"I had a DM once who was such an alignment fanatic that he had my Paladin charging at everything evil.  We were facing down a horde of 40 hill giants, and rather than make a tactical withdrawal like any good soldier would know to do, I had no choice but to charge them because they were evil."  Cassander shrugged.  "There was nothing I could do.  I didn't even get a saving throw versus DM."

Greg shakes his head, chuckling in sympathy with the various DM mishaps.
What's your house rule, Chris?  How much latitude do we have with alignment and such?

"I'm not going to use alignments as any sort of straight jacket" Chris replies, jotting something down in his notes "Try to stick by your alignment, although I'm not going to force you to do anything"

"If everyone's ready then, shall we begin?"

"I was born ready! ... or at least Silene was."

Sarah grins and sits forwards, ready to game.

Sounds good, there's nothing else you need from us?

Greg arranges his dice and other gaming paraphenalia.  Grinning ear to ear.

Cassander picked up a D20 and started to roll it across the top of his fingers.  "Just need to warm up my dice." he said with a grin.

Grinning, Greg nods approval.  A man after my own heart.   It's important to get the dice in the mood to roll well. But, whatever you do, never treat inanimate objects like they have feelings.  They totally hate that.

"Okay then, we shall begin" Chris says.

---

"It was a dark day when the Elven Princess Alassë Calaelen disappeared while she was travelling to the capital of the Human Empire as a ambassador from the elves.

Of course, a kidnapping was the obvious theory. However, there was no note left and there was no sign of struggle. The Princess simply vanished despite being surrounded by a large party of trained warriors.

The Elven Commander Valandil Felagund immediately sent out several parties to find the Princess. One of those parties was our particular elven women"

He then gestures towards the players of the three female elves (Greg, John and Cassander).

"The Commander gave you supplies and enough gold for you to have access to the resources you need and to bribe a few people in necessary. Travelling east, you soon arrived at the closest town, a primarily human settlement known as Griffonford. There, you met the bard Kenjinn who told you to meet him in the tavern after his performance, and that he had some information about who you were searching for.

Christopher then passes two small pieces of paper to both Dan and Sarah.

"That night, you meet Kenjinn and his companion, a rogue named Silene at the tavern. It is well into the evening and many people have left the tavern for the night. Outside, rain lashes against the windows and thunder can be heard in the distance"

Christopher waits for you to mentally digest what he has to say, before gesturing for you to begin role-playing. You can hear it begin to faintly rain outside.

"it was a dark and stormy night...."  Sister Aliana mutters to herself as she sits at the table, setting her longbow to one side and arranging her longsword so as to not interfere with her sitting.   Taking out some parchment and a quill pen, the elven priestess began taking notes, writing down the bard's name.
Thank you so much for meeting with us, m'lord Bard.   I really enjoyed your performance.  When there's more time, I'd love to hear more.  Unfortunately, as you know, time is of the essence.  Could you please, if you still wish it, tell us what you can about the recent tragedy? 

Greg gets out his character sheet, double checking any useful skills or magic.

"Oh a tavern, how cliché"

Kenjinn sits at the table downing a mighty tankard of ale, declaring his maniless to all who challenge it. He wipes his face and smiles towards the elves "Thanks I was workin' on those songs for a while. Now, if information is what you seek, I have it. What is it you want to know of? Tragedies aren't all that rare y'know" He takes another drink.

Greg leans forward, grinning.  He was getting into the roleplaying, obviously amused by the bard's antics.

Aliana grins, obviously entertained by the bard's drinking, but she tries to keep her enthusiasm off her face, mostly succeeding.

We were led to believe, learned bard, that you might have information, or at least have heard rumors, pertaining to the recent dissappearance of Princess Alasse of the Elves.  Nothing is known, not yet anyway.  Anything you can tell us about what you know or even what you've heard in various taverns and gathering spots of humans.

Aliana fingers her holy symbol of Fharlanghn, God of Travel, as if for guidence and strength.  She looks into your eyes, as if willing you to have the answers that would save her beloved princess.

Kenjinn puts his chin on his hand squints his eyes, tapping his chin and pretending to think. "An elf princess... hmm, my memory's a little fuzzy, but I think I might know something about that" He smirks with a large grin.

Sister Aliana sits listening attentively to the bard.  After a few seconds of silence, she blinks a couple of times and then gets a look of realization on her face, like a little kid that figured out a puzzle.

Oh!!!!  Wait a minute!  Is this the part of the conversation where we give you a bribe?  Oh!  It is, isn't it?  I've read about this in books!     Her bouncy enthusiasm waivers for a minute with a look of concentration.

So, wait, what's the usual bribe amount?  I've got some money with me, just for bribes! 
She nods, in a way that she assumes makes her look knowledgable with such matters.

The bartender, apparently cleaning beer mugs, sniggers at the elf, before poorly concealing it with a cough.

Or rather, your DM sniggers.

John chuckled at the other's antics "I like this group."

"Excuse my friend here, sometimes she can't get her head out of her books. My name is Alyissia" The elven ranger said, you could see she had several weapons on her, a pair of short swords worn horizontally on the back of her belt with a hilt on each side, and quiver of arrows on her left side, her bow was unstrung at the moment and resting beside her at the table. Alyissia pulls out several silver coins and 2 gold ones, splits them into two piles,each with a gold in them, though one had more silver. She slides the smaller pile to the barkeeper "For the drinks." she said though it could easily be seen that she was asking him not to repeat this conversation. She slide the second, larger pile over to the bard. "If you would answer the question please." she said politly but firmly.

Cassander laughed, almost spilling the Mountain Dew he was drinking.  "Oh man.  So our priestess is chock full of book learning and little life experience?  Nice." he grinned.

Tizona, the sorceress of the group, is going to roll her eyes slightly at the priestesses enthusiasm.  She is content to merely sit at the table, her eyes roaming over the bar, while her companions to the talking.

Sarah chuckles at the enthusiasm.

"Silene groans slightly and shakes her head before leaning back. She eyes the coins that Alyissia slides to her partner, nodding slightly."

Aliana nods as she watches the exchange, writing notes on her parchment, obviously taking notes on "How to Bribe a Bard 101".
One tip of her tongue is touching her upper lip, an apparent "tell" that she thinking hard and trying to memorize the scene.
She looks up at the Bard again, eagerly, quill ready, seeming oblivious to the social faux paux, except perhaps thinking that she should have found out the Bardic Exchange Rate ahead of time.

Dan cacked himself laughing. "That was brilliant"

Kenjinn moved his hand up to his mouth, trying to conseal a smile. This girl seemed rather ditsy. Maybe I can get more out of this He thought, sealing away the grin. He looked back up "Hmm, that's quite an offer, my memory seems to be coming back. Yes, I do recall something, uhh, it's fuzzy" He said massagin hsi head and giving Silene a thumbs up.

Sister Aliana looks over at her ranger friend, raising her eyebrows and saying   "So, do we give him more, now?  Was the first gold only enough for him to recall "fuzzy memories"?  Should  we ask what the fuzzy ones are first, or give more money to de-fuzz them?   How does one "de-fuzz" a memory?

She begins writing furiously on a different parchment, drawing some kind of magic hairbrush and writing ideas to make a magic object to "de-fuzz" thoughts and memories.   She seems to have forgotten the conversation with the bard.

Greg looks over at John.

John, on a side note: Aliana has a tiny amount of ranger training, tracking and such, so she probably would have asked a lot of questions to learn from you about these things, as you are probably more knowledgable than anything she learned in the temple to the God of Travel.  Would that be alright?

"Bardic Exchange rate?" Cassander repeated smiling.  "How does a cleric for the God of Travel not know the Bardic exchange rate?"

Tizona sips at her drink, frowning.  She wasn't at all becoming impressed with Sister Aliana and is once again questioning their decision not to have her simply use her magic to charm the answers that they needed.  Also the human mead is of a terrible vintage, probably brewed in a rain barrel out back.  "and just what fuzzy memories do you have?"  she asks, trying to get the negotiations back onto track and making a mental note to have a talk with the Cleric later.

"I'm not all that sure, they're out of focus. Not layered enough to get a clear picture" He said, humming and squinting, drinking his drink. These other two elves weren't as stupid as the cleric and still did a pretty good job of not taking hints. He decided to tap on the table near the money to spell it out for them.

John snickered and answered Greg "That's fine. So long as you don't mind me saying Alyissia was assigned as a guide and guard for the two of you." he said to the other two elf players.

"Alyissia smirked, she had obviously been expecting this. She cut off what she was about to say when the others started talking. Once they finished she answered Aliana 'Hush. Watch now, questions later' she said, being nice about it to avoid embaressing the cleric. She hadn't taken her eyes off the bard or his companion 'You didn't think we'd fork over all our money without hearing the information now did you?' she pulls something out of her money pouch and stacks money in three small towers, each with the exact amount of coins as the first pile. 'That first amount was to get your attention, Master Bard. The second goes to you when we have the information. The other half, you get once we have confirmed the information's accuracy.' She smiled sweetly. 'Does that jog your memory?' it was obvious she had planed this all along.

This one's the brains He thought with a scheming mind. Which means that ditsy one must be the healing and the silent one should be the artillery. Nice group He picked up one of the gold coins and inspected it. He glaced back to his companion with a questioning look.

Sister Aliana nods to her friend, seemingly not at all insulted about being told to "stop talking now".  She looks back and forth at the sorceress and the bard, apparently genuinely entertained and feeling educated.