Playing in the Sandbox

The land of Chiheisen is a land symbolized by extreme heat, ever-present conflict, and endless danger, but most of all, sand. Just tons and tons of it, like some sandbox of the gods that stretches all the way to the horizon.

In the city of Kabikyo, nestled at the convergence of three rivers, ruled by Daimyo Gyan Togaru (a dragonborn of black and sand-colored scale with almost as many battles under his belt as years of life), it is almost possible to forget this looking up as the cherry blossom petals waft down on the breeze blowing past the towering wooden castle up on the hill near the river Inochi. For today is the autumnal festival, everywhere one looks there is festivity or activity of one sort or another. In the streets packs of children play with and chase around their half-trained pet raptors of all variation and color, while entertainers of all sorts from dancers, fire jugglers, to illusionist ply their trade to music played on all sorts of strings and drums, and people enjoy all sorts of food, local and foreign, or drink sake on their porches, steps, and even in competitions in the bars.

And that's just the tip of the ice-berg (not that anyone here would know one if it walked up and hit them over the head like an assassin finding his target in a dark alley). Foreign merchants are selling their wares, while local ones being the wiser have closed up shop to enjoy the festivities and not be a target for the havoc of thieves, rampaging children, and their half-trained pet raptors who instead seek entertainment elsewhere, competing playfully for the nourishment of a meal too big for all of them found in an unexpected place. A man asking for help finding his daughter is nearly drowned out by the loud calling out for any brave souls to enter and test their skills for prestige and rewards as the various martial arts schools of the city have formed a competition, meanwhile merchants and explorers both seek brave souls to join them in their travels in the coming days, and a hundred other distractions and activities abound.

Last time on Playing in the Sandbox!

The party was split on a dangerous bathing expedition. When they returned, they discovered their clothes and armor had been stolen! On closer inspection the culprits were the hotel staff! However, little kids entered the mix to engage in their own dastardly plot! But, wait for it my friends, they were caught red handed by none other than Tethe!

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Ramsus wrote:
Upon being grabbed the kid (the male thri-kreen), shouts to the others, "Run for it!" and tries (and fails) to wriggle out of Tethe's grasp as the three others do as suggested, dropping one of the plaques each.

Drago765 wrote:
Masaru was surprised by the sudden yelling. "Wha?! Did we get robbed after all?!" He yelped to himself, before looking around in a panic and spotting the children. "Oh, so the culprits are little ones..." He said, calming down a bit and chuckling to himself, shaking his head.

Tethe blinks, noticing the plaques the children dropped and walking over, kneeling down to pick on up with one hand while continuing to hold the little Thri-kreen boy in the air. Reading it quietly for a moment before setting the little boy down and patting his head with a loud laugh. "I admit this was a good one, little one!"

The kid grins back at her and says a bit nervously, "So.... you're letting me go right. I mean uh............... who knows what those other three will get up to without me there to uh... reign em in.... right?"

"Haha! Reign them in is it? Yes, go on and get to planning your next prank you little scamp." She says with a chuckle, patting his head again before walking back towards the changing room.

The kid grins and happily skitters off, probably to do just that.

"Well, at least now we know what happened to our stuff." Masaru said, picking up one of the plaques and reading it. "Seems there's nothing to worry about at the moment." He chuckled.

The "mystery" solved, the group heads back to their rooms where they sleep/drink/talk to their long lost siblings. When they wake up, Smithe has already been awake for a bit and they find their clothes and armor freshly cleaned (and oiled and polished where necessary).... with the exception of Masaru's cloak. Smithe informs him that apparently they gave their apologies and they damaged his robes and offer their apologies and a replacement (that Smithe points out). He also notes that by "damaged" they probably really meant it was too ratty and worn and disgusting for them to see the point in cleaning and just threw it out. The replacement is a nice silver cloak (with a small crown symbol sown into the right breast). It's nothing special but, it's probably nicer than Masaru's old cloak was when it was brand new. Which probably was long before he ever saw it.

Smithe also tells them that the Haberton brothers should be arriving sometime soon with the artifice parts and the money from the sale of the weapons and armor.

When the group leaves the inn they see Thag standing there with a female half-orc around his age and two small half-orc children, a boy and a girl. The girl looking a couple years older than the boy. Thag raises a hand in greeting and the woman hands a basket she was holding to whoever in the party was in front (and wasn't Cyrta) and she says, "Thanks for bringing our Thag back to us in one piece. It's not much, just some meat pies." and indeed the basket is filled with delicious smelling meat pies.

"Well... this is... certainly different than what I'm used to..." Masaru said, turning around quite a few times to fully look over his new cloak. "Definitely much nicer..."

"Ah, Thag-san, good to see you," Skaimos said, taking the pies. "And so good to see your family as well." He turned to the wife. "It was an honor to have your husband as a travelling companion. In combat, he seemed to be as skilled as the rest of my friends combined. Oh, but where are my manners? You've probably already heard about us, but I am Skaimos Terai, at your service."

She laughs, "Yes, he told us all about your adventure together. Including plenty boasting on his own, so there's no need for you to go paddin his ego too. Tell the truth, mighty warrior he is or no, I'm glad he won't have to be leaving us again anymore. I'm Thuna and these grubs here are Zog and Numa. Hay lay off that nonsense yer about!" she finishes, yelling at the kids who at this point were running in circles around Maihime and Cyrta in some kind of very active form of gawkin, who then scurry back to her when she snapped at them. "Well, we should be going before these two get up to any mischief. Not that they won't by the day is done but, least they won't be doin' it hereabouts. Thank you all again." she says and the four of them depart with waves from the kids and a nod from Thag.
(Unless anyone wants to do anything regarding them before the leave I suppose.)

After Thag leaves, Uhiya hugs Masaru and bids her brother farewell and for him to keep in touch.

"Wha-Farewell? What do you mean?" Masaru exclaims, very confused and sad. "Is something going on? Am I... am I getting in the way? What's going on?!"

"Well, I don't think you want to stick with me. Or that you can even. The lords and ladies here are letting me train with their sword masters. I can't imagine you have much interest in that do you? You'd be better off traveling with these folks. Well... at least it will be more interesting for you anyway." Uhiya replies.

"Oh..." He says with a hint of dejection before raising the hood of his cloak. "R-Right... I guess this is goodbye once again then...Didn't think it would come so early... I... wish you luck in your own travels..." He said, starting to turn to leave with the rest of the group. "I was never one for staying in one place for long anyways..."

"Hold up." Smithe says. "We need to wait for- oh there they are." he finishes and looks over to Mike and Tim Haberton pushing a cart that contains the artificers equipment that Smithe wrote them to hold onto. Approaching the group Tim hands over a heavy bag of gold coins and Erklos' wand that the group had found earlier. "Here's your share. We didn't sell the wand because he figured you must have just forgotten it was in there with the rest of the stuff. You guys should really pay more attention to you stuff though. Every little advantage you can get a hold of can be the difference between life and death out there." Tim says. Mike then says, "So what do we do with this?" looking at the cart. Smithe shrugs and looks at the party, "Uh.... consider the cart a gift. If you need me... well, I'm sure Ebni Su will always be able to tell you where to find me." Mike and Tim look relieved they wont have to push the cart and its rather heavy load around anymore and the three of the walk off.

---

So as an update/reminder:

Party Gold:

Additionally with Toku no longer a PC, the Ring of Fortitude is up for grabs. He is however keeping his raptor. The spare one I assume goes to Masaru.

Ring of Fortitude:

You don't know what the wand does because nobody ever identified it.

"Thank you Smithe-San!" Cyrta calls out to them before checking out the wand.

roll:

Masaru steps next to Cytra, examining the wand himself, trying to see if he recognized any of the energies surrounding it.

Roll:

Tethe walks over, accepting the bag and wand and holding the magical instrument out as Cyrta and Masaru examine it. "Stay safe!" Tethe calls as the three walk away, putting away her pay for the trip as she does.

Maihime blinks walking over to examine the wand herself, her arms folded in her sleeves in front of her as she does.

Arcana Check:

With Masaru's help, he and Cyrta get mildly tazed and Masaru's familiar somehow winds up being dismissed. (This will last for about an hour.)

Maihime looks it over briefly and discovers the following:

Erklos' Wand:

"BzZzZaAAAUGH!" Masaru exclaims, twitching from the shock which shortly subsides. "OW! That really hurt! Wait... where's my familiar?!" He says in shock and confusion, looking all around.

"Oh! Not again!" Cyrta exclaims, losing some altitude due to the shock. She sighs in relief when she sees that the wand didn't explode.

"My my, what an interesting little tool." Maihime says with a soft chuckle as she picks up the wand and gives it a flick, levitating hundreds of small pebbles for a moment in a swirling aerial display for a moment before setting them down. "It strengthens a mage's telekinesis, or grants it to those who don't already know it. More importantly it seems to be intended to manipulate magical devices. A tool for controlling them remotely, if you will."

Masaru starts to calm down after realizing that it's extremely hard for spirits to die, but it's relatively easy to banish them for a while. "Ah, so it's a... floaty wand!" He exclaims. "That could be useful, but... I'm not touching it." He says, remembering the shock the nasty little thing. "Anyways, we have things to do don't we? I'm admittedly not really sure on what you were doing before this aside from guarding a caravan..."

"...If nobody minds, I think I'd like to hold on to this wand. Long distance magical activation and a boost to telekinetic abilities compliment me well," Skaimos said. "Although I must confess that I'm glad that I wasn't part of the identification process."

"But we also have another thing to discuss: what to do next. I think we might be able to hook up some of our raptors to the cart to bring it along with us. We might also use the map Ebni Su gave us to find one of the Empty Houses in the city (and have a better understanding of how they work). Of the monastaries we discussed yesterday, I think the White Lotus is the most...balanced of them all, so we might want to look there first."

"Your thoughts, everyone?"