0 Azzy 0

~ Cinders ~

A-okay over here.

~ Cinders ~

---

Sarathai, on the other hand, was not the slightest bit frustrated with this outcome. The nobles said a bunch of typical melodramatic nobility-themed garbage before doing what nobles did best- dismissing those they saw as being beneath them. It was all he could do to keep his posture professional instead of sagging in relief at their brusque dismissal. Frankly, wasn't their mission ultimately intended to foster good relations between this nation and the Order? From Sarathai's experience, the vast majority of the populace couldn't give a shit about what the nobility was up to, so while saving the King's son would be be a great boon on the upper levels, actually going about to the regular folk helping and healing them would probably be just as good for the Order. Provided they didn't fuck it up, of course.

Not trusting himself to speak for fear of making things worse, Sarathai gave a simple salute before he and his companion were being escorted out of the palace. Only when they were well and truly clear of the palace did Sarathai feel safe to let loose that enormous sigh of relief he had been holding back. Before he could try to stammer out some apologies and excuses for portraying himself as her assistant, his partner took the initiative. Fortunately, she didn't seem the least bit furious at his subterfuge, nor did it seem she was irritated with the way he had comported himself before the king and his advisors.

"Oh, uhh, my name?" Sarathai said after she had finished introducing herself, "I'm Sarathai, with no real neat and convenient nickname as of yet. I, er, I sorta don't know much about healing. All I've got is a bit of warding, though I'm sure I can pick it up and make myself useful if you'll have me as an apprentice for real." He felt it best to come clean about that bit right from the start, as she would figure it out for herself the moment they actually went to tend to some sick people. For some reason, her name sounded a bit familiar. Unfortunately, couldn't call up the reason why that would be off the top of his head and felt that it might be a bit too awkward to ask her outright if he should know who she was. It would come to him, either by remembering it for himself or by someone else dropping some manner of fancy title to kick-start his memory.

---

Storm King's Thunder

Finally seeming to have a all the pieces fall into place regarding the keep, Xolkin's eyes go wide at the knowledge that some of the late Lady's troops survived the attack. opening his mouth as if to speak, Kella clamps a hand down firmly on his shoulder, pulling him away from the table even as several of the fine adventurous folks began re-arranging pieces of furniture. Muttering a few words in his ear, his sputtering protests die out quickly enough and resolve into a sullen silence as he watches his newly minted "emissaries" prepare their work.

Outside the scene is much as one might expect if they took Xolkin at his word. Lights can be seen at each of the guard towers positioned along the walls, with an occasional figure able to be picked out moving around in each tower while keeping watch outside. An occasional shout can be heard from somewhere outside the walls, though nothing distinct is able to be picked out. Far towards the Eastern horizon, the barest lightening of the sky is the only indication of dawn soon to come.

Eldar Adventure?

I might be interested. I do love them Eldar.

~ Cinders ~

---

Hang on, had he misremembered something? The king had sent for them, hadn't he? He was certain that's what the captain said, and this lady had said much the same to the guards at the gate. Hadn't she? If it had been the scenario that they had managed to hear about the king's son through some sketchy back channels and arrived to offer aid our of the blue, then suspicion would be perfectly reasonable. As it stood, you hardly asked someone to help you then later demanded that they prove themselves to you first. The outright hostility that they had so far encountered was so strongly at odds with the plain facts of the situation that it left Sarathai with a sense of unease. Maybe he would have been better off hanging with the necromancer? Okay, definitely not. But still...

It didn't help that, from the sounds of things, his companion was apparently some sort of high profile murderer. Not entirely what he would have expected from that whole thing about her being the best healer, but everyone had to have hobbies right? Some people collected toenail clippings, others stabbed people in their spare time. So long as she kept to the job at hand, he couldn't care less what she did in her free time. Frustratingly, it did give at least a little credence to the suspicion the pair of them were met with.

Soon enough it was Tarasynora's turn to talk. While she made her speech about oaths and noble influence, it occurred to Sarathai just how out of his depth he was in this conversation. He never exactly had circumstance to find himself enmeshed deeply into the political affairs of anything grander than planning a festival at his local village. Hopefully her speech was a good one and would mollify the king and his council, but Sarathai was still worried. He didn't really have a strong sense of the political state of things, but he still felt like he had to do his best to contribute in his own way. "My apologies if I'm speaking out of turn, but when you ask about trust I assume it is with the subtext that we might be assassins or otherwise sent to cause some form of mischief? Frankly, that scenario makes little sense to me. Or, if so, then we are incredibly incompetent at what we do having already identified who we are and the order we fight for. Additionally, I am certain that, in your wisdom, you have probably already sent to your dock-master for the ship's manifest that we arrived on to double check that everything is in order there."

It seemed reasonable enough in his mind. Even if they hadn't thought to double check records, they probably would be doing so now and make a pretense that they had done so from the beginning- nobility were like that. Hopefully it would be enough to get at least a slight benefit of doubt on their side, since he planned to forge into uncharted territory. Knowing very little about the Order he could only hope that he wasn't, in actuality, somehow caught up in some big assassination scheme. If so, he would likely feel like the biggest fool all the way to the gallows. "I would also assume you know even more about the Order here than us newly arrived recruits. You are appropriately cautious, so I'll assume you've kept meticulous records on the comings and goings of supply ships for the order and thus have a better understanding of their setup here than we ever could. I'm an apprentice healer with no mind for military strategy, so you would know better than either of us whether the Order seems to be arraying their camp as though readying for some sort of preemptive strike against your city or if they seem to expect eventual amicable relations."

"But for what it's worth." He added, deciding it might be best to try and emulate Tarasynora's manner in his own clumsy fashion. "I can swear that I would forsake the Order long before I every assented to carry out something as underhanded as a political assassination. I can't speak on the Order's behalf, but I can speak to my own designs. To that, I would pledge my skills in whatever way would help your people most." And you know damn well you wouldn't have asked for us in the first place if you hadn't already exhausted your other options, ya bunch of dirty old men. he thought, exercising extreme prudence in not voicing that last bit out loud.

---

~ Cinders ~

---

Okay. To be perfectly honest? After the first couple of bizarre displays, Sarathai had been rather expecting more spectacles along the same vein and almost looking forward to them. Unfortunately, that hope was dowsed quickly enough as the conversation turned toward much more mundane matters- whether or not the local populace would like them, how to get on their good side, who was doing what mission etc. Even when the guy with the metal mask stepped forward again it was just to talk about finding people to help without even so much as a puff of green smoke or a flash of spooky light. For that bit, Sarathai kept his silence. He was perfectly content to stick around this region and do some gruntwork to help the locals if it meant he wasn't going back aboard the accursed ship anytime soon. As he lost interest in the idle chatter, his eyes strayed to the map on the table as he reviewed his own knowledge of geography with what was before him.

Eventually the captain began to speak once again, which snapped Sarathai's eyes back to the group. As the captain outlined what he required of their group, Sarathai breathed a small sigh of relief. At least the tasks seemed to be significant to some degree, which alleviated some of his worry that he'd be stuck mucking stables for the next few years in order to get his life back on track. So, what were his options? Deal with some dwarves, deal with some merchants or help heal some king's son? His interest was piqued at the mention that one of the people here was a well-regarded restoration mage. He had been worried that the only source of information on the topic would be musty, outdated tomes in the sorry excuse for a library they had passed on the way to meet the captain. Perhaps he would end up asking to apprentice under her. Ultimately, he concluded that any of these missions were just as good as any of the others with two huge caveats: that he didn't need to board a ship to complete his mission and that his mission took place literally anywhere that Lunearo was not. That guy gave him the creeps and watching him wander outside and immediately begin carving a stick only reinforced the impression. Fucking necromancers.

So, that one gruff guy was Einarr, right? It seemed like the necromancer was going off with him and the crazy Orisiri. All told a couple of very solid reasons to stay the fuck away from that task. That took monster hunting for merchants off the table, which was just as well, since Sarathai really didn't want to jump right into the whole hack and slash business just yet. That left dwarves and sick children. It seemed the one the captain had picked to lead the thing with dwarves, Stravi, just so happened to be a dwarf. It figured that the captain would send the dwarf to deal with dwarf related problems- definitely not racist or anything. Stravi, for his part, sure was quick to pick out exactly who he was interested in joining his mission as well- most likely those he had befriended on the ship. Perhaps if Sarathai had spent less time sick during the voyage he would have made better impressions on his fellows.

At some point during the bustle of people grouping up and heading out for their respective missions, the restoration mage had grabbed her gold and slipped out- almost without Sarathai noticing. "Shit." He muttered to himself, hustling over to the captain's desk to grab his own emblem and money. That taken care of, he headed out in the direction Tarasynora had gone. It was a good thing for him she was so distinctive looking, or else he might have lost her in the crowd. As it was, he highly doubted she even realized someone else had decide to accompany her at her task. That is, until Sarathai pulled up behind her as she was in the process of confronting the castle guards.

At least he had managed to catch up with her before she had been admitted to the castle. If he had arrived any later then the best case scenario was that he would have been rudely turned away, though it was just as likely that he would be regarded as a trespasser and treated accordingly. As it was, when he approached the guards, their grips visibly tightened on weapons and one of them opened his mouth to address this scruffy newcomer who really could have used a bath, a shave and a change of clothes at some point between the ship and this mission. "Oh hey there, it's okay. I'm an apprentice restoration mage in the order with her." he said, cutting off the challenge that the guard had been about to issue as he gestured towards Tarasynora. Everything he said being technically true, he felt it unnecessary to add that he wasn't her apprentice. Minor detail- one that was easily remedied, given time. "Oh, and I uhh. I don't think I have any weapons on me?" As he spoke, he gave his pockets a quick pat-down to illustrate the point.

---

~ Cinders ~

You're beautiful just the way you are.

Storm King's Thunder

"Fine fine, as you will. We'll try things their way, yes?" He said, still sounding less than pleased with this option. Locking eyes with Kella, after several seconds she gave a near-imperceptible nod- as though some unspoken understanding or conclusion had been made between the two of them.

"Look here." She said after the moment had passed. She touched each of seven squares on the map before her, before stopping on the seventh in the Southwest corner of the town, which has been crossed out. "We have a man in each of these towers save this last one, which was too badly damaged by boulders to use. Two men are also patrolling the perimeter- one of them swears he saw a light in the ruined keep."

"But that was before the attack began so it could hardly have been those orcs unless they are much more clever than any orc I have ever met before in my life. I told him that we had already gotten you lot to search the keep and since you all came back empty handed I can only assume he was imagining things. Nerves and all have some of the men a bit jumpy."

"Either way, we will have at least two men covering you at the gate and plenty more watching to make sure they don't try something while our attention is elsewhere. If that is all, then feel free to try your method.

What do you want out of the PW?

@Euphonium

mostly unimportant number crunching

If you really wanna try number crunching from vague bits of lore, we could also get more specific- let's ignore the rest of known space and look exclusively at the Galactic Republic on the eve of the Clone Wars. The Star Wars Rules Compendium makes mention of that the population of untrained force-sensitives is somewhere around 10 times that of trained force-sensitives. The Jedi order is at approximately 10,000 strong on the eve of the Cone Wars, which would mean about 100,000 force-users. Say 99.99% don't come up with the exceptionally basic idea to combine a lightsaber and a blaster while also managing to combine them, we still have ten different people running around with them. In the Republic alone, excluding the rest of the population of known space, the Unknown regions and Wild space. This is also at a time when the republic was in decline and down to something around 1.2 million member worlds when they previously had control of nearly 50 million populated systems.

Of course, you are completely missing the forest, being far too busy headbutting the trees. The main thing here is that a person took two very common pieces of technology from the time period (lightsabers and blasters) and said they wanted a single tool to be able to function as both, while being a little shittier than either individually. Basically, they want a spork. This is in a time period where the Republic is building gravity cannons that can grab asteroids and hurl them into planets and people take issue with a fucking spork. Is it goofy? Sure. Is it game-breaking? Not even a little. Is it innocuous and 100% reasonable to do? Yep.

Aaaaat any rate...

The main problem I see with this bit, @Lord Wraith: "Just as silly as retracting interest over something so small." Is that I don't really see that as being the scenario. Basically, if it really were just: "I want to use a spork and I refuse to play in any game that won't let my character use a spork", then that would be silly and unreasonable. I don't really see that as being the case here.

I see it more like someone going:
"I wanna use a spork"

Then getting a response of:
"such eating utensils are not relevant or even seen as concepts"

Followed up with s'more nonsense like:
"the odds of anyone having such a specific variant of their primary eating utensil in this era are astronomical. Anyone applying with such would have extremely good reasoning for it to be approved."

In that scenario, I kinda feel like the person would be perfectly reasonable to think something along the lines of: "eeeeeh, maybe I'm not interested in playing in an RP you're running if you're this uptight about something as insignificant as a spork." Ultimately, while it is true that not being able to eat with a spork is a small thing to lose interest in an RP over, seeing how poorly a mod handles small and insignificant things can be a pretty strong indicator of how they'll handle the rest of their RP and thus a very reasonable thing to lost interest over.

What do you want out of the PW?

<Snipped quote by 0 Azzy 0>

Except Grevious was trained by Dooku himself and had a ton of cybernetic augmentation, which didn't help him that much when he had his hands chopped off by Obi-Wan, who ripped his armor apart and finished him off with a blaster.

@Euphonium

Glad you brought up Obi-wan- since those two fighting is a great example of both a non force-sensitive person fighting effectively with up to four lightsabers simultaneously as well an example of a Jedi using a blaster to win a fight. XD