades. It lands straight into the wall beside her. Red Blades flips her fingers towards Celina and disappears into a portal and vanishes out of site. Celina just glares at the last place Red Blades was. “That bitch wouldn’t even let me stab her! The absolute cheek… UGHHH. I HATE YOU RED BLADES”, Celina growls angrily in her head and she storms back into the room towards the others.
As she enters, she can see the fire has already started. Everyone runs and they all make their way back through the warehouse towards the entrance. They all make their way out of the warehouse successfully and watch it burn from a distance. Someone passes the group as they watch on, noticing the light from the warehouse. The group convince they were imagining it and the person moves on however looking quite confused.
After the group spend some time watching the warehouse burn down, they eventually head back towards the Red House. As they arrive, Cluq leads the group back upstairs to the Patriot. Everyone walks over to her and mention the task is done. Ivan even holds out and offers roughly a dozen of the indigo sweets he pocketed from the warehouse. The Patriots smiles happily and takes them. She looks pleased to the group and asks did anyone see them? Celina looks her dead in the eyes, lies and confidently says no. The Patriot for whatever reason seems to be able to tell Celina is lying. The Patriot stares down and Celina starts to feel confused as to how she can see right through her lie. Celina caves and admits that maybe there might have been a person. She looks at Celina and thanks her for her honesty. Celina rolls her eyes. The Patriot mentions that they really do protect their own here and she grins. She snaps her fingers and the cloaked figure appears beside the Patriot again. However, this time Celina finally spots who’s under the hood and she’s stunned. As hood gets pulled back, Celina instantly recognizes its Sammy. Sammy awkwardly looks towards Celina and says hey. Celina stands there completely shocked. Seeing Sammy here, in a place like this was the last thing she expected. The Patriot seems to be smiling with glee and is ecstatic watching Celina and Sammy interact. However she shifts her attention to the others and they start talking.
Celina ignores the other conversations around her and her sole focus is Sammy. She hadn’t seen him since their last conversation, since their fight. Celina has no clue what she’s feeling. She feels so many things like hurt and betrayal. Eventually words come to Celina and she asks angrily “What the hell Sammy? What the absolute hell are you doing here?”.
Sammy shifts uncomfortably and says he can explain. Sammy begins to tell Celina how this happened. That when he went out looking for Celina with the fliers and that’s how The Patriot found him. The Patriot asked how he knew the woman in the flier and he mentioned that he was her husband. She was pleased with this and mentioned they had to talk. She offered him a job working with her and that when he joined he could ask for one thing. Sammy’s one thing he requested was to help Celina get out of her debt with her old gang. He knew how scared and worried she was of them and he wanted to help her in any way her could. This seemed like the best solution at the time. Celina realized then that getting her old debt paid off wasn’t the task she was asked to do today, but it was because of Sammy. When Sammy finishes explaining, Celina is speechless. She stands there staring at him. Unable to express her gratitude. Unable to come up with a sassy remark. Unable to figure out what this all meant. Unable to work out why someone would do something so selfless, for her? This was far too much weight Sammy had taken on. Poor Sammy who wanted to help so desperately with Celina’s past that he selflessly endangered his own.
Out of nowhere, Ivan suddenly comes up and punches Sammy in the face. He tells Sammy that he wants him to leave Celina alone. He has no business hurting his friend. Sammy looks to Celina for support but Celina continues to stand there motionless. Celina wants to help and shout at Ivan. But she’s paralyzed with her emotions, she’s unsure what to do in this situation. To Lie, To Tell the Truth. Sammy gives Celina one more looks and walks off. She desperately wants to shout out how sorry she is for everything. She wants to help. But she feels he probably won’t believe her. She remembers she’s still angry with Sammy from their last conversation but she starts to question is she actually still angry.
The Patriot turns back to Celina smiling. She seems pleased with how everything went. She mentions to Celina that her debt is officially paid and that she might have a job opportunity for Celina. It was something for Celina to think on. With another snap of her fingers Cluq is back and starts to guide everyone back downstairs.
Celina walks in a zombie like state trying to process the event of what happened. Celina thanks her friends for joining her today, she pays for a few rounds of drink and she makes her way home. She doesn’t discuss what happened with Sammy to anyone.
That night she tosses and turns in her bed trying to get to sleep. But Sammy’s confession to her won’t get out of her head. Celina realizes there’s one thing she wants to do.
She wants to have private chat with The Patriot.
She needs to talk to her.
(Continued here: thekantasexpanse.boards.net/thread/2314/new-deals-tattoos-celina-zabinski)
