Quest A Desperate Plea in Oban

[Reven]

OBAN, THE LOW TIER​

Reven didn't come to Oban for any manner of quest or mission, but, nevertheless, one found him.

He was just supposed to pass through. He had hopped aboard a trading vessel, the Whimsy Maiden, from Elbion, bound to Alliria after a few coastal stops along the Gulf and the Strait. But the Maiden got halted at Oban's Sea Wall, one Griffin Rider, then two, then a whole flock of them hovering about the ship or having landed on it. The Riders had a heated discussion with the captain—something about papers or tolls, Reven didn't know, and so far as his own personal fortune went, it didn't matter. Just that something was wrong, and the captain was ordered to dock in Oban as the fiasco was sorted. And, judging by the captain's grumbling and surly demeanor, the Whimsy Maiden wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon.

Well son of a bitch.

So Reven took to a stroll about the crown city of Dalraida, Oban, having a look for himself on these parts unknown while he figured out what he wanted to do next: stay and wait, or head off on his lonesome. Like with Vel Anir and Elbion, he'd never really been here before—Liadain for the most part was a mystery to him. Nice place, even down in the lowest tier of the city, though he'd still prefer a bedroll and a campfire in some nook of a forest. With what coin he had Reven got some lunch, some drink, and went on. He perused several shops, looking at their gear, but didn't buy anything; buying things, trade, barter, these things didn't very much occur naturally to him. He wandered on.

Now the two important things. First, he'd chanced across a couple other foreigners to Oban, and, with what kinship came with being strangers in a strange land, he walked and talked with them. Second...he had yet to notice that he and the foreigners were being followed.

But they would soon find out.

It happened as Reven and the foreigners were walking along a particularly narrow sidestreet. Nobody else was really around, doors and windows were scarce, and the sounds of the city all seemed a touch muted and distant, as though Oban were just on the other side of a wall. The sidestreet curved and ascended in a gentle curve. Clear skies and sunshine overhead, but the shade of the sidestreet kept all cool and a bit obscure.

She rushed upon Reven and the foreigners from behind, taking Reven by the hand and jerking him slightly toward an offshoot alley of the sidestreet—she at least made him face that way. She instantly fell to her knees, this woman, this secret follower, and clutched Reven's hand tightly with both of hers. Confusion and surprise stilled him, and he glanced at his fellows. The woman as well had a small child with her, a boy, only aged enough to walk, and he stood by his mother and looked up to Reven and the foreigners with that certain childlike mix of wonder and trepidation.

And the woman, bowing her hand, said to them, in hushed tones and in haste, "Please! You are foreigners, are you not? Will you help me? I beg you!"

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A sudden and abrupt Quest! Looking for 1-2 more characters. Simply join this thread, and I'll sign your character up on the Quest board.​

 

[Nico]

A step behind the swordsman, Nico Du’Raki laid an uncertain hand on the stiletto at his belt. The rook perched on his shoulder seemed less concerned.

“Foreigners?” he said to the kneeling woman, his northern accent eroded by that of Aniria. “You’ve been following us?”

His eyes darted from her to the child, as if trying to wind a machine with missing cogs.

“I’ve seen traps of this sort,” the Valenntenian advised Reven. “The dame leads her target to the muscle waiting in the shadows.” He glanced at the armor and weapons peaking from under his companion’s cloak. “Though it would take a foolish sort of brigands. Still, we should be on our way.”

At a pitiful noise from the toddler, Nico sighed from his nose. “Toss her a coin if you must.”

 

[Reven]

Even just in the short time Reven had made Nico's acquaintance, walking and talking, he gathered quickly that the man had some sharp wits. And this here proved it once more, figuring the woman to be an accomplice for some muscle lurking elsewhere.

"Yeah. I oughta know," said Reven—once upon a time when he was a boy he earned his keep just this same way, using his "innocence" to lure marks into muggings. He did, however, produce a coin at Nico's suggestion. "Next time, pick some marks that aren't armed."

Before he could flick the coin her way, the woman continued in her plea, "I implore you! I mean nothing of the sort! I seek not to lead you anywhere! I know I am merely a woman, and that I am stepping outside my bounds by speaking to a man unbidden, but I've no other recourse! Won't you at least hear me?"

And she continued to clutch Reven's hand, and kept her head submissively bowed.

Nico

 

[Nico]

The Valenntenian, already turned to leave, paused at the sight of the empty sidestreet behind them, not sure if they had lost the other traveler who’d been perusing the city with them or if their company had fled.

In any event, the woman’s adamance held him there. Her strained plea brought to mind voices he’d heard in the halls of Vel Anir, and such desperation was difficult to come by for the most talented troupe performer, let alone a street swindler.

But the bait girls were called viper’s tails for a reason, the enticing spider-shaped decoy that danced in front of hidden fangs and lured birds into the snake’s reach. He didn't fancy being a bird today.

The swordsman had not pulled his hand away from her. Nico sighed, then to his own shoulder, “Ahead, Val.” The rook took to the air, and in a moment disappeared over the high walls in the direction of the alley.

“We’ll hear what you ask, but you’ll wear this,” Nico said to the Oban woman, moving to his knee in front of her and producing a chain and stone pendant inscribed with an intricate rune. She flinched when he pulled his boot knife.

“Just a prick. It won’t work with my blood," he explained. Both the woman and child winced, but the pendant was soon hanging from her neck, stained with drops of blood from the fresh cut on her palm.

Nico glanced upward, but there were no warning caws from the alley.

“Tell your tale,” he said, giving the woman room, “but I would advise it be the truth, or the stone will know.”

Reven

 

[Reven]

Reven was about as wary of the magic as the woman herself. Even something as small as the little blood trick Nico did—magic more often than not was bad news for folk who didn't have it. But despite his bias, he watched on.

The woman, recovering from her flinch and the stinging pain of her cut palm, looked up to Nico, and said quickly and near breathlessly, "Of course, I shall wear it!"

Not that she'd much choice in the matter anyway. But she would indeed tell the truth: "My name is Viola, and I need my husband! I do not know how aware you are, sirs, of our custom here in Oban, but it is not permitted to women to walk in public unattended. I had an arrangement with my father, oh divines bless his soul, but he has passed—illness has taken him. And he was all I had of my family! My son, Erwin, he is far too young for this, and cannot aid me in other things!"

"Yer married," said Reven. "What about someone from yer husband's side?"

Viola winced, as though a plethora of recalled memories, unpleasant all, had dwarfed the pain of her palm. "It is my woe to be as yet unloved by my in-laws. My husband, Gerald, has tried. He has tried, sirs! But his father, his mother, and other family besides, they have hardened their hearts against me, and have always thought it an ill that Gerald should marry me. And now that my father has passed, and my husband is away, they delight in my predicament! I have no one else upon whom to rely, no one else to whom I can turn in my dire hour. Please, sirs!"

Nico

 

[Nico]

The rustle of feathers returned overhead, Val drifting calm circles over the buildings and offering no signs of warning. Listening again to the distress in the woman's voice, Nico avoided a look of judgement he might have imagined from the Allirian. Perhaps the engineer had spent too long in Vel Anir.

He approached again, retrieving the pendant from Viola’s neck and holding it so Reven could see. “A ruse, nothing more. Effective only as a bluff.” He glanced up to the bird, silent on the high wind. “Though, if it’s of worth to you, I believe her to be sincere.”

He stowed away the necklace, then swept his arm about the sidestreet down which they’d aimlessly wandered. “What else have we to do till our travels resume?”

He tugged straight his coat and offered a hand to help Viola from the dirt. “Apologies for the cut. It’s surprising how easily people believe in magic when there’s blood involved. Now, if you will – that’s right, take a breath – what has caused this direness? What has become of your dear Gerald? And by the moons, what is it precisely you need of us?”

He lowered his voice, glancing over his shoulder to Reven. “I should tell you, I am hardly a proper sellsword.”

Reven

 

[Reven]

When the pendant was presented, Reven narrowed his brow, and then, but a moment later, grinned. Nico—what a slyboots. He had Reven going with that bluff too. Man had a point though, the blood sold it. Well, that and Nico's stone cold confidence in the whole ruse.

I should tell you, I am hardly a proper sellsword.

"Let's see if she's buyin first." Which the left the matter, brought up by Nico himself, of what precisely Viola needed from them. Actual sellswording, or something with a little less steel involved. And so Reven, speaking then to Viola, said, "Yeah. Let's hear it."

Viola, almost taking the questions posed by the men to be agreement, replied with rising elation, "Oh! Thank goodness! My Gerald, he is a guardsman properly, but he has been levied as a foot soldier in the service of His Majesty the King. He said to me that he was to partake in an assault across the Strait, against some enemies of the Kingdom on the shores of the Taagi Baara."

"Has he already gone? 'Cross the Strait?"

"Forgive me! I do not know, but I should hope not!"

"So is he down at the Port, then?"

"No, not in Oban proper. He and his company were to depart aboard vessels from another town, Caerlon, n-not far to the west of here! Oh gods, may he still be there!"

Reven sucked his teeth, cleared his throat, and said, "So lemme get this straight: you want us, who ain't got no kinda business whatever dealin with the Obanese army, to go and ask some captain or other in said army, if one of his men can sit out from—what sounds like—a big important mission when it's just 'bout ready to commence. That it?"

And with all sincerity, Viola clutched her hands together and looked up earnestly at the two of them and wholeheartedly declared, "Yes!"

Reven slid his gaze wearily over to Nico. "Ain't this somethin."

Nico

 

[Nico]

“Something,” came the echo in the northerner's accent. “I would have preferred she were leading us to bandits.”

Nico made a motion to the sky, and the rook began its descent. He began to pace shortly, spinning his heel on the loose stones every few steps. He stared down at the street, his eyes darting to the woman and child or toward the general direction of the sea hidden behind the city walls, thinking under his breath.

“The Maiden. If an anonymous tip made the Riders think the vessel is a scout and that warships are to follow, the soldiers, and effectively the husband, would be pulled back to the city. Hmm, I don’t think they were suspicious enough of the trader to take the hook. Not to mention it would delay our transport indefinitely.

“Pose as messengers sent with orders to reassign the husband to another post? No, likely too transparent.

“Act as guardsmen sent to arrest dear Gerald for a crime against the king? The audacity alone might sell it, but being found out would cost us our heads for impersonating the king’s men.”

As if to remind him to breathe, Val arrived to perch on an empty barrel beside Viola and sounded a sharp croak. Nico halted before his boots wore a furrow into the stone.

“If we were to approach this problem,” he said to the swordsman, “there would be uncontrollable variables. Which is to say, high risk.” Then sidelong to Viola, “Risk, as is usual custom, is a correlate of reward.”

Reven