katoomba ♔ while I formulate denials of your effect on me

[moonheart]

♬ Watching You Go - Ghosts

WHO || Alanna, Jaime, Faith, Fiona, Jordan, Adi [Closed]
WHAT || The Knights investigate a shady temple of Mystra.
WHERE || Katoomba, Australia
WHEN || July 24th [forward dated]
HOW || Actionspam. Single thread, don't worry about maintaining tagging order.

The Knights take off for Katoomba, Australia, to investigate a tale of a temple to the goddess of magic Mystra that was erected very suddenly and mysteriously, seemingly unknown to other Mystran clergy in the world.  A bizarre tale of a cleric being chased out with gunfire, and a missing bookseller with a connection to the church have left Wynn worried about what might be going on within the walls of the temple.  It is constructed a short distance from the actual city proper, up the river.  

Comments

[trebond]

Not religiously, no. Have any of those drawn here come under your employ? It would be lovely to hear more about your goddess. [ :) pls. diplomacy 24. ]

[moonheart]

[ "There are some who have come here to seek revealed knowledge, walking far enough down that path to earn Mystra's Sacred Trust," he says. those who got a great knowledge (religion) check about mystra at the briefing would have never heard of such a thing, although it could conceivably be part of ecclesiastical knowledge imparted at higher levels. "If you're interested in learning more about her, you should come to our nightly services, and rejoice in Mystra." ]

[missindependent]

[ fiona should be playing into this whole tourist ploy, but instead she's wandered a bit away from the crowd, staring up at their surroundings open-mouthed and clearly intrigued. okay, well, i suppose that does play up the tourist bit, doesn't it. ] We should definitely come back for the nightly services.

[moonheart]

[ he smiles at her enthusiastic declaration. "If you happen to be truly interested in becoming part of our congregation, and perhaps even earning Mystra's Sacred Trust yourselves, we could always arrange for you to attend special three-day services that occur in the middle temple. We require a donation of two hundred and fifty dollars for each person interested in trying the service. Yes, expensive, but not too much for those truly interested in expanding their knowledge of the goddess of the Weave, no?" ]

[missindependent]

[ she looks to faith, excitedly, and it's hard to tell if she's so pleased because this is a perfect excuse to further explore the temple for the mission, or if she just really wants to try the service ] Count me in! Better than what we'd find at some souvenir stand, that's for sure.

[moonheart]

Sounds cool. I mean, uh... enlightening! [ yeah, that's the one ] We're in.

[ the priest nods. "Return at nightfall, those of you who are interested, along with your donations, and you may begin the three day ritual." ]

[mining]

[ Adi's about as skeptical as Jaime, but he keeps himself busy by eyeing the statues while the others do the diplomacy thing. He rejoins the group during the tail-end of that invitation, looking to the priest. ]

I'm guessing you prefer cash. [ Like any legitimate organization. It's probably also what most temples default to, but tourists ask inane questions, right?? ]

[trebond]

[ but

platinum corporate card.

they'll figure it out ok. ]

For each person?

[ she's not actually worried about it, but double-checking at all does a good job of giving that impression (bluff 22). ]

[moonheart]

[ the priest nods to both of them. "Per person, yes. We accept cash or simpler coin from the Shadow World." ]

Pretty sure we left our bags of gold in the other car.

[missindependent]

[ she looks between all of them, like 'why are you all so concerned with this meaningless crap?', turning to faith last ] Either way, we'll definitely be back.

[trebond]

Indeed. Thank you for your suggestion.

[ Alanna offers the priest a smile and turns to the others, nodding that they should go now before starting back out herself. ]

[moonheart]

[ and off they go~ heading back outside the temple walls, at which point, faith pipes up as they head towards the car ] Soooo, what do we think they're gonna make us do, exactly?

[trebond]

I've no clue. Whatever it is, though, it should afford us time to gather a better understanding of the temple's workings.

[twinfucker]

[Jaime... might have some bags of gold. Maybe. He's not gonna admit it. Golden dragons aren't really the sort of gold most people think of when they talk about shadow world coins.]

We should be able to sneak away during the proceedings. Away from their public face is where we'll get the real information.

[missindependent]

Sounds awesome. All of it, really. Perhaps there's something in my books that mentions this initiation ritual. I'll have to check it out when we get back to our stuff.

[moonheart]

Well, let's go check it out! [ and back they're gonna head to a hotel for a few hours to kill... you can just go ahead and summarize if they're going to do anything during that time with any relevant research checks etc., we don't have to play all that downtime out. i'm sure faith will accomplish... nothing productive. ]

[twinfucker]

[Jaime idk polishes his sword. That's probably not a euphemism for masturbating but you never know.]

[moonheart]

[ alanna spends most of the remaining hours asking around about the temple (gather info nat 20) and finds out quite a bit:

"The new temple went up real fast. They didn't spare any magic in building it, that's for sure. But I suppose that's what we should expect from clerics of Mystra."

"I heard it said that the temple would bring in more people and more business - put us on the map, as it were. It seems to be doing that already. At least, the priests of Mystra spend a fair amount of money in town."

"The police investigated the place after some folk complained of weird lights and odd noises at night. Imagine that! Odd noises and lights at a temple devoted to magic! Needless to say, they didn't find anything strange."

"I hear that the clerics of Mystra haven't been too friendly with the town's traditional churches. It's probably just big city church rivalry. Once the Mystrans get settled in, they'll come to understand that we're all friends here." ]

[trebond]

[ As nightfall rolls around, Alanna returns from pulling out hella cash from the Knights account and summons the group together to head back to the temple. On the way, she briefs them on the general public attitude towards it. ]

If anything untoward is going on in this temple, the townspeople don't seem particularly concerned with it. They're mostly quite glad of the temple, with the exception of the other religions, and a few who seemed surprised by standard magical fare.

Fiona, did you find anything about the initiation?

[moonheart]

[ fiona did not, in fact, find out anything about the initiation, other than to discover definitively that no such thing seems to exist. ... weird. ]

[missindependent]

[ luckily, fiona remembered doing said research, and the results ] I don't think there's usually an initiation to join a temple of Mystra - at least nothing I could find record of - so I'm not really sure what we should be expecting for tonight.

[moonheart]

Maybe it'll be like sorority hazing.

[trebond]

A what?

[ Someone missed college ok. ]

[lionbrave]

[Jaime's not even asking, but he looks as mystified as Alanna sounds.]

It's clearly some sort of scam. A way to part foolish tourists like us from their hard-earned gold.

[trebond]

Well I'll happily part with a bit of Wynn's as long as it will get us inside.

[ onward! ]