Conversation 4: Daisy and Pearl

Green: Daisy

GM: Black

((Ok, for Pearl, I'll say it's evening, and you're on your way to your room. You pass by Pearl's room, and see the light still on. As you look, the door opens, and Dexter steps out.

"Goodnight Pearl. If you need anything, just call." You hear Pearl say something back, but can't make it out. Dexter walks away, attempting to close the door, but the door hitches and remains open a crack. You walk by and see Pearl at a desk, working on something. She suddenly tenses, and grabs a weapon at her side. She looks up towards you, and says

"Dexter? Is that you?"

"Whoa, whoa there," Daisy said lightly, pushing the door open wider. "If you're gonna pull a sword on everyone who walks by your door, you're gonna wear out your arm long before you hit the battlefield. Why so tense?"

Pearl relaxes her guard, and takes her hand off her weapon.

"Oh, Daisy. Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I just thought I heard someone, and then I saw the door open... I thought someone was sneaking around. I guess I'm just a little paranoid. Did you need help with something?" she asks.

"No offense taken," Daisy chuckled, strolling into the room. "Best to be on your guard anyway, in case anyone ever does try something in here; no reason to think they couldn't. I was just passing by, but since I'm here, how are you feeling about the way things are going? Think we're on the right track?"

"Yes, yes I do. We've made rapid gains recently, securing entire regions under our banner. The Kobolds and dwarves are with us, and it's only a matter of time before the elves join us too. Maybe even the wingers if we can keep up our momentum. It's been such a rush, seeing the rapid changes in our army. I've been trying to organize a united stand against Harmonia for so long, and it's finally happening. With all the new help we have, from you and your friends, to Caesar and Katherine, Wayne and Cyrus...we're making this work. We have a real chance of making a difference not just for us, but for the whole continent. Don't' you think so?"

"Yeah..." Daisy said, scratching her head under her thick blond hair. "That all sounds pretty good. With the way things have been going, and with my help, I think you'll be able to accomplish anything you want. So... what do you want? Are you going to be the next emperor after Hikusaak?" she asked. Her voice held nothing but polite interest.

Pearl does a double take looking at you, and then laughs. "I have no such ambitions," she says, chuckling. "Honestly, I think it's up to the people who should govern them. I think a representative government like they have in Dunan would be for the best, but I don't know if Harmonia is ready for such a thing. The class based society has held sway for so long, I don't know if we could enforce the laws in such a state." she says, sighing.

"Winning the war is only the first part of this battle. Creating a new government that everyone will accept, and then defending it will be the harder challenge. As one of my old mentors used to say, "Killing is easy. Living is what is hard."

"Well, I'll agree that it feels like killing is too easy sometimes," Daisy allowed. "I don't know about the 'living' part, though. There are already all these classes and species living together in this castle, more coming all the time, and it sure doesn't seem like we're forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to do around here. Things worked out in Dunan for my dad's army; I think they'll work out here, you'll see. People would rather live in peace than fight; even someone like me can see that, and I'm just a merc."

"You're from Dunan, yes? It may be hard to understand for you, but this castle is an exception to the rule. If we put a kobold or dwarf on a council here, I doubt any former first class citizens would take them seriously. They've been taught non humans are not people, just animals to be ignored. I don't know how to make people like that see that life is life, and that it's precious. Change will take time, and I don't know if a new government will last long enough to make people see that. If Camaro, Dunan, or even Grassland decide to invade while we're weak, we may just be taken over by a foreign power before we've established anything. I'm trying to work on defense plans with Caesar to prevent that, but it's not easy."

"I don't really get it," Daisy said. She found a seat and sat casually, leaning on her sword. "Would that be so bad? I mean, Dunan's done pretty well with equality and tolerance and all that. If they take over Harmonia, maybe they can help shape this into the kind of place you want it to be. If Dunan's like what you want Harmonia to be... And Camaro's a knightdom or something, they shouldn't be so bad. I don't know much about the Grasslands, but I'll bet they have something to offer too. I'm just saying, maybe these are changes that a little group of us like this won't be able to make as well as a country like Dunan could make for all of Harmonia, I guess."

Pearl bites her lip. "I doubt that would be so easy either. A country like Dunan might try to make a peaceful change, but the fact would remain we would be a conquered nation. Just look at the Higheast province. They've rebelled twice in the last decade. Trying to control an area the size of Harmonia under a foreign rule? There would be rebellions all over the place, and we'd be at war again. The country would break away piece by piece, and we'd likely end up a collection of small countries instead of a united one, just begging to be attacked. The wars would start and the cycle would resume all over again. Harmonia has made too many enemies for us to be that weak. We need a unified nation that all can be happy under and still defend ourselves from foreign powers. We need to strike a balance, and I've yet to find it. There has to be a solution, I just don't know what it is."

"There's always going to be war. I'm sure Hikusaak didn't make the country he wanted to right off the bat, and then he still hoped that this country would last forever. There'll be flaws, and unrest, and rebellions, but maybe every time we'll fix something, and make it a little better. Jowston becomes Dunan, and Harmonia becomes...? Something better." Daisy smiled. "I'll help make it better, too. Not counting a lot of the humans, I like the people I've met here."

"I like the people here too. I guess that's part of the reason why I want to make this work, so the people here and everywhere in this country can finally live in peace. Maybe it's naive, but I hope we can create a country without war. A country strong enough to dissuade foreign attackers, but without the military expansionism of Harmonia. Caesar and I have debated a few ways to dissuade any future rulers from being able to declare war, but until we get a stable working government, it's a moot point."

"The transition to a new country should be easy enough, all things considered. I mean, a couple of priest generals have joined us already, and they should be pretty respected, right? The only one I've met so far who's been really hateful is Relos, and I don't see him becoming our ally anyway. Maybe it'll help if generals like Marcus and Reuben are seen treating leaders like Cyrus and Wayne like equals, eh?"

"One can hope," Pearl says, sighing. "You make this all sound so easy, Daisy. How do you stay so....optimistic? You've probably seen more battle than most, and yet you're always so chipper."

"Optimistic, huh? I guess so," Daisy said, tilting her head. "It's just that I've always been able to get done what I wanted by my own power, and I've been trying to prove people wrong for as long as I can remember. My dad used to worry about me all the time, so he'd try to leave me behind when he went off to fight. But I didn't want other people fighting a battle I could be fighting too. So I'd follow him and fight anyway until he figured out that that's just how things were gonna be. 

"To me, this isn't so different. You know what you want to happen. You have the power and the muscle to make it happen," she said matter-of-factly, "so there's no reason you should fail. Right?"

"Of course," Pearl says, giving you a weak smile. "We won't fail, not a chance. I may not know how we'll make it work, but I know we will. I just have to keep trying to find the way..." she says, looking back down at her collection of papers. She sighs, and says. "Thanks Daisy. I should get back to work. This country won't free itself, after all."

"Gotcha. If you ever wanna talk, just holler," Daisy said, standing up. She glanced back at Pearl at the door. "I mean it. I might seem all business sometimes too, but me and the girls know how to have a good time. April is the best at making sure everyone loosens up. So come with us sometime, okay?"

"I'll do that," Pearl says. "Take care, Daisy."

Session 21 Recap: Clive's New Clients

This session started with the promised cooking battle, specifically the introduction of our four judges. And here they are!

 “This stout dwarf loves the food of his homeland, and that means spice, spice, spice! It’s Dale!”

“One of the Unity Rune heroes, it’s Nathan! He’s live on prison food for so long, does he even care what type of food he gets?”

“The silent swordsman won’t tell us what food he likes, or…anything! It’s Humphrey!”

“The sexiest Rune Master around, it’s our very own Jeane! When asked what she loves, she says ‘everyone!’ ”

We divided up our jobs and jumped right in. Harold and Royce took charge of the appetizer with a heaping helping of Cheesy Nachos (nachos+salt), which won us scores of 9,9,9,9! Tenro prepared a simple salad for a respectable score of 8,8,8,8. Next, Hai Yo and Kuarjav fulfilled their responsibility with an interesting main course, Dwarf Pie (shepherd’s pie+hot sauce), and were rewarded with a 10, 9, 10, 9! To his distress, Tenro’s Rice Pilaf failed miserably with a 4, 4, 3, 4 – someone didn’t know his audience! Finally, Daisy helped Sciath whip up some of the trickster’s “Special” Brownies (brownies+salt) for a lovely 8, 8, 8, 8, while Tenro’s Fresh Fruit got mixed reviews of 8, 7, 3, 6. All in all, our final score was 104 and Tenro’s 64, starting off our cooking tales with a crushing victory for the Union Army.

Tenro hung his head in shame while the points were tallied, so Daisy gave him a brownie and said he should stay and train under Hai Yo to try and improve. But Retso had no intention of giving up his pupil, no matter how disappointing he might be, and just hit Tenro over the head with a spatula until he gave us Recipe #11 “Rice” and fled.

Royce took the moment of calm to give Harold the special feather he’d fetched for him, a striking reddish purple plume with a hint of orange in its veins. The dragonrider had already claimed one for himself as well (as well as, inexplicably, Vasuki). His solo mission had not solely been a diversion, however; Royce was able to give us detailed descriptions of Camaro’s troop movements as seen from dragonback.

After selling off some superfluous items, we kicked off another recruitment drive by flying to Wreckmar, the winger village. We immediately came across an angry crowd surrounding Natasha, calling her a witch for predicting deaths too accurately and being generally suspicious. At our urging, the lynch mob reluctantly agreed to run her out of town instead of killing her, so we helped her pack a few backs and flew her back to Liberty Castle.

In Sanil, the now-abandoned elf village, we found a human scribbling a map among the ruins. He identified himself as Bradenton, a son of Templeton, and agreed to join us, lured in by the prospect of dragonback and teleporting-based mapmaking.

In Norbank, one of the first villages we ever visited, Gabi and her pet monkey, Fox, lightened the mood with their playful antics. It took some doing, including having Daisy turn into a bear to test Gabi’s abilities, but we managed to convince the animal-whisperer that we could use her help. Gabi decided to use our help to make an animal sanctuary for the creatures that were disturbed or displaced by the ongoing civil war. With Gabi in tow, our first stop was the cave on the mountain path where we met Gloria, where a bear still slept. We came intending to let Gabi speak with it, but Daisy had a sudden whim to practice her newfound control over her transformation and speak with it herself. Daisy showed the bear both her bear and human forms and explained that the team is opening an animal sanctuary; Francois the bear agreed to come with us.

A slew of animals filed into the zoo behind him. From the cave in the dwarven mountains: Prinny the lady penguin. From Lucius’ hermitage, Sam the Eagle. From the caves under Witchport, Francesca the hippo. From the Crytal Valley academy’s basement, Melman the giraffe (who quickly became good buddies with Prinny). From the northern ruins where we discovered the Iron Giant, Berserker the lady baboon. From the basilisk’s forest temple, a male lemur named Zoboo. And from the Beast Village, a bison named Bella and a male elephant named Kandula, who had wandered in from unknown lands.

We left Gabi to try and figure out the living arrangements for our instant zoo and swung by the church for the first time, which Roxie did a beautiful job on. Lucius was in the middle of a sermon, so we waited for him to finish before we approached. The old former priest general encouraged us to confess our sins, so Daisy, a tad uncertainly, confessed to the seventy or so deaths she’s caused over the last few months (this is only counting the people she’s killed since she stepped into Harmonia). After some deliberation, she admitted to feeling bad for killing the Beast Village people who came after her, even though they were all actively trying to murder her; these were in a way her people now, after all. But she asserted very definitively that she only kills bad people most of the time, and it’s an unavoidable part of her job as a mercenary.

Royce and Vasuki went next, taking Gabi along to translate for the dragon. The dragonrider stayed unerringly true to his image. Harold began listing the murders he regretted, but only in terms of all of the outfits he’d ruined beyond all repair with a stab or a slice. Lucius handed him a copy of the Harmonian bible and told him to come back once he’d read through it. Kuarjav also confessed his sins to Lucius, revealing his guilt over not doing enough to help the lower-class citizens of Harmonia throughout his life. Lucius pointed out that the old man was more than making up for previous inaction now, though it is unknown how much Kuarjav took this to heart. Sciath and Sun Crystal chose to abstain.

Back in the war room, we found it mostly deserted save for Lena, who informed us that Caesar had run off to Northgate castle in the Merriburn Region with some troops. By the time we arrived, Northgate had already surrendered because their priest general was missing in action (Kristen had gone to defend Crystal Valley and never returned), and they knew that the Camaro forces were heading their way. As Caesar prepped the troops to defend our newly acquired castle, the Unity Rune heroes bought a sheep off a fleeing soldier. We also made the acquaintance of Isis and Tina, the Harmonian vice-commanders in charge of Northgate, who look almost identical. Caesar informed us that the Camaro forces led by Yuber had already made it to Lorview castle and were almost upon us.

Our personal Silverberg outlined his plans to post a decoy force to the east to force Camaro into the narrow gorge between the (partially incinerated) forest and the lake at Northgate, letting us take advantage of the trap. The plan went off perfectly, and we cut our way through hordes of Yuber’s demons, also managing to drive off Henry. But the unruly host kept coming at us through the gorge, never tiring. It was a welcome surprise when none other than Clive and several hundred members of his Howling Voice guild showed up out of nowhere to bombard Yuber with their rifles, forcing him, Grant, and the remaining demons to flee. With Harmonia no more and the Union Army the only real powerhouse capable of facing Camaro, Clive agreed to lend us his power for a while. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, cape whipping in the wind, and said: “I intend to make [Camaro] howl.” – William Tecumseh Sherman.

Recruitments: Natasha, Bradenton, Gabi, Isis, Tina, Clive

Investigations: Natasha, Gabi, Clive, Lilly, Monty

U-u-u-updates!

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Conversation 3: Daisy and Juliet

Green: Daisy

Black: GM

Daisy will seek out "Juliet" (presumably she has her own room; I haven't checked the castle yet) and say, "Hi, Juliet! It's been so crazy around here with the battles that I haven't had a chance to really talk with you yet. My name is Daisy Saint-Anicet."

When you give your last name, you see a flicker of recognition in "Juliet's" eyes, but she quickly masks it.

"Daisy, yes? I can't thank you and your friends enough for protecting me and Patricia, and welcoming us into your castle. We are in your debt."

"Yeah, I mostly just go by Daisy. My mom died when I was born, and I haven't had much contact with her side of the family. That's something I wanted to talk to you about, actually. Do you know if any of my relatives were living in Crystal Valley before the attack? I figure you would know, since you're related -- i mean, I guess we're related, too," Daisy said pleasantly, resting her elbows on her big sword.

Juliet's eyes go wide, then slant into steel. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about. Patricia's the only family I have."

"Not according to Xander," Daisy shrugged, then said in a lower voice, "It's okay, I won't tell anyone. I mean, you're like, my cousin, I think. I don't care if you want to keep everything secret and all. But you can trust me. I just want to get to know any family I have, you know?"

"If you know I wish to keep things secret, then why bring this up at all? Even if what you say is true, you would know I couldn't confirm such a thing. A secret isn't a secret if it's told freely."

"Fine, don't admit who you are," Daisy said, rolling her eyes; hiding one's identity had always seemed ridiculous to her. "We don't have to talk about you or your daughter. Just do me a favor, and tell me if you've ever heard of these complete strangers to you called the Saint-Anicet family, and if any of them were living in the Crystal Valley. I'll find out who my grandparents are on my own," she muttered.

Juliet sighs. "I'm afraid I don't know much about them. I know where they lived, and did my best to avoid them," she says, sighing. "They was a branch of the family in the crystal valley's north side. It was the first part evacuated, so I would think they made it out safe. If you truly wish to find them, you might want to try asking some of the refugees here on in Lorin about the family."

"Thanks," Daisy said, slinging her sword over her back. "I'll go to Lorin, then. Good luck with your life, I guess," and she walked out, still a little miffed.

As you start to walk away, Juliet walks to the door, and calls out "Daisy!"

Daisy stopped and turned back. "What is it, Juliet?"

Juliet hesitates a moment, then sighs. "I'm sorry I can't tell you much, but...if I were the person you think I am, I would be honored to call you my family."

Daisy paused, considering, and then her face split into a wide grin. "Thanks... cousin!" she whispered conspiratorially, and took her leave.