"Definitely not you. As far as I remember you explicitly stated that you only date girls half your age." Tauriell gives back.
"Well I certainly don't date ones as old as my dead great grandmother."
"If you look at the number of rounds Golarion has made around the sun since my birth, the number is impressive."
"But if you look at the wrinkles life has drawn on my face then I'm further away age wise from your dead great-grandmother than Gwenhwyfar is. They say beauty is only skin deep. But I will still keep mine for a century or two." Tauriell tells looking at her fingernails with an absent look and a smile on her face.
"My mother is covered in wrinkles and she is still beautiful." Jimmy says, and feeling he can't keep up with the battle of wits for now he turns to Hector, "Want to go spar for a bit?"
All these words make his head ache. It's better than with his Shaman master as it's not scolding him. But it's too many words nonetheless. "I'm beating you up for good. I had good orc training" Hector says with a smile beating on his chest and follows Jimmy.
As Jimmy and Hector are gone a sudden anger rises in Tauriell. She grabs a mug and throws it at the opposite wall where it shatters into thousand pieces.
Concentrating on the shard she transforms the room into an elven wood and the bed into a moss covered mound in the middle of a small pond and the wall the trunk of a large tree. The birds sing, the squirrels jump from branch to branch and the smell of wet leaves waft through the room.
Jimmy wonders around until they find a librarian to ask for somewhere to spar
"Why not." Jimmy says leading into the first hallway
"That's narrow." Hector says and checks how much room he has to each wall. "What sparring do you want to do? Fist, or axe?"
"Axe does fine for me, I will use my polearm if that suits you?" Jimmy says making his way to the spinning room
"Sure." Hector replies. As they arrive in the room he turns the axe in his hands two or three times and as Jimmy has his weapon in hand charges him with the axe.
Jimmy steps back and attacks Hector twice, and casts LoH on himself
His first attack is a stab to Hector's midriff
After the thrust Jimmy brings the blade of the guisarme down into Hector's shoulder
Hector steps closer, drops the axe and tries to grab Jimmy.
Jimmy drops his weapon and punches Hector
Jimmy then attempts to grab Hector
Jimmy maintains his grapple and attempts to punch hector
Jimmy roars as he swings his gauntlet awkwardly trying to hit Hector's kidneys
Jimmy falls, roars, and stands up, releasing the grapple and stepping back 5 feet while healing himself
The bruises on his face from Hector's pummeling almost completely fade
Hector uses the opportunity to hit Jimmy once again as he stands up as well. And follows him with a step to deliver two more punches.
Jimmy counter swings at Hector's first punch after he followed. As Hector's swing connects with the side of his face Jimmy shouts as his jaw snaps.
Jimmy ducks the large half orc's second swing and throws a punch at his gut
Jimmy then follows up with a barrage of swings which very likely may have broken a rib or two
Hector steps back from Jimmy. "It is no fun sparring with you. You don't fight like sparring. You fight like a wounded bear." he comments and heals himself.
"Thorry." Jimmy lisps through a clenched Jaw
"Lleth me thee your ribth." Jimmy moves over to Hector and inspects his side, healing it over the next half minute or so
"You throw a good punchth." Jimmy says moving over to the wall next to the door, sitting down, prodding at his jaw, but not healing it
Hector is impressed. "Killing you seems to be pretty hard when you can fix yourself up like that."
"Shall I leave you alone?"
"Itth up to you. But why didnth you fight me proper onthe you thaw me fight you properly?"
"You got the better start. No way to get you after that. So at least I didn't get stabbed with that thing any more." he replies nodding at the pole-arm.
"You could hafve hit me much harder than you did." Jimmy says
"Yeah, but it only hurts more. It doesn't help the learning. Orc master told me."
"Or do you want more pain?" Hector asks not sure what problem Jimmy has.
"I honethtly don't know..." Jimmy says, "You fight well, hopefully we can thpar again, and nektht time I do it proper." Jimmy says standing and healing his jaw
"I want to head back now."
"Sure." Hector replies and follows Jimmy. "We can do a fight of another type." he suggests smiling. "Who can drink more."
"I look forward to it." Jimmy says with a smile at the larger man, picking up his stuff and making his way buck upstairs to find Gwen
Gwenhwyfar still sits on the bed with Destinée and plays with her with yarn ball.
Destinee ducks at the corner of the bed and then jumps at the yarnball.
"Meow!"
Hector walks back into Tauriell's room to ask what he shall do and is startled and jumps back as he finds himself knee deep in a pond in an elven wood. "Whaaaaat?"
Tauriell chuckles. The scenery changes to offer another moss pillow where the chair stands. "Take a seat, enjoy the view and be silent."
Hector does as told but isn't comfortable with the situation. Sitting on a moss pillow that is not real, his legs hanging in water that does not flow away. And the wood - it's scary. His orc tribe lived in hills and caves and open fields with some trees here and there. But such a virgin forest where everything is green and alive where no humanoid has put his stamp on it is forbidding.
He sits there anxiously looking around if there might come something dangerous out of the woods.
"The abomination of nature is afraid of nature itself." Tauriell concludes. "You know the legends where orcs come from? I guess not. It is either that they were created entirely by foul magic - or that someone corrupted elves by foul magic to create dim witted brutes that follow every command to lay waste to the land."
The scenery changes again with the water seeping away, the plants fading out of sight and the temperature raising do to the hot midday sun. Everything turns to sand. Eventually both are sitting on a dune looking over a desert with the hot wind blowing at their backs. "You like that one better, don't you? Wasteland... but it too is nature and even more hostile to you."
Now that feels just as condescending as his old master. Not as loud and not with hitting him on the head with a stick. But nonetheless hurting. But there is a truth to the words. He is feels not threatened in the desert. "I don't want to be called an abomination." he complains keeping his head down waiting for the scolding.
"You know, I lived only with humans since I'm 12 years old. And before that I lived with my elven parents in human lands. The most things I know about elves is from what my parents told me and from books and from a few visits to woods like the one you saw earlier and to a well hidden ancient elven city. But everywhere I go, I'm the elf."
"You can put a pig in a pink dress, put lipstick on it and call it Florence, it's still a pig. And you will always be half an orc.That's a fact. I'm not judging you for that. But I won't call you Florence."
"And you are the last one who can flee from this. Even if everyone else would treat you like just another human. You'd still be afraid of the elven wood. Just as there is no better place for me to be. Even though it is only fake and I don't have what it takes to really live there."
"Your words are sad. And they make my head hurt. There are too many of them." Hector comments.
"Then be silent and enjoy the view." Tauriell tells him while she creates changes the illusion to include an ocean near the horizon with a salty breeze coming from the distance.
Jimmy finds the room he saw Gwen leave to earlier, and knocks on the door
As Gwenhwyfar hears Jimmy knock at the open door she looks up at him. "Come in." she offers stroking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Thank you." Jimmy says walking in and sitting on the bed, watching Gwen
Gwenhwyfar continues to play with Destinée. After a while she asks "Want me to throw you a yarn ball too?"
Destinée gives Jimmy a glare as he reduces her space to play with his presence.
"No thank you." Jimmy says with a smile at her while watching them play
Gwenhwyfar smiles back. Then a smirk sneaks onto er face and she tries really hard not to explode with laughter.
"Whats so funny?" Jimmy asks
"I'm imagining you playing catch with a yarn ball on the bed." Gwenhwyfar replies blushing.