The road to Gervasiel

As we play, occasionally we'll close a thread and open a new one to keep the size of threads (and relative complexity) down to a dull roar. Here's where we store the closed posts from the history of Errant Road.
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Graybeard
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The road to Gervasiel

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: OK, new topic open, picking right up where we left off...]

Sister Rose permitted herself a sigh of relief as she and Argus reached the inn with the coffin.

It wasn't so much a matter that the plan was coming off with no further hitches, although in fact that was the way things were working out; they'd been seen by a few people as they hauled the coffin, and the one who'd approached them had been given a not-entirely-false story consistent (or so she thought) with everything else that had happened. They couldn't ask for much better, in terms of the false trail for the elf. No, the sigh resulted from carrying the coffin itself. The damn thing was heavy. Between the work of getting it to the inn, and the fact that she'd tired herself out with more spellcasting during the day than she'd really wanted to do, Rose really needed a nap. Well, maybe there'd be an opportunity now.

Things with Lillith generally looked about as good as could possibly be hoped for. She was still breathing softly and almost imperceptibly, with not a trace of life about her unless you looked for it. Maduin's artwork had been wondrous; the girl simply looked dead. The Tsuirakuan looked pleased with himself, and he had a right to be. [OOC: Fish, if you want to backfill some details, feel free. /OOC:] Even Brad looked to be getting into the swing of things; his natural, open face was contorted in grief when she opened the door to the room, but relaxed immediately into a much more hopeful expression once he realized that his cousin was at the door, rather than a maid or someone else for whom he'd need to keep up the act.

"Brad, help me with the -- usual -- spell for smitings," she puffed; he was still a priest, after all, and even his very limited magical skill should suffice to cast the sound-damping spell so that nobody outside could hear, and take a little of the burden off Rose herself. He complied, and the air became greasy and silent in the room.

"I think we're ready to move on," she said, and recounted what had happened at the temple, Argus filling in blanks as needed. "If you don't mind, I'll leave it up to you to get her into the coffin. I need to take a quick nap to recover from the spellcasting that I've had to do. Can you wake me in an hour so we can get on the road and continue the show?"

Rose didn't wait for an answer, but went to her room. Yes, things were looking very good indeed. Lillith would be out for several more hours, but showed every sign of being able to come out of it in good shape. The three men were already setting to work to make her comfortable in the coffin -- remarkable thought, that.

But where was Drusia?
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Drusia
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Re: The road to Gervasiel

Post by Drusia »

"I think the others have the Lillith situation pretty well in hand," I tell Maudin.

I watch as he finished my various color alterations. Very nice. Different enough that no one is going to be able to recognize me easily, but pretty enough that I can still manipulate people. Nice. The man knows his trade, that's for sure.

"So," I ask, "Shall we head downstairs and see how the others are doing?"

-- Drusia
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Re: The road to Gervasiel

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: "Downstairs"? I'd envisioned all of the private rooms in this inn as on the second story, above the dining area, bar, etc., and the "art" being applied to Lillith would certainly be happening in one of the private rooms, rather than a public one -- but whatever...]

One very refreshing nap later, it was back to work.

Drusia's disguise was good enough that Sister Rose didn't recognize her at first when she came into the room, but she figured it out soon enough; there simply weren't that many women around who stood well over six feet tall. The height of this new, exotic-looking woman might cause some issues if they stayed here in Salticiel. The realization pushed Rose to a conclusion she'd been starting to reach anyway.

"I think we'd better move on from here," she said as soon as the group was back together. "Enough people have seen the act now to give credible eyewitness reports if the elf shows up, and we don't want them to see so much of it that they start to notice oddities -- oddities like having a very tall human woman around in place of the vanished elf. Besides, Argus and I still need to go to this Gervasiel town."

She pulled out a map that she'd got from the pleasant but bigoted greengrocer the previous day. [OOC: Should I actually make and post this map, or will a verbal description suffice? You folks' call; it'll take a day or two but I can do it if there's a consensus. /OOC:] "We can take either of two routes from here. The shortest is to go back to Cartish and head south, through farm country and some more small towns. I don't really incline to do that, though, for several reasons. Someone in Cartish might put too many pieces together, plus it sounds like the elf passes through there fairly often, and I'd prefer to avoid her as long as possible, to let the story get out and get embroidered." She knew from her days in the military that "eyewitness accounts" of things like what had happened in the tavern tended to grow in the telling; it would probably be in their interest to have that happen here.

"It's also probably a good idea to avoid that travel platform on the road back. Harker's experience makes me nervous about it. We may need to investigate it some other time, but not while we're working on our act. So I think I'd prefer the other route south. It follows the east side of the hills behind town, which rise into a full-blown mountain range as we go south, nothing so high as to be completely impenetrable, but we'll still have to go well south to find a pass we can cross. If I understand the map, there's not much between here and the pass, so we may have to spend a night on the road. I don't think that's a bad thing; we're equipped for it -- Maduin, we can find you some spare blankets -- and it probably would be good to have Lillith wake up in a place where no one outside our own party can see it happen.

"So what do you all think?"
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Re: The road to Gervasiel

Post by Porcelain Fish »

"I'd love to see the mountains," Maduin mused as he admired his handiwork.

He'd finally gotten an opportunity to give Lillith the mild exfoliant facial he'd been itching to scrub her cheeks with along with a moisturizing mask. Fingers and toenails had both gotten another bout of attention as well and he'd brushed her hair until it shone. The pale cosmetics did make her look dead, but at least she looked gracefully dead, almost as though she'd fallen asleep. He wasn't sure when he'd next get the opportunity, so he'd dolled her up with a little eyeshadow and mascara, and while he couldn't give her lips the rich rosy color they deserved, he did give them just the barest outline to help emphasize their roundness.

The rose was the crowning touch, threaded into her hair, darkly lovely beside her pale beauty, its subtle enchantment exerting its influence on whoever looked on her. There would be tears for sure. He absently adjusted the drape of the blue and white dress, thinking that it really would look so much more attractive if she were up and moving in it. It was really designed for movement. Still, it was the best of the lot.
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Drusia
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Re: The road to Gervasiel

Post by Drusia »

Graybeard wrote: OOC: "Downstairs"? I'd envisioned all of the private rooms in this inn as on the second story, above the dining area, bar, etc., and the "art" being applied to Lillith would certainly be happening in one of the private rooms, rather than a public one -- but whatever...
OOC: Drusia didn't know where you guys were, being limited to Maudin's private room. It's fine if she walks out into the hall and there everyone is. Last I remembere you guys hadn't gotten back yet (but then, I was doing catch up reading in haste, so I may have missed a detail). Carry on where ever.
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Drannin
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Re: The road to Gervasiel

Post by Drannin »

Argus nodded in agreement with Maduin. "I concur with your reasoning. Let's take the second route." He paused, and looked over at Lillith. "How long did Drusia say this stuff was going to last?"
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Re: The road to Gervasiel

Post by Graybeard »

"How long did Drusia say this stuff was going to last?"

"Several hours, if I understand her correctly," Sister Rose said as she unfolded the map. "We should probably look for Lillith to be out until some time tonight. If I'm right about her having lost weight on the trip, she may have got a slight overdose, so it'll probably be on the long side of what Drusia expects rather than the short side. That's probably for the best. She'll be well out of town when she comes to, which will reduce the chances of something awkward happening."

She stopped to smooth out the map, then continued. "It looks like there's not much between here and the pass, except this one little town off the main road a short distance." She pointed to a dot marked "Leonish." "From the size of the dot, it's a smaller town than this one. Hard to tell whether they'll have any services for travelers. We should probably be ready to camp, just in case."

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[OOC: Small digression and backstory here, to tee up some possibilities for the road:]

Meanwhile, a continent away, a wedding was being planned, sort of.

"I really don't have any family that we'll want to invite," Brother Miguel said, somewhat apologetically. "What few of them survive are still back in the old country and don't travel. I hope you don't mind if my side of the aisle is a bit, well, sparse." He smiled.

Sister Marilyn smiled back, kissed him quickly. "Not a problem. We'll just stick most of the crowd from the mission on your side. There probably won't be that many there from my side, either, other than Eva."

"Not even your mother and step-father?" Miguel said.

"Oh, they'll come if they can," Marilyn answered. "It's a long trip for them from the little town in Veracia where they live now, though."

"That's Leonish, right?" Miguel asked, and did not expect the decidedly unsettled, and unsettling, facial expression that his fiancee got in response to the question.

"Honey, we don't talk about Leonish, remember?" Marilyn said, an edge in her voice. "That isn't the town where mama, Lupo and Chaz live now. Rather, it's the one that I grew up in ... the one that the cultists wiped out just after mama, Eva and I left."

"Oh. I forgot. I'm sorry," Miguel said, abashed.

A smile, another kiss. "Not to worry. I'll get in touch with mama. But no, there's nobody left in Leonish that we'd want to invite ... and believe me, we're better off having nothing whatever to do with what's left of it." They moved on down the possible guest list, interspersing commentary with more kisses.
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Re: The road to Gervasiel

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: Where did everybody go? Did the digression cause a lock-up? To get things moving again:]

Sister Rose drove the wagon, fully loaded now, through town and south.

The townsfolk had glanced idly at the wagon and its burden, most without paying much attention to what was in it. If any were surprised that a coffin was being transported in an open state, despite being occupied, none of them had said anything about it. A few bowed their head and made the Sign of Luminosita as the wagon passed by; Rose replied with the Sign and a sad smile, and that was that. This was all for the best, Rose thought. There'd be plenty of "witnesses" now who could corroborate the more detailed stories told by the couple in the bar, the barmaid, Father Thaddeus.

Of course, there was still the Millenarian wild card, but one couldn't have everything.

Rose was feeling pretty good about things when another minor wild card appeared. Just beyond town there was an intersection of major roads that hadn't been on her map. No road signs were evident. Which way led toward this Leonish, and their destination of Gervasiel beyond it? She paused the wagon at the intersection -- Argus and Brad could use the break to check again on Lillith -- and flagged down a passing farmer.

"Excuse me," she called. "We have the sad duty of taking this poor burden home to her final resting place. Do you know which of these roads leads toward the pass to Gervasiel? There's a small town called Leonish on the way where we thought we might take refuge for the night."

Something unreadable flashed across the man's features. "Stone Man Pass? It be that way," he said, pointing to the right-hand fork in the road. "The road be a bit rough for the wagon you be drivin', but you should be makin' it if you're bein' careful. But I don't be knowin' about Leonish. Be that the town that used to be havin' the cultists -- Siggy-Rum or somethin' like that, they be called?"
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Drannin
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Re: The road to Gervasiel

Post by Drannin »

(OOC: Uh-oh)

Argus blinked. "Siggyrum? Never heard of a group like that." Of course, years ago, he'd heard of a particularly unusual group that sought visions by getting blitzed on dark sailor's rum... but given that his was a group of college kids, he didn't think they were particularly religious. And he doubted that there was any connection to some obscure Veracian religious sect.

What Argus also didn't notice was that Harker had cringed slightly upon hearing the name. Of course, Harker had been acting strange lately period, so it was sort of understandable.
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Re: The road to Gervasiel

Post by Graybeard »

Siggy-Rum? Sister Rose thought. Brother Miguel was the cults expert; he'd probably be able to make more sense of this improbable name than she would. However, he wasn't here, so she'd have to make do. He couldn't mean ... She put that possibility out of her mind and turned back to the farmer.

"I don't know," she said. "I've never been to the town before. But if it's a camp of people who do not follow Our Lord Luminosita --" she still had on her nun's robes -- "perhaps we should avoid it."

The man smiled. "Oh, I don't be thinkin' you'd be havin' a problem there, ma'am. The Siggy-Rum people ain't been there in many a year now. All that be livin' there now be an old couple who be runnin' a little place to stay. Otherways the place be most-like a ghost town, 'ceptin there ain't no such thing as ghosts, be there?"

Well, that was a relief; her smile wasn't just a matter of courtesy and reassurance. "No, there are no such things as ghosts." Although I'm not so sure about Lillith's "spirits" any more. "Thank you for that information. Perhaps we should check it out. And thanks for your directions as well." They moved on.
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