2 weeks of game updates

I'm bad I know... I need to update these game play journals more regularly, especially if I want to accurately get things down.  I already know I'm going to wind up embellishing a bit here and there, but hey that makes a good story right?

From 2/20/11
O.K. so Myra and David were at the Carnival of Dr. Lao.  Myra speaking with the strange Lemurian doctor and David watching the backside of the snake "charmer" while dealing with a blue monkey-cat.  Myra left the wagon of Dr. Lao without really letting him know of her ties to law enforcement, but promised to come back later to speak with him about employment.

After meeting with David and going over what he had found from the carnival flyer given to him by Dangle they decided to forgo any of the carnival shows and get back to town to find an inn for the night.  To quote Myra "I'm in no mood to deal with assholes this evenin'." and so they decided to find a place OTHER than the Fuzzy Quarterstaff to stay.

Questioning a local elf passing by they were directed to the Hearthstone Inn which served more of the "non-human" crowd of the area.  The Hearthstone was built into the side of a hill with a large door and windows embedded right into a rock face with a facade of crystalline runes etched into the stone about the door.  Upon entering they found a wood-floored main room with a second story in the back above a long bar made of polished marble.  Several tables were about the room with mostly non-human members sitting at them drinking or eating.

Behind the bar was a woman of the "Obsidimen" who looked to be made of a lovely rose quartz and she wore a white apron.  This was Rose, owner of the Hearthstone, and she set up Myra and David with rooms right away for a good rate.  Myra ordered water, but David decided to try his pallet against the local dwarven whiskey.

3 Dwarves at a nearby table saw this and quickly whispers began with subsequent money changing hands.  (Quick note, the dwarves here, as mentioned elsewhere are more of the "Norse Myth" type, but picture rough and tumble dwarves with thick braided beards and hair in western finery.  Yep...  10 gallon hats, boots, vests...  You get the idea.  Oh and these guys I played with a HEAVY Minnesotan accent.  Think of the voices from "Fargo" and you'll be on track.)

What blew me away here was the dice love Zath got for David...  Every roll I added more and more difficulty and I'll be damned if he did not get 3 rolls in a row to stay standing from this whiskey that would have stripped paint.  Myra was busy speaking with Rose and getting information while David was getting nice and toasted, and every time he slugged one back and made the roll the reply I had was "Over at the table with the dwarves... money changes hands."  This became the catchphrase for the evening, and even leaked into my WoW playtime when I saw Zath on...  as in "Hey Zath!!  Money changes hands man!" followed by laughter from us and dumbfounded looks from the rest of our guild.

Anyway we had to cut this evening short, and ended with Zath FINALLY failing a roll and the dwarves hoisting him up and carrying him to David's room for 2 dollars from Myra...  after money changed hands of course.

THINGS LEARNED:
5 kids have disappeared.  3 dwarven kids,  1 human child, and 1 lemurian child.  the Human was a small boy named Robert Wagner, a noted little hellion and the Lemurian was a girl named Ki'Lynn who often played with Robert.

Rose owns the Hearthstone Inn with her younger brother "Lil' George" who is nine feet tall and 4 feet wide... a giant if you will of an Obsidiman, but is soft spoken and very gentle.

The 3 Dwarves who were betting on David to crash from alcohol poisoning are named Enoch, Malachi, and Bobby.  They are "Old Boys" in the dwarven community and also foremen for the local mine.

From 2/2711

In the morning Myra wakes a rather inebriated David by getting a pail of water from Lil' George and dumping it on David.  This gets him up as Lil' George announces the bath is open, but if they wanted hot water they had better hurry.  Myra takes this opportunity to do so while David deals with the mother of all hangovers.  Myra is quite pissed at David from his behavior (He's a PINKERTON damnitt) and lets him know such before going downstairs.

She find the three dwarves from last night playing poker but they quickly tell her that they wanted to speak with her about the trouble at the mine.  They found out she was a Pinkerton from 1) She's a human and staying at the Hearthstone and 2) Rose told them.

They explain to her that the "Sheriff" knew about the disappearances for 3 weeks now and had only just contacted outside law because of threats from the Lemurian parents.  The three dwarven kids were sons of local miners and the boys names are Magnuson, Eli, and Little Georgi (Not to be confused with Lil' George).  the thing that was in common was that each of the fathers of the missing sons had found and brought up from the mine a strange rounded black crystal.  They seemed reluctant to let others handle these crystals but did let the foremen examine them.  Enoch, Malachi, and Bobby all agreed that the things seemed harmless and so let the miners keep them.  2 days after that decision the children vanished.

David FINALLY comes downstairs at this point and Myra gets him up to speed on this information before she heads out to meet with lieutenant colonel Wainwright at the Fuzzy Quarterstaff.  She leaves, still pissed off about how David acted last night and the dwarves helpfully inform David that there is a flower shop around the corner... HINT HINT.  David takes the hint, but also sets out to meet with the Lemurian parents of Ki'Lynn.

David gets to the area of New Hope where stands 2 lemurian style houses (a mixture of Asian and ancient roman architecture).  One is white and gold, and the other is red and brass and belongs to Ki'Lynn's family.  David presses a button by the side of the door and some subtle chimes sound within the house (A doorbell!  Who knew!).  A red eyed (from crying) lemurian woman without a head covering (showing off her reptilian crest and cranial scales... how shocking!) opens the door.  David explains who he is and she lets him in introducing herself as Su'Lynn.  As he enters he sees the spartan style of the house and is met with fierce eyes from a male lemurian on a couch sharpening a wicked double bladed sword.

This is Ka'Lynn, Ki'Lynn's father who pointedly asks if David is law enforcement, why they took so long to get here, and why there is only David and his partner.  It is obvious that Ka is furious with the current sheriff (Wainwright) and bluntly asks if he has his right to contact his OWN law enforcement now.  David says yes, to which Ka leaves the room leaving David with Su.  Su explains that Ka doted on his daughter and is heartbroken from the loss.  She vanished from her room after her and the human boy brought home the strange round black crystal.  Su took the crystal and gave it to thier neighbors, local scholars, to analyze.  the real issue arises when Su informs David that Ka is ex Special Ops Military from Lemuria.  In essence, a royal assassin, and the fact that his daoughter vanished from his house under his watchis driving him mad.  It does not help that the Sheriff does not care to really begin searching and has only bowed to pressure when Ka practically threatened Wainwright's life. Ka is now calling via a small Aether array his fellow warriors to come help him search... which is akin to calling in a platoon of highly trained green berets to raze the town until his daughter is found.  Basically something that could damn well lead to open war between the states and lemuria again...  something Su does not want but she knows how hurt her husband is.

David promises to do all he can when Su tells him to hurry.  they have at best two days before Ka's "friends" get the message and come to New Hope.  Before leaving, Su gives David a box that has the crystal and tells him not to touch it with his bare hands as it seems to amke people want to hide and keep it if they do so.

Outside David get stopped by a Lemurian from the white house.  the fellow is a scholar and offers to help in any way, and thrusts a ream of papers (in lemurian no less) that he says are the readouts from his investigation of the crystal.  David leaves, looking very puzzled from the writing and goes to the Hearthstone to wait for Myra.

Myra meanwhile exercises her fae and illusionist talents, and places a glamour on herself and her horse to make her appear to be a gorgeous blond haired Southern Belle and her horse to become a beautiful white mare.  She then goes to the Fuzzy Quarterstaff to find Wainwright, only to be told by the stunned doorman (stunned by her beauty of course) that Wainwright is in the jail next door.  Myra smiles politely and heads next door, running into lieutenant colonel Wainwirght (Picture Errol Flynn or Clark Gable with a facial scar marring the right eye).  Myra announces herself as Myra Varney of the Varney family line and proceeds to grill Wainwright.  Let me be blunt here...  BA tore Wainwright a new hole without ever really cussing him out.  I know she IS a Southern girl but DAMN did she rip him up and chew him out and STILL be polite about it!  It was also at this point that I found out that I FORGOT TO RECORD THIS EPISODE!!!  GAH!!!  *Bangs head on desk*  Yeah I'm a twit... 

Anyway Myra gets all the info she can out of Wainwright and puts the fear of... well her, into him.  leaving satisfied I had BA roll to see if she could overhear something inside the Jail before fully leaving... and she rolls a 1...  Quirky success!  I know this is the type of success where it's the lowest possible and she should get a complication as well as a win...  but I LOVE taking these and coming up with off the wall happenings...

So what did Myra get?  Well her Glamour drops once she is out the door, but still she overhears Wainwright shouting to someone: "Get up fatass!  We gotta move now!"  Was the glamour dropping a quirk?  Nope, no one really noticed that but her...  but suddenly seeing her GRANDFATHER walking up to her waving was the quirk.  A note here on Myra's "Grandfather."  This gentleman is really her three times great grandfather named Loren Mac Mir, a member of the Seelie Court and beholden to King Gywn ap Nudd.  A FULL BLOOD FAE!!!  She had not seen him in almost 20 years and now here he was strolling down the street of New Hope waving to his granddaughter.

Myra FREAKS THE HELL OUT.  She grabs her Grandfather, pulls him into the Hearthstone and panics, knowing this is a mining town that specializes in IRON.  Subtle hint here... cold iron DOES hurt the fae and a full blood fae is in a town that mines the stuff... the hell?!?  Her Grandfather pats her on the head after hugging her and calmly explains that he was CALLED here by the dvergr (Norse Dwarves) to substantiate a claim of a vein of Mithril being found in the mines.  This would be an incredible find as Mithril had never been found in the Americas yet, and they needed an expert... like Myra's Grandfather to see if it was true.  He was just finishing up when he chanced to see his "Favorite Granddaughter" and had to say hello.

I'll admit that I used the Grandfather a comic relief as well as an info-dump.  I played him as a rascally Victorian gentleman who was doting on his grandchild, threatening David to make sure he protected Myra (Like she needs it), and flirting with the female fox woman (Kitsune) at the end of the bar.  When he was informed why Myra and David were in town and shown the crystal David had obtained he confirmed that the crystals are in fact a type of egg from something underground.  He flat out refused to say what for fear that if by naming it... it would hear him and come.  Myra's grandfather siad that the children were probably taken in exchange for those taking these eggs... and if Myra and David wanted those kids back they had better get down in the mine quickly and try to swap back... or "something BAD will happen to them."

We ended there, with Myra offering to pay for her Grandfather's aid (always return a gift with a gift when dealing with the fae.  He offered information so she had to pay up) by paying for any dirnks and his room at the Hearthstone.  Before ending for the night Myra was told by Rose thet her Grandfather had bought 2 bottles of the most expensive vintage of Elven Moon wine and got the honeymoon suite for himself and the Fox-Woman for the week...  Leaving Myra with her jaw dropped open to the floor and one hell of an expense account to explain to the Pinkerton head office later.

Things Learned
The 'Lynn family is PISSED and is calling in a squad of elite assassins from Lemuria, and potentially sparking another war.

Wainwright is a racist dick and is up to something with someone he calls "Fatass."

Only the dwarven miners and Myra's grandfather know about the Mithril vein in the mine...  a metal formed when heavy amounts of Aether bleed directly into other metals...  meaning a rift could be in the mine letting God knows what in.

Myra's Grandfather is a bit of a dirty old man...  with a Furry Fetish apparently.

The Black Crystals are Eggs, and anyone who took one either has had a child taken in return (the dwarven miners) or has been taken themselves (the human boy and lemurian girl who played with one)

Next Time
Our heroes will venture into the mine itself...  What lurks in the darkness below?  What does Wainwright really know?

Personal Challenge
How can I work in the line "Trouble me not little man, for I have ripped the wings from angels and torn the horns off demons just to watch them bleed."?