Marcus XVI

Fortune or Fate?

"I smells gobluns that I does..." Stybs remarked,calmly as the odd pair ventured forth. Maaarius simply nodded as he was sure the goblin had a noticeably sharper sense of smell. It did not take them long to find a clearing where someone had discarded a bow, and judging by the footprints had began more or less began carrying something

"Better take this with us, it's owner might miss it." The bandaged elf mused more to himself while picking up the bow. He did not like goblins, at least goblins that originated from around the area.

After some more skulking the pair located a group of goblins and their prisoners - or soon to be sacrifices. Marius was about to say something just as Stybs stepped out from where he had been hiding and spoke in the language of his race. "(How about you lower the bows, boys?)" The giant of a goblin suggested calmly while leaning on his pickaxe walking stick. The goblins hopefully would recognize from the fact the fellow in front of them was at least a head taller than them and the orc skin cloak hanging from the scrawny shoulders that this fellow was the so called Liberator. A goblin of whom orcs tell vfrightening stories about to keep their kids well behaved. "(That gal wouldn't be worth your arrows anyhow.)"

Slave ship wrecked

Y-yeah... for the... uh... slaves... definitely. Yes. Heh, uh... Yeah... ^^;

Slave ship wrecked

I accidentally a villain, this bad?

Slave ship wrecked

Well that had gone damn magnificently! Just damn magnificently. Well, working with slavers always had it's own little troubles, but usually you didn't need to worry about shipwrecks... Not unless you happen to be ON the DAMN ship when a damn storm hits. The tall man quivered from head to toe with barely restrained anger while adjusting a dwarven made monocle over his left eye. Even his very well waxed mustache quivered with rage. He had been assured that nothing would go wrong. NOTHING. WOULD. GO. WRONG.

The fellow was of noble birth, though a noble still he was now in his mid 40's - he was a duke to be exact, Duke Alexander Blackwood to be even more exact and boy he was furious. He'd get the slaves back even if he'd have to cripple most of them to do it. At this point his anger had really put him to the point that just bringing the slaves back - be they alive or dead - was the only thing in his mind.

Across his back was a long barreled musket, finest dwarven craftsmanship money could buy - and boy did he have money to spend after the... unfortunate fishing accident his father had ended up in. One of the slower and stupider sailors had already met one of his sidearms - an equally well made dwarven blunderbuss pistol. Ofcourse the Duke had immediately made sure the fellow would get a proper burial... In an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere, but a burial at least. Meticulously the tall nobleman reloaded the pistol and returned it to the holster hanging from his belt opposite of a saber. "No Duke Blackwood, nothing will go wrong." His fingers twitched slightly as he motioned the ten men of his personal guard in their dark green and gray uniforms, who still were in fighting condition to follow him while the rest would guard the ship. "Ulric and his damn bunch of missfits has a healthy headstart on us. Better catch up to him." He glanced over his shoulder at one of the men who were not in condition to fight, but was at least helping the others stay alive. "Tell the captain that I will have words with him after this whole thing is said and done." The duke and his small - though unnervingly well armed - group began following the trail of both the slaves and Ulric's group. It had to be at least said that though Alexander Blackwood was feeling older by the day he still had all the youthful energy of a man 20 years younger - not to mention he was still an expert tracker.

Fortune or Fate?

"Ya shoulds gets up, yes ya shoulds..." Marius heard a familiar, raspy - if not in this situation completely unwelcome - voice from next to himself. The goblin standing next to the hunched over bandaged elf could well have been just a figment of his imagination - after all it seemed to be completely unaffected by the Lord of Plague's divine word. Not to mention that the goblin was also a giant in comparison to the rest of his kin - standing nearly 5 feet tall when standing up straight. "I thinks them elf-y gods were nasty, an' the drow-y gods even worse, but then ya boss decides to speak all god-y like." The goblin offered a surprisingly strong hand to the bandaged elf who seemed more or less still dazed from the rather painful happenings.

"Stybs? Is that really you or am I just hallucinating again?" Marius inquired from the goblin while using some magic to clean himself up and another little spell to burn away the black, mutating blob from the forest floor while being very cautious not to allow the fire to spread.

"Yes!" The goblin squeaked and took a better hold of the broken pickaxe he used as a walking stick - and an impromptu weapon and holy symbol to boot. "Stybs Orcgutter! At ya service elf-y." Stybs pointed at himself with the thumb of his left hand and smiled a very toothy smile. The smile however disappeared as soon as it had arrived when the goblin noticed that Marius was still not quite back to fighting fit. "Ya needs a good dose of healing-y magics, yes ya do." The statement was made with a surprisingly grim and slightly worried tone.

The bandaged elf swayed back and forth a bit before shaking his head. "I'll manage. The last time that happened..." Marius shook his head again and gathered his bearings while glancing up slightly. "I think you overdid it slightly m'lord." He felt a wave of amusement through his connection with Antharg and just shrugged his shoulders. "Though they did overreact a bit too in my opinion."

"Yeah yeah... the last time tha' happened all them dwarf gits was even more stunty and very very veeery dead... and bubbling, yes them was." Stybs glanced around cautiously and sniffed the air. "Ya think we shoul go an' try to make 'nother contact with 'em humans and that other elf-y? Maybe I'll do the talkin' this time." He kept seemingly absentmindedly staring at the trees, like he was looking for something in particular. "Ya gotta be one damn git to get yaself mixed up with the Lord of Plague, ya know that? Even them drow-y gods ain't as mean..."

"Well.. yes. Very bubbling." Marius couldn't really remembered what had happened the last time - after all he came to a week after the whole debacle, but what the damn goblin had told him it had at least been an interesting watch. "Hey now, all of us can't be chosen by a god to lead your people out of slavery. Still... you are not completely wrong on that statement." The two began moving towards the rough direction Rook had moved towards.

"o'course I ain'ts wrong! I is very smart! Ya coulds say Stybs be smartiest goblin thar be!" The goblin made another toothy smile and cackled. The funny - or unnerving - thing about the goblin was that his eloquence and smarts seemed to very much depend on the situation. Occasionally he might be the daftest goblin you ever see, but when it came to fighting or gods forbid siege of some sort Stybs was frighteningly efficient. He was also very good at riling people up and inciting a large mob of people - usually of many races - to do what he wanted. Maybe one of the goblin gods had a nasty sense of humor.

Fortune or Fate?

...That had to be the most he had seen of any wizard in ages, and in this particular situation that wasn't really such a good thing. "I would not make such assumptions. The fact that I warn people of my presence should not be taken as any sort of a sign of my capabilities as a swordsman." Marius stated politely as he shook his head and turned his attentionfrom the wizard to theelf that dared to point an arrow roughly to his general direction.

He began hearing laughter, laughter that caused him great unease - for at that moment his master had heard the ranger's words and taken them as a challenge. It was rare for gods to stepo the mortal world - in fact these days they didn't actually step through the proverbial veil, but occasionally did either speak, or extend a hand so to say. Antharg was no exeption.

Now to his credit it had to be said that Marius would have warned everyone of what was about to happen had he not been paralyzed by the laughter he alone could hear.

Then a voice spoke. A voice that made the bandaged elf double over in pain from the sheer pressure of a god speaking through him. Blood trickled out of his eyes, like he was shedding tears of blood, every scar in his body opened up to be closed by gangrenious growths that disappeared back in to scars in the blink of an eye. The single word was completely incomprehensible to mortal ears, but it did carry the meaning well. It countered the demand of ceasation of hostilities with one of it's own.

The single word spoken by his master through his mouth had left Marius gasping for air and he barely managed to pull some of the bandages away from his mouth to spit copious amounts of blood to the ground.the blood turned the spot black and caused the plats to either die or mutate.

Luckily to the others Antharg's word of repraisal would at worst cause them to maybe lose their lunches or have a damnably striking headache if they were unlucky.

Fortune or Fate?

I'm contemplating on adding a companion for Marius, a sneaky an' goblin-y companion.

Fortune or Fate?

The bandaged fellow let out a melodic, hearty laugh as he listened to Brock and lifted his left hand slightly as if asking the other man to stop jesting. "Oh now, I would have been long since dead if I really were as careless as you assume I am." He glanced around in a manner that might have to the untrained eye seem like he was nervous, in truth the fellow tried to decide which of his many names he should give to this particular lot of people.

The Bastard of Vo Kadrak was the first name that came to mind - he was quite well known by that name in many lands, but that didn't quite feel like a proper name, it was more a nickname - admittedly a nickname he had grown quite attached to for some reason or other. His eyes caught the certain look Rook gave him - he knew what it meant. "Fear not, my condition is in no way infectious. It is good to hear that you indeed are not bandits. I am Marius of Blackwood, the second best swordsman in these parts of the world - hopefully the best swordsman in the woods at the moment - and a humble cleric of Antharg, the Lord of Healers." What this 'Marius' left unmentioned was that Antharg was also the Lord of Plague, Sickness, Disease and only after those the Lord of Healers.

When he heard someone reciting a spell Marius quickly changed his stance - though in to a more cautious one instead of an openly hostile one - and produced a holy symbol from under his shirt. It seemed to be shaped like a slightly curving silver sword roughly large enough to fit inside someone's clenched fist - though upon closer inspection it was actually the body of a female elf, writhing in either pain or extacy. With a little movement he wrapped the silver chain that held the symbol around his left wrist while looking around to find the originator of the spell.

Fortune or Fate?

Awesome ^w^

Fortune or Fate?

There seemed to be quite a bit of ruckus going on in the general vicinity. Taking note of the position of the humans the bandaged man smiled faintly as he adjusted the wide brimmed hat of his. His left hand rested on the pommel of the basket hilted rapier hanging on his hip - paired on the other hip by a parrying dagger and a metal buckler. He wasn't even trying to be stealthy at this point, instead just walked towards the group while stepping intentionally on as many twigs as he could.

As the fellow made his way closer the rest of the group would see a man - maybe an elf - standing just under 6 feet tall, wearing gray clothes, a white fencing shirt and a quite heavy looking wide sleeved jacket. The sleeves of the fencing shirt were partially rolled up, revealing the bandages covering his arms. His face was also mostly covered by the bandages - only his eyes were visible. A more superstitious person might have assumed the redness of the eyes might have meant that he's a vampire, but in fact the lack of gleaming made it much more probable he was just an albino member of his race. The white hair kept on a short ponytail would also make the latter the more possible option.

The fellow kept his eyes averted from any light sources and lifted his hand in to a polite little salute. "I doth hope ye are not a bunch of bandits." He didn't hide the fact that he was armed, but made no attempt to draw his weapons. "You don't really look like bandits."