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Closed to @divinestrike
[ Astarion was spending an awful lot of time... away from camp. If the group was resting, either he meditated, exchanged short snarky sentences with some companions or 'scouted'. Most of the time he was scouting. There was just a lingering sense of irritation that kept growing since things started to shift away from the priority, Moonrise Tower, to... whatever Halsin wanted to do. Of course Nepione wanted to help Bear Daddy, so everyone else in the team was involved in that stupid quest to fix a curse that had been there for a century. As if waiting a few more weeks would have been such a bad thing, it wasn't like the entire area was going to recover quickly anyway.
But nooooo, everyone had to play nice and try to find a way to wake up this Cullagh person from the inn to hear more about his Thaniel and- everything was just getting out of control! Not that the vampire wanted to move toward Baldur's Gate, not without knowing from Raphael what the hell his scars meant, but- there was a form of relentlessness in him that he could barely explain.
So? He wandered. With the pixie's blessing he could go everywhere he wanted. Yes, sometimes he had to rush away running because shades were attacking him, once he had to run straight from the city to the inn in a single go to avoid being mauled, but having something to keep him focused helped tremendously with his anxiety. He explored, mapped things and interesting buildings that could probably need a... friendly check in later and opened every chest he could find. His main attention was the fallen city, at least for now, and even if he avoided the main buildings -too much movements inside the house of healing or the tavern and when he tried to peek inside the tollhouse it was full of floating skulls and he decided not to go on his own- there was so much else to see.
A shame he had not been allowed to visit when he was a rich's merchant's guest with Cazador, it would have been useful knowing more of the landscape than what the tavern was like and the fact one of the now fallen buildings once used to be a brothel he was forced to work into for a while. At least he got his hands on a strange little ring that emitted a gentle glow (he took note it tended to glow brighter near the healing house) and a selunite ancient robe he totally didn't steal from a grave. His bag was filled with little trinkets, blankets, bits of jewels and alchemic ingredients, but what he was focusing on the most was the large amount of journals that detailed the tragedies of that place. He laughed at them, read the pathetic poetry of the two skeletons on the top of one of the buildings, burnt books and journals that didn't mean much in the great scheme of thins and collected what could be useful.
If was one of them that made him stop on his tracks and squint just slightly. From a quick skim it was merely the traveling journal, but the fact it was better preserved than many things around it told him it had been either dropped in the corner of the street recently, maybe by people carrying too many things to notice the loss, and a name on it made him go 'oh'. Yes, names weren't completely unique, there were probably countless other Astarions between the elves, but that wasn't the point: that was a companion's name and mentions of blue skin and other details while describing a kid just-]
Well then...
[Against his better judgement, the rogue slipped it in his bag and, even if he wasn't done exploring, found his way back to camp. Karlach was the first one to greet him and he ungracefully tossed in her direction a strength potion he found while searching. To Shadowheart went a couple of trinkets who needed identification, to Wyll a new rapier and Lae'Zel a sharpening stone. He got a present for almost everyone, Gale could just pray Mystra for all he cares and Halsin- oh, of course Halsin and the cleric were talking. Gods, they probably spent their entire time discussing phylosophy, nature or whatever the hells they found so interesting. The vampire rolled his eyes, approaching, and brough his hands behind his back before bending forward and basically putting his torso between them.]
I hope I'm not interrupting anything buuut I may use our little blue girl's attention for a moment. FIrst. I got you something.
[He sounded absolutely delighted as he unpacked and opened the silver robe in front of her. How it survived without any damage for almost a century while buried underground was a mystery, but he wasn't going to complain.]
Isn't this lovely? No magic, no, but you and Isolde can be twins now! Just two girl friends looking up at the moon and wearing the same identical boring robe! I know, I'm far too kind. But don't worry, you can pay me back almost immediately! There's something I must ask you- [Eyes went in Halsin's direction, who seemed extremely amused by the vampire for some reasons] Privately.
[No bears invited. No one else but the cleric. Honestly, he was doing her a SECOND favor because not only he stopped reading the journal as soon as he realized it could have been important for her, no, but he even avoided to make a big scene about it in front of everyone and going 'look at this! I found something that may be yours!". Nepione was as secretive as he liked to be himself and he was.... planning to win some points by keeping it in mind.]
No offense, musk man, but this is a thing that we night people must talk about on our own.
But nooooo, everyone had to play nice and try to find a way to wake up this Cullagh person from the inn to hear more about his Thaniel and- everything was just getting out of control! Not that the vampire wanted to move toward Baldur's Gate, not without knowing from Raphael what the hell his scars meant, but- there was a form of relentlessness in him that he could barely explain.
So? He wandered. With the pixie's blessing he could go everywhere he wanted. Yes, sometimes he had to rush away running because shades were attacking him, once he had to run straight from the city to the inn in a single go to avoid being mauled, but having something to keep him focused helped tremendously with his anxiety. He explored, mapped things and interesting buildings that could probably need a... friendly check in later and opened every chest he could find. His main attention was the fallen city, at least for now, and even if he avoided the main buildings -too much movements inside the house of healing or the tavern and when he tried to peek inside the tollhouse it was full of floating skulls and he decided not to go on his own- there was so much else to see.
A shame he had not been allowed to visit when he was a rich's merchant's guest with Cazador, it would have been useful knowing more of the landscape than what the tavern was like and the fact one of the now fallen buildings once used to be a brothel he was forced to work into for a while. At least he got his hands on a strange little ring that emitted a gentle glow (he took note it tended to glow brighter near the healing house) and a selunite ancient robe he totally didn't steal from a grave. His bag was filled with little trinkets, blankets, bits of jewels and alchemic ingredients, but what he was focusing on the most was the large amount of journals that detailed the tragedies of that place. He laughed at them, read the pathetic poetry of the two skeletons on the top of one of the buildings, burnt books and journals that didn't mean much in the great scheme of thins and collected what could be useful.
If was one of them that made him stop on his tracks and squint just slightly. From a quick skim it was merely the traveling journal, but the fact it was better preserved than many things around it told him it had been either dropped in the corner of the street recently, maybe by people carrying too many things to notice the loss, and a name on it made him go 'oh'. Yes, names weren't completely unique, there were probably countless other Astarions between the elves, but that wasn't the point: that was a companion's name and mentions of blue skin and other details while describing a kid just-]
Well then...
[Against his better judgement, the rogue slipped it in his bag and, even if he wasn't done exploring, found his way back to camp. Karlach was the first one to greet him and he ungracefully tossed in her direction a strength potion he found while searching. To Shadowheart went a couple of trinkets who needed identification, to Wyll a new rapier and Lae'Zel a sharpening stone. He got a present for almost everyone, Gale could just pray Mystra for all he cares and Halsin- oh, of course Halsin and the cleric were talking. Gods, they probably spent their entire time discussing phylosophy, nature or whatever the hells they found so interesting. The vampire rolled his eyes, approaching, and brough his hands behind his back before bending forward and basically putting his torso between them.]
I hope I'm not interrupting anything buuut I may use our little blue girl's attention for a moment. FIrst. I got you something.
[He sounded absolutely delighted as he unpacked and opened the silver robe in front of her. How it survived without any damage for almost a century while buried underground was a mystery, but he wasn't going to complain.]
Isn't this lovely? No magic, no, but you and Isolde can be twins now! Just two girl friends looking up at the moon and wearing the same identical boring robe! I know, I'm far too kind. But don't worry, you can pay me back almost immediately! There's something I must ask you- [Eyes went in Halsin's direction, who seemed extremely amused by the vampire for some reasons] Privately.
[No bears invited. No one else but the cleric. Honestly, he was doing her a SECOND favor because not only he stopped reading the journal as soon as he realized it could have been important for her, no, but he even avoided to make a big scene about it in front of everyone and going 'look at this! I found something that may be yours!". Nepione was as secretive as he liked to be himself and he was.... planning to win some points by keeping it in mind.]
No offense, musk man, but this is a thing that we night people must talk about on our own.