OOC: Oops. Completely forgot about this! Blame it on football!


15:08, Today: Valentino Iocovelli rolled 44 using 8d10 ((10,5,1,9,4,2,6,7)).

Finesse+Weaponry with 2 rerolls, so reroll the 1 and 2.

Damn. Still only 3 raises.

I'll use all three Raises to do damage. I want him to ride away. I don't want to have to deal with him or kill him.

"And don't come back!" he yells after the brigand as he rides off!

Valentino looks around to see how the others are faring. Seeing the other two brigands on the ground and probably unconscious, he looks to see what's become of Alessandra.

Having watched his two companions get knocked off their horses, now lying on ground unconscious or dead, the last brigand that Valentino hit does, indeed, keep riding. He may come back later to see what happened to his friends, but also may just head into town and wait for them to meet him there.


The other two brigands are on the ground, unconscious.


Valentino spots Alessandra a ways off to the side of the road. That's when he spots the other man. He doesn't appear to be threatening Alessandra in any way. At this range, Valentino can only say that the man vaguely looks like a sailor.

"My apologies, sir," Carlos says to Anders. "I am Father Carlos Eldersan, a man of the cloth now. I am no longer the man of violence that I once was. So, I thank you for your timely assistance against these brigands."

He, too, looks around to see how the others fared.

"You gave up fighting and fff - sex to join the church?" Anders asked incredulously. "Why would any man do such a thing? It is the very best in life! I hope, when I die, I can go to Valhalla and continue doing so forever..." he trailed off wistfully, a faroff look in his eye.

"So, who are these devils, and why were they attacking you?" the young lad asked, even as he began pragmatically looting the unconscious ruffian for any valuables or items of interest.

Seeing that the violence had come to an end, and being no expert in riding, Vasily realizes that, even if he could wrangle up a horse, the remaining brigand would certainly get away.

So, he does a quick head count of his companions. And finds that there's the correct amount, but no Alessandra. "Thanks for the assist, sir. Has anyone seen where Alessandra went?"

"I believe she chose to get out of our way," Valentino answered.

"There she is!"

He points off to the side of the road.

"Is that Prad she's with? She found him! But what are they doing?"

"It is often said that men of the cloth find a higher calling," Carlos replies to Anders.

"It's not a choice we consciously make. In my case, I got sick of the violence. I felt I needed to make atonement for my sins."

"I do not pretend it is an easy path I walk, but it is the easy path that leads to trouble."

Anders wasn't convinced. "Sounds like the easy way to me" he grumbled. "Spend all your days praying and punishing yourself being boring. Seems like you're just avoiding life. If you want to make atonement, learn a trade, become a master, teach others."

"Or are you actually doing something useful? Rescuing orphans? Brewing beer?" he asked hopefully, looking up.

"Here, lend a hand, hold his arms together." Anders had finished looting the man, and had now pulled a length of cord from a pouch and was proceeding to tie the man's hands together behind his back.

OOC: Did I find anything?
This message was last edited by the player at 05:44, Wed 28 Oct 2020.

Vasily peers in the direction that Valentino points, and begins trotting over there. "Ah, you're right... there she is. And... Prad? Could we be so lucky?"

"Perhaps luck had nothing to do with it," Valentino replies. "After all, we were on his trail."

"What ARE they doing?"

"What do you suggest we do with these brigands? If we just leave them here tied up, their fellow brigand may come back and free them. Or, being as he is a brigand, he just may kill them himself."

"My thought is to tie them up and leave them off to the side of the road with a dagger nearby so that they can crawl over to it and cut themselves loose."

"I do not claim to be judge, jury and executioner, except aboard ship. While they may have intended on killing us, we were able to defeat them without killing them, though had we been forced to kill them, I would not have lamented their passing."

He walks over to where Father Carlos is talking to the stranger.

"Well met, sir. I am Valentino Iocovelli, and that is my friend Vasily Pavlychenko. Over yonder is our traveling companion, Lady Alessandra. We were looking for my cousin Prad who she seems to have found."

"What brings you to our aid in so timely a fashion?"

"What ARE they doing?" He says the last with yet another glance in the direction of Alessandro and Prad, and noting Prad's odd behavior.

Alessandra does not know whether to say something or back away, especially given that the man, Prado, or so they said he was called, does not seem to notice her.

She turns to see how the others are faring, and sees Vasily coming towards her.

"Hello Valentino, my name is Anders" Anders introduced himself. "I was going to the next village when they attacked me, and you too it seems, and it looked like a good fun fight so I joined in.

"What is your friend doing? it looks like she is chasing a drunk man."

"I was thinking maybe we want to ask them some questions, so I tie them up."

"Tying them up is fine for now, but then what?" Valentino asks.

"I doubt if these brigands will have anything useful to tell us. Otherwise, they wouldn't be brigands."

"I'd better go see what's up with Alessandra and Prad. Don't think he's drunk, but something is definitely going on."

He didn't know Anders well enough to tell him why they were really after Prad. The theory they'd come up with on the road might explain Prad's current actions. Or he could be suffering some kind of brain injury.

"Question is, are they bandits, or are they told to attack you?" Anders pointed out. He shrugged. "I come with you. I like drunk people."

Getting to his feet, he walked over towards the strange pair.

"The only way anyone could have told these brigands to attack us specifically is through sorcery as we didn't even know ourselves that we would be taking this road."

"I will stay here and keep an eye on these two," Carlos offers. "No need to make things more awkward for Prad. You're already ganging up on him."

As Valentino and Anders go over to join Prad, Alessandra and Vasily, Carlos decides to drag the brigands over behind the rock outcropping that had blocked the brigands from view just before they attacked. He didn't think they'd been hiding behind them, but he check around the area just in case.

Vasily joined Alessandra as she watched Prad's strange actions. He looked lost at some times, then confused at others and daze at still other times. He walked a few paces in one direction, stopped, turned around and walked back the way he'd come. Every once in awhile, he'd stop and make a gesture with his hand. After the third or fourth time, it finally registered that he appeared as if he was trying to turn a door know.

Just as Valentino and Anders get there, Prad mutters something.

"It should be here... it should be here... why isn't it here..."

Vasily looks at Alessandra, Valentino, and Anders, then figures the only way they're going to make progress here is to get Prad's attention, so he speaks up; "Prad, what should be here? Perhaps we can help you locate it?"

As Vasily tries talking to Prad, Valentino looks around the area as he moves in front of Prad. He looks at Prad's face, trying to judge whatever expression it reveals.

"I'm not sure he's all here," Valentino comments. "I'm not sure he's here at all! He's being directed by it, but it doesn't have complete control of him. It isn't alive; it isn't intelligent. So, it's depending on him to... do what?"

Of course, that was all depending on their supposition being correct and that Prad really did have the Black Pearl. If he didn't... he was baffled as to what it all meant.

Anders decided that the man was looking for a door, and for some reason decided it would be fun to help find it. He walked around randomly grabbing for doorhandles, and then tried walking backwards doing the same thing.

If there had been such a door, Anders' actions probably would have found it. Of course, Prad maybe have been interpreting 'door' a bit more loosely than was intended--he was looking for a door as he understood a door.

Anders doesn't find a door exactly, but as he actions are random, after about ten minutes, he catches a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. It takes another minute or so to actually see it again as he realizes he has to be in just the right spot and looking at just the right angle. It's a sliver of light less than an eighth of an inch wide but 7-8 feet high. More precisely, it's a different shade of light than the surrounding area. At night, it might be light, but could just as easily be a deeper or lesser shade of black.

As Anders approaches it, he finds it difficult to nail down as even a slight misstep causes it to disappear. Finally, he's close enough to see through it. What he sees is a cathedral!

Reaching out, finds that there's a 'soft' edge to it. That's when he realizes that he's looking through the crack of a door that's only ever so slightly ajar. He also realizes that his hand can slip through the 'crack', which seems to be larger than it appears.

Vasily notices Anders acting in an unusual manner, at least if one assumes that Anders is sane. "What do you have going on over there, sir? Did you figure out what he's looking for?"

Anders cried out in surprise. "I... I see something! A... a crack... a gateway?... I see... a cathedral!"

With his hand in the crack, he looked around. "I think I can open this!" he cried in astonishment and amazement.

Having his base assumption so quickly undermined leaves Vasily a bit shocked. "Did you say... a cathedral? As in a gigantic temple? If you can open it, please do so; I'd dearly like to see what you are going on about."

Anders paused, then look around. "You were expecting a temple? What do you know of this?"

At Anders words, Valentino stuck out his hands and began walking forward until he was a good 20 yards past Anders. He was half-expecting to run into this invisible cathedral, but obviously never did.

On the other hand, it all seemed to tie in to what they'd surmised was going on.

"Well, we don't actually know anything," Valentino replied to Anders.

"Have you heard of the legend of the Black Pearl? Well, we think Prad here may have accidentally acquired it but never realized that's what he had. Ordinary black pearls aren't that rare, but when he tried to sell his, word began to spread that it had surfaced once again."

"We've been trailing him for over a month. He's a sailor, and just seemed to be doing his job. Until he got here. Taking this road out of town was a major deviation from his routine."

"We theorized as we hurried to catch up to him that the Black Pearl might have been affecting his actions. We thought maybe it was trying to return to some place where it could recharge."

"Still don't know if that's what's going on, but if see a cathedral here, that seems to tie in."

He gestured around to the mostly flat moor.

"It's a poor place to build, but it's a great place to hide a building."

"Oh, in case you haven't guessed, the Black Pearl and this cathedral are Syrne artifacts. The question is: which Syrne?"