Scene 15: the Reprise of Gurg
Ionjae and Varien walk into Gurg's office. The little goblin blinks up at them from behind a pile of papers on his desk.
"What do you want?"
"We need a job." Varien sits down in one of the two chairs in front of Gurg's desk and puts his booted feet up.
"Get you feet off my desk. Just because I'm a goblin doesn't mean I can read muddy papers. And why do you need a job? Have you managed to blow through the money I already paid you so soon? Or are you just bored?"
Ionjae offers "We need books, supplies, that sort of thing. You helped us out so well with tuition, we thought..."
"You're bored. I know you don't need the money. You made out just fine as a bookie today," pointing at Varien, "and you went off on a field trip and seemed far happier than you should have been given how roughed up you looked. I think you're both just fine for money.
"No, what you lack is ambition. Go find your own way in the world. For Ao's sake, it isn't even the second week of school, and you think I'm here to entertain you? Go kill Pun-Pun, or sabotage the Great Factory, or just ride the Planar Express for a while, or, failing that, try actually studying."
He starts sorting through the papers dislodged by Varien's feet as the two of them stare at him. He looks up. "Still here? Remember the fiasco with the gargoyles last year? We lost eight gargoyles. They'd been with the school for over seven hundred years. Make sure that Canas kid replaces them, and gets the others back to work, and maybe I'll find you something fun."
23 comments:
Well, Varian's there. He'll talk to Gurg. "Hey, we were hoping to get some extra work, got any jobs?"
Canas is absent, due to Gurg tending not to give him the best of jobs. He waits outside the entrance of the financial aid office for news the job.
Ionjae is also there, he hasn't had any bad experience with assignments from Gurg.
"Master Gurg, I too am interested in further work. It would seem that the last assignment, to remove the threat of Orcs from the plains was filled satisfactorily."
About Pun-Pun: Given an infinite number of worlds tied to the outer planes, Pun-Pun must exist on at least one of them, and from at least one of them he must have moved out into the planes. My idea on this is that he understands the infinity of space out there, and also understands that with infinite constitution, or the nearest equivalent my non-system can conceive of, he'll live forever. So he plans to simply swallow world after world with his kobold hoard, and, theoretically, eventually rule all of everything, but also have an infinitely interesting task to occupy him.
Gurg isn't serious about it. 'Go kill Pun-Pun' is something of a joke in the planes. Everyone knows that it can't be done, and that their own favorite prime world, since Pun-Pun only cares about prime worlds, has an infinitely small chance of being next. Still, if you decided to try, your death could be glorious.
The other ones actually could work. Scroll down that thread and you'll come to the descriptions of those ideas.
Wait, you rule that Pun Pun actually exists? A friend of mine told me about him, I never thought I'd hear about him again...strange
Wait...if you follow the official rules, anyone can become Pun Pun. What's to stop us from using the same trick? In which case, why are we bothering with Gods and the like?
Anyways, back IC: Varian walks out of the room, grumbling. "Stinkin' goblin. Well, what do you think Ionjae? What should we do?"
No, you'll never be Pun-Pun. I'm letting him exist because I find the concept interesting. He's a character who is more powerful than all the gods together simply through the interaction of elements that were never intended to fit into a coherent whole. Mostly I just felt like making fun of D&D, cause, you know, d20 murdered my mother.
Canas looks up to see Varian walk out. "Bad news, huh? What'd Gurg say we could have for a job?"
"Well, unless you've got some sword that can kill Pun Pun, we've got nothing, and if you do you shouldn't even be here. Oh, you still owe a bunch of gargoyles."
"Eheh..." Canas guiltily smiles, scrathing behind his head. "I've been working on that, but getting someone to enchant gargoyles for me isn't easy, not precisely my strong suit... Besides, I can't imagine the remaining gargoyles would be too happy to see me if I tried to persuade them to go back to acting like before last year."
"Uhg, I don't know what to say about him. He's probably right about our desire for currency but there must be some options for us. I suppose I could take a long look at the newest periodicals that have come into the library, perhaps there is some news within those stories that will breathe new life into our desire for riches and fight against boredom," Ionjae responds to Varian as they leave Gurg's office.
"Perhaps you can clue me in to what exactly happened on that fateful day. I recall hearing about how they all died, but it was my luck to be overwhelmed in studies and never got the full account," Ionjae says to Canas.
Well, after bugging Gurg for a while, he finally gave me the job of rounding up and and getting a few troublesome gargoyles under control. I found them after a while, and things went fine until a young girl happened to get involved. When the gargoyles attacked, I managed to save the girl, but obliterated a number of gargoyles in the process. After that Gurg hasn't been too happy with me, and I'm lucky I got a job from him at all since.
Has any sort of decision been reached by anyone?
Nodding at Canas' explanation, Ionjae speaks aloud to the entire group.
"Listen, I think Gurg may be right about some things. Perhaps we should focus a bit more on our schooling. But, I'll take some time in the next week or so to spend a good deal of time pouring over the tomes in the library and see if I can't uncover any interesting quest-like assignments that can be completed over the weekend or something." Glancing over at Varian, Ionjae adds, "Maybe you can touch base with a few of your contacts in the city to see if any news is brewing about anything that may require our certain skills."
Varian'll get on that. But first, half-ogre training time.
"I'll do my best to take care of getting some gargoyles, but I don't really think Gurg will cahnge his mind. Anyway, I've got homework and the alchemical garden to take care of, so I'll be off, where should we meet again if any developments occur?"
"We'll just send word to each other, it's not too hard to find a person on campus. That is unless they kill your cousin or something, then no one knows who to look for and stop talking about it a few weeks after it happens."
"Hey, the Gith was my big lead, but somehow I doubt that someone who can kill not one, but several gods is that interesting in killing your cousin. I'll keep my eyes out, but unless he strikes again I somehow doubt that we'll find him." Varian considers for a moment. "On that token..." Varian looks back and forth and utters a charm to see if anyone is listening. Assuming no one is... "It'd take tons of planning, and it'd be hard, but suppose that we could somehow set a trap for the murderer? Maybe we send a rumour around saying that we found a way to identify him, or something or the sort, and when he comes for us we jump him."
"Wow, geez. I don't know, I suppose that could work, but we'd really have to do our homework. Make sure that there isn't anyway we could get divined while the plans are being hatched and the trap is about to be sprung." Ionjae looks up into the air, and his fingers gently and lazily flick back and forth, he seems to be running calculations in his mind.
A minute or so passes and he suddenly stops and looks back at everyone, "I think this could work, I'm game for it if you are... but we'd have to have a Plan B in case it goes South. Why don't we all take some time to think this one over, anyone interested I'd be very thankful for your assistance, but I cannot expect you to volunteer for something like this. I'll see you all in a while." Ionjae closes his eyes and disappears with a CRACK.
"Freakin' conjurors..."
Canas' voice takes on an air of seriousness, "tell me if you get any news on this Gith, particularly if he moves against an elemental plane... Well, on that note I've got a garden that needs weeding and homework that needs doing, so long," Canas replaces his smile and walks off.
After Cansas is gone. "And I've got a slave to train. Something tells me that I'm gonna have the most fun." Varian goes off to find William.
Varian hunts down William. "Alright, we've got a lot to do and not very much time. I need you to tell me how to get this brute to do as he's told, and not eat the loser he's fighting."
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