Chocobo Tales: Jade Regent

[Cowpies77]

So, night comes and goes, and noooooothing eventful happens as far as the three can tell.

Morning rises and Davros gives Ryoga and Kim a firm, but not particularly painful, kick on the foot to wake each of them up. Chad-for-Short is still not with the party, and Davros reports that all was quiet on his end.

Packing up his things, Davros slings his pack over his arm and says "Well, where we going? Looking for the feather-head, or head up to the castle and let that chicken cower a bit. It's not like he can really go anywhere except the Caravan. And I'm beginning to doubt his resolve, since Kim -no offense- seems to have a knack for spooking him."

Oh, and Everyone receives 200 exp for the Reefclaw battle.  

[MT the Clown]

Picking at the tips of her fingers, "No offense taken. I am a bit unnerving if you're not used to me.... To me. But regardless, I never left my soldiers behind back then, I don't now. I want to go look for him. Go look for him."  

[Kombinant]

"Go apologize and fetch Chad-for-Short if you must, Kim. But I think we ought to just leave him alone for now and go investigate the castle. We still haven't found what's plaguing Ameiko, y'know? "  

[Kombinant]

Survival check +3  

[Cowpies77]

-Splitting up the party-
Kim
the Alchemist heads out, ambling through the town to get to the graveyard, where she finds a bandaged up Chad-for-Short sitting in front of the statue of Desna, praying. Waiting till he's done, she sees him get up, head over to the crypt that Ryoga and Davros broke into the other day and begins trying to mend the stone door with his magic and goop from his bag.

Ryoga and Davros
Having always been light packers, the two give a shrug as Kim walks off before they begin to rush towards the imposing castle on the cliff. It takes them around 2-ish hours at full jogging speed, with Ryoga being naturally fleet footed and Davros chugging along like a bull. They stop for a breather and take measure of the castle for a few moments.
It's only 2 stories tall, not counting a tower that looks to be 3-stories high, and made entirely out of stone. As the pair approach, they see that it's actually made of different kinds of stone, seemingly having been damaged and rebuilt several times. The monk looks around as Davros pants a little and leans against a tree, and sees that the castle actually gives a rather commanding view of the area. Heading towards the edge of the cliff, the monk enjoys the view of the sea, with the sound of the waves, the light shimmering in the water, and the lone blue chocobo bobbing in the water as it bobs its head in to snag a fish.

... Pausing for a second, the monk does a triple take, and stares at the large blue bird floating along, and feels a rush of excitement as he begins patting his robes.
"Okay," Davros says, walking up to the monk after catching his breath. "I'll bite. What the ******** are you doing?"
Ryoga's heart sinks a bit as he realizes that he doesn't have any of the chocobo treats the birds are known to go crazy for. After explaining the situation to Davros, the half-orc just says "Uh, why don't you just look for them in the woods then? I guess I'll help?"

The pair spend a little over half an hour, and manage to come up with a two small bundles of Gyshal Greens. Heading back to the cliff, Ryoga smiles a bit as the blue chocobo is still out there, floating some distance away.
"So... how're we gonna get down there? We don't really have a kayak or hang-glider... and I don't think I can throw my shotput that far."  

[MT the Clown]

Standing there, Kim quietly waits for Chad to finish praying, all the while picking the skin on her thumb and trying to keep her tremors contained.

She stays quiet a bit long as Chad begins working on the crypt before little out a sniffle, "Um... Chad-for-short... I'm really sorry for what happened."  

[Cowpies77]

Chad-for-Short stops messing with the door a bit to half turn and look at Kim, before saying "I passed out somewhere from blood loss after you nearly killed me. Woke up here a while ago bandaged up, which I'm attributing to minor act of goddess, or whatever magical water's in that bowl. I hope there was more to that than 'I'm sorry.' Dying by being shot by my companions in a gods-forsaken, quite-possibly-haunted ruins is kiiiiinda low on my list of priorities."  

[MT the Clown]

Kim stays quiet for a bit, unsure of what to say. Ultimately, Kim just settles for being truthful, "Sorry, but there is nothing else. I'm not going to say things like, 'Oh, it'll never happen again.' or 'I promise to do better.' Neither of those are predictable. It could happen again simply due to bad luck. The only thing I can promise you is this: I will not use my bow while someone is engaged in melee and to resume using infusions and mutagens to lessen or negate my tremors."  

[Cowpies77]

Chad-for-Short lets out a curious caw before he turns and says "You don't really need to say 'never' on that, but you certainly need help finding someone to teach you how to shoot into a group if you try that again. Also, where are your tremors coming from? I've met a few Alchemists in my travels, and I don't recall any of them getting tremors."  

[MT the Clown]

Letting out a wry laugh, "I don't know. At this point, I'm starting to think bombing is all I'm good at." Picking at her fingers some more, her thumb finally gives and she gouges a small hole into it. Looking ashamed, "It's not what you think, it's not. It's not the mutas or the extracts. It's a bad history.... Do you know what ogrekins are? If you ask Shalelu, I'm sure she'll be able to tell you somethings she was told by her father..." Taking a shuddering breath, "Back during the war, my company was suppose to secure an old fort. We didn't know ogres had made it their home. We got ambushed by them and herded into their traps." Placing a hand over her face, she's trying hard to suppress a fit of laughter. Letting out a cough, "In the beginning, there was ten of us. Hah. In the end there was only five survivors. Only two of us walked out with the rescue-party. I had to euthanized the rest. You see. It wasn't the physical torture or various members jumping in front of me so I wouldn't get raped. Oddly enough, it wasn't the fact that we were getting eaten alive one-by-one. It was the fact that we didn't turn away for any of it. We watched so we would always know the truth. No matter how the higher-ups would spin it. We would honor our buddies."

Shaking her head, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I make it all seem so funny. But if I laugh now.... I don't think I'll ever be able to stop." Taking in another breath, "Anyways. My brother taught me something. He taught me lucid dreaming, but he also taught me to modify my craft so even the slight change in my body would change the chemicals in my mind. It's not so much a drug as a crutch. As long as I believe I'm different, I can separate myself from that day... Funny. Saying it outloud like that. I think I might actually be an addict.

Turning around to wipe her eyes, Kim roughly slaps the back of her head, sounding as cheerful as she can, "Come on Chad. The others are waiting. Who knows what might happen to them if we hurry up and meet up."  

[Cowpies77]

MT the Clown

"Come on Chad. The others are waiting. Who knows what might happen to them if we hurry up and meet up."

Chad-for-Short is quiet for a while, but then sighs and slowly begins to follow after packing up his few things, muttering "Damn my heart of feathered gold."
He calls out to Kim "It's Chad-for-Short. It's already a shortening from ChakkaChakkaChuukoBuchaBukkaWikkiWikki. Don't shorten it more. And I'm betting that they're probably busy bleeding. Or at least Ryoga. I'm not entirely sure if Davros bleeds like a normal person."

On their way back through town and up the path towards the castle, Chad-for-Short gets run over, quite literally, by Davros as he makes it out of the treeline to the west while huffing air. He stops to catch his breath and says "Uh, sorry. Wrong direction. Cream-Puff saw this big blue bird in the water and we spent the morning looking for weeds and then he leaped off the cliff to swim after it and... well, just come."

Confused, the party runs back toward the lagoon, where the Monk is lying sprawled out on the beach with one leg horribly mangled and a Lobster-eel claw still firmly attached to the wounds. There's a large, blue bird creature currently riffling through Ryoga's robes. Looking up, it backs away a bit and stares suspiciously as the Tengu moves in.
Heal the injuries, Chad-for-Short says "This is why you all can't have anything nice..." Davros gives a giant ham-fisted punch to Ryoga's chest, causing the monk to spray seawater about two feet straight up before passing out again. Chad-for-Short pushes off the Half-orc and begins shouting at him that he can't just punch the sick and dying to make them better.

Kim just watches as the blue bird sneaks back over and continues searching through the monk's person as Ryoga slowly rouses and hands the bird some greens from inside his belt. The bird sits down and begins pecking at them rather contently.  

[Kombinant]

Rousing and seeing the chocobo in front of him, Ryoga automatically hands the bird some greens from his belt. "Hello there. Did you rescue me big guy?" Ryoga pats the bird for a while as it eats. "How about we keep that little incident between us, okay? Nobody really needs to know I nearly got my a** kicked like that, eh?"

Giving the bird some more greens, Ryoga finally turns around and notices the rest of the party. "Oh, uhh, hey guys! How long you been here?"  

[Cowpies77]

Okay, well I was going to award 200 exp for each player's individual roleplay bits, but that leaves y'all at 50 tnl. So I'll bump it up to 250, so you're all level 2.

Oh, but yeah. Just a heads up in case it's not clear: Chad-for-Short is both highly superstitious and also has some level of morals and ethics, if y'all keep scaring/angering/spooking Chad-for-Short with your actions in-game, such as desecrating a crypt or threatening to rape him, he's going to leave and if you want him to continue traveling with you, you'll need to start making Diplomacy checks. Even if it's part of your character's personality.

Or, y'know, do stuff to get him to like you. Acting like a mess of crazy around him isn't exactly calming...  

[MT the Clown]

Kim just smiles sweetly, "Hullo there. How long I've been here, depends on the answer you're looking for and what you're willing to give me."  

[Kombinant]

"Riiiiiiiight. Anyway, Davros and I were about to check out the castle over there," Ryoga gestures in a general towards-the-castle direction, "before this guy distracted me. So, how about we get back to that?"

Ryoga pats the bird for a little bit before showing it a small bit of greens and mounting the bird in a swift motion. "Let's go!"