Jethro glances around the rest of the room, looking for cues to the doctor's personality, or failing that, an idea of what the hell is going on.
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Ausk scratches his head. "That's... that's a right bit horrible. But, hell, if anyone's in good shape to hire a shaman to take the curse out of you, you are. A few of these horses's all you need for the fee-- and hell, you even have the horses to ride down to Kaer Maga to get it done."
He shrugs. "Sorry to hear that, but not a lot I can do. There's a bright side, don't worry."
Flanking the door on either side are mismatched suits of armor with broken halberds. The insignias on them are stained and torn, but the colors alone are enough to mark them as being from different countries. Behind and above them are simple cloth tapestries that appear to be satirical in nature - none of you are experts on heraldry, but you're pretty sure there is no such noble house that uses a comically engorged phallus as its standard.
In front of you, the Doctor has his back turned. As you watch, Ross the crow picks up what appears to be a needle and a small bag of thread from beneath his perch and carries it, cawing loudly, through the air to the small gnome. Without looking up from his work, and continuing to whistle, the gnome reaches up and plucks the needle and thread out of the air when Ross drops it. Pausing mid-way through his song, he looks over his shoulder at Marco when he makes his comment and gives a roguish wink, after lifting his wooden mask up from where it was covering his face. You can see when he shows his profile that he is heavily scarred in the face, from what appear to be burns. When Jethro speaks up, he stiffens, his shoulders tensing and his whistle faltering...then he looks over his shoulder at you as Jethro continues to introduce himself, and you see him chuckle a little. He cuts Jethro off midway through his sentence with an absent wave of one hand as he turns back to his "patient" - "Tut tut, my boy, give me your family's name when I can face you properly! I'll be with you in just a moment, if I don't sew this up we'll have a whiffler of a mess on our hands! No thank you, holy man, I don't abide with the use of divine intervention when simple thread will do nicely! The only advantage divine magic has is quite a lot less pain, and in return you must follow all these commandments, not eat lamb, fast every Sunday?! Pfah!" he chuckles at the end of his sentence, his fingers deftly piercing flesh over and over again. The subject appears to be a human male in his thirties, biting down with all his might on a leather strip and moaning in obvious distress. "Now, that being said, in addition to being a Doctor, I am also a proud Witch! So, I am a Doctor Witch! No..." he spins around, facing you with a severe expression, "NOT a Witch Doctor! A Doctor Witch! Got that?" He gestures with his needle, holding it like a sword - and indeed, the thing looks oversized for supposedly delicate medical work. When he faces you all, you see that he has various miscellaneous items poking out of a multitude of pockets lining the front of his medical jacket. He is not wearing any gloves. After he finishes speaking, he looks from one of your faces to the other, then his face breaks out into a surprising, spontaneous smile that does nothing to diminish his weirdness, and, with a cackle, he turns back to finishing up the stitches. When the man screams against his leather gag, Ross pecks him on the forehead and sends Verne into a new peal of giggles.
Caln, as you offer your assistance to the Doctor, a kettle of tea begins whistling a single high-pitched note from a stove set just off the stage to the right. Suny, as you walk past a table you notice a few open books with notes on orc anatomy, both with a normal-looking orc male in a diagram and an "exploded" version, with orc entrails drawn all over the page. Marco, you recognize the patient as a vagrant who came passing through town last week. You remember that he got drunk and was boasting of his athletic abilities to some of the women down at the brothel next to the STC. Jethro, you smell something foul, and turn to your right - there is a pile of what appear to be magical reagents for common and some less common spells piled up on a table, and there is a pile next to it in a wastebasket that appears to be for ingredients that have spoiled.
Furthermore, Suny, the cat darts out from under the table as you walk past and rubs up against your leg. Elves are annoyingly good at charming animals like that.
"Back home, when we's got'a do things like that with needle an' thread? They's use some sort o'...um...t'is not poison, like. Though I think it do come from tha' spines o' some urchins. It makes what-ever is poked all numb." She giggles.
"There were this time? Some poor sailors who'd been a-drift like, forever? They come ashore an' needed some things done with they's teeth. 'Cause, y'know, when ye dunt eat right ye get sick?" She shakes her head.
"Anywho...This one feller, he needed some teeth fixed up. So they's stuck him with this stuff an' he wus all ' I'b camb thpeel by thongue '." Suny's expression becomes quite comical as her cheeks bulge and her tongue seemingly quite randomly sticks out every third or so word in her final statement. The whole effort again causing the sun bronzed Elf lass to burst into a fit of giggles. (^_^)
The feline continuing to receive Suny's affections
"Well, I admit that 'less pain' sounds good to me. Perhaps I'm unusual, but I don't like pain. I find it hurts."
Marco enters the room with his hands clasped behind his back, and he walks around the table slowly, peering closely at the Doc's work.
Family name is Andrezi, but I doubt you would know it becaus it holds no value. However, you may have seen me at the fighting pits or as muscle at multiple establishments if you were in Magnimar over the last 10 years.
Let's talk a minute or two about the Orcs that you have worked on here, shall we?
"Orcs? Them weird ones the Sheriff's got? Well why didn't ya say so, my lad! Here!" Taking Marco by the arm, he pulls him off the raised dais and pulls a heavy lever in the floor. The patient looks up from the table, wide-eyed, as the entire stage suddenly rotates, spinning rapidly until nothing of the operating room can be seen. You hear a muffled yell, but alas, he is still strapped to the table.
The other side of the stage is as mystical as the other side was medical. You see totems, strange fetishes, and a few unlabeled fleshy things in jars that don't look very wholesome. In the middle of your view sits an enormous rectangular box, standing upright with a door on the front. On top of the box, hissing in a cage that is attached to the box below, is a small Ice elemental.
With a triumphant Ha-HA! the gnome rushes forward and throws open the refrigerator, revealing a massive specimen of an orc with similar bony armor covering its torso and face. Disturbingly, the orc's right arm terminates in a lobster-like claw, rather than a hand. The orc's carcass falls out of the refrigerator and lands on its face with a thud that shakes the glass jars of the room, inches from Jethro's toes.
"Eeep!" Is Sunny's exclamation as the table transforms and a dead mutant-Orc rolls out.
Sunny keeps a careful snuggle on the cat.
"Er..." Jethro worked to keep the look of surprise off his face. Calm, cool, collected, and not at all fazed by this coot.. "This is one of them, is it?... Uh, shouldn't you have unstrapped your patient first? We may be in for a long discussion here."
After pausing only long enough for the doctor to ignore his suggestion, he continued. "So what specifically are we looking at, here? Alchemical mutation?"
"Here...He looks all...'Crabby'..." she opines, even as she reaches out a leg and gently pokes said prone body with a bare, brown foot.
Caln moves next to the corpse and looks more closley to identify any soft spots in it's weird armor.
Doctor, how many orcs like this have you seen?
Suny glances at Caln, "I bet he's never seen a' Orc like that afore..." She blinks...."Oh...I got me words wrong agin, huh...?" She mumbles and blushes, even as she tries to hide her embarrassment by snuggling the kitty even more.
"Hmm. Is that armor actual osseous tissue?". Jethro grabbed the ioun torch, casting strange shadows around the room, as he knelt for a closer look.
"Osseous tissue, yes. Bone, to laymen," he clarifies, seeing the others' confused expressions. He begins laying out information for you, having been told of your need by Oswald beforehand. Despite his earlier eccentricities, the gnome displays a keen intellect and a businesslike demeanor when it comes to this threat to Freedom Town. The two gnomes put their heads together and begin speaking rapidly, jumping from one train of thought to another with the speed of a quickling, as gnomes are wont to do when discussing something of interest. This is what your group learns, over the course of an hour of discussion:
The armor/"helmet" is made of bone.
The bone material resisted blunt impact but was vulnerable to being pierced.
The modifications took place after the orcs were whelped, they were not born that way.
They possess no magical aura, necromantic, transmutative or otherwise. Verne's best guess is that the transformations are administered by alchemical formula, though that is just a personal hobby of his and he makes no claim to know exactly how something like that would be done. He sighs and gazes wistfully at a pickled goblin head residing on one of his shelves, apparently a failed experiment.
Some few weird orcs developed natural weapons such as the giant claw on this specimen. These orcs are easily the most bestial - they have nothing remaining of their former intelligence and are little more than slavering monsters. Verne tells you that this particular orc, with the claw, was being led around on a mancatcher leash by goblin slave handlers.
They remain dangerous three days after they are "killed", responding violently to basic stimulus despite being reduced to sliced-up ribbons. Destruction of the brain stem at the top of the orc's nape appears to end these postmortem struggles. Verne points out the exact spot to you on this orc.
They appear to possess heightened senses, enjoying a greater sense of smell than other orcs.
Ross the crow can be quite irritating when he wants to investigate what is being contained in your pockets.
Finally, the orcs are capable of frightening bursts of speed in a sprint.
Verne deflects any personal inquiries any of you may make, seeming impatient if you do so, eager to get back to the topic of the orcs. You can tell that their unusual modifications fascinate him, and you don't quite like the jealous gleam in his eye when he tells you of the impressive preparation and planning that must have gone into the formula.
By the time he is finished telling you what he knows, there are a few other patients awaiting the good doctor's care outside the door. It's getting to be about the time that Ausk indicated that he wanted to set out from town. The four of you - or at least the one local, Marco - assume that Hakiri, Arwen and Ausk will be waiting for you by the obelisk, the usual meeting place.
"Well, that was informative. While his bedside manner may not be all one could hope for, Dr. Verne definitely seems to know his stuff. I liked his scar tissue analysis in particular. Settled the key question of post-whelping very thoroughly. This town's lucky to have him. Alchemical transformation, huh? I wonder if there's any rhyme or reason to which ones get the bonus weapons." Jethro commented to no one in particular as they left the doctor's office. "I don't suppose any of you have any idea how to alchemical transformations? I've heard a few stories of powerful abjuration magic that can do it...." He trailed off, thinking hard for a few seconds, and (by coincidence) giving everyone else in the party a few moments of blessed silence.
Then Jethro perked up and appeared to focus. "Whups! Forgetting the forest for the trees, I am. `Resisted blunt impact but was vulnerable to being pierced.' I -- We -- need to get ourselves some pointy sticks." He glanced uncertainly at the setting sun. "Anyone else have some last minute shopping errands to run? Any of you cavalry types use lances?"
Waiting his usual perfunctory few seconds, he hustled off in the direction of the equipment shop. Long spear, I think. While I'd like one with a boar spear's cross-guard, I don't recall seeing one here. I guess I just hope that I can retreat faster than orcs can follow once the usual allergy to nine feet of sharpened metal kicks in.
Arwen will be at the Obelisk at the appointed time. You can notice that he is also holding a longspear instead of his usual 2 handed weapon.
Marco leads the group to the Obelisk to meet up with the others.
Come, we must get together with the others to share information and plan our assault. we will meet them at the Obelisk.
Verne's cat, displaying the inconstant temperament known to all cats, gives Suny a painful, shallow scratch with a yowl as Suny attempts to set her down to leave. It scurries off into the lab, knocking bottles over in its haste to escape.
The sun is ever so slowly setting in the sky as your group approaches the Obelisk. The town square seems fairly quiet for this time of day, which seems strange until you realize that there is a fairly large funeral taking place in the graveyard when you pass by. Ausk, Arwen and Hakiri are standing at the obelisk waiting, with the horses. Everyone gets a horse that seems more or less willing to bear them, and even Jethro's diminuitive height is allowed for by riding one of the smaller breeds. Those of you who are particularly perceptive might notice the slight expression of distaste on Ausk's face when he sees that Suny - the perceived dead weight - is still tagging along.
Ausk has ranged far enough from Freedom Town to know the human ruins that Oswald mentioned earlier in the day. If you leave now, and make haste, you should be able to reach the outskirts of that tribe's territory with a little time to spare before sunset. The days are long this time of year, the sun only setting around 9:15 PM.
Sunny's reaction to the cats behavior is to yelp and 'hiss' as well a such treatment. She sticks her arm under the good Doctor's nose indignantly and insists he do something to heal said scratch before leaving with every one else.
Once she's spent some of her shiny on a pointy stick, she takes a detour and wriggles into her armor, checking that Hakiri and only one else she seen who's interested in these strange Orcs knows what the group is doing.
Caln follows Marco back to the Obelisk. He says a quick prayer to Pharasma to grant him strength for the trial ahead then climbs aboard his horse and follows Ausk out of town.
Suny climbs aboard some one elses horsey and hangs on. (^_^)
Marco will give Suny a hand up, and place her on the back of his mount, behind him.
"Thank'e muchly!" She chips from behind Marco. "I seen these critters all over tha' place. Never bin needin' ta' got on one afore." She explains brightly.
"I'd not worry about it. I'm sure I'll be `needin' ta' get on one' of these things in about five minutes, and again in ten, and again in fifteen. If the Creator had meant us to ride these `critters', he would have made them lower to the ground."
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"Alright-- follow me. Try to keep pace, as we don't want to be caught out in the dark with orc packs around. Let's move it on out."
Ausk waits for the others to ready, and then sets out across the wastes. He keeps an open eye and a wary ear to the surroundings, making sure that they're headed in the right direction.
Jethro clung tightly to the back of his pony with the easy grace of an epileptic turtle on its back, clearly a natural horseman in the same sense that mermaids are natural line-dancers.
Ausk, before we all leave, here are the important information everyone should know about the Weird orcs. The bony armor grants them excellent armor, but is less resistant to piercing weapon. their decreased intelligence makes them particularly easy to outsmart and set traps for, and the orcs seemed to possess a phobia of large and dangerous fires.WEIRD ORCS ARE TO BE CONSIDERED DANGEROUS UP TO THREE DAYS AFTER TIME OF DEATH.
Ausk's sense of direction and worth as a guide is well-known in Freedom Town, and he confidently navigates the rocky terrain in the lead on his horse.
After about an hour's ride, Ausk brings the party up short. About 100 feet in front of your lead horse lies three large corpses of what appear to be trolls of some sort at first glance. You spy a small, mangy cur, possibly a goblin dog, enthusiastically devouring one of the corpses, and you see evidence of many other bite marks and chunks missing out of the other corpses as well. The dog is intent on its meal and doesn't notice you. The bodies lie directly in the way of the best route to the old human ruins where the orc tribe resides. The blood on the ground is still wet, you can tell even at this distance.
The dog hasn't noticed your group yet. The surrounding terrain is rocky and dry, with tall bluffs and mesas that block out the sun and piles of rocks and small vegetation scattered about. There is enough terrain breaking line of sight to allow you to sneak up on the dog unseen, if you are quiet enough, by your reckoning. You could also go around, but in order to pass by without it noticing you would need to make a choice between two difficult paths. To your left is a rise, which is easier for the horses to traverse but leaves you far easier to spot in the open countryside. To your right is a path that leads down into a small gorge, which is far stealthier but also more difficult terrain to cross.
"Hsssst! Why dun't we kill tha' mangy thing snafflin' tha' other mangy things?" Sunny whispers.
"Who brought a x-bow with 'em?" She asks.
Marcus talks over his shoulder to Suny, but loud enough for the others to hear without spooking the dog.
Not me. When I kill things, it is usually up close and personal, but I am sure that Ausk, or someone will have a ranged weapon for the task. We should hold here and dismount so that if it flees this way, we can take it down.
Marco halts his horse and begins to dismount.
Suny also dismounts...pretty much by just remaining clinging to the fellow's back. :P
She wiggles and shifts her stance. "Being up on yon beasty does things ta' me nethers!" She hisses, sounding a little cross.
Caln dismounts and joins Marco and Suny. "I have a crossbow but I doubt that I am the best shot in the group. I would assume that Ausk is better. However, if the group wants me to I will do my best to bring down the scavenger. I must admit I am curious to see what we can find from the corpses in front of us."
Do as you want with the dog. As for the path we should head through the gorge leading our mount on foot to be safer.
Suny finishes her fidgeting,
"Here, if'n ye can deal with tha' mutt, do so. Dun't be fobbin' off tha' chore on some one else." :P
Suny continues to whisper, "We's in your bally-wick. You's supposed ta' take charge o' us an' them things we come across." She points out to Arwen.
One hill at a time Arwen. We may want t'look at the bodies, and that requires a dead dog, no? Take a shot Caln. I am sure Ausk will also launch somethin' at it.
the dog is of no concern. They shoot, we charge, it dies. End of sad Story. Move on to next chapter. he replies in a soft voice.
Marco stares sternly at Arwen.
Lighten up Alice. Shoot boys.
In case Ausk's javelin does not put the dog down, Caln shoots as soon as Ausk releases his throw.
Nicely done, boys!
It looks like a simple enough task for the warrior-types, thought Jethro. Almost too simple. Is this a trap? Jethro held back, watching intently for a sudden ambush.
Caln will shoot from the longer range with his light crossbow.
Jethro will try to follow Ausk to about spell range, keeping watch on everything-but-the-dog.
Oh, yeah, stealth roll. Silent as a library.
Marco will move forward with both his Long and Short Swords drawn.
Stealth: