Zelphas

Why Not Longshot Insight

Torben Torben watched as the humans stepped in to calm things down, the tension in his shoulders slowly relaxing. He was about ready to be fully calmed down, or at least back to a much calmer place, when the angry gnome walked over to the armored human and punched him, twice, in the stomach. As the tension broke around them and the humans started laughing, Torben stayed quiet and very still. His eyes looked away from the group, down to his own hands, the splinters and bits of wood still caught in the claws. "Looks like we can stay," Torben commented to Ragz, very quietly, his voice a mixture of half-understood emotions held down by long training and will. Torben was glad of the food, when it came, but politely refused the wine; the calmer part of him apparently decided that he should keep his wits as sharp as possible, such as they were.

I'm going to chime in quick and say that I like this back-and-forth in the IC from an OOC perspective; Rillik is the first "on screen" presence to treat Torben like a bugbear first rather than a person, which I think is good for his character arc.

Torben's still caught in the fact that he was asked to join this group, refused at first, and then relented when D'Artegenon insisted, and now Rillik is throwing down an ultimatum: tell us your secrets, or reassure us that you aren't out to get us, or else... what? You can't travel with us? Torben already didn't want to travel with all of you; he's not sure how that can be used as a threat. Also, Torben all but said "I can't tell you because I gave my word", so directly saying those words feels confusingly redundant. I'm realizing that all of that is probably not useful to moving the scene forward at this moment, though, so I'm trying to whip up a post that softens that stance enough for Torben to at least nod. Sorry for the delay.

I did start writing it before I saw the post... but Torben's irritated enough that he'd say it after, too, so it's up to you.

Torben "You asked us to be here." Unintentionally punctuating his words with the heavy tear of splintering wood, Torben set down the two halves of the log he had been working on and turned to face the distrustful gnome more directly. "You invited us to join with you. You all insisted, when we warned you that we had danger following us. And now you're accusing us of bringing you into danger?" The fact that the dog was enchanted came as a surprise to Torben, but he hadn't asked Ragz to reveal anything. Torben's actions could be argued about all they liked, but Ragz was his friend. "You can't have it both ways. We didn't ask to join you; why would we be planning some sort of attack on you? "You talk about secrets like you've never had any. Is that true? I don't want to know your secrets. They're yours. If you want to tell me, fine. If it causes problems later, we'll deal with it then. I didn't ask Ragz for his secrets; they're his." Torben shook his head. "If traveling with you requires me to tell you my life story and accept your judgment on every bit of it, gnome, then I may as well start on my own way now. You've made it clear enough what you think of having a bugbear nearby anyways." Tired of all of this, Torben stacked the broken wood neatly by the fire, then moved over to his packs. "Up to you, Ragz; we both travel better by night anyways, if you want to go."

I'll take the outside bet on Nascent Godling.

Okay, before I forget, Downtimes: The Brothers Fable (Expertise (Survival) DC 15): Routine 30 x3 for a total of 12 Successes. And just for fun, I'll roll the last one: EDIT: That's 3 Successes, bringing the total to 15. Expertise (Survival) DC 15

So, bad news: Josef was far too anxious to have his phone on anything except on vibrate, and his Blessing means that he never noticed his phone vibrating; it was lost in the background pressures that now made up his physical sensations. Good news: Josef is already exiting the pharmacy, and Karl's shout draws the other boy's attention quickly enough. Josef hesitates on the edge of the square for several moments, wondering if he could avoid them, but the ever-present low buzz of the drone nearby finally convinces him that he should play his part. "Find something interesting?" Josef asks the group by way of introduction, walking up behind them and scanning the bulletin board. He finds the notice quickly enough, and only the intensified buzzing of multiple drones allows him to keep his expression blank. Josef knows his duties, as a Knight, he knows that there's more to it than just facing off against Demons, but... the fact that their first real action as Novices is likely to be against humans is not something he was hoping for. "...I'll pick up more medical supplies," He comments finally, glad to hear that his voice is fairly even. Going by the last month of travel, Josef knows that he'll probably end up looking dour on the final cut, but a few comments and actions can shift "dour" to "responsible" if he works at it. Besides, getting medical supplies for a possible fight is simply a good idea.

Josef blinked in surprise, honestly astonished to be supported in his vote. The fact that Karl, of all people, agreed with him was perhaps the biggest shock. --- Josef blamed Heather and Remy in roughly equal amounts for how he acted during their month-long trek through the wilderness. Even he realized this was unfair, but he clung to that unspoken belief stubbornly. Heather started it, with her irrepressible ability to fill every moment with something to do--and her need to bring others into it! She never pushed, not aloud, but Josef knew she wouldn't leave it alone until everyone had taken part in a song, or a story, or some sort of game on their trip. The ever-present drone wore on Josef's mind; the last thing he wanted to do was have his life broadcast to the world, but since that was a foregone conclusion he wanted as little as possible. He made a show, each night, of testing and stretching the limits of his powers; they were flashy, at least, so he could put on a performance for the cameras. But as the days went by, he found himself appreciating the boredom; boredom meant that this part of the trip would be passed over, when the time came to broadcast everything. But Heather wouldn't be satisfied with that, and Josef's attempts to find something to satisfy his friend's desire to include everyone led him to what Remy was already doing--describing bits of the wilderness they passed through, their uses and benefits. He thought he had picked something simple when the pauses finally grew unbearable, describing a bit of creeping knightshield ivy on a nearby tree, so named for its leaves shaped like tiny kite shields--but then he had looked closer, and realized that the shields had slightly more rounding and a fine sawtooth edge, meaning that this was a strain of the somewhat rarer dragonscale ivy, and while both had benefits as a mild anesthetic the dragonscale variant was also a mild stimulant; in fact, dragonscale ivy's rarity was due to overuse, the euphoria from the rarer plant inducing occasional feelings of invincibility and recklessness among those who ingested it, meaning that it had actually been outlawed a century or so prior in several places and only recently was that relaxed-- Before he knew it, Josef had talked for half an hour about the different types of ivy and creeping vines in the area, almost certainly wasting everyone's time. That night, just before sleep took him, he swore that he wouldn't let it happen again. Then three days later, he noticed that a scattering of wildflowers were in an unusual formation, suggesting that something had been buried nearby and disrupted their growth. He swore again to go back to his grim silence. But two days after that, they passed through a copse of large evergreens, and the carpet of needles was slightly less dense than he expected-- All in all, by the time the group reaches Merryweather, Josef is thoroughly disgusted with himself for the full dozen times he ran off after a half-glimpsed leaf on their trek or prattled on for long, long minutes about this or that bit of flora. --- "Agreed on the White Buck, but probably not the exploring. I'm going to need to restock," Josef comments with a grimace, holding up his right arm and hand for emphasis. Underneath several clean white bandages are a welter of long, straight cuts, souvenirs from a blackberry bush that Josef had heedlessly pushed through in his effort to confirm that several berries in the center had ripened out of season, a fun little quirk that probably wasn't worth using most of the use of his arm for the last two days. The poor bush hadn't survived the blowback from his powers, and in fact Josef had spent a fair amount of time both putting out fires and bandaging himself up. At least his Blessing let him heal quick, but he had still run through a lot of bandages over the last month, and he was close to running out. After checking in, Josef goes looking for the nearest pharmacy. He tried to be quick--get in, get bandages and a few healing supplies, get out--but the owner is apparently something of a herbalist, and her offhand comment about the plants that grew nearby quickly turns into an animated discussion about what she grows in her garden and the little tweaks and tricks she's found that don't show up in the printed books on medicine...

Fen stares back at her brothers, looking just as flabbergasted as they seemed to feel after reading her notes. She doesn't react to their speaking for too long, simply staring, and starting to shake again. Finally, she looks down, grabbing the pencil and a large piece of paper. The silence stretches as she scribbles something in large letters. Throwing down the pencil, Fen holds up the paper in shaking hands, hiding her face. I killed you. I killed all of you for eight years. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

Unfortunately, he was literally instructed by an authority figure that his life has trained him to respect to not let anyone know about why he's going on this quest or who he's bringing the tentacle back to. He's been given several reasons not to trust this person, but at this point in his relationship to the group he's going to stick to his "I can't tell you more than that" stance.

Eleanora picked up the Blightrock Apple delicately with two fingers, using a blue panel from her robe to clean off the... excess on it. "Ah... hm. Sorry 'bout that," she says apologetically, looking at the distressed Ramenooze. "It was slightly more poisonous than I thought, I guess..." --- Santokumaru seems to have been dealing with the negotiations fairly well so far. Eleanora claps her hands once, her million-watt grin once more flashing across her face. "Well, it seems'ta me that we need ta have a talk with this Munchking a'yores," she declares cheerily. "I'm sure we c'n negotiate summa those apples away from him, if we try our darndest!" OOC Officially moving the Blightrock Apple to Eleanora's inventory, if that's all right.

Torben's max carry weight before becoming encumbered is 540 lbs. He has no more than a vague intellectual understanding of what 'heavy' means.

Torben Torben's head hunched lower and lower into his shoulders as the trickle of questions turn into a rushing flood. What part of 'I can't tell you more than that' do these people not understand? He knew that this doesn't make sense, that something felt wrong about it. But something felt wrong about just about everything in his life since he left the monastery, and no one seemed to have a problem with that except him. Why did they have to pick away at this point? They invited him to travel with them, and now they wanted to question his quest? The irritation and frustration boiled over. Before he could stop himself, Torben turned and hurled the log in his hands as hard as he could into the woods. The air split with an audible shriek as the chunk of wood soared away until it struck the trunk of a tree, where it shattered with an enormous boom. Instantly, Torben felt ashamed. "I'm sorry." It was an automatic response, trained from years of being scolded for his "lack of control" while growing up in the monastery, but it was no less true for its automatic nature. The deep gnome gave him an excuse to turn away, and he went back to work breaking up the logs, moving much more slowly and carefully than before. "I'm fine," he responded shortly to the gnome's offer of help. After a long beat, he added, more quietly, "...Thanks."