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"This is going to hurt..." Jade's Intro...
jadescimitar
Member Posts: 716 Arc User
"I can't believe she's actually here!" Argus told himself for at least the hundredth time today as he ushered out his last client of the day. He set about putting away the bag of agates he had just bought from the Tiefling warrior adventurer looking to finance a new broadsword and had left quite happy with the two bags of gold minus a "modest" transaction fee for Argus' troubles, of course. It was quite a risk coming to Neverwinter given her recent history of chaos and even more risky being a money changer and all. However, with the huge influx of adventurers, like that warrior, seeking fame and fortune and looking to get rid of the "fruits of their labor or the spoils of their conquests," how could he resist?
"I can't believe, Olive Ruskettle is actually in Neverwinter and playing at the Fallen Tower Tavern tonight!" Argus spoke aloud to the dust bunnies and spiders that lived inside of his cloak closet as he fumbled around looking for something appropriate to wear. After trying on and discarding four dress cloaks onto a growing pile of discarded clothing on the floor, Argus finally settled on a royal blue one with flowing silver runes all along the border. He admired himself in front of large silver mirror, licked his fingers and immediately started to rub a mustard stain from the left collar.
After a few minutes, Argus gave up trying to clean the cloak as soon as he realized that he was going to be late and not be able to get a front row seat at what surely was going to be a packed house. He took up his favorite walking stick and removed his travelling cap from the head of a large stone hellhound statue in the corner of his shop. "Good boy, keep an eye on things while I'm gone, " Argus said as he patted the cold stone statue on the head. Strange how the ruby eyes of the statue continued to glimmer even when Argus extinguished the continual light orb floating in the center of the room which served as the primary light source for his shop. After taking one last quick look around the shop and finding everything in order, Argus opened the door and stepped out into the cold and especially dark night.
Tonight was a new moon, a time of renewal and rebirth, and a time where every dark cloaked corner could conceal an assassin promising death. Argus looked left and right down the avenue and, after seeing no one, placed his palm on the relief of a gargoyle hewn into the stone archway that framed the door of his shop. "Iron vines, " he whispered and immediately felt the subtle tingle of the Art trickle out of the wardingstone. Argus closed his eyes and in his mind's eye, he saw the magical tendrils reaching and wrapping around his shop to lock it down tight. Trusting in the wards over his shop to stop would be thieves and the wards on his body to turn the blades of any would be assassins, Argus plodded down the street towards the Fallen Tower Tavern whistling "The Tears of Selune, " his favorite Olive Ruskettle song. If Argus had been a little more perceptive instead of filling his head with the thoughts of singing halflings, he might have noticed a slight ripple in the leaves of the great oak tree next to his shop. He might have found it especially curious since there was nary a breeze tonight...
"Finally!" the elf whispered to herself and the nearby tree trunk as the last of the off-tune notes of "The Tears of Selune" faded into the night. "I'd thought he would never leave, " the elf huffed as she began to rub the sensation back into her black leather clad arms and legs. After a quick look and listen for activity along the street, Iralen (Jade, to her N'Tel'Quessir acquaintances ) checked the multitudes of gear she had stored in every pouch, satchel, nook and cranny on her lithe form. She also checked her two enchanted glassteel short swords strapped across her back Hyarya (Left) and Forya (Right) and her favorite enchanted glassteel dagger Rakka (Claw) dipped in Drow sleep poison and sheathed in her right boot. Jade was never a big fan of "wet work" but you could never be too prepared.
After the quick inventory, Jade proceeded take out a slim and nearly invisible coil of spidersilk rope and began to lash it around the tree trunk approximately thirty feet in the air and close to where she had been squatting for the better part of two hours. She then coiled the rope around half the length of the strongest branch which overhung the roof to the shop. With the remaining rope in her left hand and a few coils in her right, Jade slowly lowered herself off the branch, silently inverted her position and nimbly grasped the rope between her ankles. She immediately felt the rush of blood to her head but that only added to the dizzying excitement of the moment as she was truly in her element. With the gracefulness of a spider, Jade lowered herself to the third story window taking care not to touch the surface of anything of the building.
Someone once said, "Humans use magic, but elves are a part of it..." and Jade was no exception as she was able to feel the waves of warding energy emanating menacingly from the building. She smiled. This spell was quite the deterrent for any ordinary thief but Jade was far from ordinary. She looped the spidersilk rope around her right ankle and passed the coil of remaining rope into her right hand. With her left hand, she reached up into her left boot and, with a click of a small buckle released her wand of cancellation, one of the many gifts from her mage brother Kynaris and the rest of House Korianthil back in Evereska. While they did not always approve of Iralen's roguish ways, they were not about to let a sister wander Faerun unprepared.
With a quick flick of her wand, Jade opened up a temporary gap in the spell barrier around the window. It would not last long but just long enough for her to complete her nocturnal retrieval of a recently unearthed Elven artifact that was sold unknowingly to this fop of a money changer. A similar Mhaorkiira wrecked havoc in the populace of Waterdeep years ago and the Tel'Quissir weren't about to allow that to happen again. Personally, Jade would rather be plucking wealthy "pigeons" in Waterdeep than hanging out in this "frontier town" of a city for, even after thirty years after Mount Hotenow blew it's top, the people of Neverwinter were still barely getting back on their feet. However, an official edict from the Ruling Council of Evereska to recover the Mhaorkiira was something a loyal member of House Korianthil could not refuse.
Jade deftly put away the wand back in her boot, reestablished her double ankle grip on the rope and looked over the outside surface of the window for any sign of mechanical traps. Finding none, she reached into her right tunic pocket and retrieved a small diamond tipped saw and began to carve out an oval in the pane of glass. Once the hole was nearly complete, Jade retrieved the sticky end of the spidersilk rope and applied it to the center of the oval and, with a quick flick of her finger, knocked the small oval of glass out and quietly lowered it inside of the room with the spidersilk. She reached inside the oval and felt the inside edge of the window once again searching for traps. It wasn't long before her Elven fingers detected the telltale ridges of the hidden springs inside the window jambs which betrayed the presence of a devious guillotine trap meant to dismember a potential thief's limb if not outright cleaving them in half once they opened the window and passed through the portal. Jade reached into her belt pouch and retrieved her bottle of black dragon acid and proceeded to deliver a dropper full at each top corner of the window. After a quick hiss, the acid quickly penetrated the thin layer of paint and voraciously ate the metal springs below. Jade returned the stopper bottle to her belt pouch, unlatched the window and cautiously lifted it with Forya. She gently placed a glassteel dowel on the left side beneath the seam in the window where the blade was undoubted hidden in and placed the flat of Forya down upon the sill. Jade slowly applied pressure to the hidden trigger and was rewarded with a soft <click> as the wall of razor sharp metal gently landed on the dowel.
"Too easy..." Jade thought as she sheathed Forya, righted her orientation on the rope, pushed off of the building with her legs and flew through the window feet first. She landed lightly on her feet in a crouch and quickly scanned the darkness before her. The otherwise empty bedroom was richly decorated with furnishings fit for a king. "Business must be good..." she thought. The Calimishan rug and Cledwyll statue especially drew Jade's attention until she begrudgingly remembered the true goal of this evening's enterprise. "Time to retrieve the Mhaorkiira before this fool hurts himself or anyone else, " she thought darkly.
That's when she heard the low rumbling growl and smelled the stench of infernal sulfur in the air.
"Beshaba's Breath!" Jade silently cursed, invoking the name of the Goddess of Bad Luck, as she drew Hyarya and Forya.
"This is going to hurt..."
[Continued in "The Source Stone Tavern" thread...]
"I can't believe, Olive Ruskettle is actually in Neverwinter and playing at the Fallen Tower Tavern tonight!" Argus spoke aloud to the dust bunnies and spiders that lived inside of his cloak closet as he fumbled around looking for something appropriate to wear. After trying on and discarding four dress cloaks onto a growing pile of discarded clothing on the floor, Argus finally settled on a royal blue one with flowing silver runes all along the border. He admired himself in front of large silver mirror, licked his fingers and immediately started to rub a mustard stain from the left collar.
After a few minutes, Argus gave up trying to clean the cloak as soon as he realized that he was going to be late and not be able to get a front row seat at what surely was going to be a packed house. He took up his favorite walking stick and removed his travelling cap from the head of a large stone hellhound statue in the corner of his shop. "Good boy, keep an eye on things while I'm gone, " Argus said as he patted the cold stone statue on the head. Strange how the ruby eyes of the statue continued to glimmer even when Argus extinguished the continual light orb floating in the center of the room which served as the primary light source for his shop. After taking one last quick look around the shop and finding everything in order, Argus opened the door and stepped out into the cold and especially dark night.
Tonight was a new moon, a time of renewal and rebirth, and a time where every dark cloaked corner could conceal an assassin promising death. Argus looked left and right down the avenue and, after seeing no one, placed his palm on the relief of a gargoyle hewn into the stone archway that framed the door of his shop. "Iron vines, " he whispered and immediately felt the subtle tingle of the Art trickle out of the wardingstone. Argus closed his eyes and in his mind's eye, he saw the magical tendrils reaching and wrapping around his shop to lock it down tight. Trusting in the wards over his shop to stop would be thieves and the wards on his body to turn the blades of any would be assassins, Argus plodded down the street towards the Fallen Tower Tavern whistling "The Tears of Selune, " his favorite Olive Ruskettle song. If Argus had been a little more perceptive instead of filling his head with the thoughts of singing halflings, he might have noticed a slight ripple in the leaves of the great oak tree next to his shop. He might have found it especially curious since there was nary a breeze tonight...
"Finally!" the elf whispered to herself and the nearby tree trunk as the last of the off-tune notes of "The Tears of Selune" faded into the night. "I'd thought he would never leave, " the elf huffed as she began to rub the sensation back into her black leather clad arms and legs. After a quick look and listen for activity along the street, Iralen (Jade, to her N'Tel'Quessir acquaintances ) checked the multitudes of gear she had stored in every pouch, satchel, nook and cranny on her lithe form. She also checked her two enchanted glassteel short swords strapped across her back Hyarya (Left) and Forya (Right) and her favorite enchanted glassteel dagger Rakka (Claw) dipped in Drow sleep poison and sheathed in her right boot. Jade was never a big fan of "wet work" but you could never be too prepared.
After the quick inventory, Jade proceeded take out a slim and nearly invisible coil of spidersilk rope and began to lash it around the tree trunk approximately thirty feet in the air and close to where she had been squatting for the better part of two hours. She then coiled the rope around half the length of the strongest branch which overhung the roof to the shop. With the remaining rope in her left hand and a few coils in her right, Jade slowly lowered herself off the branch, silently inverted her position and nimbly grasped the rope between her ankles. She immediately felt the rush of blood to her head but that only added to the dizzying excitement of the moment as she was truly in her element. With the gracefulness of a spider, Jade lowered herself to the third story window taking care not to touch the surface of anything of the building.
Someone once said, "Humans use magic, but elves are a part of it..." and Jade was no exception as she was able to feel the waves of warding energy emanating menacingly from the building. She smiled. This spell was quite the deterrent for any ordinary thief but Jade was far from ordinary. She looped the spidersilk rope around her right ankle and passed the coil of remaining rope into her right hand. With her left hand, she reached up into her left boot and, with a click of a small buckle released her wand of cancellation, one of the many gifts from her mage brother Kynaris and the rest of House Korianthil back in Evereska. While they did not always approve of Iralen's roguish ways, they were not about to let a sister wander Faerun unprepared.
With a quick flick of her wand, Jade opened up a temporary gap in the spell barrier around the window. It would not last long but just long enough for her to complete her nocturnal retrieval of a recently unearthed Elven artifact that was sold unknowingly to this fop of a money changer. A similar Mhaorkiira wrecked havoc in the populace of Waterdeep years ago and the Tel'Quissir weren't about to allow that to happen again. Personally, Jade would rather be plucking wealthy "pigeons" in Waterdeep than hanging out in this "frontier town" of a city for, even after thirty years after Mount Hotenow blew it's top, the people of Neverwinter were still barely getting back on their feet. However, an official edict from the Ruling Council of Evereska to recover the Mhaorkiira was something a loyal member of House Korianthil could not refuse.
Jade deftly put away the wand back in her boot, reestablished her double ankle grip on the rope and looked over the outside surface of the window for any sign of mechanical traps. Finding none, she reached into her right tunic pocket and retrieved a small diamond tipped saw and began to carve out an oval in the pane of glass. Once the hole was nearly complete, Jade retrieved the sticky end of the spidersilk rope and applied it to the center of the oval and, with a quick flick of her finger, knocked the small oval of glass out and quietly lowered it inside of the room with the spidersilk. She reached inside the oval and felt the inside edge of the window once again searching for traps. It wasn't long before her Elven fingers detected the telltale ridges of the hidden springs inside the window jambs which betrayed the presence of a devious guillotine trap meant to dismember a potential thief's limb if not outright cleaving them in half once they opened the window and passed through the portal. Jade reached into her belt pouch and retrieved her bottle of black dragon acid and proceeded to deliver a dropper full at each top corner of the window. After a quick hiss, the acid quickly penetrated the thin layer of paint and voraciously ate the metal springs below. Jade returned the stopper bottle to her belt pouch, unlatched the window and cautiously lifted it with Forya. She gently placed a glassteel dowel on the left side beneath the seam in the window where the blade was undoubted hidden in and placed the flat of Forya down upon the sill. Jade slowly applied pressure to the hidden trigger and was rewarded with a soft <click> as the wall of razor sharp metal gently landed on the dowel.
"Too easy..." Jade thought as she sheathed Forya, righted her orientation on the rope, pushed off of the building with her legs and flew through the window feet first. She landed lightly on her feet in a crouch and quickly scanned the darkness before her. The otherwise empty bedroom was richly decorated with furnishings fit for a king. "Business must be good..." she thought. The Calimishan rug and Cledwyll statue especially drew Jade's attention until she begrudgingly remembered the true goal of this evening's enterprise. "Time to retrieve the Mhaorkiira before this fool hurts himself or anyone else, " she thought darkly.
That's when she heard the low rumbling growl and smelled the stench of infernal sulfur in the air.
"Beshaba's Breath!" Jade silently cursed, invoking the name of the Goddess of Bad Luck, as she drew Hyarya and Forya.
"This is going to hurt..."
[Continued in "The Source Stone Tavern" thread...]
This city promises death for the meek, glory for the bold, danger for all, and riches for Jade!
Elven Trickster Rogue: Two-bladed elf, tons of stabby stabby and that sort of thing...
| R. A. Salvatore | My Minions | Forgotten Realms Wiki | Elven Translator |
Post edited by jadescimitar on
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Comments
And thanks for the crossover !
BTW, You might want to link the two like this in your posts.
and very cool about the links, Truth!
Thanks!
This city promises death for the meek, glory for the bold, danger for all, and riches for Jade!
Elven Trickster Rogue: Two-bladed elf, tons of stabby stabby and that sort of thing...
| R. A. Salvatore | My Minions | Forgotten Realms Wiki | Elven Translator |