Griznuq Gaming

[color=##00ff00](OOG: pfft.)[/color]

Xavier climbed aboard the wagon. The interior was 12 feet by 6 feet and had two levels, with 6 seats on each side of the wagon at each level (24 seats total). Nothing but a few planks of wood separated the top from the bottom tier. Snow, water, and mud dripped from the top tier down upon the heads of those sitting at the bottom.

Xavier didn't have to be smart to realize that these were going to be very tight quarters for the many-hour journey.

There were only three seats left, on the lower tier to the right. The seat which etiquette beckoned him to sit in was directly in the middle and right next to the small chemical stove that kept the wagon warm. 'I will become a ball of sweat in about a half-hand!' Xavier thought crossly. Xavier, being Xavier, decided to sit instead in the seat closest to the back entrance. And as an added bonus, it was directly underneath a mousy blonde girl named Amy Reynolds. He couldn't recall what school she was in.

Jena Mistone climbed aboard directly behind him. She appeared to have no qualms about needing to brush her entire body against him in order to claim the open seat directly to his right.

"Shannon!" her father said in a firm but hushed tone. "Oh my little one, quick go to your mother and hold her," he said. As she looked over, Shannon saw her mother's body start to shiver. For a split second she thought her mother was cold, but then realized this was not the case. Her mother was crying...but because her crying lacked any kind of sound, it looked like she had been convulsing. The only sound Shannon could only hear was from her mother struggling to breathe through the gag.

"Shannon, don't be afraid. But know that your mother can't talk. Her throat...well, its injured honey," her father added.

Shannon could see no discernible marks along her mother's bare neck. 'What did Daddy mean? Her mother's throat was injured, she looked fine, there wasn't a mark....'

And then it hit her like a mongrel boulder. They had injured the inside of her mother's throat; to keep her from speaking, to keep her from being able to use magic.

"Perhaps, how good of an actor are you?" she asked. The line behind Xavier finally moved and it was his turn to get on the wagon.

Okay... enough is enough...

The Warden Council told Michael Banks, leader of Whisper, to interview Temmit Janalius. For Temmit's father, Noah Janalius, was a powerful psion and a member of the Warden Council before his death. The Council was/is hoping that Temmit, Noah's surviving child, will grow to be as powerful.

So yes, Temmit's powers didn't attract attention. His relation to his father "got him the interview".

The five girls watched with uninhibited indignation as Shannon made her initial lurch. But upon the splattering of actual chunks all over Jenna Black's chest the four other girls couldn't run away fast enough. As boys at an adjacent table burst into thundering laughter Jenna was left standing at the door in a teary mental breakdown. The soldier guarding the door took no time at all to manhandle Shannon and throw her from the premises. A turn after skidding across the snow, Jenna slid up beside her, obviously served the same punishment.

Meanwhile...

Leslie made her way down to the basement. Invisible, she sneaked from open spot to open spot, making her way slowly across the busy kitchen. The Outer-Rim Defense soldiers were doing double duty as cooks for this celebration. Twenty men and women, a mix of ages and gender worked busily as they cleaned up after the dinner festival. Most were scraping and cleaning out pots and pans while others prepared dessert, the place was a flurry of activity. Leslie wondered why the Clergy were being so nice to the students; a feast like this was unheard of. It was so hectic that on her route across the kitchen Leslie couldn't help but brush up against those who were visible. But it was as she watched an apple pie go by that Leslie backed right into a fat and completely bald cook.

"OOPH!" the man exclaimed and then stopped in his tracks to look straight at her.

'I'm dead', Leslie thought. She started to shake her head while in his gaze, inane excuses forming in her mind to attempt to explain why a twelve year-old girl was magically invisible in the kitchen. She saw that a couple of other workers in the kitchen had also stopped to look, but they gazed at the fat man, in wonder to what he was doing.

Suddenly the cook's gaze turned incredulous and he held up a forefinger in an act of epiphany. Leslie put up her hands and her explanation started to erupt from her lips when suddenly the cook instead turned and walked away. He proceeded to yell at some younger men at a table across the room about sliced cheese.

Dumbfounded at first, Leslie finally sighed in relief and continued toward the bulkhead, the exit that would lead her to outdoors and hopefully to River before Marcus and his thugs got there.

(OOG: Temmit's turn me thinks.)

Hey Johan? Want to have an ICD? I am thinking we should have an ICD...something just tells me we should, call it instinct.

OH! You want me to TELL you! ....okay!

In the late Winter of 2127, when Temmit was ten years old, he was doing a study on the various cliques in the school. Perhaps this was a character study he was performing for extra credit in Scribes clas? Anyway, he noticed that a specific group of kids always gathered in the cafeteria, and that they were quiet and less obnoxious than the other children. What's more, they seemed to have an intriguing body language that transcended simple empathic queues and actually conveyed simple sentences! Little did the young lad know that he was being watched from a distance as he watched the TAO...

How's that?

(OOG: I am unsure how Shannon would be running towards the door? The first paragraph of my last post intimates that Shannon, the Judge, and Natasha are standing at Shannon's parents' cell door. Although this is just semantics, for clarity purposes you may want to edit?)

Beyond the door was a ten by ten stone block cell with no windows. At the center of the ceiling a single hooded lantern mounted on a chain provided a pitiful amount of light.

Her father hung by chains on the wall to Shannon's left, her mother to the right. The shackles about their wrists held the chains taunt, keeping their bodies upright against the wall. Both were blindfolded and dressed in mere rags, and in addition her mother was gagged. While her father didn't seem worse for wear, her mother looked devastatingly beaten. Rips along the peasant shirt and breeches indicated she had been whipped or slashed at least two dozen times and blood soaked the gag in her mouth.

Neither of her parents moved, perhaps unconscious or unaware of their daughter's entry.

edited on 12.09.2011...took the gag out of Shannon's father's mouth (otherwise it would be hard to speak me thinks)

OOC: I had actually thought of that but decided not to sweat the details on it.

(OOG: LOL! F'N BRILLIANT!!!)

Upon getting back out under the night sky, both boys breathed in the fresh air. The room had been hot and smelled of regurgitated alcohol.

They walked back the way they had come and were headed back to the School District. Michael put his hand on the boy's shoulder and leaned in with a question.

"So Harrison, what do you think?"

Oh, well, first off, my agenda will ALWAYS be more important than Temmit's.  ;)

I can't answer your questions directly without performing a SPOILER ALERT and giving Johan information that Temmit does not yet know. I just tried typing all of the information (offline) and upon rereading it, I discovered that forfeiting such delightfully intriguing information OOG would have made me sad. :(

Having said that, allow me a few more bullets that yes, will give you more fodder to entertain, ascertain, and hypothesize what the true answer(s) may be.

*Per Noah's journal, Noah Janalius joined The Warden Council on 05.25.2105.
*The leader of TAO/Whisper Guild always has a Warden Council contact.
*Yes, there is indeed a necessary ignorance of the Warden Council's intentions by typical Whisper members. This is because each Whisper member must pass through 6 years of true military service, and the W.C. can't trust that each Whisper will stay quiet and not betray the W.C. during their tenure.
*As far as Temmit knows, the only Whisper kids who have knowledge that the Warden Council and Whisper Guild share common goals is Renee and Temmit. Although you can justifiable conjecture that Emma may/or will soon know and therefore Harrison will follow.
*The common goals Whisper and the Warden Council share is that they harbor those with magical talent and are against the Clergy controlled government and its strong-fisted dogmatic rule.
*All that being said, Temmit is also aware that the Warden Council has had the Clergy interfering recently with their affairs. Fresenius has been sending Clergy-controlled soldiers to the W.C. to enlist their help in tracking down Kahr'Thul.
*The best thread to get really meaty information on all this is in

Saturday Night Interlude, specifically start reading at my last post on page 6.[/list]

OOG: Okay FIRST...

Griznuq, keep your panties on, we aren't going to convert the whole campaign to 4e and throw it all out of whack. I only asked Chassic to make Xavier 4e because he has forgotten far more about 3.5e than he has learned about 4e.

Also, since this is currently more of a writing campaign with table sessions performed on a "as needed" basis, it really doesn't matter (to me) what version each player might be in.

SECOND...

Chassic, as you know, 19 don't mean squat in 4e, your Insight roll is going against the Bluff roll of the best actress of her age. So please post without the knowledge that Jena is (and is about to) totally deceive the oblivious Xavier.

But by that let me explain. Her blush is fake, Xavier doesn't pick up on that. She may later feign lust, but actually be repelled, and Xavier doesn't pick up on that. ETC, etc, etc..."rinse and repeat".

(OOG: It's too bad that Xavier is devastatingly shy.)

The boy standing in the line behind Xavier burst out laughing. Jena at first smiled at Xavier's admiration but then her face grew flush and she averted her eyes as the boys behind him laughed. (Roll an Insight check (which means you will have to actually develop Xavier in 4e) and throw the modified number in your next post)

Xavier turned around.

"Nice tits he says! Dude that was cold!" said Ronald Young, a future military-thug-of-a-kid who was the same age but a few inches taller than Xavier.

Xavier gave Ronald his signature stare, the boy immediately quieted and turned around.

When Xavier turned back to Jena, he was amazed to see that she had not fled. What's more, he was being given a beckoning finger to lean over so she could whisper to him. He accommodated, breathing in deep the perfume about her neck as he did so.

"And this is just the school uniform," she whispered sweetly into his ear. "Have you ever seen me in the summer play Lolittie?" (OOG: You have not, it's like 200 gold for the back row seats at the Nottingham Theater where she performs. You do know the play is about a young teenage girl who seduces a veteran soldier in the Outer-Rim. The romantic tragedy ends with the girls' death during child-birth in prison and the man's execution).

(OOG: Just one last note before you post: touching a girl inappropriately in public can get you anything from jail time to a serious beating from the Truancy officer (usually both)).

The newspaper report was as follows (paraphrased); "family of four has a wagon accident in the wilderness. Three out of four are killed, the lone survivor is a three-year-old boy." The truth (as the older Temmit knows it) was that his family was slaughtered by a lone Kahr'Thul. Then someone went through some trouble making it look like and reporting it as an accident.

This leads to the questions:

*Who covered up the accident and why?
*What "side" is that conspirator on?
*Did that Kahr'Thul simply pass the Outer-Rim undetected and encounter your family by happenstance?
*How is it that the Whisper Guild fought and defeated individual Kahr'Thul last summer, yet your father couldn't and mother, both military veterans and former Whisper members, were defeated by only one?
*Would the guild have been tipped-off by the unusual wagon accident?

MORE INFORMATION:

*Current year is 2133, Temmit turns 16-years-old in a few days.
*In the summer of the accident (2120 ESH) Temmit would have been 3.5 years old.
*Michael Banks was the leader of TAO (Throw-Away-Order, the name of the Whisper Guild, pre-Renee) from 2125 ESH until 2129 ESH.
*Temmit was ages 8.5 to 12 during Michael's tenure, he would have joined TAO somewhere during this time. (How that would have occurred is what we are trying to determine by this OCD).
*Michael Banks (just past age 17) was found dead on the shores of Lakeshore in the Spring of 2129 ESH. The story was that he had drowned. Renee (at age 15) took over the guild.
*Temmit knows the Warden Council is in league with the Whisper Guild. Temmit also knows his father was involved with the Warden Council...therefore...

Thoughts?

Michael sighed.

"Because it's like I said boy, the new guy isn't expecting the key. He is oblivious to it and if I can make 50 gold pieces from this deal, I have no problem keeping him in the dark," Lorainna answered.

(OOG: Note that Michael believes that the Clergy successor MAY be expecting to receive the key, and, Lorainna doesn't believe he is.)