Near the booth where the knights were selling their wares, though Lord Brightblade had taken one of the squires and left for the horses, a trio of acrobats, including a female afflicted kender, a female half elf, and a muscular male Khur nomad, performed a wide variety of tricks to entertain the crowd. But the crowd didn’t seem impressed by the performance, and instead harassing a jeering the performers. And this continued until the man stumbled and dropped the kender into the crowd. And this just made things worse. The crowd became angry as the crowd accused the trio of attempting to robbing them blind.

[Private to Marcus Valarian: On the way to the booth, Lord Brightblade made sure Marcus knew that he had intended to bring him with him to the horse market, which was the better assignment for a squire. But because of his actions, he would be left at the booth instead.]

[OOC: Is it possible for us to be in a public place without getting dragged into some sort of brawl? ;-)]

Sensing the start of a large commotion, Digorye steered well clear of the performers, looking instead for vendor booths that might have interesting merchandise.

Marcus stays at the booth, dutifully selling the Knights' wares to anyone who is interested. He lacks the creativity necessary for skillful negotiations, so his named price is usually the exact amount he is willing to accept. He is aware that the other squire out buying horses with Lord Brightblade has been given the more prestigiuous assignment, but he is also aware that there are no trivial tasks in the service of the Knighthood. He is determined to do his job to the best of his ability, though he decides he will speak with Lord Brightblade at an appropriate time. He notes the performers trying to start a riot, but ignores the conflict. Any attempt to interfere would conflict with his specific duty to man the booth, so he keeps a wary eye out for trouble, while watching the booth carefully for thieves.

It had been a bad couple of bad days for entertainers in Pashin. Gabriel made his way through the crowd trying to reach the area where the kender had fallen. He hoped Julian was behind him since his skills with negotiation included smashing heads and gentle whacks with the flat of his blade.

Injustices such as this shouldn't be happeneing especially under the watchful eye of the Solamnic Knights, but as anyone could plainly see the squires attentding the booths could care less about the plight of the common man.

Julian watched with some reservation as Gabriel made his way to rescue the kender.  It was the right thing to do, but doing the right thing in the middle of a mob could lead to unfortunate conclusions.  Besides, kenders were skilled at escaping lynch mobs - they had to be.

His compassion and reason got into a small scuffle and his compassion emerged victorious but slightly battered: he made a few warding prayers and followed in Gabriel's wake, trying to think of what exactly he was going to say that would help them escape without being killed.

[Private to GM:

I think Julian's going to need to whip out...

ACTION - Standard action (7)
RANGE - Personal (0)
DURATION - 1 day (6)
ACTIVATION - Personal (0)
AREA, SPATIAL - Individual (0)
EFFECT - CHA +4 (4)
EFFECT, TARGET - (+12)

TOTAL COST = 29, a lvl 0 slot

That'd be as part of his 'warding prayers'.]

The crowd looks at the two cousins interrupting them.

"What do you want," one of them asks.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:07, Mon 19 Nov 2007.

"Well, we're here to prevent the kender from getting into anyone's pockets, of course!  The Knights of Solamnia specifically requested his presence to entertain them, and far be it from me to tell a knight that having a kender around is trouble!"

He leans down to help the kender up, giving him a wink.

"Now then, who else thinks those pies over there are the greatest things ever?!"  Julian rather liked the sweetbread stand he was indicating and proceeded to regale the audience - loudly - with just how great he thought they were.

He took the kender's hand and jammed it around Gabriel's belt.  If something was missing they could laugh about it later and make restitutions or what-not when the unfortunate acrobat was rummaging his way through the Knight's belongings.

[Private to GM:

14:03, Today: Julian Uth Argus rolled 33 using 1d20+24. Persuasion. ]

Speaking with the crowd, Julian easily convinced them to withdraw, and they soon left the acrobats alone.

“Thank you,” the kender said and shook Julian’s hand. “I’m Grace. And these are my friends Blythe and Stallion,” indicating the female half elf and the male nomad.

[Private to Julian Uth Argus: Next time Julian “rests” he will level up. Please let me know how.]

[Private to Gabriel Uth Argus: Next time Gabriel “rests” he will level up. Please let me know how.]

Julian smiled a friendly smile and kept a hand on his coin purse.

"Nice to meet you Grace!  And similar hellos for you two as well!  Don't mind the locals - they're not a big fan of fun or kenders, apparently.  Have you been performing long?"

Performers had good stories, knew where to find the best booze, and gymnast women were the sort of companion that Julian liked sleeping next to, at least until sunrise.

He gave Blythe a winning smile.

"Nice to meet you too," Grace said. "We've been here a while and usually we do fine, but I guess this crowd didn't like our thing."

Blythe returned Julian's smile.

Customers came and went at the booth, some more interested in their wares than others.

Gabriel hadn't paid much attention to any of the performers after they had been rescued from the rowdy mob. Instead he was watching the people coming and going at the booth, and where Gina had gone off to.

As Gabriel tried to find Gina, he noted that she was some 20 yards away looking at the wares of at a nearby booth, seemingly not aware of what had just transpired.

As busi8ness is slow, Marcus spends much of his time keeping an eye on the various members of the Knight's party, making sure that they are okay.

[Private to GM: Marcus will keep a close eye on Gina in particular to ensure she is not troubled, in accordance with his vow to the King.]

"Well, we'd better get back to work or we won't make any money," Grace told Julian.

"And we'll be at the Hog's Head tonight," Blythe added.

[OOC: The Hog's Head was the place where you all went to relax before going to listen to the Herald.]

"Right, the Hog's Head.  Maybe I'll see you there!"

He gave her a smile and started to turn around to talk to Gabriel, but he was gone.  Somewhere else, apparently, which was sort of incomprehensible to Julian since he couldn't imagine a more interesting place to be.

He shrugged and started looking for his cousin.  There was no telling what kind of trouble he'd get into without Julian around.

Soon enough Julian found Gabriel, as he hadn't moved that far from the acrobats.

[Private to Julian Uth Argus: He also notes that both Gabriel and Marcus are keeping their eyes on the beautiful princess Gina.]

After exploring the bazaar for awhile, Digorye walks back over to his cousins, his head hanging low and his feet shuffling sadly. He looks lost in his own, sad little thoughts as he pictures how disappointed his girlfriend is going to be.

As day became evening and the bazaar closed, the group returned to town inside the walls. On the way they were stopped by a patrol of four knights of Takhisis.

“Have you seen any of these people,” one of them asked and showed them fairly detailed sketches of three people. The first was a human male, the other a female elf, and the third face all of you recognized as the leader of the group you fought yesterday.

[What do you do?]

[Private to Marcus Valarian: The elven female is the woman from Marcus' dream.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:50, Mon 26 Nov 2007.

Julian looked over the sketches.  Poor artistry.  Apparently the Knights were doing their own artwork these days.

"Oooh, these people look rough.  What did they do?"  It was an honest question.  He was curious if he'd get an honest answer.

“He is the leader of a group of criminals,” the knight said pointing at the rugged, middle aged man with dark hair and eyes. “She is a leader of another group of criminals,” he said pointing at the beautiful, fair haired, and pale eyed elf. “He is a leader of a third group of criminals,” he said pointing at the familiar face.

"That's a lot of criminals.  I take it then they're dangerous?  If we see them we should just find a Knight or someone?  Or is there a reward for their return that makes risking one's life worth it to try and bring them in without help?"

"There are rewards. The first two are 1,000 steel each and the last is 100 steel."

Marcus looks at the pictures, caught in particular by that of the elven woman, whose features are etched into his mind. Trying to phrase his answer so that he does not directly lie, he says, "It is hard to be certain. Can you tell us any more about them? We may have some luck in finding them if you can tell us a bit more."

"There's not much to say really. They're criminals that prey on this town and its surroundings."

"What have the first two done to warrant such a huge bounty, while the third pays only a hundred steel?"