Fetzen

Kings and Killers: A Classical Fantasy Adventure (Chapter 1)

Fyr's facial expression briefly, but nontheless seriously derailed as his ears picked up how the self-proclaimed, greatest pirate of all times named Dalious did take less than a minute to get them all into trouble. If it hadn't potentially made them all look like a band of ragtag idiots who couldn't stand each other, he would have pulled the man off the cart and introduced to a rant. With that option ruled out for aforementioned reason however, the giant had little other choice than to just wait anxiously for the reaction of whom seemed to be the leader of the small caravan.

The latter turned out to be rather modest however. How would he himself have reacted if he had been in charge of these traveling party ? Given Dalious the kick-in-the-ass of his lifetime maybe ? Or not maybe, but certainly! On the other hand, Fyr had to admit silently to himself that he was not entirely free of guilt himself at this point, but at least he so far had merely looked at the camel from close on. Despite the fact that he had lost quite a few pounds due to malnourishment during their involuntary stay in the cave, he still doubted the animal would be up to the challenge of carrying him.

"I have to apologise for Dalious' behavior, but unfortunately it's not really under my control. I think it's fair to say we are rather desperate at this point for..." Fyr did not consider his address so far to be particularly good at all, but he also knew that the really weird and ugly part was only to come right now. More ugly than their current, bloody appearace that was. "... erm... we've just fought our way out of this slave camp." and Fyr pointed towards the cave's entrance. His tone was perhaps a surprisingly calm, but he also knew that the slavers were all dead at this point and couldn't pursue them anymore.

What about the other slaves though that had helped them ? Would they find their way out of the desert ? None of them had show up at the surface yet, so Fyr briefly wondered where they had gone. Over all the fighting, he had kinda lost track of them.

"I ask for your kindliness to take us with you until we are out of the desert, even though I have to admit that certain members of our party seem to take that already for granted. If there's not enough space in the cart, I could ride on the camel ?"

Kings and Killers: A Classical Fantasy Adventure (Chapter 1)

As they approached the exit of the cave system, Fyr felt unable to deny the fact that he really would have liked to have a good wash. The blood was fresh still, but what once it had dried ? Back home, after slaying a large bear or so, there would have always been more than enough snow around to rub over one's skin and get rid of the mess while it was still easy. Here in the desert however... He had to switch to whatever alternative was around -- and if there was anything a desert didn't lack, then it was sand. He started to dig it up with both hands and just tossed it onto his naked skin, rubbing so the individual grains would expose their entire surface to the blood he wanted to get rid of, causing it to stick to their surface instead of his body.

A very makeshift approach it was, of course, and it failed to rid him of the entire mess just as he had expected. At least however the amount left clinging to him was significantly reduced and he could give it another try once it had tried, then trying to use the sand as a peeling agent.

Meanwile, it very much seemed like the greatest pirate of all times couldn't be bothered with such unimportant tasks. Fyr had to suppress a chuckle upon Dal's comment about the journal being pointless without pictures, but didn't say anything. Maybe the pirate would like the old runic language of Fyr's people ? One could regard it as both alphanumeric and hieroglyphs at the same time, maybe...

Anyway, there was no need to prevent Dal from doing what he seemed to like the most, even if it was asking magical avatars fancy questions. The problem was... if this avatar could only answer what Gwyn had written into the book before, then maybe it could not step out of its creator's behavioral patterns either ? Or, in other words, why should the avatar now suddenly and openly tell the truth when Dal himself claimed Gwyn hadn't done so before yet ? Not that Fyr had heard Dal's singing voice himself yet, but maybe it really was just abysmal! And a magical avatar could rest assured that there'd be no point in trying to slap its cheeks upon believing that it had just lied about something!

While watching both somewhat amusedly about Dal and very impressed about the magical avatar itself, he noticed the caravan and the pirate nudging him, too. Not yet having any question to ask the book himself yet, Fyr proceeded with slowly stepping away towards the caravan. Maybe they could be convinced to offer them a few seats in the back ? Would have been so preferable to walking in the desert.

The Five Senses - Second Arc (Accepting New Players!)

Týfurkh

If it had taken anything more to convince Týfurkh that this Lord Ru'Tev was a tad odd at the best, then the man's luxurious dwelling place would have done it. A not so brief glance at the ceiling left him wondering just how absurd an amount of coin it must have cost to gather and install all this crystal jade, yet instead of keeping his manor entirely devoid of any real fire it merely took a short stroll over into the guest's wings in order to find just that. Wasn't the Lord aware of the possibility that a chimney could become clogged up, causing the smoke to blow back down and seep through the gaps between the glass cupola and its socket ? Evil to him who evil thinks, Týfurkh thought. Maybe refraining from installing real fireplaces everywhere except for where it was closest to the guests made much more sense if one... changed one's mental approach to it.

The giant's eyes followed Tayla as she turned her back towards him. Had he really just wittnessed a serious attempt of an apology ? Maybe there was hope. Or maybe there wasn't, given how recklessly she placed herself and the dirt sticking to her boots onto the next peasant's lifetime of a pricey seat she chould possibly find. Had Sil not suddenly addressed him in this very Sil-like manner, Týfurkh might have attracted Tayla's attention right away a second time by just staring at her for a few moments too long. He gave Chres' familiar a stern look, wondering for a brief moment whether Sil might actually be the one behind this love story -- the one and only thing he and Tayla actually could agree upon disliking.

Theories, theories. He couldn't work with pure speculation, he needed proof! Then however... How could one exact revenge upon a cute little familiar ?

For the moment though, there were other problems, and Týfurkh decided to address them openly towards the other pactmakers:

"It looks like there are plenty of rooms available to us, at least the servants weren't aware of any other guests in this part of the manor. For the sake of safety I'd suggest that we don't take a room each though, but share where we can." No, he did not reward Tayla with even the tiniest bit of a sideways glance at this point. This kind of elephant was just so large that everyone had to spot it no matter how mentally absent or not. "So, any volunteers ?" Theoretically he should have teamed up with Chres so to prevent the man from drinking, but Týfurkh didn't even know how much alcohol was an issue within the divergence in the first place. What if people didn't make any because the process of destillation or whatever else could go wrong ? The giant made a mental note about asking the servants even though they had made a rather clueless first impression about a lot of things. Also: He just could neither chain Chres to his bed nor be the man's silent shadow all the time...

Týfurkh's eyes scanned the other pactmakers so to see who might be willing. He could't help but let his view rest a little longer upon Jen. Getting to know each other could never hurt and this fellow seemed to have some decent muscles on him, indicating some serious prowess in one way or the other. Little did Týfurkh know that Chres was not the only one with a drinking habit...

Kings and Killers: A Classical Fantasy Adventure (Chapter 1)

Fyr

Fyr was on his way to turn around and leave the large stone cavity when the greatest pirate of all time inevitably came into his view. It was fairly obvious that Dalious was not only searching for something, but also found something that might prove to be useful in the future. A prudent idea that Fyr followed suit, starting so dig through the mess the fight had created with his giant hands soon being completely drenched in demonfolk blood.

Perception roll

1d20 = 17 -> Success.

Most of their now dead opponents appeared to have been outfitted with fairly basic gear only, nothing that was begging for Fyr's attention. He turned their dead bodies around with his feet not even wanting to touch them anymore, and beneath one of the corpses there was a good looking spear of some sorts. A bit of a weird design he had not really seen before and, given the small dents and scratches lititered over the weapon's metallic surfaces, not exactly new anymore either. It looked sturdy though and some subtle testing by transferring a part of his body weight onto it confirmed this impression. He would keep it, but only after rubbing the blood off the leather straps used to carry the long weapon on one's back!

Fyr then hurried up to follow the others on their way out. Luckily it seemed that nobody had picked up onto the meaning of his runes and tried to remove the scratchings in the meantime.

Kings and Killers: A Classical Fantasy Adventure (Chapter 1)

For a brief moment, Fyr did seemingly nothing but to stare at his own weapon which by now was thoroughly drenched in blood and other bodily residue. Had he not been absolutely sure about the exact properties of his family heirloom, he would have suspected its inherent magic to somehow have interfered with the evil powers of the ghastly man and created this... whatever kind of portal that was.

So the armored knight was gone ? The woman, too ? And what had their last words meant ? They had certainly sounded like Cicero had not been surprised by the chain of events even remotely as intensively as Fyr had been. Oh just how much he hated it to lack information!

Speaking of lack, something there was no lack of was demonfolk still, and one of those nasty individuals approached Fyr from the side, barely enough for the latter to see the attacker coming in the corner of his view. Halfway ripped out of his deep thoughts and halfway angry, Fyr just pushed his axe sideways and turned on his heels.

attack roll

1d20+7 = 24. Success.

The enormous weapon cut through the demonfolk with enough momentum to come straight out again at the other end, adding a significant amount of bloodshed to the rather distasteful amount the cavern had already seen. Fyr could hear the sound of battle from at least one other point, clearly reflected by the hard walls in here, so he turned again to check whether there were any more to be dealt with.

They had a lot to talk about after this...

The Five Senses - Second Arc (Accepting New Players!)

Týfurkh

"Thanks ?" Týfurkh repeated, arching both eyebrows in an attempt to make clear that this was not exactly what he had expected. Or rather not all of what he had expected. Yet just to make it clear, he also stated just that verbatimly right afterwards: "Is that everything ?". The giant kept keeping his eyes locked onto Tayla, a task made much easier by the fact that she now was far less disgusting to look at again.

"How about apologizing for treating me like scum ? How about realizing that openly requesting for somebody to be imprisoned her could go very wrong ? Or how about accepting that 'fat' and 'big' are not necessarily the same ? I'm not saying that you are an ant just because an ant wouldn't fit through what you made your mental horizon appear to me so far either!"

Týfurkh did not wait for an answer. He just snatched the flask out of her hands once he was under the impression that Tayla had used enough water to clean herself and her dirty mouth up properly and handed it back to Sil. Too bad that now it was almost empty -- it would have been so amusing to see the familiar struggling to make the return trip! Now that that was out of the way, too, Týfurkh turned on the spot and stepped forwards towards Lord Ru'Tev.

"I am from the Nation Of Hearing and I don't like how you fiddle around with things you don't fully understand. A prison is not exactly a good environment for testing purposes, and those errors you have to iron out might very well be prisoners either escaping or suffering from things they shouldn't. I will take that as the resumee of our introductionary inspection tour. If you need help contacting people from my nation that could help you, then maybe I can be of assistance."

Týfurkh said this in a tone clearly not intended for everyone to listen too super easily, but not really secretly either. One could consider it the safest possible approach to deny the Lord any opportunity to claim that his eardrums would now have been damaged, too. And then Týfurkh pressed his palm gently against the other man's back and sort of made him move forward.

Escape from the Prison Mine

Is this still open for newcomers to apply ? :)

𝕯𝖊𝖑𝖛𝖊 ✦ 𝔞 𝔤𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔠 𝔣𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔰𝔶 𝔯𝔬𝔩𝔢𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔶

To say that the Radiant Gate was an interesting asset would have been a gross understatement. If Ordai'el's current situation had been the primary incentive for developing and building this portal, then the capital's fate might have been really worth it. Varandas was miles away from saying that openly of course and had he known the the city's population and splendor better than what he had happened to read in a few shabby books somewhen in his life, he might have thought very differently about said Gate as well.

By all means available to Varandas' humble comprehension, this place was as dead as his body. The thrall would have really liked for it to go well beyond that threshold though the moment the fountain erupted into... whatever kind of wicked liquid that was. Things still moving were hardly an issue in a living environment, but here, everything that showed sudden activity was just bound to make everybody's spine become frozen in an instant. If one could only have the assertion that all mechanical things had become deprived of energy long ago and that everything that was already dead had also already rotten away completely. It would have made things quite a tad more comfortable he felt.

Speaking of comfort, the impenetrable sky above them did not hamper it nearly as much as the other things. The mining town he came from high up in the mountains had experienced conditions not so vastly different on a regular basis. Dense fog, clouds, winds and snowstorms had denied any star- or moonlight to reach the ground for days on end as well. The only major difference was that weather was explainable, this thing here was not.

"My name is Varandas and I have no previous profession worth mentioning I think. There is not much else to tell about me, at last I think you might invent enough facts about me yourself." Varandas spoke loud and clearly, but in a tone relatively close to sarcasm. He just waited for the first comments about his nature, his alleged stench, the crystal stuck in his chest or anything else about his appearance to come up. Yes, from a perfectly rational point of view there was hardly a more inappropriate place for this than right here and right now, but when had human prejudice ever failed him ? Incorrect assumptions were just way to precious to cede them to the truth.

Speaking of comfort again, Varandas found himself quite happy to just stop breathing for a few moments as the fountain's smell wafted towards them. Unfortunately however he also couldn't speak while doing this, and seeing how the portcullis and other things obviously suffered from corrosion and general decay he felt like having to say something: "I suggest we all watch our steps and don't hesitate to look at the ceilings above us here and there. The buildings might have become a tad unstable maybe, who knows for sure yet."

The Mystery (WolfLover + Fetzen)

Valentin reached for the map and pulled it onto his own lap, then doing the same thing as Amara and pouring himself into inspecting it. Having discovered the couple of missing markings himself, he noted: "I suppose that a serious bit of creativity and own initiative is an integral part of this mission, isn't it ?" He addressed both other people in the room simultaneous. The man behind the table was the first to answer as if he had already completely expected this kind of question. Leaning back in his heavy chair and folding his hands on top of his desk, he explained:

"That is the case. This, if I may remind you, is first and foremost an investigative effort. If we were already aware of all important locations and details and would already have our people everywhere, we wouldn't need to send you in there, right ? So, yes, you will have to improvise." He paused and let go of a short sigh. "Trust me, I'm a military man. Going into the unknown without proper intelligence is one of the least favorable things any commander with proper reasoning wants do, but that's exactly why reconnaissance units have been invented. You don't send in everyone right away, you send a small, specialized team first!"

The man almost felt triumphant as he was able to explain away at things one got to learn in the first year of this academy. He raised his arm and pointed towards both Amara and Valentin with his index finger: "You two are our reconnaissance unit now! Just... don't try to do anything stupid, alright ? If you see a threat you don't know whether you can handle it yourselves, then don't go daredevil and get killed. Report back if possible, alright ?"

The man rose from his chair, bracing the desk in order to support himself in the process, and turned towards the window that allowed the afternoon's sun to send in its bright rays of increasingly orange-ish light. The sound of his stubby beard being scratched by his fingers could be heard almost throughout the entire room. "I have forgotten something, haven't I ?" he mumbed, then suddenly turned around and provided them with a mixture of fake and real embarassement written on his face.

"Ah! Right, transportation. Well Mrs. Amara, you might have noticed that your companion looks as if he could carry both of us on his shoulders rather easily, but luckily, this is not going to happen in order to get you two where you are needed. We will provide you with one horse each, that should suffice." His eyes darted towards Valentin, resting on him for a brief moment. "At least I hope so. Erm... you will be able to swap to other horses here and there, if needed. That's included in the arragements made so you can keep the speed up. Any more questions ?"

we have to save the world again? I thought we were done with this crap? (interest check)

Tentatively interested :)