Clovius and beyond

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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Drusia
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Drusia »

I bow my head to Yona and Enoch as I enter the room.

I make the blessing sign that Rose showed me. "Let me see the problem," I say softly.

I take a few minutes to look Enoch over and get some information from the pair of them. It doesn't take long.

"I'm sorry," I say to both of them, "Enoch was born this way. Any change made to his body will just revert, painfully." I think for a moment. What more could I say? "... perhaps Lord Luminosa himself could help you, but it is beyond any mortal healer. I'm so sorry; I wish I had better news."

There. Bad news delivered.

-- Desiree

OOC: I wasn't entirely clear on what Enoch's problem was other than it was an Errant style birth defect. Also, I wasn't sure if anyone else was heading up.
And yeah, Desiree kept the nun outfit on. Therese put a lot of effort into disguising her and Rose wanted her to remain so - Tim's annoyance just isn't enough to combat that.
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Graybeard
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Graybeard »

"I'm afraid I agree," Therese chimed in gently; she knew enough of Santuariel to recognize a congenital half-elven defect when she saw one. "There is nothing we can do for you."

Yona simply shrugged his shoulders, an unsettling motion given the way the ruined shoulder behaved, and nodded his head. "We expected as much," Enoch spoke aloud. "Thank you, Your Holinesses, for your effort. Lum'nosita's Peace be with you." He returned Desiree's hand gesture, and the two Clovians left.

Meanwhile, Sister Rose was getting some bad news of her own, of a very different nature.
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Alberich
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Alberich »

"Well, we tried," said Tim, and he escorted the two out. Once they were alone, he added a partial truth of his own.

"Brother Enoch and brother Yona," he said, "the young ladies who looked at you are powerful mages and very great healers. But our assignment is such that most of my companions should not be drawing attention to themselves. Meaning, it's better if you don't even talk about who you saw or what they did until after my companions are gone, and don't bring any of the faithful back here where they might meet up with them. I'm going to come back to meet up with Tovah and some others of the brethren, this very evening, and tell you whether I'll be allowed to stay. So there's no need to send anyone here."

Thanks to what he saw as Rose's thoughtless stupidity, Tim could not guarantee that the Faithful would not be flocking here, to embarrass the church further with tributes to this fake "sister." But at least he could improve the odds of keeping that to a minimum.

He talked a little more in a friendly way with these two lay brothers, praising their steadfast faith and promising again to come and see them this evening.

He still had some hope he'd be able to talk Rose out of embarrassing the Church and bringing wrath down on the Faithful community by taking a whore dressed as a nun anywhere near the defiled temple. Better still if he could talk her out of going there at all even without Desiree. Indulging Desiree's desire to play dress-up (or Rose's curiosity, or maybe even her desire to offend Orthodox sensibilities) didn't rate a feather's weight compared to the peace and safety of the Faithful in Clovius.
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Graybeard »

Yona simply gave another lopsided shrug at Tim's words, but Enoch's eyes grew wide. It didn't take mind-reading skills that no one present had, nor even Sister Rose's Empathy magic, to guess what was going on in his mind. A secret mission! How exciting! Nothing like that ever happens here... "I won't say a word," he breathed. After being chatted up by Tim, the pair of Clovians left.

Meanwhile, Rose was returning to the group, her normally gentle face now turned into a thundercloud. "Trouble?" Argus asked, somewhat unnecessarily.

"We're being swept under the carpet," Rose answered tightly.
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Alberich
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Alberich »

Tim returned to the group, just in time for Rose's explanation of what she meant by that.
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"Hey Rosie!" Came the distant call of a rapidly approaching humanoid shape. The kobold's rapid run screeched to a halt in a shower of earth and an enthusiastic babble. "Some nice elder-ladies with bacon said they've got some sheepyskins for you! Be warm for us when we're... we're... umm... you ok?"

Tamina's sales pitch trailed off as she saw the angry expression on the nun's face.
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Graybeard »

"We're to prepare a report on what happened leading up to Amalric's death," Sister Rose answered tightly. "All of it. The things we saw with Egbert, Wilbur Hamael and his death word, the run-in with the Gorielites, what happened to Father Blaise, everything about the Convergence, Amalric in Rinkaiel, what little we know about what happened to Brother Dalton, you name it. And then it'll get sent to the Heretic Knowledge Vault ... and nobody will ever see it again." She snorted. "At least they didn't insist on memory wipes for all of us, although they would have if they could."

She did not describe the things that were NOT to appear in that final report -- anything about the weird, almost insurrection-like behavior of the Millenarians, the Faithful Dead, the followup to the deaths surrounding the Artifact of Absonial, the rather obvious evidence of corruption in certain churchly places. In a nutshell, they were specifically not to write about anything inconsistent with the fiction that Luminosita had been out there protecting His own. She could already see the legend being written: Luminosita's Holy Power, channeled through the self-sacrifice of His valiant priest Father Amalric, smote the infidels -- and the details, notably the fact that it all came about because a renegade, magically powerful priest sought revenge for the killing of a daughter it was inconvenient for him to have (she'd decided she was not going to include the long letter from Amalric in her report, exactly as he had requested), would be classified and forgotten. Also forgotten would be that there might still be Exitialis worshipers out there, which the church would find -- inconvenient since it would involve acknowledging that there was something to the elves' religion after all.

Well, just because we can't write about it doesn't mean that I'm not going to remember it, nor that I'm not going to do anything about it on my own.

Maybe.


She sighed. "So let's go take a look at what has befallen this temple in town, from a safe distance. That's not our problem any more, if it ever was, but they do want an assessment of what Tim is up against if his request to take the call here is approved." On which subject I no longer particularly give a rat's ass...
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Alberich
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Alberich »

"If they really want that, if they really asked for that, they should have it," said Tim, though he privately suspected this was Rose indulging her private whims again. It was too convenient that Emerylon had written back to endorse Rose's (dumb) idea of visiting the defiled temple.

"But there is no 'safe distance' if we're in our vestments. Think about this.

"The local community admits to me that it's been made into a gambling hall. But they are so horrified at what's been done to it that they don't want to tell me any more. That means the local heathen have done more than change the use of the building. Since it's too horrifying for anyone to just tell us, let's speculate a little:

"Imagine you're a heathen. Imagine you're a hateful one, who wants to cause pain to the Faithful. Repurposing their church isn't enough. You want to rub their faces in it. So what do you do? You rub their faces in it. You leave the stained glass in place, or replace it with obscene parodies. The same with the hangings. You leave the altar in place and you play games on it. You serve whiskey in the sacred chalice. And you dress your immoral staff in Church vestments.

"If people who are obviously priests and nuns show up at a place like that, one of two things can happen. They can try to make us suffer some more, if that's their attitude there. And remember - whatever you may think about 'strength in numbers,' if you do something to annoy the heathen majority -- it's the Faithful who will suffer for it after you're gone. Or they can assume we're part of the joke, and then it's much harder to keep a safe distance, or any distance.

"So the more subtle the better. The simple way is simply to appear to be a curious foreign traveler who is not of the Faithful, see what you need to see, and get out! With your disguise abilities, that would be easy. No embarrassment for you, none for the Church or the local community, nice and simple."

Part of Tim despaired at trying to use reason on Rose. She seemed more than a little eager to make trouble that other people would suffer for. Maybe she thought that flaunting a whore in nun's dress would somehow make her own sins seem less. But he had to try.
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Drusia
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Drusia »

I keep quiet. I know better than to stick my nose into their church business. Descecrated shrines and hidden reports... none of it has anything to do with me.

Although, honestly, if Tim wants someone to go check out this shrine, me out of my Nun disguise would make a good option. I'm fairly at home in pleasant social locations, which is what it sounds like this is. I might need a body guard - Therese would work for that. And I'd need a different disguise - something to change my apparent hair color at the very least. I wonder how many disguises Therese could create for me....

-- Desiree

OOC: ... ahem. Hint hint. **waves**
Unless there are further plans for it (and, if so, perhaps those plans could begin moving forward?), I think the nun outfit may have run its course. Desiree is honestly too scared to talk at all while wearing it. Makes it a tad hard to RP.
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Re: Clovius and beyond

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: Do keep in mind that it's Therese who went for the nun disguise, not Rose, although Rose would certainly have approved it (with uproarious laughter) when Therese asked for help. Anyway, your message is heard, and by Therese as well, so... I'm assuming, btw, that this is now going on back in the travelers' rooms; much of this conversation wouldn't be had in a more "public" place.]

While Sister Rose was listening more or less patiently to Tim's oration, Desiree's discomfort was sinking in on Therese. A disguise, she realized, could only work as well as the acting skills of the disguised person allowed it to, which in turn required that it be within that person's comfort zone, and she'd misjudged Desiree's comfort zone severely. There were lots of reasons why she felt bad about that error of judgment.

"I'm sorry," she said to Desiree. "I don't think this disguise is going to work. Let's try something else." She reached into her traveling pack and rummaged around the kit that she used to help refugees from Goriel, finding a bag of powder. "This will darken your hair temporarily," she continued, "and we can work from there on something that will give you more of a 'local' look." She reached to remove Desiree's veil so that she could apply the powder, well aware that in different circumstances, this gesture might have ... other ... implications.

Rose, for her part, heard Tim out with a growing awareness of the irony of the situation. To think that I'm the one here who's defending the institutional side of the church, while he's the one trying to think out of the box -- even if his imagination is getting the best of him. "Don't worry," she said, "we're not going to just barge in on that operation. Reconnaissance is best conducted cautiously, if possible." She shook her head, remembering Albigenish. "Believe me, I've been there."

[OOC: Did Rose ever give the impression the trip to look at the temple resulted from the classified parrot? It didn't, and she had an interest in the temple before the bird ever showed up, an interest that would have intensified when she heard Tim's description of what Tovah Dragonslayer thought of the place.]
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