"Sure, whatever. Just get us where we're going, ok?" Shelby's cheeks remain in a perpetual shade of pink, walking to the end of the party so she only has one hand to hold as they follow the trail.
Archibald recovers as the air cools. He is still sapped, however, and trudges along in atypical silence.
Liera abandons her better judgement, and goes in front of Shelby, keeping a hand light on her sleeve, clawed fingers twitching nervously.
Taking the bloody ears from the woodsman, he cleaned them up with magic before sticking them in his pocket. No need to have goblin blood all over him or dripping down his leg while they went down the trail.
Tshilaba moves forward in the line a fair margin, staying tight with the rest of the group. The troupe he used to travel with had whistles that they used to find each other if they got lost, and if they made another excursion into the swamp, he might have to look into getting one or two of those. Then of course they might not come back after their excursion, as they were looking to get the job done. He thought about consulting the cards about it, but he thought again and figured it would be more fun for it to be a surprise. Well, that and his hands were busy.
Soon enough night falls. The group finds a relatively dry clearing and camps there for the night.
Shelby accepts Liera's hand with abnormal meekness, letting her foster sister lead her through the swamp.
The warpriestess' face darkens as she sees the sun setting, realizing they will be spending another night out in the swamp. She settles down, getting her bedroll set up quietly in the gloom. For perhaps the first time in her life, she curses being a larger-than-average woman as her shoulders feel constricted by the shirt she wears.
She looks at Liera, "Once the blood dries overnight, I'll just wear the other blouse tomorrow. I'm dying in this thing. Thank you, though." She offers the other woman a small smile as she slides under her bedroll, unbuttoning the thing completely once she is decently under the blanket.
Datura is nowhere near as attentive as he should be, a few things weighing on his mind, and a habit of just letting Awd keep an eye out for him.
Awd is alert and ready, but it's unclear if it's due to the goblin meal merely whetting her appetite or extra energy from how much she did eat.
Archibald stops out of his armour with a sigh as the party makes camp. He is too exhausted to be of much use, so be orders his bed roll and keeps his watch.
In spite of his fatigue, he keeps watch well. When his time is up, however, he only just manages to get to his roll before passing out.
While on watch, Liera sits silently, Speckle alternately hopping around the fringes of the campsite and nibbling at the grasses, and sleeping in her lap. She sews as she sits, mending the cuts in Shelby's blouse, using her own waterskin to wash as much of it clean as she can. She speaks little, seeimgly comfortable to sit in silence and darkness.
Eventually, though, she glances at Tshilaba and says, "I've seen the way you look at her. You're... you're probably not going to get anywhere with her." She then flushes and goes back to her sewing, lips shut tightly.
Lost in his own thoughts, and having broken out his card making materials, Tshilaba was inking the back of a card while keeping his ears attentive to the jungle around him. When Liera spoke up, he startled a little, making a minor mistake. Thinking about removing the slight defect for only a moment, he knew that it wasn't good enough. Cards were more sensitive than that. He picked the piece of paper off of the lap table he was using and flung it across the camp, out into the night, slicing down leaves and vines until it rested out of sight.
Keeping his eyes distant, and slightly melodramatic, he fidgeted with his pen. Although frustrated, he spoke calmly with a hint of wistfulness. "There are plenty of things people told me I couldn't do. I don't listen to them, I listen to the cards. When I feel like they've let me down, I find later that I've merely misinterpreted them."
Looking over at the witch, he smiled. "It's just as easy to misinterpret people. Perhaps more so." He waved a playful finger over in her direction. "I'll refrain from commenting on how well you know your sister, but you barely know me, much less what I'm capable of, or even what my motivations are. You're certainly free to judge me by appearances, for what that's worth." Smiling, he returned to his inking on a fresh card, wondering how long it will take her to realize the bloodstains on the blouse were gone and wondering what kind of reaction he might get.
While sitting in the darkness with her friend, Jin stretches out and leans against a tree. She muffles a yawn and turns to Shelby. "How are you doing?"
"Shelby is strong as a bull and twice as stubborn," Liera clarifies, not making eye contact, her voice and movements small. "If you decide to pursue her, don't expect any reciprocation for a long time. She denies herself, refuses to admit things... she's headstrong, is what I suppose I'm trying to say." She glances down at her work, sees the stains gone, and flushes, setting the garment aside and smoothing her skirts over her legs.
After a minute more of silence, she asks, "How do other people judge you? Based on your appearance? It doesn't look like it would be easy to do so." She scratches behind one ear, staring at the ground, and adds, "I didn't mean to ruin your card. Sorry."
After making herself decent (or as decent as she can be with a garment two sizes too small) under her blankets, Shelby gets up to take her watch. She stands near Jin, keeping her eyes sweeping through the darkness as she responds. "I'm fine, I guess. Just a little embarrassed, is all. How about you?"
During the journey Lou kept a bit to himself, he seemed interested in the plants and possible spices that grow wild in this area, hoping to find some.
Once camp is set up Lou prepares a meal for everyone. it is only somewhat good comparatively speaking given the available resources.
yet given what he had, it turns out rather good.
During his watch, Lou does his best to be attentive, but he realizes that his partner is rather exhausted, so he tries to let him relax. hoping to pick up the extra duties for him.
The inking continued uninterrupted as he listened to her explanation. It was a nice gesture. He thought it should be returned, so he thought a more thorough explanation of himself as well. "When I was a younger man, I gave my heart to a similarly strong girl and she broke it. I'm not in any hurry. Nor am I in any rush to experience anything like that again. Just because I'm attracted to her doesn't mean I'll do anything at all, much less something rash. I've learned that lesson." Hopefully that would ease her mind a bit. Tshilaba was comfortable enough to sit through the silence with her as she smoothed her skirt and he continued inking.
When she asked her second question, he was much more prepared to hear it, and was able to make no mistakes this time. "It's easy to judge by appearance, and sometimes I invite it. Most of the time it's to make money. I've hit a glass ceiling with my fortune telling because of it as well. Everyone thinks the best fortune tellers are middle aged to older women. Given the choice, I go hungry. Others see me as an easy mark, or a poor man, or a trickster depending on their mood. Most people are deeper than their surface, though and beauty is more than skin deep, as the saying goes. Thank you for your warning. I'll keep it in mind."
After he finished, just a few seconds more and he was done with the back. He levitated it with a finger and spun it at a medium speed to enhance the drying of the ink. "And don't worry about ruining any cards, it was my mistake, and I've made plenty."
Liera listens to Tshilaba's explanation, nodding along. "She is an attractive girl," she concedes, staring off into the trees. "I can see why men enjoy looking at her. And she has her good side - she's resilient, and guided by her faith. She has something worth believing in, and it gives her strength and hope. And I've never seen her back down from what she believes is right."
At the talk of fortune-telling, she swallows hard before speaking again. "I've, um... I've never had a reading," she mutters, fiddling with a stray lock of hair, trying to twist it back into place around a horn. "Never really asked for one. Never really thought about it much. But, well... There's still some time before we wake the others, and I was wondering- I mean, if you wanted- ah, forget it," she sighs, giving up on trying to ask. "Probably not worth the time." Folding the blouse, she pulls out a pair of socks and begins darning them, blushing furiously and trying to keep her head down.
Tshilaba veritably pounced in front of her immediately, in a display of his almost unnaturally fit physical form. Crouching down dramatically, he encouragingly whispered at her while flashing a set of cards she'd never seen before. "Oh, but it is worth it, it is! It will be the best three silver you've ever spent. It's dangerous though. Some people don't want to know the truth. But I can see the light of discovery in your eyes, you're willing to brave this frontier aren't you? He had somehow produced a small cloth bag that almost looked like what a peddler would have as it half stood up at the edges about two feet from the hem of her dress.
The girl yelps in surprise at the sudden presence of Tshilaba, entirely too close for comfort. Her slitted pupils shrink in alarm, golden eyes flaring as she awkwardly shuffles back a little, hurriedly shifting her skirts back into place to hide a glimpse of hooves. "Don't do that!" she exclaims in shock, before catching herself and lowering her voice to its usual timid volume, swallowing nervously and fixing her eyes on the ground again. Can't let him see too much, she reminds herself, fidgeting with the socks in her lap.
"Three silver?" she repeats, fumbling around in her belt pouch with one long-nailed hand and finding only gold coins. "Well, I suppose... Maybe... Just for something new..." She drops a gold piece into Tshilaba's palm with quivering fingers, before her confidence can leave her altogether. "It can't really be that dangerous, can it?"
The fortune teller gladly grabbed the gold piece, letting it slide down his wrist into his loose sleeve as he shot his hands in the air in a flourish of movement designed to impress. Since there was no table, he opted for the eastern yogi table, since his previous and more mundane folding table had gone up in flames just a few days previous. Placing one foot on the ground, balancing on just his toes he bent his attached leg completely and sat on his own heel. Bringing his other leg across his knee, he smoothed out his pant leg and dramatically began shuffling the cards on his leg as if it were a table. This kind of fortune telling was exceptionally hard, but she'd offered a gold, so he was going to go all out.
The Foreign Trader
The Peacock
The Vision
Tshilaba was genuinely confused. This was an odd assortment he'd never had before, but he did his best to bring it together. "The Foreign Trader has an animal friend, and deals in secrets. The Peacock speaks of a fleeting beauty that must be preserved, but there is a price. The Vision tells me your secrets are a source of power, or madness."
His eyes rolled into the back of his head. It was a risky move, since he couldn't see the client anymore, but most people thought it was impressive enough to listen. "You are at a tipping point. The secrets that you keep are valuable to you. But must only trade secrets, not give them away. Preserve this well, and it will bring you power. Make a poor trade, and you will feel like you've lost your mind."
And then he fell over onto his back,his arms flailing and his cards flying through the air. His leg he was sitting on had fell asleep, and he no longer had control over it. Extending it gingerly, he began to collect his cards though his magic, with a confused look on his face. "Sorry, that's the best I can do. It was a puzzling case..."
Jin sighs in frustration. "Everything hurts. My shoulders. My feet. My stomach." The rogue gently touches where the shapeshifter had hit her earlier. "So I'm doing great." She lets the silence stretch for a moment and glances back to Tshilaba's sleeping form. "So what's going on there?"
-Posted with Wayfinder
"Who the hell knew that thing was going to turn into...well, whatever it turned into. It's a testament to your skill that you turned it into a glancing blow." She smiled, patting her friend on the shoulder. "If you're still sore tomorrow, let me know and I can call on Iomedae to ease your aches and pains. After all, we're doing Her will out here in this swamp."
Shelby's brown eyes flit over to the fortune teller's handsome face, but only irritation shows. She turns her gaze back to Jin, shaking her head. "In his head? I would venture to say nothing. He loves the sound of his own voice, and is headstrong and unable to admit wrongdoing." Shelby gives Jin a warning glance at this statement.
"He fights well, though, I'll give him that." She glances again at him grudgingly. "He's an amiable enough fellow, with his mouth closed."
Liera listens raptly through the esoteric display, hands clasped in her lap, wringing nervously. She keeps her eyes fixed on the fortune-teller's cards rather than his face, having already slipped up once and not wanting to do so again. Speckle wakes enough to show some interest, sniffing at one of the cards before deciding it would be best not to eat them.
Her eyes widen slightly at the reveal of each card, more so at the explanations, her breath eventually freezing in her chest. She stares at the cards before her, hands trembling in her lap, the words repeating in her head in a sussurus of whispers.
animal friend
beauty preserved
deals in secrets
source of power
a price
madness
She stares back up a Tshilaba, eyes wide with fear and alarm, mouth open to yell, to tell him to stop, to raise the voice shed been afraid to use for so many years...
Only to catch herself and gasp in shock when he tumbles backwards, ducking her head again and helping gather the cards awkwardly, long-nailed fingers darting this way and that, her tail twitching under her dress as if wishing to help.
"Sorry," she mumbles, though not entirely sure what she's apologising for. "That was- you were- I'm a puzzling person," she finishes weakly, handing over the cards she's gathered and looking away, fiddling with her hair again.
With his eyes rolled back in his head, he completely missed her reaction to the cards, and so he had been quite unsure about how well he'd done the reading until she apologized. That was a good sign. "Nothing to be sorry for, O Exotic Erudite Esoteric Enigma. You've done nothing wrong to me. Sometimes the cards come on stronger and sometimes they are more passive."
After finishing his collection he reached out and collected his cards from her proffered hand, he took the opportunity to look into her eyes, speaking reassuringly to her. "As one who also values knowledge, I won't share the reading with anyone else. Not only because it's bad for business, but because I tend to be a bit forgetful." He laughed a bit at his self-deprecating joke and his nimble fingers shuffled the cards when a worried look came on his face. He glanced about and found another card in a bush nearby and he beckoned it with a finger until it came up and rested among the rest of them and again his easy smile returned.
"What you do with the knowledge the cards revealed is up to you, but if you feel the burden is too much to bear, you can always talk to your sister about your reading, providing she tells you what hers was. That would be a fair trade indeed." Heading back over to his paper and ink, he offered an addendum. "Readings can change over time as well. Don't think of it as a final fate or anything. It's just where you are now. If you're interested or confused, feel free to come to me for another reading. Since I don't have any change, I'll give you another one on the house sometime in the future."
"Headstrong and unable to admit wrongdoing?" Jin teases softly. "He's definitely the only one here like that." She turns to her friend. "You seemed pretty upset by what he said at Walthus's cabin. What was that about?"
Shelby sighs, turning her brown eyes again to her friend. "He gave me a reading right after he came into town. Promised he could read my future and tell me what was in store for me. I've been hungry for something more beyond my daily routine for some time, so I was desperate and let him perform his scam. He said some rubbish about a card representing me falling in love with a man who was the opposite of me, having a crazy but fulfilling relationship, and earning wisdom and a gaggle of children. He was totally trying to hit on me instead of giving me a proper reading, like I was some kind of common bar whore!"
Her voice had risen steadily, so Shelby took a deep breath, calming herself back down. "I intended to pay for a reading, not a pick up line, so I refused to pay. He has hounded me about it since, claiming I am cheap and shorted him. Then I tried to make it up to him after the fight, and he had the NERVE to bring it up again!"
Liera blushes slightly at the attention and alliteration. "Y-you promise not to tell?" she asks, just to make sure. She only locks gazes with him for a brief moment, her golden eyes and slitted pupils clear in the light from the fire and moon, before she averts them again.
"Um, y-your math is off," she stammers nervously. "One told is ten silvers, and if a reading's worth three sil-" She stops herself, flinching at her own words. "I, I mean, I, um... I'd like that," she mutters. "H-how long should you wait? Between readings, I mean?"
Not being one to be shy, he looks right into her eyes as she blushes, and smiles in spite of himself, rubbing the back of his head as she looks away herself. She kinda acted like her bunny, skittish and nervous. Maybe in a couple of months she'd be more comfortable around the group... but then again maybe not.
He ignored her statement about his math, and answered her final question. "I'd recommend at least a month between readings. Sometimes the moon affects things, and we'd be into a new month astrologically, which can have an affect as well. As best as I can tell, the journey we're on right now is going to mean big changes for everyone, so it's likely we'd have something happen by then as well."
She allows herself a small smile at the thought. "Y-you're right. This is... this is a big thing for me." She shifts her posture, sitting awkwardly, legs folded underneath her and out to one side. "I- I haven't really gone out like this before. It's all very new. Maybe it will change me."
Jin considers Shelby's story for a moment. "So all of this is over a guy hitting on you?", she asks, trying to keep the incredulity out of her voice.
"No!" She answers a little too loudly, glancing around to make sure she didn't wake anybody.
"It's about the insufferable man making it a point to hassle me about it any time he saw me. I'm not going to pay for his clumsy attempts to hit on me. And even if he wasn't, I'm not paying for crap, either. None of those things he said will happen." Her brow furrows stubbornly, brown eyes fixed on her friend's.
During your watch, you catch three pairs of glowing eyes looking out from the brush outside of camp. They seem to look over everyone before disappearing a moment later.
The next morning dawns and barely a few minutes after everyone begins to awake, it is warm and muggy under the trees. After breakfast and breaking camp, all of you continue on the path, hoping to find the Licktoad village or the main road.
[dice=Perception DC 15]You notice several fetishes of crow feathers, various bones, and goblin skulls marking the path. As you continue, they seem to be places at shorter and shorter intervals.[/spoiler]
When morning comes, Archibald reports what he saw in the night, We were scouted last night. I saw three pairs of eyes in the firelight. They were here, then gone just as fast. We need to be careful today.
As they travel, he makes a point of the grisly totems. I think we're getting closer...
"It seems that way," Liera murmurs, shivering and clutching Speckle close to her chest. The rabbit squirms a little, trying to breathe properly. "What... what did those eyes look like?"
They glowed just long enough for me to notice them, but not much else except goblins lives out here so it's not a stretch to assume it's them.
Shelby looks about in confusion as Liera and Archibald talk, clearly not having seen the fetishes marking the path. The warpriestess remains silent, not admitting this failure of observation, but pulling her sword out of its sheath. It seemed she might have need of it soon.
The fortuneteller absentmindedly flipped a card between his fingers at they walked down the trail. Breakfast had been amazing, as had the meal the night before, it really helped to have a cook along the way, and the best part of it is that he hadn't even paid for any of it. Of course, he was doing work here too, just work he wasn't used to. He'd traveled plenty, of course. Running around with Varisian traders as far back as he could remember, but they never went looking for trouble. But the cards had told him things were changing. They weren't wrong.
Tossing a card up in the air, only to have it vanish there, he spoke up in what he felt was an inspiring way. "Well, we knew this was going to be dangerous. I'm ready for anything."
Datura takes the grisly totems in stride, "Well, this may very well be a good indication that we are finally nearing the camp of the goblins." That being said, he returns to the hunter's stance, bow drawn, as he stealthily moves along the trail ready to strike.
Jin's skin crawls when she sees the totems. Something about them really creeped her out. "How close do you think we are?"
Datura looks at the path, purses his lips in frustration, and offers "There's no real way of knowing. We must be close enough to reach them today, but beyond that, goblins are too stupid and chaotic for me to judge the distance by any measure of rationalizing the totem's spacing."
Soon a storm begins to move in. The clouds and the waning light turning afternoon into twilight. Shortly after the sun disappears behind slate black clouds, the group comes upon a shack in the middle of a clearing slowly being overgrown by the swamp. Thunder rumbles in the sky above and the first what are sure to be many fat rain drops begin to fall.
If goblins inhabited this place, the have long since left.
Archibald looks for windows or some place to see inside, then sneaks up and takes a peek
The shack is dark in side, making it difficult to see much more than vague shapes through the grimy window.
Archibald sneaks back and reports, Someone, or something, is in there, but I can't see what.
He smiled at Archie, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Well, go and knock." Said the Varisian. "Some shelter might be nice if it decides to go and rain. I'll go with you if you like. It'll be interesting."
Shelby gives the approaching clouds a frown, sighing as she feels the first few drops of what is sure to be a downpour, knowing the group's recent luck. She reluctantly nods her agreement with Tshilaba. "The worst they can do is turn us away, and we'll be in exactly the predicament we would have been in, anyway. Let's go make ourselves known." She starts to stride towards the dwelling, setting a slow but steady pace. Truthfully, she hopes another will take the lead on this.
Jin shivers as the first cold drops of rain hit her skin. "Is anybody else really tired of the 'sinister cabin in the woods' cliche? I feel like we've done this before."
She tries to grab Shelby's arm before the priestess walks to the door. "Last time we did this, I got jumped by a shape-shifting freak. Be careful."
Lou approaches as well, but not up front. this adventuring thing is still new to him.
With the rain approaching we best find shelter. who knows, maybe there is a decent kitchen in there.
Knocking on the door reveals that it is open. It takes a little effort, but the swollen door creaks open and everyone gets inside just as the rain truly begins.
Inside smells of mold and rot. The smaller closets contain moldering clothes and ingredients that have long since spoiled. Mildew darkens the furnishings and some of the floorboards creak alarmingly with the slightest bit of pressure. The back room reveals a modest kitchen overrun by more signs of decay and abandonment. The side rooms reveal a bedroom and a small alchemical laboratory. It is the latter that holds the most disturbing revelation.
A skeleton of a deformed human in a rotting dress sits in a chair in front of the lab bench. Numerous deformities mar the bones, the most dramatic of which are several spikes that had grown from the ribs, going out, and in. It was the latter that seems to have done the job of killing the woman.
It seems that Old Megus is no more.
Following Lou into the hut, he clucked his tongue in sympathy when he saw the skeleton. "Well, at least now we know why she was so grumpy. We'll have to give her a proper burial in the morning." He began to look around a little. "It's not much. but it's dry. If we're lucky, we'll have clearer skies tomorrow. Standard watches again?"