RP:Taking A Gamble On Reno

From HollowWiki

Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc


Summary: Khitti and Lionel follow a strange lead in search of Kahran, but their journey leads them to an eccentric tinkerer instead. Introducing herself as Net Reno, she leaves a lasting impression on the siblings.

Outside the Sanctum of the Divine, Kelay

Lionel | Ever since losing several dozen ravens to Kahran’s interceptors during the height of prior hostilities with the warlord, Lionel had been decidedly less enthusiastic about relying on the birds as a communications network. Not only because they’d become less useful, but because he hated finding their poor corpses along the sides of roads, too. The lives of ravens and other delivery birds had been taken for granted in Lithrydel for centuries, their navigational skills assumed and their slaughter viewed with tactical depression, not genuine sorrow for the loss of life. For these reasons as well as necessary haste, Lionel had begun to rely upon his Tikihflee whenever possible. The sizable feline couldn’t be counted on to deliver every bit of news halfway across the realm, of course; she was only one beast, and she loved sleep more than anything. Certainly more than earning her keep.

Lionel | But for the most important matters, which needed to reach their target with utmost guarantee, Lionel chose his pet for the job. She departed from Kelay Way an hour past dusk and ran almost without pause across the plains and over the stone bridge and around Cenril’s walled perimeter until she reached the docks, terrifying early-morning fishermen on her way to the Tranquility. The crew knew well what her arrival always indicated; those few who were already awake let the well-known cat pass -- not that any of them were keen on trying to stop her, anyway -- and tried unsuccessfully to warn Khitti of her approach. As ever, the Tikihflee reached Lionel’s sister and roused her, meowing far too sweetly for a creature so large. Lionel’s letter, nestled behind the Tikihflee’s ear, said what needed to be said and little more: ‘Urgent news. Meet me in Kelay, a quarter-kilometer west of the tavern. Bring napkins. A lot of napkins. Oh, and gloves. Bring two pairs of gloves. And cinnamon rolls because I’m hungry.’


Khitti || The ‘MOWROWR’ of the Tikifhlee was unmistakeable--Khitti’s own let out the cry of their people several times a day as it darted around the confines of its enclosure within the Tranquility. Sure, the Tikifhlee were adorable, but when Dominic was down for his nap, Khitti all but put a muzzle on the great feline beast. “Shh!” The Tikifhlee nuzzled Khitti forcefully, almost knocking her down, and Khitti only sighed and gave that cat what she wanted: a hell of a lot of ear scritches. The note was taken, stared at blankly, and a smirk offered to the paper, “Alright, alright.” She’d head back down into the belly of the ship, only briefly, and returned with her own two notes, one for Lionel and the other for one of her staff members at the bakery (the first would say ‘What do I look like? A baker?’ and the other ‘Lionel demands cinnamon rolls again. Give the man what he wants.’, respectively). Lionel’s Tikifhlee was sent off ahead of Khitti, so that she might grab these two pairs of gloves and… napkins? Khitti was entirely confused, to be sure, but she went and did the thing anyway.

Khitti would arrive not too long after Lionel’s cat, giving him time to shove those much needed cinnamon rolls down his throat before they got up to… whatever the hell they were going to do with gloves and napkins. She was partially convinced that this was some practical joke, but one could never truly tell with Lionel. A small burlap bag with ‘the goods’ (if napkins and gloves can even be considered as such) was tossed at the Catalian as she leapt off her own shadow cat, “Do I want to know what this is about?” She patted her cat lightly, the feline seemingly carrying a bit more weight than usual, “Go on, you. Go lay down.” Once more, though from a different Tikifhlee, she got a nuzzle that nearly knocked her over--and this time there was even a lick too, “Uggghhh. Cat spit.”


Lionel | “You honestly don’t,” Lionel replied in-between mouthfuls of fresh-baked dough smothered in sugar and cinnamon. He’d been sitting with his back propped up against a tree all night and he hadn’t thought to bring rations when he’d originally arrived here yesterday afternoon. His hunger enhanced the flavor. Lionel might have tried catching the burlap bag that Khitti tossed at him, but his muscles were sore from remaining in one place for too long and he knew he might miss. Faced with the 50/50 odds that he’d make a fool of himself, the stubborn Catalian opted instead to feign disinterest in the act altogether. The bag landed with a gentle thud upon the soft, loamy soil. Lionel licked his lips before rising. It made sense to finish dinner -- or was it breakfast now? -- before souring the mood. “But I have to show you anyway,” he added on to his first sentence, as if three full minutes hadn’t passed them by since he’d said it. He put the gloves on and intimated that Khitti ought to do the same. Lionel’s Tikihflee was the first to the scene, wrinkling her nose in disgust: four massive amphibian carcasses, already turning. Three of them had wrapped their tongues around themselves in fear, and the fourth had lost its tongue altogether. Their heads were severed, or their chests were impaled, but in any case they were all entirely deceased. “Sloads,” the Catalian confirmed, as if there were any doubt of it. He ripped into a bulbous neck and pulled a small silver emblem from the flesh. It wasn’t vanity that had compelled a sorcerer of some sort or other to bury the emblem in the sload; the piece served as a magical tracking beacon, and the trackers were, without exception, servants of Kahran. “We knew he would continue his war. We just didn’t know when. Now we do.”


Khitti put on her gloves as silently instructed and followed along after Lionel. They’d find those amphibians and, much like Lionel’s Tikifhlee, the other Khat wrinkled her nose too. “It couldn’t have just been giant fluffy bunnies could it? They can be vicious too; I’ve read about it. This is why I never go to Frogland.” She meant Taylebeck, of course. The stab wounds were obvious, and Khitti could only smirk at them, “Are you sure that they just didn’t want to play a game of leapfrog?” Detective-mode was then “activated”, the redhead first eyeing that emblem and then the inside of the sload, “Well, they’re definitely not weak to silver.” Pause. More observation. “I’ve not seen anything like those before, “ she said, motioning towards the bit of silver, “but we could probably find out where they came from, besides the obvious.”


Lionel snorted. “Don’t ask me why, but I get the feeling that me and Krice would have had a tougher time against fluffy rabbits.” Secretly he knew the reason. Killing a bloated, grey-skinned frog was one thing. Killing a cute, soft rabbit took a cold-bloodedness Lionel wasn’t sure he would ever possess. Maybe Kahran was going about this all wrong. Jokes -- was Lionel going to have to rely on their overuse in order to ease himself from the looming darkness again? “Let’s,” he said. “Learning the precise origin of our friendly, neighborhood dead frogs over here will go a long way for us now that the first signs of open conflict are upon us anew. This was how he started things last time -- first a few scattered assaults, then a declaration, and then full-scale battles. You’d think the guy would explore new approaches to keep his show from getting stale.” Lionel shrugged, relying on jokes indeed. “I’m giving him one more season. We’re cancelling that rat bastard for good this time. What do you need me to do?” He motioned toward the emblem. Whatever his sister had in mind for this homing-in-on-the-homing-beacon operation, he was game.


Khitti || “Evil likes to talk themselves up constantly. They disappear. They reappear. People are wowed and awed. Evil makes huge claims. Evil eventually disappears again.” She motioned towards the nearby training facility, that lead to the Land of Super Grim Dark Stuff, “I mean, just look at Vailkrin. It happens constantly there. I could never keep track when I actually lived there. It got boring after awhile because nothing -ever- happened.” Sigh. Shrug. Moving on. “Uhh…” She took the emblem, removed a glove, licked her index finger, and stuck it in the air to test which way the breeze flowed. “Hm.” Then, in a very unlady-like fashion, Khitti hacked up the biggest spitball she could and let it fly towards the beacon, and used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe it clean and then she… “Nope. I got nothin’.” Pause. “Oh wait! Duh.” Khitti might not be a paladin, but she still had that holy magic. So she blessed that motherfrakker, holy fire and all, “I just had to reverse the polarity of the magic flow.” She passed the now evil-seekin’ beacon back to Lionel, “You get to stand there and look silly with frog guts all over you. Since this isn’t your generic beacon, it should definitely take you right to wherever the frak those things came from… as long as it’s here in this realm, of course.” They didn’t need to go into the details of if Kahran actually got his hands on Shadow Plane access again just yet.


Lionel smirked at Khitti’s fair points, but they both knew things were different with Kahran. He’d torn cities apart and conquered others. He’d slaughtered thousands -- or was it tens of thousands, now? Nevertheless, she was right about his penchant for the same exact theatrics they’d both seen time and again. It was almost disappointing. Lionel was drawn back to the here and now once he spotted his sister licking her finger. Puzzlingly, his Tikifhlee was presently doing the same thing in almost the exact same position. The Tikihflee did not, however, hack up balled mucus thereafter. Lionel did not hesitate to grab hold of the guts of a fallen sload and smear them all over his shirtsleeves. He might have asked if Khitti meant this part in a literal sense, but the deed was done. “To be clear, am I gonna go catapulting across Lithrydel or this a teleportation spell? I’m praying it’s the latter, and it takes a lot for me to pray. The last time I prayed, I was up at the top of that damnable obsidian tower with Kahran’s poisoned blade plunged deep inside me. I think it says something that I reserve these prayers for very specific moments, Khitti.” Nearby, an old man -- was he a full elf or a half-elf? -- walked his small dog down the road. It was the same man that Lionel and Krice had saved from the sloads the previous evening, and he bowed humbly in recognition of realm-wide heroes. That bow was quickly replaced with a few blinks and a wayward jog the instant he noticed frog guts all over the Hero of Hellfire. There was hero worship, and then there was the realization that most so-called heroes were, in fact, a bit touched.


Khitti just blinked at the old man in return as he bowed and wandered on, far far away from the realm’s heroes, “That reminds me.” Well, really, it was the lack of hero worship on Tiberius’ part that reminded her. “I met a Catalian. Another one. I don’t know how I keep finding you people, but yep.” As she was saying this, only then did she realize that he’d covered himself in sload insides. “And you all never fail to be weird as hell. As for this, it’s not but I can make it that way.” She’d had a lot of time making teleportation spells lately--it came in handy with all that going back and forth between Cenril, Kelay, Venturil, and Frostmaw. “Don’t, uh… don’t tell anyone I did this.” Doing a thing she should not do, Khitti pulled Tenbatsu Kaji from its sheath and, holding it very precariously, used the pointy end to etch a few symbols into the silver before handing it over again. “Now, just say ‘Dracarys’ and we’ll be on our way.” He didn’t -actually- have to say it, but it sounded fancy, at least. That sword of hers wasn’t returned to its place along her back; instead, it was kept handy because who the frak knew where the hell they were going.


Lionel | “Another one?” It shouldn’t have surprised Lionel. First came the cataclysm, then came the exodus. What few of his people who’d survived would need to look elsewhere for the rest of their lives. “Hook us up sometime, I guess. If there’s time. We’ll need all the fighters, thinkers, tinkerers and rogues we needed last time -- and we mean to end things definitively before more cities and villages are lost, so perhaps we’ll need even more of ‘em.” When Khitti requested that he tell no one what she was about to do, he shrugged nonchalantly and chuckled with mirth. After all, spreading information about the Resistance’s capabilities had long proven a bad idea, and anything and everything involving Khitti in particular seemed best kept in secret. “Dracarys,” Lionel mumbled without much thought. Oddly, Hellfire rumbled and felt a great and sudden warmth. Whatever happened next, his sister would lead the way.

Deep Forest, Venturil

Khitti || “Will do,” was all Khitti managed to get out before the magic word was said. A small bit of holy fire ignited in the air, the spot looking like the end of a sparkler during a firework show. It didn’t stay that way for long, however. Instead, it pulled itself outward, spreading to open the portal needed, those sparks still leaping about along the edges. “You know, this is definitely a good light show, but I think I prefer the cake and potions I made to go to and from Venturil months ago. You couldn’t see where you were going and it made it all the more exciting. I think even the portals I can make to the Shadow Plane now are better than this.” She shrugged, ending her ill-timed musings, “Things to work on, I guess.” Sword in hand, she’d turn around backwards, with the portal behind her and Lionel before her. “If we’re bound to be fighting evil all the time again, I’ve got to make things interesting -somehow-. They’re sure as hell not going to do it,” she proclaimed before stepped backwards into the rift and disappearing.


Lionel poked the bubbly portal with youthful inquisition. “I like it OK. Besides, it’ll get the job done.” He opened his mouth to bring up that time he’d been tied to a stake and tossed into a dark magic portal as a ritual sacrifice but ended up thudding on the cold iron floor directly behind it instead, but Khitti had already vanished and it was probably in poor taste anyway. With one last glance at the sload corpses, he leapt into sparkling gateway and felt himself passing through space and time. A strange dampness descended upon him, cool and gentle, but when he tried to touch it with his hand he felt himself immobilized. What’s more, he somehow -knew- it wouldn’t have felt wet even if he had managed to feel it. The realization of bodily paralysis was almost enough to cause Lionel to panic, but it was all over in a flash of too-white light mere seconds later. He spotted Khitti, freshly-emerged, standing beside him. Wherever they were, the sky was still dark. “We’ve traveled significantly westward,” Lionel deduced. The air was thick and dank and a colorful bird with an elongated beak chipped away at the bark of one of many trees towering over them. The trees were varied; some were familiar oak, whilst others sported exotical fronds of blue and violet and pink and gold. Glancing ahead, Lionel could see that the oaks steadily made way for further palm trees in the distance. “Well, this is right lovely scenery. Alright, let’s keep quiet and…” Khitti’s portal erupted in a flurry, prompting Lionel to raise his sword in defense. But the source of this commotion was no attack but for the wrath of two Tikihflees, seemingly abandoned. They meowed and they wowed, forging a sort of “mowow” symphony, and their symphony frightened away the bird. “...nevermind.”


Khitti || “I hate the West. Nothing good ever happens in the West.” It was true, after all. She hated Chartsend and Venturil, and even her homeland was in that general direction. She let out a rather long ‘shhhhhh’, to which she was just given more ‘mowrowr’ in return. “If you don’t shut it, there’ll be no cuddling with your mate tonight,” Khitti’s words directed at her own cat. The cat let out an innocent murr and the two made their way full through the portal before it closed for the time being. “You two. Stand guard. You know the drill.” The ridiculously-sentient creatures murred again in unison, giving Khitti and Lionel the go ahead to leave, “Come on, then. Let’s get this over with and hope Brand doesn’t set us both on fire when we get back--or worse, he might let Dominic do it.” It was worse. Far, far worse.


Lionel had spent years of his life convincing his own sword not to set him on fire. He damn sure wasn’t going to let his toddler nephew finish the job. But unlike Halycanos, there was no reasoning with Dominic. There was only… the flame. “Point taken.” Into the wilds they went, further and further into the West. There was nothing to do for it but continue marching. The good news was that their march did not last long. The bad news was that their march was halted by an abrupt bolt of lightning zigzagging its way through the palm trees with razor-sharp focus. Lionel dodged with a roll and watched the bolt slam into a nearby branch, sending it smoking. Another bolt quickly arrived, this time headed for Khitti. Lionel drew Hellfire and silently thanked it for not being Dominic.


Khitti narrowed her eyes at the bolt as it passed by Lionel and hit the tree. Fire, she could deal with. Ice and water were easy, and likewise with earth. But lightning? That… just happened to be the magic she’d not tried in recent days to defend herself against. When was the last time anyway? Oh right. Just before she got kidnapped by Raiez. Fun times. Brand had sure made for a shocking experience that day. “Remind me…” She said, dodging one bolt, “later on,” and then another, “to get Brand to teach me,” and another still, “how to counter this nonsense.” The templar summoned up a rather large ball of holy fire and sent it careening down through the trees like a boulder towards whomever was shooting at them. It didn’t quite set everything on fire along the way; it did miss trees, but the grass and bushes were certainly done for and naught was left in their place beyond scorch trails and a bit of ash.


Lionel didn’t outright answer Khitti so much as he nodded in-between each of her dodges. “Sure,” he said simply as Khitti readied her retribution. Once her holy fire was loosed, Lionel took a few cautious steps forward. And then a few more. And then a few more. Just as he raised his finger to indicate that his sister should follow suit, a disarmingly unthreatening sound was heard from the edge of the holy fire’s trajectory. It was something like a moan, but less of pain and more of staid unpleasantness. “My cloth -- you burned my cloth!” It was a woman’s voice, shrill with advanced years. Emerging from the thicket, she spat in distaste and eyed the fresh arrivals crudely. “Well, this is a right fine mess you’ve gotten yourselves into, and -- is that… did you smear yourself with sload bits?” The woman looked Lionel up and down like he was the greatest moron that had ever lived. She also seemed completely uninterested in the fact that he was holding a flaming sword that could have roasted her alive in a heartbeat. Lionel’s lip trembled. It might have been nothing, but this may have been… “Mulgrew? Have you assumed some newer form? But why would you? You were half past the proverbial hill beforehand; now you just look -old.-” The strange, bent-shouldered mage sneered and spat all over again. “First of all, rude,” she sneered. “Well, come on then, you louts. Come see what you’ve gone and ruined. And here I thought you’d had the good sense to be an orc scouting party, come to stop a poor old woman from doing her good deeds. Shows what I know.” She didn’t shut up as she led the way.


If only Khitti was an elemental mage like Brand, she would’ve assisted Lionel with power-washing the sload bits off of him that he mistakenly put on his person before their journey through the portal. She’d followed as Lionel instructed and could only eye her brother and the old woman while their exchange went on. Mulgrew… Mulgrew… Orite, that bitch from Frostmaw. “Are you sure? I could add a few more singe marks to whatever the hell it is you’re doing. Especially seeing as how you just like to throw lightning everywhere at people.” A ball of holy fire lit up in the redhead’s hand, but was soon snuffed out after Mulgrew just decided to wander off, expecting Lionel and Khitti to follow her. “I was going to ask if following her is a good idea, but I guess most things we do are typically bad ideas.”


What troubled Lionel wasn’t that this old woman was Mulgrew. It was that she’d been completely noncommittal on whether or not that was her identity. She dismissed the question out-of-hand, leaving her guests to assume a certain likelihood. But it was just like Mulgrew to avoid confirmation, keeping Lionel from accusing the sorceress of anything outright. Instead he’d be forced to play along, acting the fool. It was always something with this woman. Before he knew it the alleged Mulgrew started walking, leaving Lionel alongside his justifiably-agitated sister. “And I was going to tell you to be cautious, but I guess most things we do require caution.”

“What really gets my goat,” the mage prattled on indignantly, “is that I spent over three hours wrestling with that stubborn sload before I managed to shove the emblem you so crudely retrieved down its throat. Three hours. You wouldn’t know it now, what with her being killed and all, not pointing fingers but, you know, by you, but ol’ Gren was calm as unsweet tea when she wanted to be. Which, as it happens, took me three hours to find out. So that’s three hours of hard labor, plus killing a revenant for the emblem, plus herding the damn sloads. All for nothing. You people had better be interesting.” She turned left at one last palm tree and revealed her simple wooden abode. A veritable smorgasbord of tools and trinkets lay haphazardly upon the ground. Multiple orc and revenant corpses were set up at various levels of dismemberment.

“Oh come on,” Lionel said. “Since when did you enter the business of directly intervening in Kahran’s war? And... for the love of Emilia, why the hell did you name the sloads?”


“To be fair, she might be a slightly better pet owner than us. We’ve had those Tikifhlee for two years and still haven’t named them.” Khitti really needed to get on that. What the hell is she going to call it? Maybe Snugglefluff. Hm. No. Maybe Khoal? Or maybe Cupcake! So many names to choose from. But, now wasn’t the time for that. Now it’s Shul--no, not that time either. “I think you underestimate how much these creatures want to maim, maul, and murder Lionel and his friends, so if you were using them to track Kahran somehow, your plan’s got a wee bit of a flaw. Mostly that when these creatures show up and attack us, they end up dead. They don’t make it back to Kahran at all. Unless you happen to have a bit of necromancy up your sleeve, I guess…”


The woman crouched over an orc corpse and withdrew a serrated knife from its sheath. Carving into the soft, decaying flesh grotesquely, she carried conversation as though she were carving a cake instead. “Necromancy? Oh, no. I’m too squeamish for all that.” Once a sizable chunk of flesh was removed from the corpse’s cheek, she wrapped it in a sack and pulled another emblem from its exposed jawbone. She wiped her hands clean as she returned to her unexpected guests, fixing Khitti with a meaningful stare. “Lost my wife on the Turnt. Lost my sisters in a raid. Lost my father to a wraith, but I’ll admit, he was on his way out anyway. So begging your pardon on that score, but it’s not just your shiny, special lot that Kahran wants dead. I’ve stopped six ambushes with science. Cracking monsters open like eggs, slapping them down pat with these emblems, adjusting the harmonics to screw up their pathing and make them easy prey for the people they meant to kill — that’s what I do out here.” The mage set aside her knife and sighed. “I’m not angry with you for helping cull the local bloodthirsty jackass population. I’m angry because I happened to like that sload.” She whistled an odd tune on her way into her cabin, leaving the door open halfway. Evidently, she was apathetic as to whether Khitti and Lionel would be joining her.

“I’ll be damned,” Lionel said. “It really isn’t Mulgrew.” Not that there wasn’t still a slim chance the sorceress was playing some sort of long con with them here today, but it seemed less and less likely with every word this strange woman had said. Lionel shook his head. “She’s certainly brash, and I wouldn’t invite her to supper, but the resistance could afford to learn more about these emblems. Maybe even coordinate with her on future actions. What do you say, sis? Care to take the lead on this, uh, diplomatic first contact? You know me. I’ll just say something stupid.”


Khitti side-eyed Lionel at his offer of her taking a stab at taking on a diplomatic mission to recruit this strange person, “You just don’t want to deal with anymore old people. But suuuuuure. I suppose I can do this thing for you.” She said this, but she wasn’t entirely confident in her people skills, and it probably showed a little. Khitti took a deep breath, let it out in a heavy sigh, and wandered into the house after the woman. “Necromancy’s not all that bad--not like most people think anyway.” Moving on, she frowned, turning the conversation back towards the subject of the attack during the Cenril election, “I’m sorry, about your wife. A lot of good people died that day. My fiance did what he could with his ship’s crew to help everyone, but it wasn’t enough, unfortunately.” Helping never seemed like it was enough in those situations. “I don’t really consider myself a “shiny, special” person. I’m just trying to protect my family, and now my guild as well. And, for the record, I didn’t kill the sload--he did,” Khitti said, jerking a thumb in Lionel’s direction. “So, with that being said, I’m gonna ask you for your help. Because Kahran is different than all of those other evils we’ve fought before.” She paused a moment, eyeing the remnants of the old woman’s experiments, “And… I might have a suggestion, to help your little project along, and maybe even build on it for other purposes.”


The odd woman was washing her hands vigorously with a bucket of warm water and a smaller container with the words “animal fat” and “lye” written on it when Khitti entered her house. She poured herself a glass of what might have been wine, but upon further glance was cranberry juice. Listening to Khitti didn’t require eye contact, it seemed, so she was keeping busy sipping her juice and taking an accounting of her life eccentric inventory. A handful of times certain words and phrases caught her ear and she turned, briefly regarding her guest before returning to her incessant fiddling.

“Didn’t realize that was you,” she mumbled apologetically. “Your ship, I mean. I knew who you were once I laid eyes on you, because you’ve been a VIP at a few too many concerts through the years, if you catch my drift... but I didn’t know it was your fiancé who came and saved who he could.” The woman but her lip and shook her head to herself, thinking. “That brother of yours out there, Mr. Kill-You-Sload, must be O’Connor, then. Pfft... figures I’d end up attracting this much attention. My work was designed to be discreet. And to my credit, I’ll have you know the enemy still hasn’t found this place.” She smirked. “But you have. And that means the game has changed.” She extended her hand for a shake. “The name’s Reno. Net Reno. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me your suggestion.”


A few too many concerts. It took Khitti a moment to process the old woman’s meaning, but once she did, a vague smirk surfaced. Khitti had, indeed, unfortunately been “privileged” enough to be a part of far too many bad things that’s gone on in Lithrydel. Now she was reminded of just how much like Lionel she was, attracting all sorts of evil of varying degrees or, at least, finding herself in the middle of it, if the trouble wasn’t destined for her. “Yeah, being a part of all that isn’t exactly something I enjoy. It just sort of… happens to me.” Khitti didn’t bother to tell this Net Reno that about a half or two-thirds of the bad things that happened to Khitti on a weekly or monthly basis (depending on how lucky she was) was a product of her own doing--definitely best to keep that to herself.

“And that is indeed Lionel,” Khitti said, that smirk of hers becoming a little more prominent, the urge to snicker resisted as best as she could, “It’s nice to meet someone else that’s not exactly pleased with him or fawning over him on their first encounter with my brother.” It didn’t happen often to be sure, but it certainly was entertaining when it happened. It was a nice contrast to people like Rorin and various other would-be heroes of Lithrydel that hero-worshipped Lionel. “Khitti” was offered in return for the woman’s name, the redhead not even bothering with her last name, “As for the idea, well… it could possibly help your work be discreet, perhaps even moreso depending on how you want things to go. I was thinking that if you mixed science and magic together, it might help things. The science, your emblems, could be the main portion of it, like it was before. You know, with the whole shoving it down their throat thing. But, use magic to tweak the emblems a little. Give them temporary abilities via enchantments or runes.” Gods, she wished Onyx was here right now. They’d be able to help with this easily. “Like, maybe some sort of phasing, so that they could go undetected and not get hacked to piece by people like Lionel and I, and add a reverse tracker on it so that it could maybe find Kahran, or at least some of his lackeys. That’s how we found you. I reversed the magic in the emblem to find where the sloads had come from--we, uh, figured that it’d find Kahran instead though.” Khitti shrugged somewhat, eyeing the floor, “Mixing science and magic doesn’t always seem practical, I guess, but… as someone that was formerly a very-not-nice person’s experiment once upon a time, I know that it works -sometimes-.” Much like the stuff she’d left out before, Khitti also failed to mention that it was necromancers that did it, as well as their mindflayer leader.


Lionel | Reno hummed and hawed as Khitti gave her pitch. More than once, she leaned over to lift a trinket or two up from wherever they were, fix them with an appreciative glance, and set them down someplace else altogether. These strange objects were the tools of her trade, the utensils through which she conducted her science like a curious cat. “It’s not that I hate magic,” she said before snorting. “Hell, the in-laws were sorcerers, and if that didn’t stop me from liking it, nothing would.” This time the trinket that Reno lifted up was held with purpose. The silver apparatus was a bit like a pendulum, with a lever rocking back and forth in harmony with itself. A small groove where an accessory the size of a large ring might be placed was visible on the front of the device. “And I know a few spells, too.” She avoided mentioning how obvious that was given Khitti and Lionel’s welcome. “You see this hole? This is where a pyrite shard slots into this… whatever this is. It’s ancient tech. The pyrite fuels the thing like magic and suddenly it senses water spirits within a certain range. Nuts, right? Absolutely nuts. I could study magic my whole life and still feel like an infant at the craft.” She shrugged. “And that’s why I don’t. I’ve stuck with science because I’m good at science. But if you can integrate magic into my matrices, well, girl, I’ll come along for the ride.” Immediately she began packing her belongings into bags. A half-eaten plate of bread got tossed alongside ink quills and pigments. Evidently, Reno was under the impression there was somewhere new for her waiting on the other side of wherever her guests had arrived from.


Khitti listened to Reno as she went on about her history with magic, peering over at the hole in the pendulum when it’s pointed out to her. “I definitely agree with you. I always feel like I know too little about too many things, especially magic-related stuff. I’m a jack-of-all-trades, I guess.” A few blinks were given to the old woman when she started backing her belongings; her answer seemed to stun Khitti a little. “What? Really? I mean, great!” Khitti backtracked the necessary steps to reach the front door, peeked around the side of the doorframe and let out a ‘pssst’ to Lionel. “Hey, uhhhh. She’s gonna need a place to stay. Likely preferably somewhere with enough room for her tinkering and me helping with the magic side of things. Got any ideas?” Khitti would’ve suggested the Tranquility, but with having brought home a rabbit, three chickens, and an immortal bear cub, Brand might get a little… fighty… about adding one more thing to the ship’s already clusterfrakked insides. It was a wonder that the ship was even afloat--thank the gods for bigger-on-the-inside magic. “Should we hide her away somewhere? Like she is out here? Or have her out in plain sight, essentially?” Khitti stopped, narrowed her eyes in thought, the gears in her head turning a bit--and ultimately failing to come up with an answer to her internal questioning, “Hey, Reno. Where the frak are we anyway? This is definitely not Kelay, but it still seems kind of familiar…”


Lionel | “Huh.” Lionel was impressed, which usually portrayed itself fairly modestly. More than that, though, he was surprised. He had confidence in Khitti’s diplomatic abilities, but seeing was believing, and he could scarcely believe the woman that had just been targeting them with the elements was getting ready to move out fifteen minutes later. It would have been suspect if it weren’t so counterintuitive to the requisite subtleties any ne’er-do-well required. Reno watched from inside as Khitti listed several animals as fair reason not to bring along another -- or at least, that’s how she perceived it. As it happened, she didn’t seem to mind the comparison one bit. “We’re in the forest,” Reno shouted back, tossing a blanket over and folding it terribly. “The forest north of Venturil, to be exact. I suppose I could shack up down yonder. Ain’t the worst town I’ve slummed in.” Lionel shook his head. “It isn’t the best, either.” Not with all the troubles of the byrgs lately. “No, I have another idea. Ever been up through Frostmaw?” Reno paused to meet Lionel in the eye. “Can’t say I’ve gotten in me to go so far north I freeze myself, ser, no. Why would anyone willingly go to Frostmaw?” Before Lionel could reply, Reno snapped her finger. “Right, right. I remember now. You’ve willingly gone to Frostmaw plenty of times. Yeesh. And I thought slapping metal bits into giant frogs was crazy. Let me guess -- I’m warming up by the hearthfires of the chilly and unwelcoming Warrior’s Guild facilities.” Lionel blinked, gazed at Khitti, and then gazed past Reno rather than meeting her head-on. “Yeah. That was… that was the plan.” Quickly, Reno finished packing things up and strolled up to the man. “Fine. Temperate weather is overrated, anyway. You lead.”


Khitti || To be fair, that polar cub was more person that bear. There were people on the ship that Khitti could compare more to an animal than Aspen--Brand being one of them (waking him up was like waking a bear halfway through the hibernation months while wearing a meatsuit). The name ‘Venturil’ was uttered and Khitti couldn’t help but let out a very childish-sounding ‘ugh’. It was drawn out and disgust was clear, somewhat like that of a kid being told that broccoli was on the menu for the dinner that night. “Goddamn it. I’ll never be rid of this place.” Her right eye twitched a little, before it and its twin settled first on Reno, then on Lionel, “Look if something else major and not-good happens here, I’m just gonna burn the whole place down. It’s the only solution at this point.” A nod was given, in agreement with her own statement, before she finally shut her mouth, allowing Reno and Lionel to discuss just where the heck Reno was staying. “If the cold gets to be too much, we’ll move you elsewhere. My sister Meri knows Rynvale pretty well, and I’m sure we’d be able to find something suitable in that area for you if need be. But, as it stands, it’s definitely a long trip from here to there, so all the better to stop in Frostmaw first.” Reno was ready to go, and likely Lionel too, but Khitti just stood there. “We’re, uh… in the middle of nowhere. With no cats.” Processing. Processing. “Oh duh.” That katana of hers was removed from its sheath once more and a few things crossed out on the emblem that brought them there, as well as a few things added, with the help of the pointy end of the sword. “Dracarys!” said the Khat, and the portal opened up much like it had before, letting them return to Kelay--and get the frak out of that clearly cursed portion of Lithrydel. “Okay. -Now- we can go to Frostmaw,” she said at length once they crossed through it, soon after letting out a whistle to summon her Tikifhlee. They were all greeted with rather loud ‘MOWROWR’, of course.


Lionel | The journey to Frostmaw was, as journeys to Frostmaw went, uneventful. There were no signs of Kahran’s increased activity along the Pass, no quarrelsome hobgoblins or rogue naga, not even the stray assassin cloaked in darkness. But darkness did indeed descend upon Lithrydel, and the speed of the Tikifhlees only added to the chill. Reno, for her part, was bundled up nice and well without so much as an overcoat; her bagged belongings were slung over and around herself like finest wool. By the time the travelers reached the gates of the Warrior’s Guild training grounds, hints of sunrise forged along the far-east horizon by way of purples and greys. With the raw recruits sound asleep, it was up to the chiseled third-shift veterans to assist Reno and her escort with the unpacking. “What’s the best guest room?” Lionel asked a buff man with a tattoo so vibrant his whole right arm had gone green. Reno was eyeing it as if he’d been inflicted with a horrible infection. “All the guest rooms are open, boss,” the man said with a shrug. “You’ve not had… guests in several months.” Here was Lionel’s weekly reminder that he’d been spending far more time in Cenril than in Frostmaw despite his duties. “Fair point,” Lionel replied, trying his best to sound casual about it. Reno cleared her throat as the guard creaked open the large iron double doors. “I’ll get to work at once, and by ‘at once,’ I mean after I sleep, eat, bathe, figure out what kind of hard liquor a place like this has in stock -- and there’s no way a place like this doesn’t have hard liquor in stock -- and then… well, I guess that’s when I’ll get to work. Hey, thanks for having me, I guess. Khitti, hook me up with magic studies and we’ll make something wonderful together. Lionel, either sport a beard or go clean-shaven. Trying to roll both looks is doing you no good at all.” With that, she disappeared inside the keep, leaving Lionel scratching at his face self-consciously. “This… was an interesting day.”