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An older dwarf with blond hair strides patiently into the room. An elaborate shortbow accross his back, and a warhammer at his hip.
He speaks softly and slowly.. "My name is Rogar Hammertale. I bid you greetings from the Five Kings Mountains. I am here to answer the call of our venture captain, and in the manor of the Warrior-Skalds of Kalsgard - lend my arm to the challenges ahead while telling our story."
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"Hello, Yvette Blakros. My husband insisted i get out of the house more so i joined his little organization. Its been very exciting." A tall elf introduces herself. Pleasing in the way that elves tend to be, she walks over to the dwarf, "Would you be a dear and hold this bag for me? Its simply too heavy for me and i can't be useful if i have to carry it." She says handing her backpack to Rogar. "Thank you ."
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She wears a shining mithral breastplate covered in Sylvan wards on top of a deep azure blue dress with golden trim, greaves and gauntlets matching her breastplate. Her strawlike hair is tied up in a formal bun. The heavy wooden shield on her back shows a blue field with three golden crowns, one on top of another. She holds her longsword in front of her with both hands on the pommel, the point in the ground, in a stalwart pose. At barely above 5 feet tall, she somehow manages to cut an imposing presence.
"Greetings, fellow adventurers. In another time and another place, I was once a king. In the future, I may yet be so again. For now, I am merely the knight Artoria Pendragon."
An owl sits on her shoulder. His gaze shows an unusually high intelligence, and his face shows an unusually expressive brow and beak. After it becomes clear that Artoria finished speaking, pecks at her skull.
"Ow!"
Artoria covers her head with a gauntlet.
"I forgot...this is Archimedes. He is my--ow!" The owl reaches around a gauntlet to peck at Artoria's skull again. "--Merlin's familiar."
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A tall, lean Varisian walks in just in time to hear the introductions. Road dust covers his clothes and gear, which is the usual Varisian mish-mash of colors and styles, right down to the orange, blue and purple kapenia wrapped around his throat. Adorning most of his exposed dusky skin—and creeping down into his clothes—is what must be a not-so-small fortune in expensive-looking tattoos ... another Varisian custom.
He drops a heavy pack loudly on the floor and stands to stretch his back. And when he pauses to give a casual salute, you can just see the tips of elven ears peeking through his dark hair.
He grins, a lopsided thing. "Oh, good," he says, looking at the gathered group, his eyes lingering on Odd, Artoria, and Yvette, "I hate being early. I'm Jal."
His eyebrows rise at the sight of Archimedes, and his lopsided grin widens. "You know you have a bird on your head, right?"
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An avianoid entity meanders into the room, with a clip-board bearing... well, to put it nicely... chicken scratch. He is clad in a finely crafted suit of lamellar armor... but the material appears to be darkleaf rather than the typical leather or metal construction of such a thing. A hilt of a masterfully built long blade of some sort rides over his right shoulder, a darkwood bow over his left.
"Note to self. Research precedent in Absalomian case law for percentages of possession, and whether the nine-tenths holds true for--"
He pauses a bit as he looks up, blinks a few times, and shoves the paperwork into his haversack.
"Karasuma Tazou. Barrister. Have you or a loved one been hurt in a Society-incurred situation? Do you feel that the Society needs to expedite the payments to your--"
There's a raucous laughter that erupts from the tengu.
"Sorry, lawyer humor. Karasuma Tazou, call me Kara if we're in combat, I'm your stealthy sort, skilled with security devices and pretty decent on the senses. Please DON'T expect me to front-line, though, that almost ended in tears last mission. Fortunately, they weren't ours."
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Jal’s gray eyes swing between Archimedes and Karasuma. ”Tá tú a bheith Dáiríre dom,” he mutters, ”Are we starting an aviary?”.
He gives the tengu a flat look, unthinkingly touching the pommel of a well-made Tien curved blade sheathed across his back. ”We don’t see many of your kind on this side of the waters.”
He gives the assembled pathfinders a weighing look. ”So Feathers here,” he hikes a thumb at Kara, ”can scout and trap-break. I’ll make sure he’s worth his salt.” He notes Artoria’s armor and weaponry with a smirk, ”Her Highness is our muscle.” He looks at Yvette, Odd, and Rogar, ”What do the rest of you fiontaróirí do?”
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Rogar takes a slow drink from his ale. "As the ancestors who in their hubris stood alone... fell before the orc onslaught one by one. They thought themselves greater than one another. They quarreled and belittled each other. In the end they were buried together."
He opens his eyes at the end of his story, looking at the Jal. "You would do well to gain allies who will stand before certain death with you rather than allow your hubris to be your personal downfall."
Rogar stands, and almost smiles as he raises his glass. "Roger Hammertale. Story-crafting my trade. While it unusual for one of the stout folk, the shortbow is my weapon of choice. But I am more than proficient with the Hammer as is the tradition of Torag.
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”You mistake me, *cara,” responds Jal, holding up a finger to order his own ale. ”I’m just looking to build the best hand here … know the value of the cards, if you know what I mean. No one card wins the pot.”
”Plus,” Jal says, taking his own pull of ale, ”they don’t keep me around for my flowery words.” He salutes the dwarf with his ale-stein, ”I’m thrilled they’ve sent us one who knows how to use them, though. And an arrow-slinger, no less.”
With another drink, his gray eyes shift expectantly to Idgethun and Yvette.
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Artoria glares at Jal.
"I do indeed have a bird on my shoulder. What of it?"
She nods approvingly at Roger's admonition to Jal. "When I stood upon Camlann Field, I saw firsthand what happens when people abandon fellowship."
She scowls at the card metaphor.
"The only thing a person should ever hazard is their life, and only on matters of honor and justice; only cravens gamble with cards for coins. "
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Kara tilts his head and laughs a bit at Jal's running commentary.
"Not only does one card not make a winning hand, but one hand doesn't win the tournament. Slow and steady wins more gains in the long-term, but one mustn't be afraid to go quickly when opportunities arise. And... no, I'm not normally this talkative in the field. Must be the social atmosphere or something."
Rogar, Jal, and Artoria's comments about fellowship being abandoned causes the bird-person's feathers to fluff out a bit, though.
"Just as long as we're not expecting me to win the day by running around in circles shooting flaming skeletons with blunt arrows, I think we can get together and have a meeting of the minds, right?" The tengu shudders.
"Buncha slackers, that crew, figured 'Oh, if we play dead then the skeletons won't kill us...'" The tengu makes a hacking coughing sound that sounds remarkably like another linguistic term for 'bovine excrement'.
Into the midst of the pleasant getting-to-know-each-other, Venture Captain Adril Hestram had slammed open the door, letting in the sounds of rain and wind from outside. The Captain had been dripping wet. He had nodded around and shrugged off his wet oilskin cloak to hang on a peg, then appropriated one of the tables in the room and beckoned with a big hand for you all to gather close.
"Miserable damn night out there!" he'd grunted. "And I'll need to be sending you all out in it, sorry about that." (He hadn't actually sounded that sorry.)
"Got a message earlier today from a chap named Yargos Gill. Some of you may know him-- he's a historian, and occasionally he funnels interesting things our way. Tonight, it's a codebook he claims to have dug up from some old Taldan military excursion-- one of those times they tried, and failed, to take Absalom. It's several hundred years old, and probably has some insights we'd like for ourselves. Anyway, I told him we'd buy the thing. I dropped by Yargos's house earlier in the day, before this damn weather sprang up, to pick up the book... but he wasn't home. The man's usually as broke as a two-copper nail-- I can't imagine him not making the time to be there and collect his payment. I looked around for him a bit, but I had other business to attend to... though some of the poor wretches that live in the neighborhood told nonsense stories of seeing skeletal figures wandering around in the sea-mist..."
Adril Hestram had hesitated, then dismissed these as probable flights of pure fancy. "Anyway-- I'm a Venture Captain, I have other things to do than hunt for Gill in the Puddles all night long. So you're the lucky ones! Dress warm, but don't waste time-- Yargos probably owes people money, if I know him, and I don't want him knifed before we get that book, at the least. Off with you, agents!"
Without so much as the customary 'Do you have any questions,' Hestram had ushered you out into the rain, causing all of you to wonder just why you worked for the Society back in season 0 anyway. But, dutiful agents that you are, you had embarked down towards the Puddles: one of Absalom's worst districts, a perpetually-sodden section of the urban landscape where poor sewage layout and no tax money to speak of has conspired to make the streets more or less filled with unsavory standing water-- or, on nights of heavy rain, running water. Boards and planks form crude bridges between buildings, but the smartest Puddle dwellers use the rooftops themselves to get around.
In any case, you had asked questions and gathered information despite the miserable weather. Your trail had let you from Gill's own home, to a tavern called the Piper, where a bartender had confirmed that Gill and several of his old, equally penniless scholar friends had been in, having a drink and a game of cards, when half a dozen young toughs had burst in and rudely hauled them out into the wet night. "Looked like they were headed out towards the sea-cliff," the barkeep had timidly volunteered.
Stepping back out into the rain, you had squinted towards said cliff-- to see a handful of figures struggling in the sheeting night-time rain. You had run forward...
****
...and now you find yourself hearing the boom of the surf below the cliff's edge, with the salt spray and the rain whipped together in a wild wind. Thick clouds scud across the face of the moon, letting in just enough light to see by. A number of brawny young men, all with their heads shaved and gleaming in the rain, are manhandling four old men at the cliff's edge. The struggle is one-sided, and seems more for sadistic fun than anything else. Even as you run up, one of the old man is dragged towards the precipice. There is little time for anything clever-- you must act!
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Archimedes taps Artoria's shoulder, a brief flash of golden light passing from his talon into her.
Artoria charges forward, drawing her longsword and leveling it at each of the young men.
"I give you this one chance to stand down before I cut you down where you stand, villains! Leave those men in peace lest I give you the peace of the grave."
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Karasuma looks at the situation and shakes his head as Artoria charges in.
His approach, though, is a bit more mercenary, or mercantile, as it were.
"Sweetening the pot, ten gold to each one of you if you leave now, no questions asked. I think you can see the alternative. Your call."
The tengu slides a hand into his haversack and pulls out a coin pouch that jingles a bit.
"I wouldn't mess with her, she's killed scores on the battlefield. My way, you at least get a bit richer?"
****
Jal runs forward and looses an arrow at the front line of battle, so to speak; it catches the unaware thug square in the shoulder. He turns, only for an arrow from Rogar's bow to punch through the light leather armor he wears. He crumples with a curse, and the others shout in fury.
A bolt of energy shoots from Yvette's wand and catches the purple-tattooed bloke in the head, leaving his scalp sizzling.
"What the hell? Who are these bastards?"
"Some girl with a sword and a stupid bird?"
"Get 'em! They killed Kenneth! But first--"
The thug with a yellow headband tied around his head gives a shove to the drenched old man at the end of the line, who goes over the edge of the cliff and into the drink. To your horror, you see a long wet metal chain glinting in the moonlight-- the four graybeards have been chained together, and in short order gravity starts sending them one after the other, with shrill screams...!
The last old man flails frantically, and manages to get hold of a stunted root sticking out of the cliff's edge. As wet as the soil is from the deluge, however, that can't possibly hold them for long.
The rest of the gang toughs turn back to you, spiked gauntlets on their hands glinting in the moonlight. They run forward, closing the distance and beginning to bark and snarl like dogs! They circle, clearly trying to surround you, timing their blows to when they can hit together.
"Tear 'em up! Hounds attack!"
"Hounds!!! ARRH! ARRH!"
One of the makes the mistake of circling too close to Artoria as he tries to get into position-- she catches him a blow with her longsword that opens a gash across his chest, but he continues to fight on.
Despite their tactics, only one of the thugs is able to land a blow, his spiked gauntlet catching Idgethun in the ribs.
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Jal growls out a string of Varisian curses as the old men begin to slip into the water. He reacts instantly, dropping his bow as he dashes forward through the mud and rain.
"I'll get the graybeards!"
Slinging his shield into place, he rushes recklessly right through the press of bodies, mainly trusting his shield and natural athleticism to see him safely past the counter-punches of the thugs.
Jal darts through the throng, leaping over the rain slick rocks and easily deflecting the blows of two of the growling gang.
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Artoria breathes deeply as she settles into her stance, both hands on her sword. Picture reference
"Very well. Know that you have forfeited your lives. Pray I am merciful."
She swings at the man that tried to circle around her, then steps to the side with practiced footwork.
Rogar's arrow drops the chap with the black jacket, and Yvette sends a second bolt of pure force into the fellow with the purple tattoos. A few seconds later, Karasuma nimbly slips past the tattooed fellow, though the man with the yellow headband takes a swing at him.
Though it's well-aimed, Kara is too deft to be struck.
Artoria's blade crashes into the man with purple tattoos , and bears him inexorably to the ground.
Idgethun takes two swipes at one of the remaining foes, but her knives do not connect.
The old man who is managing to keep the string of himself and his fellows aloft looks panicked. Even as Jal and Karasuma run up to him, the old man's withered fingers lose their grip on the stump! With a hoarse shout, he falls, the noise echoed by the others as they plunge down from the cliff and into the banging surf thirty feet below! Jal and Kara can clearly see them flailing down in the water, trying to stay afloat...
The remaining thugs swear as several of their fellows are quickly dropped. "Come on, let's drop this chickie!" one sneers, pointing at Idgethun. "I already got 'er once! We drop one, things'll even up!"
With unearned optimism, the two step in to flank Odd and try to hit her with their "claws."
The one who spoke, a fellow with a green sash at his waist, gets lucky a second time.
Mr. Yellow Headband growls at Kara and tries to slice him with his clawed gauntlet...
...but has no luck.
Artoria pushes past Mr. Yellow Headband and leaps off the ledge without a second thought, executing a rather graceful dive all things considered. SPLOOSH! She pierces the water cleanly and immediately finds the old men, her strong arms helping to drag them above the water's surface, her legs treading water.
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As first the old men, then Artoria go plummeting into the churning waters, Jal gives Kara a quick shrug. "Sounds good," Jal says as he drops his shield, "I needed to rinse the rest of this road dust off, anyway."
He pauses one more moment to slip his pack from his shoulders, which he drops into the mud at Kara's feet. "There's some rope in here, Feathers," he barks before following Artoria over the cliff and into the water.
As he surfaces, helping to make sure the geezers stay afloat, he shouts over the white noise of rain-on-surf. "Very brave, Sir Highness. Give me a few minutes and I'll slip their chains."
The man with the green sash takes a blast from the wand, and one of Idgethun's dance partners gets nicked, but other than that our heroes do little damage to the gang members.
Down in the surf, the old men cling to both Artoria and Jal, their robes quickly water-logged and the length of metal chain doing nothing helpful as far as keeping them afloat-- but at least they're not sinking to the bottom.
The brute in the yellow headband sneers at Kara and swings with his "claw" at him... ...to no effect.
Idgethun's friend takes a swing at her... ...but this time she collects no new scratches.
The green-sashed fellow looks around, considers the battlefield... and tears across the open ground towards the woman in the back, with her magic stick that she just burned him with. She seems an easier target than armored warriors, after all.
His theory paid off for him-- he closes the distance, and slashes the elf across her upraised arm!