Gordian Nought

The Clowns of Valerith

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Iota

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“What's that? Some late patrons! Wonderful! I will show you to your rooms!”

After a world of exchanged enchantment and integrated intrigue, the resplendent troupe gracefully descended beyond the blasphemous iconostasis, into the clandestine realm of a spectacular speakeasy, an angelic chorus nestled devilishly beneath the quaint Grim Lodge. Adorning their visage each with a bestial masque, unparalleled in animalistic design, the juggling Ekleipein waded through the mosaic of zodiac performers and benefactors, whilst their rippling capes, opulent and singular, billowed behind them, whispering uncouth omens and prophecies. The audience's flowing drapes, lavish and distinctive, mirrored, murmuring, in rebuttal, epochs and auguries of the laughing yore ahead. In an Orphic tableau reminiscent of a harrowing journey to a mythic underworld, the luminous Genasi, behind the facade of a charcoal sheep, evoking the allure of glaring nymphs and staring sylphs of recent exhumed lore, gracefully plunged deeper into the chthonic abyss of a circus.

As the crew's proverbial Charon's obol-rattling passengers watched from the Stygian spectral stages, the ethereal sorcerer's gaze juxtaposed and swam elegantly amidst the shades and phantoms, their musical talents illuminated by a lewd glow reminiscent of the cursed treasures of the Nibelungs. Echoes of a Pan's flute, eerily distorted, played in the distance, and creatures bearing vizards of chimeras, harpies, and fauns, danced and cavorted, casting shadows that intertwined with the march of their seraphic ensemble. At the dénouement of this Dantean panorama, Iota, undeterred, an aquatic Aeneas, ventured, lastly into the King's chamber, seeking perhaps an elusive Eurydice or a forbidden knowledge known only to those who dared to traverse past the planes of clowns and minstrels. Amidst the melange of decorations, the elderly warlock, eyes gleaming with unspoken wisdom, extended a parchment upon the table of Acacia wood – a pact of silence, awaiting a crimson signature from the unitiated.

“We don’t do names but sign in blood.”

In an Abrahamic ambiance steeped in solemnity, the lupine Genasi, as a sable lamb, stepped forward next to the damned spot. Macbethian and unwavering she extended her brachial artery-laden extremity, sinister, unveiling delicate capillaries pulsating beneath the alabaster skin. With the offered Faustian lancet, she carefully provided a Mephistophelian incision along the bacilic portion of the arm, allowing the ferric life essence to bead sluggishly, from the peel of steel. The sanguine fluid, laden with an estranged hemoglobin and an ironclad symphony of leukocytes and diplomatic immunity, melded the vellum's thirsty surface with the opposite thumb's now ruby imprint. The amalgamated droplet, a new testament to the vascular commitment, solidified the oath as it intermingled with the fibrous texture, creating a bond forged in the very marrow of existence, mesmerized, seeking a gavel of approval and a nod of affirmation.

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Mechanics: Iota follows suit and signs.

The Clowns of Valerith

Noice!

Will post today or latest tomorrow.

The Clowns of Valerith

First rule of Clown Club is...

The Clowns of Valerith

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Iota

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Aside from the unseen Archibald tending to the tavern floor, the Genasi ingested visually upon the slow exodus of the remnant of idiosyncratic collage of races as the owner's father, an aged doppelgänger of his son, entered and bellowed the last rites and call to alcohol. Upon cursory inspection of the previous encounter with the remorse instrumentalist and officers, he eked a refined taste and an even more sophisticated judgment; his spotless reputation seemed to precede the staccato of his boots, anywhere they took him. It made elves nervous and orcs laugh, but the warlock never left anyone nearby unscathed from his wise tongue. Whenever he and the irregulars, who hung around the Grim Lodge heard a bard warble, every rummy would linger until the musical keepsake was crucified upon the walls of the establishment. Then those sober enough would follow up with any bit of doggerel that came to mind and howl that unquestioned dogma, as if dangled by a master puppeteer, brewing the greatest inebriated slogan read in all of Valerith.

“NO ENTERTAINMENT / NO FIGHTS / NO BULLSHIT!”

Her aquatic mind waded through the oft ebbing and pounding of the heavy oak tables in that timeworn saloon, and for a brief moment, the air wasn't so heavy with a stale burning hearth or the stench of failure.

It was a vessel where all were first mates, with their proverbial captain Ekleipein at the hull.

Rockmar, like many other patrons who would hoot, as in days prior, after a full expensive palate of Alfengrape with enraged conjunctiva, now quietly haunted the archeologist with an offer of aid, as the troupe similar to Odysseus-like banshees danced around the doctor as other wasted, uninterested protagonists stumbled home to their respective ancient Grecian odes. At this time, the inn wasn't a pub where deputized charlatans or slumming beggars trekked to guzzle ale from jugs. This served a hive where jovial spirits who witnessed hard lives went to expire into a speakeasy.

Slowly. Poisoning themselves along the way with the promise of merriment.

The hostelry seemed wintry inside, to the sorcerer, during this witching hour, similar to the denouement of a forgotten Shakespearean tragedy, frigid and melancholy except for the few savory instances when an infrequent gaze occurred from an authenticator of memoirs, with its spectral penmanship. Even then, though, that mirth was haphazard, like the instance, a gnome slipped in a pool of spilled liquor and plummeted onto his already bludgeoned face, shoving his Orwellian monocles into his baggy pupils. The whole crowd guffawed at his goggled peepers. However, the dystopian fall rendered him entirely blind in one eye and mostly in the other. And, yet, despite the effervescent cackling and flamboyant discretion to order, the entropic mage still prized it, but more so when the schizophrenic voices and darkness abounded less, in this solitude of buzz.

It was now her watering hole, the last few months, even if she didn’t own it or toiled there. Her shadow was present more than any other drunk dwarf. In her faded emerald garb, with eyes wide and dewy, legs long and strong, and a Poesque countenance able to fend numerous coarse words and whistles from hoary men, she strutted further into the fray of this thirsty work.

_{"This nice lady says she needs to hire a group of thieves for a job. I told her you might know a guy who knows a guy. Can you talk to her? I'll go find 'Happy' for the nighttime activities."}

Iota gestured past the trio, towards the resurrected, but seated Reborn and whispered inaudibly. "It's not polite to stare. Care to join us? Your other hand is invited." Then suddenly, the watered ethanol from the goblet of the scientist swirled into an erosive whirlpool onto the bar's countertop, coalescing into the now frozen semblance of an ovoid, light green, opaque, and with a gemstone-like sheen, stone.

Turning full attention to the matter. "Neutralization is possible, right?"

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Mechanics: Iota Messages Arthek Yarnspin, catching his earlier glimpse. She then reveals her knowledge, transparently displaying said object with Shape Water.

The Clowns of Valerith

Wonderful post! Also love the Final Fantasy reference to Biggs and Wedge!

The Clowns of Valerith

Does anyone in our troupe possess double proficiency in relieving a place with a lot of security of a certain object?

Shall we nominate a certain strong nimble Halfling?

The Clowns of Valerith

Delightful!

The Clowns of Valerith

LOL! What time of day is it? And how many hours until we have to decide to forgo a long rest? (ಡ艸ಡ)

The Clowns of Valerith

Shookran!

Here are the rolls:

Performance - Disruption of the Doctor - 9
Perception of Papers - 21

The Clowns of Valerith

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Iota

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Amidst the intoxicating ambiance of a dimly lit tavern, where the heady fragrance of aged wines mingled with the murmured secrets of its patrons, there arose an encounter most unassuming. From the depths of delicate realms, where Nietzschean spirits joust with moonlit tides, emerged a cloaked Genasi. Her concealed being, a sublime symphony of aquatic elegance, seemed to flow with the very essence of the oceans, embodying their vast mysteries and whispered tales. Every glance she cast was a cascade of enigmatic waves, and every gesture, a ballet of liquid grace. However, in this very establishment, destiny played its most capricious card. For there sat a physician, a mender of wounds, who, in life's grand tapestry, harbored a deep-seated phobia of melodies and fables. This guardian of health, amidst the clinking of glasses and soft conversations, found solace in silence, fearing the very harmonies that Valerith detested. And as kismet would have it, in this kaleidoscope of emotions and stories, their worlds, both vivid and contrasting, were foretold to intersect.

As muses intertwined, amidst the shimmering veil of reality, born from the fervent embrace of elemental water and the lewd winds of karma, the progeny of a Marid immemorial danced nearer to the doctor's soliloquized sighs, with the ephemeral whispers of the abyss, her essence echoing the mysteries of the deep blue. Her every step was a testament to sublimated glacial beauty, a fluid tango manifesting as a serenade of billows and ripples.

"What am I going to do...?! Talking to them didn't work. Hell, I even got threatened for being arrested for telling a tall tale, but I know it's the truth. And I got caught taking matters into my own hands..."

Yet, in a poignant twist of cosmic irony, her path serendipitously converged suddenly with that of the clinician, as her gait harbored an inexplicable ataxia, gravity harshly crashing the corpus of the sorcerer into that humble sentinel of fragility and wellness, who obviously sought respite from the day's ordeals, perhaps yearning for a potion to soothe her weary soul. In the vast theater of existence, in that awkward waltz of fate, their paths collided, weaving together the ethereal magic of insincerity and the grounded wisdom of science in a momentary jaunt of Brownian chance.

"Mia culpa," as wet palms and clumsy fingers apologetically returned any lost pages to her possession. "Please." An undulating smile began to fibrillate. "Allow me to buy you a drink for your trouble."

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Mechanics: Iota intentionally bumps into the quest giver, as she overhears her confession, desiring to take meaningful glances at the fretful paperwork.

Performance - Disruption of the Doctor - 9
Perception of Papers - 21