Roleplay on Dolor with Rolland/Ruby/Balgor about Mindflayers and Pipeweed

Balgor swipes at his drying eyes for the ump-teenth time now. He has never, in his long years, and as the God of Slaughter, shed so many honest tears in his life. He thought he was past his regrets and feelings of remorse and guilt, but apparently not. Oooh how he missed them all though! He resolved within himself that he would find the remaining crystal shards, join them to the main crystal, and get himself home, as well as bring the newcomers. He would not give up until his goal was achieved. He smiled. It couldn't be that difficult. Plus, he had a new follower now, something he hadn't been able to lay claim to for 3,000 years. He smiled wider. Balgor, God of Slaughter, was coming home. "Now to find the others," he said aloud. He bent his head one last time to the glass coffin where Byakkomyun slept, and, waving a hand, replied, "Be at peace, daughter of the Ice and Snow." With that, he left to go find everyone.

Ruby is coming out of the library, a small satchel bag over her shoulder. She looks a bit different today, with simple pants and a comfortable shirt. A simple bandage is wrapped around her right hand. Distracted and ruffling though the papers in her bag, she looks up and spots you coming down the road. "Oh, um... Hiya Balgor! How are ya doin' today?" She seems tentative.

Rolland, who had been out picking herbs and various other things for his alchemy, was now ecstatic to find his favorite pipe weed, a plant he thought long extinct. "Balgor! Ruby! This island grows Emerald shimmerleaf!" He bends over carefully picking the vibrant green plant, the stitches in his bare back oozing slightly as they are pulled taut.

Balgor, contemplative and full of pensive energy, looks up from his musing, and seeing Ruby and Rolland in such high spirits, brings a smile to his face. "I am doing well, Miss Ruby! I have a lot of weight on my mind and heart, but I'm well." He looks at Rolland, and gives him a hearty thumbs-up. "I see you have found the native flora of this place. I hope it proves useful to you."

Ruby nods, thinking about the coffins in the building and the note Rhys retrieved. "I'm sorry for your loss, Balgor. I can tell she was a good friend of yours."

Turning to Rolland, she adds, "Good morning, getting some fresh air? That's amazing you found something so special." She seems shy and somewhat guilty for his plight. "I hope you're healing well?"

Rolland stands up slowly. "I'm healing up just dandy. Few more days and I'll be right as rain. Some of the deeper gashes tend to want to ooze and weep a bit, but nothing a little bit of sun and a fresh bandage or two won't solve!" He smiles, and holds up an armful of large green leaves. "Once I dry there proper like, they'll make for some of the best pipe smoking you've ever had. Although... I don't believe you smoke, do you, Lady?"

Ruby smiles. "I actually have, on occasion... Socially." She seems to be considering something, but refrains from saying more. "Perhaps I can join you in trying some later? Sounds like a treat, if it's been gone during my lifetime. I'd like to ask you a bit about alchemy too, if that's alright?"

Rolland smiles, carefully tucking the leaves into his satchel. "It'd be great fun to teach you some alchemy! You got anything particular in mind?"

Rolland turns his gaze to Balgor. "You're going to join me later for a drink and a smoke, right mate?"

"I do, actually. I want to help develop some more concentrated salves, but I would like to learn the right way to do so... Perhaps there is somethin' on this island that is stronger than what we have back at home. I know a little herbology, enough to get by."

In a free moment of conversation, she also turns to Balgor, "I also need to ask you some questions about somethin' I think you've likely fought a lot of in your time..." She levels her gaze with yours. "Monsters."

Balgor looks at both of you and laughs hardily. "Why, Rolland, of COURSE I'll join you for a smoke and a drink! The God of Slaughter is known for holding his ale!" He then turns to you Ruby, and returns your level gaze. "Monsters! Why I've faced thousands! Just ask, I can tell you about any one of them."

She glances at Rolland, then back at Balgor. "Tentacle-faced monsters... Bipedal. Purpleish skin. Humanoid. Brain-sucking... They can take over your thoughts, paralyze your body, and disguise their presence."

"Can you tell us all you know?"

"Aaaaaaah," says Balgor, "the evil mindflayers!" He strokes his beard for a moment and continues. "We should have this conversation over a drink and some pipeweed, eh? To calm the nerves, as it were." With that, he, you, and Rolland make your way collectively to the temple. "This looks like a good place for some ale and weed." Balgor seats himself on one of the benches and invites Rolland and Ruby to sit with him. From his satchel he produces some glasses and a cask of ale. Balgor pours each of you a glass, and hands each of you a glass. "Now, as Rolland prepares the weed, I shall weave you the tale of the mindflayers--the aberrant beasts of the outer planes."

"Mindflayers are horrible creatures of decadence and strict law. They follow a pious hierarchy, and scheme and plot one another's demise in between. I am not altogether familiar with their origins, but I do know that they come from the outer planes, and invade other worlds, either by direct force...or more by more subtle methods. They prey upon worlds weak, vulnerable and rich in "resources" and "livestock." They try to establish new colonies on these hapless worlds and do mercilessly." He pauses for a moment, waiting for your reaction. "And yes, they feast upon the living brains of sentient, intelligent beings."

Ruby's face loses all color, and she looks at the floor. "Mind...flayers? What a fitting name..."

She visibly shivers. "We faced one together. It was horridly difficult to kill, even with as many in our number as we have. Do... Do they have any weaknesses? How can you tell if there are more??" She turns to Balgor again, her eyes imploring, begging for help.

"If you faced one, there are definitely more. I fear, my lady, that they have already incurred upon this earth. There is usually a leader to guide them and oversees all of their actions. They work as a partial hive mind. As far as weaknesses go, Abjuration magic might be your best bet. A good stinking cloud always seemed to do the trick and distract them in a fierce combat situation. Also, blunt force seems to work well against them too."

"But know this, my dear, that when you are seen or noticed by one...." He sighs aloud. "...you are seen by all."

Ruby's eyes widen as the understanding hits her. "They all would know us? Our faces?" Her breathing becomes shallower and her drink shakes in her hands. She remembers that night so vividly, as it still visits her in her dreams.

She speaks slowly, quietly. "We found it... Hiding in a church. Defiling the rites of our service, taking a member of the congregation for its meal. We found her body that night... It was by sheer luck we found it, too." She tries to focus on one of the tapestries to keep the image of it out of her mind, of it reaching with its tentacled, sucking jaws toward Armella's face.

"I never imagined how many more there could be... We couldn't stealthily take them out either if they know who we are, I..." she stiffens, thinking of her family, Thorin's family, all the other people she knew back home. "How could we find the leader? If they're praying on church members, perhaps... Perhaps we need to let the triad know? So they can have the members protected... To equip the paladins, or--"

Her rambling stops abruptly and her eyes dart to Rolland. She looks a bit mortified. Her mind was a blur, and she wasn't even aware what she was saying; How he--or Rodrick--would feel with helping the church, paladins, the triad... With the history they've had with them. Do they, the church, deserve this? In the eyes of those who had been cast out, hunted, vilified?

Rolland had been listening silently, focusing on working the large leaves down into a usable size. He produced a few pipes from his satchel, one being a long and slender ivory stem with ebony carved bowl that had inlay of pearl and aboloney. He handed that one to Ruby, and another one, nearly the exact opposite, a thick stem of chiseled black stone with a bowl of the shiniest silver ever seen, inlaid with all manner of gems to Balgor, before producing a plain old hand carved oak pipe for himself. He then begins distributing out the emerald shimmerleaf, along with a few firesticks and a pipe tamp. "Well, here's to friendship!"

Quietly, Ruby takes the beautiful pipe with the utmost care. Receiving the other items, she responds, "To friendship..."

She fills and tamps down the little pieces of vibrant green in her pipe, the smell crisp and fresh. Lighting it and taking a long drag on the ivory stem, she feels the relieving sweet smoke wash over her.

She exhales slowly. "This is really good stuff, Rolland. I see why you were so fond of it."

Balgor takes the ornate pipe gratefully, and tamps the leaves down in the bowl. After that, he lights and begins puffing small clouds of fresh smoke into the air. "To friendship, it is." Balgor ponders Ruby's questions, mulling over in his mind how best to answer them. "It...often takes time for the identity of one they see to be fully registered across the entire colony, if said colony already exists in the world. How long did you fight it for?"

Ruby is quiet while she thinks, smoking on her pipe. She lets out a slow breath. "It felt like forever... But it must have been perhaps... Ten minutes or so?" She looks at Rolland again, unsure if he would know. She hoped he wasn't upset with her about her eagerness to warn the church.

"Hmmmm...You may have been able to get away with your slaying of the creature without it being able to fully register your faces. I think it may have been so engrossed in combat that it couldn't have gotten a complete read on all of your faces to send specific details across the hive. It may have only been able to register general details about you. If you disguise yourself well, you may be able to sneak back into society and find what you need." Balgor takes a few more drags from his pipe. "As for this 'Triad'... I wouldn't necessarily trust an organization that has been infiltrated by these mind flayers, Miss Ruby."

"You..." She pauses, mulling the implications of that over, "You think even the upper leadership would be under the influence of these monsters? Tarj hand-picks his Triad, and he's our God of Knowledge and Reason... If we can't turn to Him for help, who can we turn to? To keep more people from becoming food? Can mind flayers take over Gods? You weren't..." She looks at Balgor, worry heavy on her face.

"I wasn't, Miss Ruby. I was simply stating my opinion on the matter. If this all-wise Tarj hand-picks this Triad, then all power to him. I do not know whether the upper leadership is under the influence of the mind flayers or not. If they are not, then one of two things is possible: 1) they are trying and failing to rid the church of the mind flayer incursion, or 2) they are somehow in collusion with the mind flayers. As to who you could turn to, look to your friends. You have them to rely upon. You have your instincts and skills. And," he smiles over his pipe, "you have me!" He takes another long drag from his pipe, and sits back thinking. "And as for your question as to whether mind flayers can take over gods, they cannot, thankfully."

Rolland, who had been relatively silent on the matter for a while, finally speaks up, a big cloud of smoke escaping his mouth as he talks. "But can we be absolutely sure that this... Tarj..." He says the name with a little bit of disgust and makes no attempt to cover it. "Is what he says he is? That he is an actual God and not just another one of these mind flayers?"

He turns his attention to Balgor, followed by taking another draw off his pipe before speaking again. "If he is a god, wouldn't there be other new gods? I find it hard to believe that only one God has risen since the world was nearly destroyed... I mean, back in your day there were hundreds..."

"The Paladin has received obvious communications with this Tarj in prayer. I will not argue too much on the point of Tarj's divinity or lack thereof. I will say this: no mere mind flayer could ever strive to godhood. Their...constitution is too weak for the task. And you're right! There were hundreds of gods in my day! Hundreds..." Balgor takes another drag from his pipe. "I cannot explain why there have been no other gods besides this Tarj."

"Ah, I understand. I just have a bit of bad blood there what with his followers usually trying to cut my damned head off..."

Ruby stews in her thoughts; thinking of Armella, of Rolland, of her family, her relationship with her god... She silently puffs on her pipe while she takes in the whole conversation, listening.

Balgor raises an eyebrow. "Your head eh?" He coughs a little. His face contorts into the snaggle-toothed grin. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

"My head, arms, legs... anthing they think they can easily remove from my body..." He pauses and takes a long drag off his pipe, leaning back and draping one arm and his head over against the log he's leaning against. "They don't like what happens next..." as he sits back up, he somehow has his silver revolver in his hand. He looks at Ruby and smiles. "Rhys ain't the only one with tricks, Little Lady..." He says with a wink.

Lost in her thoughts, Ruby jumps as she registers the sudden silver flash of the gun. She laughs, trying to chase away her memories. "You all seem to have tricks, it seems!"

She adds sensitively at the end, "I'm... glad you stayed safe."

Rolland laughs heartily, then takes another puff of his pipe. "I'm more just slight of hand, less actual magic. Comes in handy when you've got to slip something into your pocket without someone noticing... or something into someone else's pocket..." He grins and takes a drink of his ale, followed by another long drag on his pipe.