Kintobor

Karie notices the shore quickly approaching as Lind shouts are her. "I think we'll be fine. Maybe." Karie still clings to the railing as the ship as the Magpie rides up against the docks. "Alright, we need to deal with these dragons and then make a tactical decision. We should split the party and have a group ascend the walls and strike the cannoneers and provide cover fire for the main bulk of our group as they storm the inner walls of the fort. If we free up the cannons it'll allow the Bonaparte fleet to assist us. It'll also allow myself and Bellanote to not drain ourselves of ether, so please consider assisting your minstrels and giving us a break." Karie downs another Grand Tonic from the back row.

Endgame Quests Kinto was on: Most of Them

"I'm going to need some time to get back some ether. I'm out." Karie downs a grand tonic from the back row.

Karie saw the middle and end of that arc. I'm pretty sure Lind did, too.

The first five seconds of the trailer had my brother and I laughing hysterically. "This trailer has been rated MA-18" Oh, so it's going to be that kind of a show? I don't remember the Teen Titans being violent or edgy, so when that came up, I immediately knew that what I was about to watch was going to be hysterically missing the tone of the Teen Titans, and it did not disappoint! Job well done, DC, I haven't had a laugh that hard in awhile!

Karie pants and wheezes after singing her lungs out, feeling lightheaded and certain she'd blown her voice. She takes in several deep breaths before regaining her composure. "Yup, no, I'm okay. I just... holy moly, why do I feel like I just came off of the most exhilarating rush of adrenaline?" Karie strikes White Hatchlings A from the back row.

Personally, Heroica's postmortem discussion is something I think needs to be done, not out of a place of malice, but as a means to look back and improve what didn't work and acknowledge what did.

OOC: This is true. Karie can switch songs during a round if she's hastened, but even with the ether pool Karie has, there's no way she's covering the entire party for even a single round unless you had a stockpile of grand tonics and people wanted to turn Karie into an ether-devouring, positive status effect delivering machine. My advice would be to use Karie and Bellanote when you want to make an offensive push. I should also note that if Karie plays the same song for more than a round, the ether cost is halved, so you may want to consider bumping her up the battle order when you really want to spread some damage as she can encourage the party and heal for quite a bit. Also, let me know where The Fey One's use of the portable catapult would be best utilized. I'm thinking the Shadow Drakes, just because their passive is going to be an issue. Karie begins to play on her guitar as she steels herself for the coming onslaught. "Bellanote, whatever it is you plan on playing, my advice is you keep intake with me so we don't sound like a pair of dying gulls." Karie plays a Rapid March from the back row.

Karie hold onto the handle of her Finely Tuned Guitar, instinctively not wanting to part with her most powerful weapon in her arsenal. "I'm talking about my Vagrant's Guitar, Vind."

Karie wags her spare guitar at Vindsval. "I'd say you could borrow this, Vind, but ultimately I'd bet you'd just throw it." Karie teases.

Karie raised her hand amongst the crowd. She had remained silent up until this point since she was not a sailor and knew not the technicalities or skills to determine which vessel was the best fit to sail towards the Fort. She was, however, skilled enough in the art of deception and acting. "If we need a deception, I could potentially pose as someone of importance to ensure we can slip in." She reveals her Scroll of Magical Disguise and her Trickster's Mask of the Elf. "I could easily fool whoever we need to get past."

"I've got nothing else to add to that other than a hearty reply of LET'S GO MAKE SOME BLOODY NOISE!" Karie shouted back, readying her finely tuned guitar and following Atramor.

Karie felt somewhat angered by Throlar swatting her hand away, but as she watched Throlar break down, she felt a deep sense of empathy for him. She saw herself in Throlar, in more ways than one. She saw him in blue, Syndicate garb, and she saw him stained by the ink of Oculoids. She stayed on her knees. She knew Throlar needed to hear something, but she wasn't entirely sure what. Karie took in a deep breath, speaking calmly to her friend, determined to make a difference. "Throlar, you're right. This is an impossible choice. This is a choice that we will be judged for for the rest of our lives. We cannot do both... but to not save either is worse than to choose one over the other. It is to be complacent in the status quo, to not rise up to a call, to not fight on behalf of those who cannot stand up for themselves. It is to give up the fight. I won't let you give up, Throlar. The gods are not abandoning us: they are putting their trust in us to make a choice." Karie looks at Throlar, her friend, looking to inspire him, but unsure if her words could do so. Ultimately the decision was his to make. "Heroica is gone, Throlar, because whatever comes next won't be the Heroica we joined. It'll be something better. No matter what happens today, Throlar, what we do will be remembered, because courage is something that is hard to forget."

"Pretty sure the marketplace is empty and void of life if the vendors are all about to be hung." Karie comments.

"Operation: Big Damn Heroes." Karie repeats, pointing to the title. "I like it. Considering what options we have left, I feel like this might just work out. There's a few assumptions, but considering what we know they're not bad. Do we know for certain the dragons are lingering in the Harbour and Bascule Bridge, or if they'll strike us closer to the Fort? With the fort abandoned by the Bonapartes, we can hope the cannons are out of commission."

Karie rested a consoling hand on Throlar's shoulder, appreciative of what he was trying to do but felt like she knew what the outcome was going to be. She kneeled, getting down so she could look Throlar in the eye without looking down on him, literally. "Listen, Throlar. Don't take this the wrong way, but in this instance I doubt we're going to get a message from the gods." Karie sighed. Years of being the leader of Heroica parties had left a mark on her, from taking on Immortalis, to navigating the docks of Brendenton. She felt like now was the moment her leadership skills were needed the most. "Right now we need the support of all of us. We need to save these people, and we need to restore some semblance of freedom to this city. Men and women are going to be hanged simply for associating with us. Throlar, I can think of no greater cause than to protect the innocent and the weak from tyranny and injustice. There are some brave men and women who stood up for us so we could stand here today. Let's go save their megablocks." Karie extended her hand, looking for Throlar to high-five her.

I've been to enough model train shows to know that this looks spot on to how most shows are run: vendors and smaller layouts lined against the wall, while larger displays sit in the middle of the show area. Nicely done!

Karie grins. A plan was coming together, and tearing down the Hovel wall was something she'd shed no tears over. "What's your say, Ulric? A distraction would help us when we storm the fort to ensure that we don't have reinforcements coming to try and stop what we're doing. Is it possible to blow it up for when we hit the fort, or did you have other plans in mind?" Karie points to the Hovel Wall. "See that ugly sight of a wall. Get a good intake of it, because soon it won't be there anymore. When that wall comes down, it'll cause enough of a ruckus to distract the Town Watch and the Paladin Order from interfering with us."

"I'm in agreement with Skrall." Karie replies to Dyric. She looks confident as she explains her case to the group. "As much as I think that Rosier is a threat that needs to be dealt with, we don't know where this door is or how close Rosier is to finding it. We do, however, know that a lot of people are about to be hung. I'm going to Fort Bonaparte. We need to get the citizens to realize they've been duped by fakes. If we defeat the Rosier and the Founders don't disappear, we'll have more to contend with than if we deal with the Founders first and Rosier after." "Speaking of assaulting Fort Bonaparte, Ulric, how close are you and your men to finishing your distraction?" Karie inquires.

"What if the goal was pushing us out of the building." Karie questions. "What if what the Rosier wants is in the Hall? Like the Nörnalis? What if she needed us out of the Hall in order to get at it?"

"The Founders showed up months back. As I said earlier, they're the ones ultimately behind the houses being dissolved. They're behind every scandal that sent them packing. We know that they are fake, and we know they're made of fairy dust. Clearly once what the Rosier has planned for this city comes to fruition, there won't be a need for them any longer. The way I look at the Founders is this: they're not actually the true threat here: they're a distraction and the initial calvary charge to whatever the Rosier has planned for the city. They are a diversion to keep attention away from what she's doing." Karie frowned. "Ulric told us about an old temple to Zoot beneath the city. My group considered scouting it out, as that's where the sending stone from Byblos was found near. Is that the same temple as what you two are talking about?"

Karie rubs her hands together, trying to piece information together. "You said there's a city of undead where they're eating the white vines? When we rescued the Fae One, she too was being covered in strange white vines as well. She was weak and in pain, almost-" Karie's eyes widened. "On the verge of death." She looked to the others with a panicked look. "I think I know what she's doing, although it's just a hunch at this point. What if the Rosier's turning this city into a necropolis?"

Karie turned to see Arthur, standing before her. He looked weary, but it seemed as if little had changed with him. She approached Arthur and gave him a warm hug. "I"m glad to see you're alright, Arthur. It's good to see you again. I missed you." Karie says, sounding relieved and tired. She lets go of him after a few moments of taking in his presence, not entirely sure what to say. "Dyric did tell me you were coming, but if I was being honest with myself, I haven't seen you for so long I thought I might've misheard him. Masson and Rachelle are fine, as far as I know. Masson's smart enough that if he felt he was threatened, he'd know where to go into hiding." Karie replied. She didn't know what her husband and daughter were up to, but she believed that the two of them were safe. She had to. There was too much going on around her to let that worry her as well. "Hmm. Well I'm at least happy to hear that we have further confirmation that these are definitely not the Founders. If the Golden Dragon is buried in her crypt, than clearly the ones we're dealing with are imposters. Still, as close as we are to finding out why this is happening, we don't have a clear answer yet." Karie was about ready to reply to Throlar until exasperations of surprise and emotions swirled around the group. She looked between Throlar, Atramor, and Arthur as she looked to the book and back at the others. "Am I missing something here? What's the significance about this book?" Karie wasn't sure what the fuss was about the book, but clearly it was important.

"Well, I suppose it takes a lot of courage to face those louts and tell them that." Karie replies, grinning wearily. "Anything left behind the bar? I wouldn't mind a drink, even a glass of water." Karie nods towards Dyric. "You all have a right to know what's happened with my group. If we're going to piece together what our enemy is, we should all know what each group went up against. Knowing what we're up against will help us all in the long run." Karie looks to Lind in particular, although her statement was directed at the entire group. She was not angry with the knight, merely hoping to bestow a lesson onto him. "I don't think I've gotten the full story from the group that went to the Dragon House, but I'll tell you all what happened to my group. Don't worry, Throlar, I'll handle this." We went on to meet up with Ulric and ran into Skrall. Skrall escorted us into the Wolf's Lair and together we hashed out a deal: Ulric is not to be harmed, and in return, he helps us take back the hall and take back the city. I should remind you all, that anyone who lays a hand on Ulric answers to me." Karie clarifies, addressing the other heroes and allies amongst them. She motions to Ulric to further emphasis her point. "I know some of you have issues to take up with Ulric Wolfkin. Honestly, I don't care right now. We can deal with the politics after this is all done: as of this moment on, if I catch a whiff of any of you trying to make a move on Ulric, I'll personally cut you down." "Ulric has informed my group that Byblos has attempted to make contact with us through the use of a sending stone." Karie presents the sending stone to the group, placing it on a nearby table. "Here's the translation, since it's written in Metasimian: Blinding light now over-runA dark seed planted below the sunWhere once was joy and never glumThe flower grows, take care They come-Byblos We didn't know what this meant at the time, but we now know that the poem refers to the Faerie, the Rosier, and the Dark Druids. I'll explain this in a bit more detail in a moment." "From there our group moved onto the Eubric Herald. The head of the paper, Rook... well, he refused to assist us after what happened at the Lady Luck the previous night. He's bought into the Founder's lies, and I doubt he'll be any help to us until we show to the public that the Founder's aren't real. We did managed to get the address of the Frustrated Filly, and moved to the Winking Gargoyle. Turns out Äsa, the Valkyrie, was the one writing the articles in our favour. She informed us that the Founders were pulling the strings and coordinating all this for the past few months, including the downfall of the houses in the city: the Count's arrest, the seizing of the Hinckwell fortune, the scandals surrounding the Guild of Invision, all of it. They did this so they could proudly march into the city and look like saviours here to rescue the city from the chaos. She also informed us that Cain knew about what was going on in the Faerie, and that there was a conflict happening there. It wouldn't surprise me if the Founders killed Cain in order to keep what was happening in the Faerie a secret. She advised us to head to the Faerie, and we came to the collective agreement to ask the Tri-Tech Company for help getting there." "When we arrived at the Tri-Tech Company, we were informed that the Founders had issued them to hand over their automatons. We had a run in with the Wandering Mountain, and although we did not defeat him, we held him off long enough to make our way into the Faerie and keep the automatons out of the hands of the Founders." "The Faerie... I had never been to the Faerie before, but it's been turned into a wasteland. Fairy Dust rains from the sky like ash, and the land is dark and grey. We ran into some fairies there, along with Benji, and together we assaulted a tower. It seems as if the Rosier and the Dark Druids had managed to overrun the plane, and they have been sucking the place dry of it's fairy dust. Inside the tower we rescued the Fae One and we moved to the top of the tower to chase someone escaping. We managed to open a portal back to the city sewers and were intending to follow this person until we ran into the crew that went to investigate the Temple of Fabula Sybilla, only to then run into Dyric, Matthias, and Bellanote, and followed them here." Karie nodded her head, hoping the story was sufficient, but knowing there'd be questions. If she'd forgotten anything, she hoped her group would fill in for her.

"I'll explain our story once we're all together. It seems there's a lot to piece together and not a whole lot of time to do so." Karie follows the lead of Althior and the others. Approaching the wall of the hovels, Karie takes in the structure one last time. Soon the wall would be nothing but a memory, and something within Karie made her excited at the prospect. "Scheherazade, it's good to see you're alright." Karie remarks, leaning against the counter. "I hope you were treated alright by the founders when they kicked you out."