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The Case of the Missing Pamphlets

Scene details

  • Start date: Oct. 15, 2021, noon
  • End date: Oct. 15, 2021, 6 p.m.
  • Location: Granse - Fishing Village
  • Participants: Ivo Galvan, Faru, Fabroxo, Anna

Setting: Stop me if you're heard this one: a templar, a princess, and a dilettante walk into a graveyard...

Log

At night, the colors of this seaside village wash out into grays, and what is charming in the day may become eerie and forbidding. The mysterious totems placed upon the doorstep of each humble domicile rattle in the salty breeze. Two crab pots, dangling from the low stone bridge that crosses the river leading into the bay, clank against each other, their ropes creaking. A dog barks from within some house, the sound muffled. The streets are deserted.

"Well, it was lovely at sunset."

Ivo murmurs this to his companions, pulling his cloak closer about him for warmth as he saunters through the small town toward its outskirts.

"This village was my first sight of Granse," he continues, "when Reize and Priel and I first arrived on the Romancing SaGa." He somehow is able to say the name of their magitech ship without even cracking a smile. Maybe by this point he's forgotten it was supposed to be funny. "I wanted to spend more time here and better understand their way of life... but I suppose we have a job to do."

News has made its way to the Vanguard Association in Zerhem of a supposed haunting at the sailors' graveyard. Some of those braving the dangerous waters between here and Castia meet a grim fate, and those salvaged from the waters end up buried here. Needless to say, there are no residents out and about with whom Ivo can strike up a casual conversation at this hour, under these circumstances.

Feeling a touch melancholy despite his curiosity about the mysterious and creepy noises and activity reported here, he rouses himself to a slight smile to his friends and tilts his head toward the graveyard entrance. Time to set such thoughts aside and steel himself.

"Shall we, friends?"

Whatever is afoot, it's sure to be a serious matter.

  • Character: Faru
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

Faruja has his spear in his grip, the beastkin neatly armored for this particular mission that really, /really/ sits directly up in his speciality. He's no crazed purifier, but the ratkin can call down holiness better than most full /priests/ of his Order can through sheer zealotry. He does give Ivo a look, empathy writ all over his face.

"There shall be time enough for such, /after/ the safety of their hearth, homes, and not having to deal with the walking dead is assured by our hands. Be /strong/, Ser Galvan. The Holy Father believes in you, as do I!" Reassures the ratling in religious fashion, before he moves to stand beside the man, spear already radiating holy light, and very gently pushing the gate open. Seems the templar wants to take point today!

  • Character: Anna
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

"Oh."

That would be a princess of Suryle following shortly after Ivo and Faruja.

Anna Primrose really does not look like the adventuring type, in her frilly dress, but at least now she has a proper backpack, boots, and has her axe slung on her shoulders.

A haunting, huh. Well it's a good thing they brought a paladin along. But Anna still feels a little out of place as she follows after the two.

"... The Romancing SaGa?"

Pause.

"... W-wait walking dead? That's an actual thing?"

Poor sheltered girl.

  • Character: Fabroxo
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

SOME TIME AGO, IN A SHADY BACKROOM

"What do you MEAN you're out of stock again?" A hooded man gesticulates wildly as he speaks, his tempo seeming to shift with no rhyme or reason.

"As I told you after our initial agreement, I require vast amounts of raw material for my research, and you repeatedly assured me that, AND I QUOTE, 'Youse is gonna be drownin' in rats.' Now, I assumed that was only partially metaphorical, and working from that as a basis did formulate a basic outline of my research schedule for the foreseeable future and I tell you I'm going to have to scrap the entire thing and start from scratch! Now, perhaps you lack the perspective to understand the CONSTANT URGENCY that compels me in virtually all matters, but I find myself with adequate time to inform you in this, this most vital of human endeavors, regarding..."

A capybara in a pinstripe suit, sitting across from the hooded man, lets out an audible sigh and takes a bite out of a whole, raw pumpkin like some kind of giant apple.

NOW, IN THIS FISH-STINKING BURIAL GROUND

There's the steady scraping of metal against soil. Low moans, surely that of a spirit bound to this mortal realm, experiencing an infinity of untold agony in every moment. An otherworldly haze hangs across the graves, seeming to be illuminated by an ethereal green glow. Faint, murmered speech emanates from within, barely audible.

"Can't...this...failed...KILL...course..."

Ivo's smile turns a little lopsided, the young man gratified if a little embarrassed at Faruja's hearty encouragement. "Well said, Ser Senra," he replies, taking a deep breath before nodding firmly. "These gloomy environs are no match for our blazing resolve!" A hint of amusement is visible in the Cosmopolitan dilettante's eyes, but he does seem sincerely cheered up. And his smile only widens at Anna's questions.

"Oh, yes," Ivo says to Anna a little too casually as he follows behind Faruja, the brave paladin leading the way. "The leading theory holds that souls gravitate to the elemental composition of, shall we say, habitable bodies, especially when many are gathered in one place. The same principle operative in creating homunculi like the Star-Crowned, in that case using artificial bodies, may accidentally -- or intentionally -- give rise to the undead. Take care that your body is not too... habitable, hm?" He always seems to like explaining things to her, only to end with some vague comment like that while giving her a sidelong glance and barely suppressing a grin. "We wouldn't want our mightiest warrior possessed."

He turns that not-quite-a-grin to Faruja.

"Would we, my newly-promoted Princess Knight friend?"

When was Faruja promoted to Princess Knight? Does that mean a knight serving a princess, a knight who is also a princess, or both? Why would a knight serving a princess be less mighty a warrior than the princess?

"Don't worry, Anna. It's probably just some-- uh oh."

These questions and more will not be answered as Ivo stops short and issues what is always an adventure's most promising utterance. The young man stares blankly toward the haze over the graves, expression flat.

"Maybe the voice was saying... sKILL," he suggests helpfully. "As in, 'Ivo, your exposition is so sKILLfully delivered.'" He glances between his friends. "There's no need to jump to conclusions."

Right?

  • Character: Faru
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

Faruja does a good job of wiggling his ears to the frilly princess, and in his most confident voice, pipes up at her confusion. "Quite so! Remind me to give you a sermon upon the sins that lead to becoming a wandering spirit! I know at least two hundred thirty seven such sermons on the evils that lead one off of the path towards various undeadhoods! ...Also more practically, a few prayers to ward off such things." What a helpful rodent!

He does begrudgingly allow Ivo the far less religious explaination though without more than a muttered 'going to bop your ears, heath-vo!' before he's suddenly getting a promotion.

"W...wait, that title raises several pertinent questions my frie..."

That voice kinda has him stopping this weird argument though. Slooow frown, and he glows with /even more holy light/. "I shall find out /exactly/ what the problem is!"

Sorry Ivo, Faruja is off to Jump in order to /get/ conclusions, like a holy missile into the sky in order to scout the undead ahead!

"Fear the wrath of the Holy Father, you skele-tons of lost souls! May you be cleansed!" That is less 'scouting' and more 'drawing aggro'.

  • Character: Anna
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

Anna pales.

Anna pales considerably.

Why is Ivo smiling?

The undead, if they are as real as he claims and explains to her, should be taken with an extreme amount of seriousness.

For a moment the princess just stares; especially so when he says to take care as to not be too habitable a vessel.

Blanched like a sheet, the princess' steps grow heavy and sluggish.

Prayers and sermons though. Right, those might help.

Would they though?

It's while Faruja calls out to pull attention to himself that Anna mutters under her breath.

"I'm very mad... I'm very mad... I'm very mad..."

She doesn't sound too convinced of this herself though as she repeats this mantra in a litany of false fury to try and steel her nerves as she clutches her axe tightly to her chest.

  • Character: Fabroxo
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

"Think...QUALIFIED MURDER...parts...see...MAD...but the blood, the BLOOD, is no issue! Despite the fundamental problematic aspect of efficiency, production is..." The voice becomes less and less faint to Faruja in particular as the knight propels himself forward into the air, granting him a view of this shadowy monologuer in the night fog, apparantly the source of the green glow. A spirit, perhaps? A wight, a zombie, a lich? Covered by a thick cowl, his true nature remains uncertain.

The nature of the implement in his hand, however, is obvious: a shovel, which he is energetically jamming into a small unmarked sailor's grave, over and over, while continuing his unusual monologue. A nonsensical reflection of this monster's obsessions in life, perhaps? Gibbering tragically divorced from meaning, certainly.

Ivo looks up as Faruja heroically leaps skyward, sure to pull any mobs in the vicinity, then glances back at the fearful princess. Uh oh, again. The Cosmopolitan may have gone a little too far with his teasing. He tries to think of something encouraging to say with Faruja otherwise occupied.

"Listen, the undead is mad too," he says, doing his best to make out the words echoing from the fog. "So you have something in common. That's nice."

Ivo's hand settles upon the hilt of his sword, unintentionally indicating just how confident he is in his own words. But he quirks a brow as it seems that Faruja's resounding challenge, which surely should have affected any lost souls present, doesn't seem to have summoned any such challengers. Banter aside, that is a little odd.

Now he really is curious.

Hesitating a moment more before shrugging heroically(?), Ivo strolls through the fog toward the edge of the grave, looking down at the rambling cowled figure.

"It's a rather late hour for efficiency, don't you think?" he asks by way of greeting. "What're you, ah, producing in a... fishing village's graveyard?" Joking aside, he assumes this is some zombie reenacting some yearning to which it has clung, but-- who knows? Maybe there's a fun side quest only accessible if you don't turn it right away.

Not that he could, or would, stop Faruja from doing so.

  • Character: Faru
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

It /really/ is like a falling vaguely rat-shaped missile that is also on holy fire. As Ivo and the Princess try to either Anger at, or try a bit of Undead Diplomacy on the strange graverobbing undead.../thing/. What exactly is that!? Faruja isn't quite sure, but he does know his duty.

Apparently a big part of his Order's undead turning abilities appears to involve judicious applications of violence by the blunt end of a spear's haft. Blazing with holy might, he falls, and then basically just starts whapping at the grave-digging 'zombie'??? 's shoulder and ribs a few times as he injects a bit of anti-undead prayers in there!

"By the Holy Father, I, Templar Senra, do beseech ye undead! Turn thy bones to dust, thy hatreds to silence, and thy disquiet to peace! Now!"

BAP.

"Cease!" BAP!

"MOVING!" BAPBAPBAP!

  • Character: Anna
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

Having common ground with the walking dead is not something Anna wants right this second! So the supposed undead being upset as well only causes the princess to repeat her litany all the faster. So when they do come across the Mysterious Cowled Figure, and the mighty Paladin tries to Turn Undead quite violently... Anna just...

Nope.

Nope nope nope.

She's not having it. Taking a pace back, the princess, now white as a ghost, grips her axe with trembling hands and...

"--I think I left the campfire on-- BYE."

She bails.

She just bails. Tucking tail, turning, and running, the Suryle Princess scoots clean off.

... Deeper into the graveyard.

She may or may not return to camp later that night, caked in unpleasantness from head to toe if she has her own adventure involving any actual undead as a result. Which she may! Who knows with graveyards like these?

  • Character: Fabroxo
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

It is only after Faruja lands that the hooded shoveler seems to recognize that anything around him is happening at all. "...Huh? Cleansed? Why would anyone bother here, it's not going to smell anyyeeEEEEEEEEE--" The man swings his shovel around wildly as he backpedals away, tripping over nothing and windmilling about in a fantastic, stumbling circle. Small bits of jangly metal, shiny and otherwise, go careening off every which way every time Faruja strikes him through what is, to the trained eye, a laughably poor defense.

"Ow! Ow ow ow! Stop it, stop it, stop BESEECHING ME, I am--this is--!" The hood falls in the commotion, revealing a dirt-caked man who is very clearly trying very hard to focus on two things and failing to do a good job at both. "What are YOU two, no, ow, what, no, you, doing here?"

Hopefully he can be forgiven for the faulty headcount.

Ivo watches, expression utterly deadpan, as the hooded man flails and screams before him beneath Faruja's punishing blows and, promptly, Anna flees past him, radiating big flailing and screaming energy if not literally doing either. Evincing no particular alarm, he shifts his gaze to watch Anna go before looking back to Faruja, who may be realizing by this point that anti-undead techniques aren't having their usual effect.

"Well," he finally says, "I think we can all agree that none of this is my fault." In the distance, Anna's slight figure can be seen disappearing into the mists. "It is, however, *his* fault." Without a trace of shame, he points at the previously hooded man. "We're here to investigate a complaint about recent disturbances in this graveyard." Even in the midst of passing the buck, he doesn't miss a chance to offer an explanation. "And here you are, disturbing the graveyard."

He pauses.

"So, uh."

He feels like he should have something for this.

"Why, uh, why are you doing that?"

The sound of Anna's footsteps have faded into the distance.

"...She'll be alright," Ivo adds to no one in particular.

She really will be, though.

  • Character: Faru
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

Really, the beastkin has the expression that combines both sheer zealot as well as military-trained jackbooted thuggery that the more faithful of Aijanu's mortal servants tend to display when really getting into a sheer fury of BAP-y rapture. It may as well be a happy night in church as he does a pure violence upon the coweled figure.

The fact that Anna has fled, the fact that there's not the usual hissing or return-ravaging of his own armor and flesh, well that's just /details/ man. He's a few holy signs short of giving a blood knight laugh, when he realizes there's metal cutting a small line across his cheek that clues him in on the fact that this isn't some kind of undead.

Oh. His last bap pauses. He steps back once. Twice. Sighs. And then applies that last holy thwomp directly to his own forehead. BAP.

Then he's just kind of wobbly on his own feet thanks to this self-inflicted form of punishment. "I.." His diplomacy training is failing. Mostly due to said concussion.

"Sorry. Pray forgive! I thought you were the local unquiet spirits attempting to defile this graveyard!" He offers, full of emotion, and swiftly is at parade ground rest! Wobble.

Scowl. "....Why the void-frak are you defiling a graveyard?" Voice menacing, he glows less, but also isn't being any less zealous as he realizes this could be a simple case of grave robbery.

  • Character: Fabroxo
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

"What!? Simple logic reveals your atrocious attempt at deception!" Finally free of Faruja's assault, this filthy technically-a-grave-digger whips his head back and forth between his physical and verbal assailants. This does not seem to impact his ability to talk at all, save for a slight but fun doppler effect. "It's obvious that the first person who absolves themself of responsibility for a given situation is almost guaranteed to be the instigator, the mastermind! The mastermind behind one of countless variations of nasty plot that uniformly target innocent, hard-working, brilliant, tragically-heroic-in-the-face-of-constant-adversity people like myself! Just minding my own business, here, here in...the graveyard."

As the questions converge, the man trails off a bit, ceasing his constant motion to close his eyes and furrow his brow. "I'll have you know...I was...hmmmm." He lets rest for a moment, throwing his shovel over his shoulder as he concentrates. Then, with a cry of "SERENDIPITY," he comes alive again, eyes bright with inspiration and triumph.

"I don't have to tell you anything unless you're constables!" His expression is disgustingly smug. "And if you ARE constables, you HAVE to tell me. That's the law!"

Oh, no, he's onto Ivo. The Cosmopolitan keeps his expression carefully still, first out of an attempt to convey innocence, but soon to suppress laughter. Lips pursed after the gravedigger's dramatic cry, he turns to Faruja.

"He's got us there," Ivo says. "The man's a genius." He looks back to the dirt-smudged fellow. "It's a shame. Here I was hoping he'd tell us all about his grand goals. But it seems he's not willing to share his brilliance with us unworthy souls. Well, who can blame him?"

He sighs and spreads his hands before turning away.

"Shall we go, Faruja? If there are undead here, they would've been summoned by your leap, I'm sure, so I expect she's fine, but... we are knights, after all."

One real knight and one knight by technicality.

"I suppose we'll never know of this fellow's heroic struggle..."

Somewhere, in a far corner of the graveyard, the zombies stirred by the distant sight of Faruja's leap are being hacked to pieces by a frenzied princess, thereby incidentally completing their actual quest objective.

  • Character: Faru
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

Faruja is pretty much in full self-deprication mode as the strange hooded figure is both not-dead and tossing justifications. Again and again. The rat's attempts to speak words of polite contrition are drowned out repeatedly until finally...well, he stops feeling quite so bad. There's an increasing amount of annoyed eyebrow twitch, then Ivo speaks, and his /ears/ are twitching increasingly.

"How UTTERLY shameful that we shall be bested by this OBVIOUS villain's plot!" Sarcasm somehow manages to ooze just enough Templar'ly contempt that it doesn't break any kind of political or religious mores as he vents that at the cowardly metal-gravedigging-thing that Ivo nicely casts aspersions on. Turning around, he makes to leave, teeth audibly grinding. He's a beastkin, so that is a lot of freaking sharp teeth. Thankfully his rodent-kin version act a bit like sharks, so he literally breaks one in zealous rage. Plap. Replacement down. And then he chomps meancingly at Fabroxo!

"Constaples are NITS!" He complains loudly, remembering that one time he was hucked into a cell for a little /too/ much celebratory holy day wine, and stalks off in search of his most recent non-familial-blood niece that also happens to be a princess-zerker!

"And stop graverobbing you twit, nothing good shall come of it!" What holy words, rat!

  • Character: Fabroxo
  • 1 year, 9 months ago

"FOOLS! You think I can't see beyond your obvious, petty flattery?" Despite his words, the man is clearly pleased, appearing to SOMEHOW even interpret the ratman's sarcasm as genuine compliment, grinning and standing ever so slightly taller. "You think to continue your base deceptions, never realizing that I've out-thought you at every turn! Too ignorant to know how completely defeated you already are! BUT DESPAIR NOT! I have..."

Reaching under his cloak with a jangle, he produces, with a flourish...!

Absolutely nothing.

"...huh." He reaches in repeatedly, jingling and jangling, but not seeming to find what he's looking for. "Did I...maybe in the..." He mumbles to himself as he considers.

"Hey, HEY! Stop! Don't leave!" He cries out one last time, turning to jog in the opposite direction.

"STAY RIGHT HERE, I NEED TO GRAB THE PAMPHLETS"