After a Couple Weeks Off...


Odd session.

While we were mostly awaiting a duel between Lucien and an unnamed antagonist, his player didn't show 'til last so the fight was entirely off-screen. That's very unfortunate, as it shaded things for the rest of the group.

With a bar brawl breaking out and friends of the duelist eager to mix it up with those at the table with Lucien, everyone stood ready. Rufina, though, lept to a diplomatic approach, threatening the would-be assailants with some local authority she didn't really seem to have. Things were tense, but she talked them down much to the GM's displeasure. Talking one's way out of a bar fight, after all, isn't exactly the hallmark of swashbuckling adventure.

This scene put Sylvia in an awkward position - one I, in retrospect, did not handle as well as I could have. With most of the conversation in a language she didn't understand, she was at a disadvantage as far as reparte. Plus, being very familiar with the war-torn state of her homeland, she doesn't view fighting as something to be undertaken frivolously. Had they attacked, she would have defended. Had they challenged, she would have told them to take it up with the Swordsmans' Guild properly. She's no pacifist, but unlike some people (Adam) she takes fighting very seriously and a bar brawl is beneath her (at least, until it becomes self-defense). The disappointing part of this is that I did not properly convey these things. Tsk. Bad me, no cookie.

As things settled down, Rufina spotted someone she recognized and took to be the supposed villain behind our plot. Honestly, the description sounded like just about any dark and mysterious Vodacce male to me, but what can you do? She flung a pin across the room into his hand. Owie. Then it turns out this fellow really does have the authority Rufina was bluffing about and, as he "invites" the group along, it turns out he is/was also a suitor to Rufina. Her father, apparently, chose Lucien over him. He took the injury fairly well (guess he likes "spunky" girls) until she implied she poisons her weapons. Heh.

And so the group is at his home, provided with food and shown our rooms while desperately clinging to a remedy for a poison that probably wasn't even really there.

Elapsed Time: Minutes/Hours.

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