As talk turned to leaving Falcon's Hollow for Almas, Caleb quickly nodded along. "I have to head back to make a report, and it's not like there's anything I can do about what's happening here at the moment anyway." Honestly, he was just happy for a reason to put this place well behind him, if only for a little while.

The trip to the capital goes relatively quickly, and without great incident. Your dreams may be haunted, but if so, it seems to be by mundane nightmares, and there is no further sign of Whisper in your dreams.

Moving out of the forest and into the plains is a relief, making travel easier and memories perhaps a touch more distant. The people in the villages you pass through seem a little troubled, but nothing terribly unusual, nor do you hear of any troubles like those that afflicted Falcon's Hollow.

Finally, after a week of travel, you reach the city of Almas. Built on a series of hills scattered among the Andoshen River and her tributaries, it is a city of bridges, slopes, and fields. Each hill has a different neighborhood, with its own culture and businesses. The culture of the city as a whole is fiercely Andoren, with free markets and an emphasis on freedom and self-governance in general. On the southern side, the ocean lends the air a salt-spray aroma and moisture, and shouts can be heard in a plethora of languages from merchants and sailors alike.

It's an auspicious time to be arriving, the locals say, because in three days the newest Supreme Elect of the People's Council will be elected. This woman, a former general named Elena Raskovel, is to be the next head official of the state and leader of the executive office of the national government. The formal appointment to office is to be quite an event, they say, and one which is accompanied by city-wide festivities.

Caleb walks through the streets of Almas with the casual indifference of a man who has seen many cities in his lifetime, though he does perk up on hearing of the festival being planned. Turning to the other two, he hands over the sheathed and wrapped up dagger to Bristle, hilt first. "I have to go to the palace to give my report, would you mind selling the stuff we don't need while I'm off doing that? I know a dwarf named Dolgrin over in Smithtown, he deals in magic odds and ends. Depending on how long everything takes, I'll meet you in a couple hours in the Crashing Eagle, little tavern down by the docks." When Bristle took the dagger, Caleb gave a small wave and began moving through the crowd, making his way to the Field of Concord.

It was good to see a large civilization again after having spent time in the boondocks. After stashing her undead creatures where nobody would stumble upon them, she eagerly headed into the city with her companions.

When Caleb held out the magic dagger to her, Bristle took the dark blade carefully and tucked it away. "I'll search out your contact and see what I can get us for our gear. While you're out, keep in mind that it might do us some good to recruit a couple more people to aid us on our journey. So if you know of anyone who might be in the city..." She let her sentence drift off. She figured the implication was clear.

Turning to Hester, she said, "Feel free to join me in Smithtown if you would like, but don't feel obligated. I may also end up trying to find a buyer for my... cow. Which means I may end up talking with people you may not wish to associate with." In the end though, Bristle let Hester make up her own mind and continued on her way to sell their goods. Maybe while she was in the market, she could also buy some raw materials to increase her collection of onyx gems. She did quite enjoy turning rough-cut gems into polished beauties, and it seemed they may have a tiny bit of extra time on their hands over the next couple days.

---

Bristle is looking to sell their items (see OOC), and trying to track down a buyer for her cow. Additionally, she'll scout out a stall to buy materials for Crafting onyx gems, but won't buy any until she is sure she'll have time to work.

16:48, Today: Bristle Chonk rolled 13 using 1d20+9.  Diplomacy, with Enhanced Diplomacy - selling items.

14:46, Today: Bristle Chonk rolled 17 using 1d20+7.  Knowledge: Local with Guidance - locate undead buyer.
She would also settle for someone who would pay her to destroy her undead, but that seems less likely to occur.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:49, Thu 10 Sept 2020.

Caleb makes his report, which is met with disbelief but grudging acceptance. After reporting in, he looks around, and finds rumors of a handful of people who were asking questions about a similar person to Whisper - a red-haired woman who spoke in dreams. After a little more digging, he manages to get a messenger to them. A meeting is arranged at the room he rented in a local inn, for that evening.

Meanwhile, Bristle has sold her undead, as well as the various magical items, for a tidy sum of coin. There are onyx specimens suitable for the cutting process available for sale, though not all that many.

That evening, the inn has a festive air, music spinning through the air, the smells of food and drink rich in the taproom. People are in a celebratory mood, but upstairs in Caleb's room, the mood is much less cheerful. Three people are arriving - one who has been asking about Whisper, two who allegedly spoke with people from Falcon's Hollow before starting to ask the same sorts of questions. Three people are waiting, who saw what happened in that village.

Hester walks along with Bristle to Smithstown.  She has no problem dealing with people who would bu undead cattle, any more than she would have a problem making such creatures, nor even with people who would have dealings with creatures such as herself.  Already she can feel her own alien nature growing inside.

She is looking too for those who react to her with fear or disgust or any other emotions that might suggest that they may have met her grandmother.

18:27, Today: Hester Darkeye rolled 16 using 1d20+6.  Sense motive (can she see signs that they have seen her like before?).

Sebastian walks through the inn, ignoring the festivities. "Soft and Decadent" he thinks to himself. Sebastian shakes his head to clear his mind, rejecting those thoughts. That way lies a greater darkness, one he had seen all to closely. He can practically smell the coppery taste of blood on his tongue.

In any case, these people are not what he is here for. Instead, he strides up the stairs to the room indicated in the letter he had received. Sebastian pauses outside the door. This could easily be a trap. The woman, Whoever She is, might have been arranging this as yet another perverse trap.

With a shrug, he opens the door. Sebastian does not have an impressive physical presence. He is of average height and weight, his face unattractive and not particularly distinctive. What he lacks in appearance, he makes up for with a clever mind and a keen eye for detail. He quickly looks through the room, taking in the details of the three inside.

Fact: At least one, maybe two are not fully human.
Fact: The pale skinned one seems as wary of him as he is of them.
Fact: The one in dark robes looks vaguely familiar. An acquaintance from his previous life? No matter.

He addresses the group in front of him, his voice calm and collected. "You sent me a messenger, implying you had information about the woman with the tongue of gold. The red-haired woman who speaks in dreams. I would pay well for such information. I have unfinished business with that woman." He finishes darkly, his last few words words dripping with hate and menace.

Firea was a wanderer, but still somehow the message had reached her to meet here. She was a very beautiful young woman with fiery red hair tied back into a high ponytail, and ended in tuffs of white. She was lithe of form, and perky. The oriental features of her face though gave way to a woman who was a long way away from home.

She was in a new place, not known to her so she remained in her human guise as she walked through the streets to the inn. Walking in she would move through the building to the room that was indicated. Pausing for a moment at the door, even if it was open, she then knocked on it. Her deep blue eyes staring ahead of her for the moment, awaiting acknowledgement as she listened to the other man speak.

[OOC: I found a good pic to represent her, right now she looks completely human though.]

As the three arrived, Caleb kept a careful eye on all of them from his seat, his crossbow not at hand but within easy reach. He looked towards the doorway at the knocking, and suppressed an instinctive twitch towards his weapon as he saw the red haired woman standing there. Motioning for her to enter and take a seat, he pulled a bottle purchased downstairs from under the table he sat at and began to pour half glasses of spirits, offering one to everyone present before responding to the plain man. "That was me that sent the message. And calling it information isn't exactly right, more like we personally saw the merry hell she likes to play with people up in Falcon's Hollow. People enthralled and set to wandering the forests, shadows that looked apt to strangle a man, and more undead than I thought it was possible for anyone to control," he said before knocking back most of his glass.
As the alcohol settled in his stomach, warming him from within, he continued. "I sent you those messages because you've had some kind of run in with her, so you're not just going to disbelieve us. You know things, we know things, together we can use those things we know to make that bitch dead. What do you say?"

The young woman, who at the moment appears to be human, walks into the room and drops her pack just inside the door. She then walks to the table and takes a seat. "Anyone who decides to try and insert themselves in my head like she did with her dreams, gets the flame." Was all she said in reply to his question.

Bristle sat comfortably in the corner as the "guests" began to arrive and Caleb talked. She sipped at her drink, trying to recall where she had seen the first guy before. His name was on the tip of her tongue too. Something to do with an ocean fish? A brown one? Normally she was terrible with names, but his was unique enough that it stood out. It would come to her eventually.

When Firea mentioned Whisper would "get the flame," the cleric leaned forward in her seat. Her armor creaked loudly beneath her robes, and there was a wide smile plastered on her face that stretched from her brown eye all the way to her green one. "I like your flare, girl. If you got the drive and ability, we've got the path to direct your wrath."

She then turned toward Sebatian with a glint in her eye. "What about you, Mr. Tan? Sea-bass Tan." She was certain he would be impressed she had remembered his full name. "You want to just pay us for our information, or do you want to help us use that information to get results?" She was genuinely interested in which he preferred.

Sebastian noticed the redhead walk in behind him with some irony, but it was definitely a different woman. That woman's face was indelibly fixed in his mind, and this woman was totally different, despite superficial similarities in hair color.

Sebastian declined the offered drink while he mulled over Caleb's comments, examining them through his mind. "People enthralled and wandering through dangerous forests filled with undead sounds similar enough to my own experience. I have no reason to doubt you."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow at Bristle's comment. So he had met her before. Interesting, but still irrelevant. If Bristle expected him to be the same naive idealistic young fool that he had been back then, she'd be thoroughly disappointed.
"It's pronounced Sebastian. Sebastian Kosmin. Not that... whatever you garbled. As for getting results? I got results once, doing what I thought was right. Those results were dark and full of horror. Perhaps there would be some value in working with others." He says, drifting off as if he had forgotten he was talking to others.

"I am not opposed to helping you, so long as your goals match mine. But before I join others, I would like to know who it is that I would be joining?"

The pale skinned girl with eyes like pools of darkness listened to the conversations going on around her.  She would have blinked had she still been capable but instead, she gave the words her full attention before saying finally.  "Sorry, I hadn't realised Caleb had sent the message. Pleased to meet you all.  I'm Hester.  The woman in her dreams calls herself Whisper.  I guess that means she's forgotten the name she wore when she was alive."

She stopped talking for a long moment. , she thought [Red hair, green eyes, just like I used to have.  She's not my grandmother is she?]]

When she spoke she gave a bit of a start as if shaken out of a daydream.  "She wants to be alive.  We want her to be dead.  Nobody wants her to be in her current state.  We have to make sure she goes in the right direction."

The red haired woman looked towards the one that called her 'girl' and stared at her with piercing blue eyes for a long moment. "Girl? Drive and ability?" She scoffs then shook her head. "I may have walked in here without armor on, and with my weapons tied on my pack, but do not take that as a sign of having no ability. It's because I need neither. Magic is my armor, and the flame..." She utters a single word and snaps her finger, a small flame appearing in the palm of her hand. "...is my weapon."

Then she looked around a moment, taking a few breath's a calming down as she dismisses the Prestidigitation. "The flame has flowed through me all of my life. I have the drive, and the ability." Then she paused for a moment, and finally introduced herself. "I am Firea. Many who have seen my wrath, or felt my intimidating force, and lived to sing of the tail call me Firea the Firefox."

Bristle wrinkled her nose when Sebastian informed her of the correct way to say his name. She thought Sea-bass Tan made a lot more sense than Sebastian. But then again, her own name was Bristle. At least she hadn't been completely off though.

Then Firea went into her speech/demonstration, and Bristle had to admit, the Firefox's abilities could come in handy. "I think you'll be a much better fiery asset to our team than the burning cow we just got rid of." She did not provide any additional context to her statement, but instead stood up and offered to shake the hand of both Firea and Sebastian. "My name is Bristle. Bristle Chonk. And I hope the both of you decide to help us get to the bottom of this mystery."

Voh'ren makes his way through the town, heading toward the inn. He keeps his eyes to himself, and by pulling his cloak tightly around his body implies that he expects others to do the same. If that gesture is not enough, he trusts that the oversized sword and bow strapped across his back will dissuade others from bothering him. A young wolf in chain barding trots at his side, its lips pulled back in a decidedly canine grin. Both ranger and hunter steal glances at the festivities, and both are drawn to them for different reasons: the spectacle pique's Voh'ren's curiosity, while the scent of cooked meat tickles the wolf's nose. However, they both stay their course.

Upon arriving at the inn, Voh'ren takes a moment to consider what to do with his companion.

"I need you to stay here, Kiru," he says to the wolf, kneeling down and gently scratching him behind his ears. "Stay out from underfoot, and don't cause trouble. If you can manage that, I'll buy you something good to eat." The wolf snorts---Kiru's version of begrudgingly agreeing---and finds a spot nearby to curl up and wait for his master to return.

Voh'ren enters the inn, and glances around. He pulls down his hood, revealing his Orcish heritage, a vicious scar running down his right cheek, and a long ponytail of thick, black hair.

"I'm under contract with the Andoran government and looking for people investigating Falcon's Hollow," he says in a deep baritone voice loud enough for people to hear above the buzzing of festivities and bar talk. "I would appreciate it if someone could point me toward them."

The bartender directs Voh'ren upstairs, to Caleb's rented room, with a shrug and as few words as he can get away with.

It sounds like the meeting has already started within.

"Thank you," Voh'ren says gratefully to the bartender. He then makes his way to the room and knocks on the door.

"Burning cow?" The young woman perked a brow, as she shook Bristle's hand. "I assume that there is a story in there someplace that I would likely find either very amusing, or very sad." Then she finally takes the offered drink from Caleb.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:59, Mon 14 Sept 2020.

At the request for his name, Caleb opened his mouth to introduce himself, just as the knock sounded through the door. "With any luck, that'll be the third. Come in,"\ Caleb called out, producing another glass in preparation for the arrival of the last person he'd sent for. "As I was about to say, I'm Caleb. I'm not here for the mystery so much as I am to put a bolt in that woman in a way that'll actually hurt.

Sebastian nods his head politely as the group identified themselves. Internally, he was disappointed, but not surprised. Mere names did not answer his question of who these people were. Firea had at least shown some of her own character, her own spirit. The others? Well, perhaps he would learn that, with time.

"Very well, you wish my help finding this "Whisper" and seeing her punished. I wish to help with that task. Do you have any leads, any plans towards accomplishing this? Any knowledge of her goals, her techniques, her personality?"

Bristle nodded to Firea in response hand smiled, still not elaborating at all about the call. She figured right now was not the appropriate time to go off on a tangent about her undead creations. Instead, the cleric stepped over to answer the door after Caleb asked the new arrival to come in. She was surprised to find someone who was at least partially orc, like herself.

"Come in," Bristle said to Voh'ren. "You must be the third person we've been waiting for. If that is the case, perhaps you could start by answering Sebastian's question and sharing what you know about this Whisper character. The read-headed dream-witch that plagued Falcon's Hollow until a week ago."

Almost as an afterthought, she added, "I am Bristle. That is Sebastian and Firea, whom I've only just met. And that is Caleb and Hester. My traveling companions who helped take down Whisper. Or, at least suppress her for a while." Hopefully that would get Voh'ren all caught up.

"Well met," Voh'ren says to Caleb and then to Bristle, grateful for the introduction. "I am Voh'ren Wildheart, a tracker hired by the Andoran government to look into Falcon's Hollow---but it seems you've dealt with that problem. As for Whisper, I wish I had answers to share, but I have none."

"well, you're another warm body, that's something. Here, have a drink." Caleb said, pouring Voh'ren a glass and sliding it his way before facing Sebastian once more. "I'm no wizard or scholar, so I can't really offer much on ways to kill her other than saying attacking her in a dream apparently won't work. I don't know about any long term plans of hers either, but it seems to me she's trying to accumulate followers. The people that came back to Falcon's Hollow talked about "letting her in", which says to me she needs physical minions for something," Caleb said, topping off his drink and downing a mouthful before continuing.

"She was also using a cave tied into a local legend about a hungry wolf as a base of operations, and that same cave has a statue of a Sarenite paladin who banished some great evil over it, and used to have a demonic shrine inside it as well. If we could find some historical documents to do with Sir Elias Halson, that'd probably be a good start."

"I have a few ideas on how we might track her down.
First, minions, even mind-controlled ones will need food, supplies, logistics unless she is immediately killing and raising them. If such things are being transported to a remote area, it is difficult to do so without leaving some trace.

And the woman herself might be from here. However she became ... whatever she is, most likely she originated as a relatively normal person. Perhaps she was even local. We have a good physical description, perhaps someone from around here will recognize her.

I must admit I am not the best at such interactions. I have little patience for the useless small-talk and nonsense that is needed. I will try, but if any of you have talent in that area I would suggest you help.

Finally, perhaps we could look through any local records for strange events involving a red-haired girl or woman? Do you know of any local broadsheets that print news? Or perhaps the local churches record births, deaths, marriages, and the like?

We need more information, and it seems right now we have none." He finishes up, with a dissatisfied grimace.


Trying to know if there are any local newspapers, libraries, churches, etc that might have records we could search through: 20:46, Today: Sebastian Kosmin rolled 13 using 1d20+1d8+6.  knowledge (local).
If there are, what sort of check would it be to go search through records like that for potentially relevant information?
If there aren't, I will spend the time gathering information at the bar below, trying to find local rumors on either strange supply caravans or strange events, particularly those involving a red-haired woman.