Ox Effort
Tenebrae - Tuesday, September 06, 2016, 9:30 PM
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-<* A05: Ox-Strength Tavern *>--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
The Ox-Strength Ale Tavern is known for being one of the most dangerous dives in the city. Frequented by the worst sailors, mercenaries, thugs and looters, the place is hardly the prettiest nor the tidiest of taverns, though--of late, that has been changing. Locals claim the once foul-tasting food "No longer burns the stomach--as much, anyways." Plates show signs of repair instead of cracks, though the still infamous odor of old beer and stale sweat insists on hanging about the place, and the smell of brine is near-constant.
What used to be bricked-up windows have been somewhat opened. Heavy bars let in a reluctant breeze and prevent the clanging of heads against glass (which seems nearly afraid to exist). Bloodstains adorn both the nearby walls and the bricks themselves from thrown patrons and fists.
The lights are dim, a few oil lamps hung from hooks in the splintered ceiling beams. A smattering of tables, scratched and carved into by many a blade, dot the expanse of the floor. Most of the tables are arranged in a wide circle to give plenty of room in the center of the bar for hasty escapes or the routine bar-brawl or fight. A worn-out steam piped stove sometimes provides warmth to the tavern. Occasionally an aging dog of some mangy breed or another can be seen sleeping near the stove or by the bar itself. Overhead the fireplace is a tribute to Rada, the patron of fishermen and rivermen everywhere.
Towards one side, there is also a bedraggled dart board. Type +view here/darts to begin a game.
"B...but my bar," says Myra, in a so-sad tone. "I can't just leave my bar overnight! It'll be empty and--"
Somewhere back near the bar itself, a shelf gives up and a number of bottles slide violently off to the side and onto the floor, smashing and getting spirits on everything.
"...Well I want my cookpot!" She says instead. "It's in the kitchen! I'm not leaving without it."
Myrana turns her broom sideways and gives the bristless a good hard shake. They cough and sputter and a fart of rainbow glitter comess out with a tiny sound like a firework as the magic turns on and it hums to life. Then she sits on it sideways, and crosses her feet at the ankle. The boards where she was standing are visibly bowed.
"Oh--oh dear, oh...why!" the elderly gnome looks towards the door, towards the crashing sounds. He clenches his small hands to fists, and does his best to stand up straight. The effect is more like a marshmallow poofing upright, but the INTENT is there. "Myrana! We shall rescue your crockpot!" he declares, for a moment--his voice taking on the power and youth of an actor of yore. Not the round, elderly fellow he is today.
Jenner sighs the sigh of the long suffering. But relents, and nods. "Hruthers," he commands to open air; the air responds with a quick wisp and a puff to disturb the soot, and the Servant Unseen makes its spectral presence known. "Let the spell assist you at least," he says, all but pleading in turn. "And just the barest essentials. Bare essentials as are not defined by Gelfure." He champs down on his pipe, one-eyed glower returned with a grim expression. That broom...
Sigh.
Mikilos blinks, peering around with idle surprise at the devistation. "Well... this is worse than the usual brawl. Hello everyone, is everything as alright as can be expected?" No, the wizard wasn't there a moment ago, but, well, wizard.
Because it iss Myrana, and Myrana is contrary and angry about having blown up her own bar when she got scared, she folds her arms across her chest and glowers back at Jenner. "Don't be jealous of my flying broom, mister Jenner. You can grab my green teapot from behind the bar. With the cozy." You know, the bar. Where there is broken glass everywhere and things keep collapsing. "Hello mister Mithralla! Are you here to help shore up the cieling?" The cieling, by the way, looks a little like a pregnant belly.
Myrana reaches out and takes Abrahil's sleeve in her cleanest fingers so that she can use the broom to more or less float them toward the kitchen door. Which is no longer a door. Its a hole where a door used to be.
"Aha! Oh, wonderful!" the elderly wizard says, as the crockpot is manfully rescued! He clasps his hands together, looking delighted. "Oh, how wonderful! Oh...and we'll get you out of here, my dear! We--why!" Abrahil says. Then, "Oh, my dears. What silly beans we are. ...why, your wife owns a clothing shop, you know--quite a wonderful one, and...oh, all we need to do is bring you there, really. You and your new book!"
Oh. Oh no.
"Oh, I can't imagine how worried she must be!" he exclaims, even as he bobbles along after Myrana, much like a round, attached balloon!
Jenner chews on his pipe, blue-grey smoke curling angrily into the air. A few long puffs, a longer exhale-- the urge to shift fades as he grumbles breathily, turning to cast the newcome mage a nod. "No worse than I expected," he says, folding his arms behind him. "Mind, don't walk in here. If you can see it, it's probably unsafe." He chuffs at his pipe, letting the smoke swirl anew. "Mmm. No Oxleys involved, shockingly. But something caused a ruckus---" He pauss, voice lowering as he watches with care. "--something demonic, perhaps. I've never seen anything give Myrana reason to cut loose like this."
Mikilos nods absently, peering around with idle curiousity, muttering to himself. Glancing sharply to Jenner, the elf nods, adn considers a moment before murmuring a quick incantation. He continues foreward, but at a cautious glide, his toes only occasionally touching the floor. "I don't suppose anyone has been able to check the understructure yet? As bad as the ceiling looks, the floor giving way won't help matters."
Myrana swallows nervously. "Oh, she's... I'm sure she's in Veyshan or something," Myrana waves a hand vaguely as they scoot on various sparkles and poots of magic coloured clouds into the kitchen. "Buying silks! Yes. Here it is."
And her cookpot.
Is massive.
Well its big enough to tuck Abrahil in, anyway, and about the same shape, with four stumpy little legs, rounded like a cast iron belly, hanging on a hook from the grey brick oven. Which is the most stable thing in the building. Its a campaign cookpot. Its black as death.
Myrana lets go of Abrahil's sleeve and leans forward over her broom like a wobbly, sleepy trick rider, hooking her ankles on it, and with a grunt heaves the cookpot up onto the front of her broom. This almost dumps her facefirst into it and onto the ground, but with an effort she hauls back on the broom and rights the whole mess, scooting back as far as she can so that she's almost sitting on the bristles.
Nothing about this could go wrong.
"She must be so worried! Oh, but you can't--you can't stay here, you know. Oh, I know she can be--" terrifying "--I mean, she did rend the sky once, and...then there was that dragon, and...then Merkabah, and...oh. Oh! Well, the point is, I am sure she loves you, and, and...and I got you a new book! Why, we'll all sit around the fire, and read it together! It's all about you, you know! And your heroic adventures!" he says, the last two words sounding operatic--and then from the bottom of a cavernous well, as he's plopped into the cookpot. "Oh, my!"
Myrana huffs and wipes her forehead with her sleeve, shaking a little. "I always knew I'd end up dying in a cookpot related accident, but I always rather figured it'd be with a bunch of ogres involved and carrots and onions and probably it would be Jareth's fault." She wipes her hands on her apron and looks at Abrahil. But wait, where did he g-OH NO! "Oh no! Abrahil get out of there!" s
Myrana says, "How on earth did you float into that?!"
"Oh, it seemed convenient at the time," comes the gnome-at-the-bottom-of-the-well voice.
Then: "Why, is there something wrong?"
Jenner shakes his head, solid frame taking on a swirl of movement. Rainbow and fire, flash and smoke-- as an air elemental he hovers after the mage, a living whirlwind still puffing its faintly-hued smoke. "I could, but I want a proper crew to assist and survey." The voice is wheezy and whispery, cool green eye gleaming as it casts about. He pauses at the clank from the once-and-future kitchen, sighing breezily as he shakes his head.
"I'd feel safer just taking the place down," he says evenly. Rebuild from the ground up. Not quite my command, though."
"Oh its just that... it's just..." Myrana frets. Abrahil would be delicious. Part of her knows this. She tells it not to be horrible. "What book do you mean?"
Mikilos nods and sighs. "Said over a year ago should put in solid stone supports. Ah well, wood has more ambiance anyway. And to be fair, things down there were in rather bad shape before all this. Really, just a matter of time."
Myrana reaches in to help him float out, fretting most terribly. "If anyone sees you, I will never get that awful rumor about the cooking to die down."
"Oh! Why--a book of your ADVENTURES!" he says, though it echoes hollowly from his neat perch inside the kettle. "Oh, it's so wonderful, why...I picked it up just today! Oh, and there's you on the cover, looking dashing as always!" Then, "Oh! Is that master Mikilos I hear? Hulloooo!" he says. He is probably waving, but who can tell inside the kettle?
"The rumor is rats, not gnomes." Mikilos commets absently.
The aerial mage nods grimly, keeping his head turning to Myrana and-- "...no cooking. Just grab the pot carefully and let us go." He glances away at Mikilos comments, coughing aerily. Rats-- what a.... "...you don't say?" he adds at last, glancing back to the elven. "And here I thought it was the ambience that drove them away."
Mikilos grins, and begins murmuring again. Fingers twisting in complex ways, he gestures, and a network of lumber appears near the center of the room, all hooked together in some complex fashion. The structure is spead across a large area of floor, distributing it's weight and hopefully a little less likely to cause any sort of collapse.
GAME: Mikilos casts Major Creation. Caster Level: 10 DC: 23
GAME: Jenner rolls Knowledge/Engineering: (12)+12: 24
GAME: Mikilos rolls craft/carpentry: (8)+12: 20
Myrana comes floating out of the kitchen with her best knife in its tooled leather sheath, her favourite wooden spoon on its thong, and her cookpot hanging from the front of her broom. With Abrahil in it. "Do you have it with you?" Myrana asks. "I feel as though I've heard something, or..."
Beat.
"...So who wrote this book?" She suddenly changes direction.
Jenner turns his semi-ghostly eye to Mikilos' casting, nodding as he hovers around the assembling structure. "Thicker braces here," he adds, making marks, comments, pausing to guage and measure. "It will risk the floor somewhat, but we cannot spread it any farhter without compromising the supports." Smoke swirls on his own wind as Elemental Jenner moves, fingers drifting up into the contrail, gesturing down in lingering, drifting lines.
"How long will it last?" he asks, glancing ba---- "..Is that cooking pot talking now?" he asks, staring incredulously.
"Oh, my dear. Why, I don't know, you know--they say it's a mystery!" he says, then pauses for just a moment before adding, "Oh, it was such a lovely cover...why, I purchased extra! They're being framed, you know--and oh. I'll talk with the framer. We'll have them delivered to your and Sandy's place," Abrahil says. The elderly fellow seems quite relaxed, then as he and his unorthadox transportation bobble along behind Myrana. Then mana begins to shift, and move out.
"Oh, I'm quite sure they'll have it in hand, m'dear. ...how about I take you across the way for tea?" says the cooking pot.
Mikilos says, "Yes. Try to ignore it. The conjure will last for hours, but I hope to not need it. Can adjust as the ceiling gets raised, then repair the orginal supports. Enough of them to hold off collapse for a few days, anyway."
Mikilos drifts around the scafolding, making adjustments, carefully shifting parts up and outward to press against the sagging roof, offering minor pressure, but more to prevert further sagging.
"Thank you both for coming to help," says Myrana, looking very drained even as she's trying to figure out who she needs to kill for writing a bawdy story about her. Then Abrahil continues, and she nods, stifling herself a little bit. A mystery! Well they are very likely hiding from the law for being Bad Persons! She will find them and give them a fat lip! Hrmph! "Tea sounds... y-yes. I suppose I had better, before Sandy finds me and yells at me for sleeping here last night."
Myrana says, "Even though!"
Myrana says, "I slept in a doorway!"
Jenner stares at the Talking Pot for a second more, then shrugs. Stranger things of rats and 'Ranas...
"The best I can offer is my knowledge of the subject," he says, reaching up to trace his fingers along the scaffold, nodding to himself. "There and there," he adds. "The main beam is scorched, but intact enough to serve as a brace. I'm of mind to have it replaced anyway; no telling what else it's been through. Not a long-term repair item at all, anymore." He sweeps his eye across the rest of the ceiling, faint grimace as he catches a puff of sooty air. "Thoughts about letting the Classmen come through? It might be good practice for them, trying mendings on what they can repair."
Like this makes it better
"As l-long as they don't go upstairs," Myrana nods, reluctantly. "Or get killed by my apartment falling on them." She points at Mikilos warningly. "NO MARBLE."
Myrana says, "I mean granite!"
Mikilos nods in agreement. "Granite it is, the- doh! ...fine. No granite either."
Jenner 's laughter swirls in a breezy mirth. "No surprises of the mystic variety either," he promises. "I'll look over everything myself, rest assured."
"Oh, that sounds wonderful!" comes the disembodied, gnomish voice from the kettle. "And why, I know just the place, you know..." and here he prattles on, in a familiar and kindly way. An elderly gentleman who is just delighted to take her out for tea.
Mikilos quirks a brow. "No surprises I can't promise. But I'll keep them minimal. And yes, letting a few students come though for Mending practice should be okay, one we get the main repairs made." Shifitng focus, the magus starts to murmur again, and gestures, a shower of golen sparkles steaming from his fingertips, gathering near the center of the room, and collaspeing in upon themselves to form... an ape. A big, strong looking ape, with shining golden fur, and blue blue eyes. Massive arms carefully reach up, and take hold of the ceiling. The lumber groans softly, dust falls, and the buldge starts to diminish, just a little.
Oop, there's a giant gorilla. Myrana zips the hell out of there on principal.
Myrana has left.
GAME: Mikilos casts Summon Monster IV. Caster Level: 10 DC: 22
Jenner glances at the shifting energy, snorting as the sparkles coellesece and take greater form. "Show off," he asides, grinning as he laughs. He barely has time to wave as Myrana rushes past, wind swirling as he gathers himself. "Must have a thing against monkeys," he murmurs, clasping the smoky emblem of his pipe more carefully. He follows the great ape's arms up towards the ceiling, examining it closely. A few words of his, and a flare of rainbow fires-- his Mending takes root with the crackle of the rainbow flames, stiffening the wood reluctantly at the worst of the fire-ravaged ceiling. "Some of them are studying woodworking," he comments. "Working with an actual, damaged structure might be good practice for them."
Mikilos nods in agreement, darting around to continue adjusting the scaffolding, trying to keep pace with the Golen Ape's lifting. Partly to help support, but also, bending wood a second time is a good chance to break it. "Agreed. And even those not directly interested can stand to learn a few real world applications. I've helped with a class are two, are some talented folks around. Though experience goes a long ways." Says the guy with decades to his credit.
Jenner has no arguement there. He skitters about with practiced eye, frowning at a particularly well-worn portion of ceiling. "...her furniture must be up there," he grumbles, all but thundering to himself. Another swirl of words; another flash of rainbow fires. He Mends the ceiling boards, grimacing as parts of the wood splinter and creak and groan. "My recommendation: get the most talented together, have an upper level classman act as the team leader. Perhaps one or two of the apprentices from the countryside as well." Another application of the spells-- the groaning eases off, down to a dull creaking. "I'd say no more than five or so at a time."
Mikilos nods in agreement. "Not until the basement gets checked, certainly. Perhaps a few more if they can float, but no more than say, seven, no matter what. Too many, and they'll get in each other's way." Eyeing the progess carefully, the elf floats his way over to a currently open spot, and intones loudly. Splinters and ash lead back into place, shoving themselves into a soild whole once more, offering a bit of long term support once again.
GAME: Mikilos casts Make Whole. Caster Level: 10 DC: 20
Jenner examines the repair, nodding in satisfaction. "Professor Stonegrinder as oversight," he says, drifting back down towards the floor. The airy shape flickers and fades, last swirls carrying up into the twisting streamer of smoke floating from his pipe bowl. "Might be sterotyping our sole Khazadi instructor, but I'd trust his nose for stonework and building better than any other." He draws on the pipe, chuffing gently. "He can watch the students. Guide them if they get into a tight spot. And grade their work." He grins, eye glittering with amusement. "No bet on if he bawls at someone again for having no stonesense."
Mikilos fehs, and nods. "No bet on a sure thing. Can likely talk him into it just buy mentioning what casks might be down in the basement. And unlike some options, they'll still be there when he's done. Doubt they'll stay there come time to toast a job well done, however."
Jenner chuckles, nodding as he brushes an absent trail of grime off his sleeve. "Best not to mention that to Myrana," he says, smiling ruefully. "Though better the Professor get it than those ale-swilling blowhards committing themselves to misery without their favorite tavern." He snorts a brief sneeze, muttering as he takes his pipe down from his mouth. "I'll speak to him after evening classes today. Chances are he'd be eager to get 'real dirt under his nails', even if it's only repairing one of our slipshod 'human' constructions." He taps his mouth, thinking carefully. "And I'll speak with.... Hmm. There is a caravaner heading towards a Khazadi realm soon, isn't there? Davash or Tavash or something."
Mikilos nods, and shrugs, adjusting the scafold once more before the ape fades away, another casting placing another pillar back into place. "Most likely. I havn't kept track, but trade is brisk enough there's bound to be one sooner or later. At least until snow flies."
"Mmm," Jenner grunts noncommittally, frowning as he tries to recall. "Well, I'll find a merchant heading back towards those realms. Ask him to pick up something excellent for Stone." He sighs, tapping his bowl against one of the new stands, cooling ashes trailing down to the floor. "A personal thanks as well for his expertise. Heavens know that this place needs it."
Mikilos nods, tossing a few minor Mending himself before allowing the scaffolding to fade away. It's not a full blown repair, but will work for now. I do hope Myrana will allow some solid upgrades. At least a sturdy door to her own rooms, and a doorframe to hold it. Fairly sure can talk her into that without too much effort."
Jenner just watches for the moment, taking a last survey of the work. The room is still sooty and dark, more akin to a warzone than a taproom. "It might be better just to add them now and ask permission later." He smirks around the pipestems, chuckling ruefully. "Triple banded door with a spell to warn away any Oxley's that come near." He glances down at the pipe, a force of will as he takes the item, placing back in the satchelcase at his side. "An enchanted hound to stand guard. Though she'd likelyblame me for that one."
Mikilos laughs, and nods. "Tempting, but think I'll wait on the upstairs, put my focus on getting unseen supports in place to keep something like this from happening again. I was rather tempted the last time we did a fix up, but let it slide. I sort of regret that now."
Jenner grimaces, glancing at Mikilos. "I'd never heard about the 'last time'," he says, frowning darkly. He looks back at the array of supporting structures bracing the roof. Glaring at them, sharp eye glittering hotly. "Well, the past is the past." He exhales, getting control of himself once again. "And as an aside," he adds, glancing towards Myrana's departure path. "I'll ask an Elunite or two to come down, look for anything untoward." He folds his hands together, stepping back towards the ruined door. "I'll never forgive myself if whatever tried to attack the first time comes back for more."
Mikilos nods. "Brawls have gotten out of hand before, and have been the occasional monster loose. This time sounds significantly worse then average. Anyway, I've a project I'll be busy with, but will offer what aid I can. Maybe pop in for a few minutes to halp as I might. but for now, I should likely get going."
Jenner nods in agreement, shaking off the dust with a shiver. "Mmph. Should do the same. I'll talk with the magi once I get back, see if they've any more welcome ideas." He snorst, chuckling. "Not the artificers though. 'Spider legs' are not my idea of stable engineeering."
Mikilos nods in agreement. "They have some good ideas. But those get lot in all the other ideas. Anyway, later!"