The Plotbunny Hop

Howdy-do.

It's quarter past ten. I have a lap full of kitten, a buttload of charm cards to print out and a noggin full of plot ideas -- well, at least as far as gaming goes. I think I distracted Thren beyond all reason. Must get to work on TLAS 6:04 at some stage just so I can get the finished 6:05 out. (I'd change the order, but I can't; it's basically a two-parter.) Gah.

Anyway, Land O' Plot goes as follows:

7th Sea: Alison's of the Necare School -- no swords, but lots of knifework and knowledge of poisons. We're in Vodacce, which is where the good poisons come from. My plan is to get Pietro to use the money Alison loaned him to buy Woundwort (potent, loses its strength quickly, takes over a day to kill someone) and the antidote to same, then go pull that Morgan git who torched the chandler's shop. I will poison him (quite easily, in fact -- I'm allowed one poison to which I'm immune and I hadn't picked it yet. Now I have. Ha), and then I'm going to boink him, and after that, when he's feeling the effects of the poison, I'll simply explain that I have an antidote but he's not getting it -- or even what poison I hit him with -- until he tells me who he's working for and where I can find him. Meanwhile, somebody will be making with the sneaky outside so, in case he decides, "fuckit", knifes me and leaves, he can be followed to his employer's place.

Mage: I have my plot there pretty well worked out, all things considered. Need to borrow some books off Andy O (though some of them are going to have to be red herrings on the basis that, well, if I have to borrow books from him on a regular basis he's going to be well updated on the plots before I even start them, which would suck).

Exalted: There are no plots for Exalted. We're playing episodic-like, so there's not really any long-term gain to be had from plotting. Besides, I'm a combat bunny. I don't have to think ahead. Most I've got plotwise is printing out these stupid charm cards and deciding which of the ones out of the Zenith Castebook I want to buy next.

Real Life: Need to drop by Andy P & Claire's place to pick up that stuff Andy P wants scanned. It won't take me too far out of my way, provided I stick to buses. Means I have to be out of here in just over an hour, though. But at least my printouts are done. Also need to remember to borrow Dogwitch and Spider Jerusalem from Andy O with the rest of the stuff I wanted to (Christ, I'm going to have half Andy O's library if this keeps up; I should at least return those Tradition supplements to him while I'm about it...)

...And of course, need to get some writing done at some point. I mean, seriously -- there's just never any chance anymore. I'd love to, but I'm always too tired or headachy or musejacked. I really need a holiday. There was someplace advertising writer's retreats which I'd look into if all available cash flow in the near future wasn't going to directly involve San Francisco and points south. I'd say I could turn that into my writer's retreat, but between nightskywarlock and happypickle and maybe hentaijess who I haven't met yet but would love to ... well, I'm not saying that I'm going to complain about hanging with friends I haven't seen in years (because, excuse me, hell no! I miss my friends) but there has just been no writing. Well, there's always going to be some time, right? And that lot always inspire me.

I've been trying not to talk about SF. At least not until tickets are booked. I've been saying that I want to get away to SF for a couple of years now, but between work hassles and money stuff, it's just never happened. So maybe it's safer if I don't say anything until I have plane tickets in my grubby little mitt. Still, it's exciting and mood-lifting to think about my holiday, and I sometimes wonder if the reason it hasn't taken so much priority the other times I've considered is is because there's just been so little enthusiasm from other quarters. That's got me to shut up about it, which has meant putting it out of my mind, which in turn has lowered its priority. Mea culpa, but still...

But to hell with that. I'll generate my own damn enthusiasm and let other people get swept up in it. Worked with Mage, didn't it?

Anywho, I now have an hour or so to get dressed, throw together a sandwich and get my butt in gear for Finchley. And to get Yuki the hell off my printer...

Fashion Victims

Well, today was fairly hysterical.

So our first scene was an accidental appearance at a massive street brawl. We didn't do very much damage, but the brawl wasn't directed at us anyway; two groups of 'employees' of a couple of local merchants were at each other's throats for reasons best left vague. One of them made the mistake of drawing a knife and got an Emissary -- one of the men/sorcerors/things that run Nexus -- on the scene. He touched the offending knife-wielder on the head and the next thing you know he was being eaten by termites. The Emissary knows what we are, by the way, and is happy for us to be around so long as we're not overt. And he sent us out to our employer, who had reason to see us.

Guess what -- that whole brawl was one big clump of punching, kicking, biting, drunken foreshadowing. One of the merchants had set 'bandits' on one of our employer's caravans and they'd stolen some "priceless antiquities", which I get the impression we're not supposed to ask about. Then the other merchants set more 'bandits' on the first 'bandits' and stole one of the other items. Turns out the two merchants are brothers and haven't spoken in a long long time. They not-so-cordially hate each other and the second bandit raid was really to piss the first guy off. We were supposed to try to buy the single item off the second merchant and find a way to get the other items off the first guy (Mellin, I think; never been much good with names).

For Mellin, I came up with a plan -- well, I am the one descended from the Solar Deliberative, okay? Anyway, plan was for me to go into Mellin's house as a bard and scope out the lay of the land, hopefully to give Narsil (Mark's character) some information so he could break in and steal 'em, if I couldn't do it myself. Well, not that I told them that last bit... Anyway, that meant that the other four had to go up to Bastion (really really really rich area of the city) while I got myself cleaned up and costumed appropriately for an elegant function. Thankfully Valandil (Toos' character) decided to get himself dolled up before he went up to Bastion because when he turned up at the costumier's our boss recommended, I'd just sent a seamstress fleeing in tears.

Allow me to explain something about Kayla. She is a consumate barbarian. She used to be a pretty, slightly dim but very talented island girl. Then she and her sister got attacked by a river dragon; her sister died, she went Exalted, kicked its scaly arse and fled the islands altogether without saying goodbye to her family -- they probably think she died, too. She remembers very little about the islands and never really talks about it other than the fact that she's seen someone killed by a river dragon -- when she sailed, she wound up in the North of the Realm and spent some time with the Reindeer-Men, hunting and tracking and skinning and tanning and all that kind of thing. She left them after around a year and went on something of a 'vision quest', which resulted in her finding her sword, then went East because she thought that was what the Unconquered Sun wanted her to do. Given she wound up in Nexus with that lot, she turned out to be right.

Anyway, the fact remains that she is an utter barbarian. She hasn't used a hairbrush in years and doesn't even remember what one's for. She hasn't worn anything but skins in a similar span of time. Face paint is for tribal war-and-hunt use only. Trying to beautify Kayla is a bit like cleaning up Encino Man ... except for one thing. She might be kind of insane, but she does have command of the language and some very strict views on things. Like people touching her inappropriately.

So when she goes to a costumier's and is being measured for a dress...

The first costumier threw me out after I gave a seamstress a black eye. And Valandil turned up in time to keep me from killing anyone in the second place; just tried to explain that "she's not from around here". Then came to me and had to explain dress fittings and the whole figure-hugging thing...

Kayla: There will be no hugging!
Valandil: It's the dress that will be hugging...
Kayla: It is an inanimate object; it cannot hug.

You get the idea. Comedy of errors. While they were finally fitting me for the dress without my trying to kill them, then fixing very long hair that hadn't been brushed in years and doing my makeup, the other four went to the second merchant. Instead of wanting money for the one item he had, he insisted that his payment would be for us to steal the other antiquities from Mellin and humiliate him at the very party I was supposed to be entertainment at. He'd get the three men invitations and have White Moon Lotus there as his escort (in the most tacky, figure revealling misogynist's dream of a costume ever designed by man). They didn't tell him about me. I'm apparently ace in the hole.

After the wardrobing stupidity, I met them outside the gates to the lift that took people up the cliff to Bastion. None of them recognised me until I spoke to them, at which point Valandil did a lot of babbling until I asked him to go along with me to the Bardic Guild -- I'd been given an address and a contact by our employer. The first man we saw was very annoyed at Valandil but really softened when he got a look at me -- I just kept my mouth shut as much as possible. When we went up to meet the contact, we heard a repeated *whh-TISSH* -- apparently the Guildmaster has some ... eeghy tastes. We got in, I auditioned (using a nice little charm that gives me one automatic success in performance for every two motes of Essence I lay down) and was not only permitted to be slipped on the books for this Mellin 'do but invited to sign onto the Guild's books permanently. We didn't get the time to discuss that because the Guildmaster had an appointment with Mr Whippy.

After that, I realised "Hair tangles when you sleep on it, and the whale-grease would wash off. So I went to White Moon Lotus to lament my lack of "torture implements". When I finally explained I meant 'hairbrush', and enquired about makeup, we went to see our employer. We asked about a number of things: how to get our weapons into the house (we don't; I have six-inch hairpins, but that's about it); what to do about the makeup and hair (we got appointments with the costumiers and various bathers, masseuses and pamperers for the next day) and whether I could sign on to the Guild books (not a problem so long as it doesn't interfere with my other duties). In the course of the last, I mentioned the Guildmaster and his infatuation with Mr Whippy. I did apologise for troubling him as I left, and White Moon Lotus got told, "She can apologise all she likes, but that image is going to be with me for days..."

So after a bit of exercise with the Blade (and cutting a clothesline out from under Narsil and Valandil, who were pulling a Crouching Moron, Hidden Wisdom) and a good night's sleep, White Moon Lotus and I submitted ourselves to pampering and turned up at the party. I got there first, got treated with very little respect (jealousy; I was the prettiest musician there...), then White Moon Lotus on whasisname's arm and the dress (garland of plumes on the head, silver bikini top, gauzy blue loincloth thing and about thirty pounds of silver jewellery and bells), then the others. Not much happened -- I finally got the warning about Mellin's majordomo (which none of my group had thought to give to me beforehand -- thanks, guys), Narsil went sneaking into the shadows ... and then a Dragonblood Exalted of the Realm turned up at the party. The guys who are trying to hunt the Solars down. And he'll know exactly what we are just by looking.

Can we say, "oh shit"?

Anyway, 7th Sea tomorrow, Firefly Tuesday, Mage Sunday. Simson's going to be awhile in the turning up to the group but that's sort of okay because we're running a fairly loaded game anyway and I'm about to start the Pontypridd storyline so it'd be nice if they could get through that before Simson leaps into action. I'd rather not have Brenna cut him up for not turning up to the 19 August thing...

Yep. This is my life. Oh, the excitement...