The tall man looks between Rikka and the satyr. Not sure what to do next—and sensing that he's 'awoken' in the middle of a dangerous discussion— he hurriedly reclaims a braided leather jerkin from his pile of gear, throwing it on as quickly and efficiently as he can.
His eyes—still filled with cautious distrust—rarely leave the satyr. "Orks. And children, huh? I've dealt with orks before."
Knute solemnly watches Eysteinn walk over to the satyr. How many more of us won't return to Hofn because of the orks' attack? First those that died in the village, then probably Thrymr, now Eysteinn. And the gods only know how many we might have lost back in the orks' cave, or how many of the children yet live... All deaths to be placed at the orks' feet, he thinks bitterly. In his brooding, he briefly forgets the two newly freed men coming out of the satyr's grasp. Noticing them again, he studies them for a brief moment.
They're both Ulfen, that's for sure, and the larger one seems oddly familiar, but he can't place a name. Regardless of who they are though, they're definitely confused, and worth our help. After all, they might return the favor. He walks over to the second man sitting on the ground, pocketing Eysteinn's potion as he goes.
"Do you seek bēot? - would you tie our urðr to the task?"
He stands in front of the man and offers a hand up. "Don't mind her brusqueness. I think she's cross with almost everyone. Though not always without reason," he adds in fairness to Halla, remembering thralls' usual treatment. Once he helps the man up, he continues. "And to be honest, we are in a hurry; we have no idea how far the orks could have gotten with our children. And we could use all the help we can get tracking and fighting them." He pauses for a moment, trying to catch both mens' eyes, and darting a glance at the satyr. "Whether you regard it as fate or favor to come with us, it's probably safer to travel in a group in this strange land. At least for a little while, even if not to the end of our quest."
"Orks. And children, huh? I've dealt with orks before."
Knute looks at the larger man, surprised. "Really? When? Where? They're pretty rarely found, near Hofn. More the stuff of yesterday's stories than today's fears. At least, that was true before a few days ago..."
Stirgen doesn't explicitly refuse Knute's hand, but he similarly doesn't allow himself to be helped up either. Releasing the greystone pendant he rests the palms of his dye stained hands on his knees as he continues to squint upwards. Evenly and without malice or overt trust he seeks clarification "Aye, in a hurry, riding Skaði's skis... but the unanswered question still stands." making a point that Knute had yet to explicitly state whether his attendance would be an onus or a request.
"You want to stay and stomp grapes, please yourself," Halla says shortly. "We are going after the children."
His eyes—still filled with cautious distrust—rarely leave the satyr. "Orks. And children, huh? I've dealt with orks before."
She turns toward the tall man. "Do you know of Varg? Or Dalrin?" Her eyes flicker toward the satyr to see if he betrays any recognition of the latter name.
Tassidar watches the humans interact while remaining quiet for the moment.
Knute sighs at the man's reluctance. "You're under no obligation to aid us, of course. It's only a hopeful request." He lets his hand drop a little, but is still clearly willing to help the man up.
Suddenly, Knute smiles. "Riding Skaði's skis, I like that. I'm also a follower of the Huntress." He turns his face up to the sky, then looks around at the surroundings. "We'll need both her skill and her swiftness if we're to catch the orks."
The smaller man's stained face splits into a slight smile as he forces himself to stand without assistance. He casts a worried glance backwards to where the satyr stands, brow momentarily creasing before turning back to the group that's come and asked for him to accompany them. Raising his right hand he speaks "Heil og sæl, I am Stirgen..." pausing a few moments to allow reciprocal introduction before continuing "Now that we are not strangers... I hope you do not mind if I see to my raiment?" gesturing to a pile of belongings not yet claimed by the more bearish man.
The pile includes armor, blade and a very well made dark-wood crossbow. There are also a number of runic accoutrements among the pile that can be seen, and what looks to be a soothsayer's runic pouch.
He stoops to grab up the thick-bladed fish cleaver, and levels the point at the fae. His voice is heavy with threat, ”Why?”
The satyr tsks softly at Klo's cleaver-raised threat, shaking his head a little. "You were trespassing," he answers, and hops on over to the vats, leading Eysteinn over. The brewer goes, albeit with a few backwards looks at the little band just sorting themselves out.
She turns toward the tall man. "Do you know of Varg? Or Dalrin?" Her eyes flicker toward the satyr to see if he betrays any recognition of the latter name.
The names are unknown to both Klo and Stirgen, unfortunately. The satyr doesn't noticeably react at the mention of either name. Though Klo tries to remember details of the children and the orks, it's lost in the blur of whatever seidr the goat-man performed... the one image he remembers is that their leader was astride a large wolf, and he wore strange armor, not Ulfen at all, but like a steel suit over his whole body.
As soon as the two former-wine-stompers have gathered their things again, the goat-man breaks from his showing-Eysteinn-the-vats, turning back to all of you. "Now then," he says, pressing his fingers together at his chest. "I promised you news of your prey. They passed through here five days gone: six manling children, little snow-bunnies all crying and lost, and their four minders, green of skin, golden-eyed, axe-bearing, tusk-tusk! And then their leader, ah, I couldn't take much of his measure. Hiding your face behind steel's not fair at all. He and his great big doggy with its great big teeth!"
The satyr laughs, miming claws and a fanged grimace briefly, then shrugs and drops his hands again. "Next, I suppose you'll ask me where they were going. Well, the road leads only one place: to market, to market. They might have left the road, of course, but that'd be silly indeed for mortal souls."
The goat-man pauses, gazing up thoughtfully at the (impossibly) blue sky. "They knew to expect me, though; had their gifts all ready to go. Someone must have told. That takes the fun out of it. Though I suppose it's nice to play things by note... every once in a while."
The momentary thoughtful pause disappears into a burst of motion as the satyr spins back to his vats and the hops-brewing tub. "Alright! Off with you! Best wishes! And fishes! Brewer, let's sample my last season's production, I want your opinion..."
Knute looks at the larger man, surprised. “Really? When? Where? They're pretty rarely found, near Hofn. More the stuff of yesterday's stories than today's fears. At least, that was true before a few days ago…”
The big man looks down at Knute with a look of half-suspicion, half-confusion. ”No, not close to Hofn. You must range far to find them, but … how do you know Hofn?” He looks at Knute closely for the first time, searching his features. ”I do not recognize you, though —”
Whatver he was going to say is interrupted by the satyr’s proclamation of trespass. Kló’s dark, furious gaze returns, and he snaps his eyes back on the fae. The big man obviously wants to respond, but he keeps his mouth shut, jaw clenching with the effort.
He works through the satyr’s words, confusion once again crawling back across his face. ”Five days? No, it couldn’t have been five days. Yesterday, maybe.” But even this line of thought is interrupted as more revelations slam home. He looks with concern between the satyr and the group. ”Wait, those were Hofn’s children?!” He regards each of the group members with new eyes, ”You’re here to help Hofn’s children? I will help. But surely the goði would have sent some of our own to find them. Where is Baergan or Gundin? Or even Hrolf or Thorgal? Why would the goði not send our best for our children? An attack … is Hofn safe?”
Five days?! Has it been that long since Jól? Halla tries to count back over the time on the trail, the day she slept through after the raid, and the night of interrupted sleep, all of which blur together in her memory.
”Wait, those were Hofn’s children?!” He regards each of the group members with new eyes, ”You’re here to help Hofn’s children? I will help. But surely the goði would have sent some of our own to find them. Where is Baergan or Gundin? Or even Hrolf or Thorgal? Why would the goði not send our best for our children? An attack … is Hofn safe?”
Halla gives Kló a sharp glance. "That is Thorgal's son," she explains, "taking your place with the satyr." (The situation is more complicated than that, and both Thorgal and Eysteinn would surely quibble at the wording, but it's not important to her now.) "Thorgal Magnisson led the warband and lured the main body of the orks away so we could follow the children's trail. Hrolf Half-Hand was ... wounded in the raid. His son is with Thorgal and the other warriors. How do you know of them?"
Having not been explicitly told that he couldn't see to his arms and armor, Stirgen moves to secure it and see it borne once more. He listens as he does so, casting wary glances at the satyr as it speaks.
Halla knows it certainly hasn't been five days since the raid, even if she lost track of a little bit of time in there...
The satyr is glibly ignoring any looks from Stirgen, Klo, or any of the others. He's busy fetching more bottles from the shack on the other side of the stream and seems to be regarding everyone but Eysteinn as so much environmental noise at this point.
"He's lying," she whispers while the satyr has gone for his bottles. "Five days ago the children were safe at home, preparing for Jól. We couldn't have been much more than a day behind them, two at the most." She gives up at sorting out days and nights from the confusion and drudgery that followed the raid, sure at least of that much.
”What blakkr-seiðr is this?” Kló mutters, now spreading his suspicious gaze to the group, and ending on Eysteinn. ”Thorgal has no son. If he did, it could only be a sút or two of age. Same of Hrolf.” Realizing these folks may need some explaining, he finishes, ”Both are younger than I am.”
"I'm no native of Hofn," Rikka says apologetically to the big, pale-haired man's question. "But I spent hours on the trail here, with this Thorgal, and he is a man twice my years easily, with gray to his hair."
Rikka keeps a watchful eye on the hut where the satyr's vanished; Eysteinn hangs near the vasts, just out of range of being included in the group's whispering, with a look between resignation and determination on his face as he waits for the satyr to come back. The goat-man does so, with arms once more full of bottles which he starts pushing at Eysteinn with commands of 'try this one!' and so forth, before he glances over at your group.
"--what, are you all still here?" he says. "I know my company is delightful, but I thought you all wanted to chase orcs."
"We will be on the road soon enough," Rikka responds evenly. "Our two new friends are tired, and we won't rush them into moving."
"Hrmph," says the satyr, with a dismissive flick of his long, pointed ears, and turns his attention to Eysteinn again.
Rikka looks back to the others. "Well? Do we challenge the satyr's false telling of the tale?" she whispers. "Or do we move on?"
Rikka looks back to the others. "Well? Do we challenge the satyr's false telling of the tale?" she whispers. "Or do we move on?"
Halla shrugs. "There's nothing to stop him weaving another tale," she points out, "and no way to know if he's telling the truth." Pitching her voice higher to reach the satyr's ears, she asks politely, "You say the road leads to market. Besides your brews, what sorts of things are bought and sold there?"
Kló pulls his pack onto his back. A million questions demand answers, but two things are becoming clear. This is not a place where Kló wishes to stay, and if Hofn's children need help, Kló will be there.
”The man who takes my place,” Kló says with a look over at Eysteinn. ”We will come back for him. And I will see the children returned safely.”
He listens for the answer to Halla’s question.
Knute eyes Klo strangely. "Well, how old are you? Because both Hrolf and Thorgal are older than I am." He thinks on the satyr's claim that five days had passed, and Klo's strange thoughts of Hofn, and looks around at the unearthly surroundings. He's suddenly very uneasy.
"Maybe," he says tentatively, "time in Álfheimr doesn't work the same as in our world..." He looks at the others in the group, focusing on Tassidar. "Have any of you heard of such a thing?"
Before the others can call the idea crazy, he quickly adds, "it would explain why it's all green here and the dead of winter back home. And why the satyr said it happened five days ago, when that doesn't make any sense to us." He looks at Klo, and says delicately, "and why your ideas of Hofn seem so far out of time."
The satyr grins brightly at Halla's question, in between pouring cups full for Eysteinn, who is warily sampling the brews.
"Why, anything and everything worth having! Pastries and pickles and pigs, and woodwork, and services small and great, and dreams, and gemstones, and seven years' luck. As well as other things."
Knute: the sun seems to be hanging above the horizon, in that magical hour of a late, long afternoon; you're fairly sure it was around mid-day when you first entered the caverns, and you don't think you lost that much time in the caverns... but as you say, it is, well, not WINTER here, and that alone would speak to some sort of discrepancy in time. The sun has dropped a little bit since you entered, though, so time does still seem to be passing.
"If they were selling the children...," Halla points out, "every moment we delay could mean they are getting farther from us. If we don't find them at market, how will we ever track them down here?"
Despite the beauty of the setting, her heart sinks. A cavern full of orks is beginning to seem an easier foe to defeat than a summer full of fey. If they had to trade Eysteinn for mere information, how can they hope to buy back the children, if they have been sold?
Having had the time to place both his armor and armament upon himself, Stirgen runs one tattooed hand down the length of the crossbow stock hanging from his left hip, while cradling a leather pouch on his opposite hip that hangs beside an adequate battleax. Musing he mentally takes stock before speaking aloud and to himself "The Allfather has two shoulders, perch for Hugin and Munin in turn... Always talking, talking, talking filling Odin's head with all the news of the world... thoughts and memories countless and boundless, streaming. But for all the talking it still takes the Father's legs to step forward and make his path."
Reminding the arrivees that none of them had yet shared their name he touches his chest again "Stirgen is walking... stay and listen to the ravens if you wish. Or ride the skis again." He then starts slowly and cautiously down the path towards market.
The clay jug that was gifted by the Satyr still stands where Stirgen placed it, upon the earth and untouched.
Tassidar's large eyes look sad and regretful as he watches the satyr and his new prisoner packing.
"I would very much like to challenge him on it Rikka, but as you saw I almost pushed him to far already. I let my former station cloud our current position. Had Eysteinn refused to go . . . I don't know how we would have come through the confrontation to be honest. "
The elf perks up a bit at Klo's words.
"I am glad to hear you say that. I would like to join you in that endeavor someday. My name is Tassidar Edasseril, an outsider obviously, from Kyonin. Knute and another man of your village extended me their assistance and friendship on the road. In return I volunteered to help save the children of your village."
He nods in agreement with Knute's assessment.
"You are right Knute, time passes strangely in the fey realms. What is a day here might be five in your world, or more, or less. There are many stories of it, like children who are presumed lost wandering in the woods only to appear years later unchanged from the day they wend missing. . . Or people gone for a day returned greatly aged. Time itself does not apply to many of the fey, according to legend."
Tassidar stops and obviously processes something in his mind.
Could this be what happened to my people here? That would explain the contents of the letter.
"I believe Stirgen has the right of it. We'd best be on our way."
Stirgen sets off down the path, and the others follow. For Klo and Stirgen, each step is wearying as if with a great burden, but neither of them wish to rest so near to their 'friend,' most likely. The path itself meanders by the streamside, at times almost covered up with thick green moss, but always visible when one looks... hard.
For those who came from winter not so long ago, the afternoon is quickly stiflingly warm, and if the thick furs and hides of winter-wear are kept on, sweat begins to run freely beneath these. The temperature is warm, and saved from outright hot merely by the shade of the trees that grow stream-side, and the breeze that blows through the birch leaves. The temptation to stop.... to sit, to wrench off one's boots and rinse one's feet in the cool, sweet-smelling water... is almost overwhelming.
But here and there, the little crew is able to see the occasional deep imprint of a boot in the stream-side mud: a sign of who and what they pursue.
The air still seems to thrum with a life and vibrancy unknown to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, even in summer. Tassidar alone has some sense of nature like this-- in Kyonin, in the hearts of the old forests, there is a feel not unlike this, as if one could almost hear the sound of green things growing, of sap pulsing from tree roots to crowns far overhead-- but even the heart of the elf-lands seems a pale, subdued shadow to the richly intense sense of energy that pervades the very air you breathe, here. Birds continue to sing, and the spring burbles and gurgles to your left hand. The trees rustle in the mild breeze. It is hard indeed to reconcile the loss of Hofn's children with this idyllic place, or even the very recent, and hopefully temporary, loss of Eysteinn.
Other than the sounds of nature, no outside voices intrude on your own thoughts (or conversations?) for some time. At length, the trees thin, and then come to nothing; you come out of the light forest to find the stream falling away at your feet into numerous small waterfalls, running over stone through green hills. Down at the bottom of the valley, you see your path joining to a larger road, a dirt-stripe through the verdant hills. There are figures there, tiny and distant, moving unhurried in small groups along the path. They don't look to be orks, but at this distance, you could not be fully certain of anything.
The sun hangs low now, casting everything in a gold-red glow. Looking back, you see your little path disappearing into the light woods. Looking at what should be south, if the sun holds true in this place, you see the hills becoming mountains in the far distance-- rugged yet heartstoppingly beautiful, with silver lakes that reflect the sky like mirrors. The other direction seems a gentler landscape, rolling hills and a long open plain, though very far off on that eastern horizon, you think you see two ... standing pillars? Or mountains? They would be very narrow mountains if the latter, and if they are pillars, then you have no reliable sense of scale at all, for they seem taller than the tallest trees. Distances seem strange here: the landscape seems to fold before your eyes, resolving itself as closer than you thought, then farther, and your shadows stretch out over the green grasses long as serpents.
There is perhaps an hour of daylight left to you-- should the sun, in this place, behave as suns are wont to do. Staying the trail, in the hopes you will reach this 'market' before dusk?
Halla wishes she could discard the furs ... but they are Signy's, borrowed; she would face punishment if she should return without them. She slips them off as they walk and tries to roll them tight enough to stuff them into her already-overstuffed pack.
If what they say is true, she muses, her eye on the new addition Kló, if months or years have passed when we get out, Signy will have given her furs up as lost and they will have bought her a new set.
Halla: of lost warriors? You can think of none in particular. However... there's one of the old men named Björnin, mostly blind, who sits with the other graybeards around the fire at feastdays, chewing warmed fat and living mostly off the largesse of the more prosperous people of the village, for the old man has no family to support him and can manage nothing much on his own anymore save stitching the nets of others. You've delivered salves and tonics of Palli's to him more than once, and while he is not the most gracious or talkative of men, you've heard him ramble about a son, lost decades ago. You assumed that he'd been lost at sea, but come to think of it the old graybeard never said that explicitly. You never caught a name, either, but it's the only lost soul in quasi-recent history you or Maeve can remember.
Knute nods at Tassidar's words, trying to understand. Believing these things when said by Yngvi, around a fire back in Hofn wouldn't be too hard. But he's struggling to come to grips with the situation when he's actually living it. "So we could come back to find all our friends and loved ones long dead?" he asks. "What of the children, then? Their parents may no longer be alive to care for them..." He trails off at the strangeness of it all. What seemed like a straightforward, if difficult, task at first is quickly becoming very convoluted. He quiets and starts brooding, lost in thought.
Knute looks over his shoulder at the satyr and Eysteinn as the group sets off, his heart heavy. We'll come back for you, he thinks to himself, ignoring the part of his mind that adds, if we can...
His dark thoughts are soon replaced by shock and wonder however, due to the strange scenery around the group. Knute also takes off his heavy furs and coats, draping them over his shoulder as he walks on and tries to take in his surroundings. He looks around for plants or animals he can recognize (We may be here long enough that we need to find food), and is surprised to find the sun getting low on the horizon.
Eyeing Klo's and Stirgen's heavy footsteps, Knute clears his throat and says to the group, "I think we should start looking for a good place to set up camp. Near the road, of course. Also, should we plan on making a fire when night falls, or no? It's not cold enough to require one, and we probably don't want to attract unwelcome attention."
Rikka picks up the jug Stirgen discarded as she begins walking. "Since the trail is the only safe course, following it until we must leave it seems best." The sorceress carefully avoids discussing the vagaries of time in different planes, lest it cause even more concern about matters that cannot be helped. But she imagines that long years may pass in Hofn before they return to it.
Stirgen continues walking at the fore, without turning his head to see behind - instead scanning front and side alone.
Despite his bone-deep fatigue, Kló marches doggedly, stoically on. His mind is no better. The weight of Eysteinn’s payment—Thorgal’s son!! as if that makes any sense—drags at his heart. But he marches on.
After a while, the strange, alienness of this place reinforces itself. Kló is drawn from his introspection, just as he’d been drawn into this land when he first fell into it. This place was magnificent. So alive. And so dangerous. It wasn’t the implacable, blunt, raw danger of the winters he’d grown up with. This was a rich, vibrant land. A million wonders hiding a million subtle threats.
He doens’t answer Knute’s question, wrestling through the concept on his own … and finding no positive solutions. The questions of making plans for the night, however, demand an answer. The big man pauses to catch his breath, taking the moment to look around them. The mountains. The receding forest line. The path below with its travelers.
Then he shrugs wearily, ”I grew up in the wilds, but this place is different.” His voice is heavy with wariness and suspicion as he gazes on thier surroundings. Then he nods to Rikka. ”Let’s follow the trail until sundown. If we’re not at this market by then, we’ll sleep.”
Without waiting, he begins walking again.
Tassidar is picking up only restless curiosity from his faithful hawk, right now, and no sense of immediate danger. The bird constantly shifts in the strange, warm breezes, spreading his wings as if he would take flight at the barest urging.
Knute, while you were in the more wooded area, you noticed a number of mushrooms and berries-- and such berries; they were superficially similar to blackberries, but each was easily the length of your thumb, thick and fat. The mushrooms clustered thick on the banks of the little stream, growing profusely in the gnarled roots of the trees, and while the berries looked thoroughly wholesome, you're not as certain with the mushrooms-- they were more colorful than what you're used to at home, and usually, bright color indicates poison, though not always. Out here in the more open grass, there's less that immediately catches your eye, though you think you see a rabbit bounding off through the hills, and the glint of silver fish in the stream that still runs next to your path.
Downhill, downhill; the path, and the stream, join up with a road and a river, respectively. A small cairn of stacked rocks marks the juncture between the small path and the larger road. Small objects glint and twinkle there in the long light of sunset: bits of metal and glass, perhaps? When you get closer, the objects can be seen to be a myriad of things: a few plucked flowers, a glass marble, coins, a tiny carved wooden duck, a seashell, a rat skull, a smooth river rock with a hole through the middle of it... this and half a dozen other tiny objects are scattered on the flat surfaces of the small rock pile.
The nearest travelers on the road are perhaps two or three hundred feet away from you, further down the road: two figures, dark and silhouetted against the sunset. They are moving away from you, but other than that, you can tell nothing about them at this distance.
Oh! a shrine, Maeve remarks, breaking her silence.
A shrine? Where is the goði? Halla looks around warily, expecting to see someone like Hrolf Halfhand nearby.
There is no priest. It's a crossroads shrine. Or it looks like one. Leave an offering to Desna for luck and safe travels.
Desna? Your butterfly goddess? Is she the ruler of this realm? Halla approaches the cairn cautiously.
All who travel are under Desna's eye, Maeve replies. Even those who travel against their will.... A wave of sadness washes through her mind, leaving an aftertaste of resentment.
"I... it might be a shrine," Halla offers self-consciously. "Perhaps we should leave a token to please the local gods?"
Rikka adds one of the little golden 'grapes' of dwarf-make to the pile of shrine offerings. While she waits for the others, Rikka weaves a spell over her new jug of gods-know-what.
Stirgen doesn't pause at the shrine and continues walking at the fore, without turning his head to see behind - instead scanning front and side alone. Despite the heat he pulls the neck of his shirt upwards as those that would not even share their names talk among themselves behind him.
Halla: while you see no particular symbol of any deity-- Maeve would expect a butterfly, were it truly a shrine to Desna-- you think it probably does serve that sort of purpose, yes.
Rikka digs out a little orb of gold and adds it to the other bric-a-brac decorating the rock. Nothing happens, but it looks nice, anyway. She takes the moment to murmur a spell; the contents of the clay jug do indeed resonate with seidr.
Stirgen has walked on, not so much as slowing pace before the rocks. In the time it takes Rikka to pull out her small offering and check the jug, he's managed another sixty feet in the direction of the setting sun. The pair of travelers that are ahead of him on the path stop moving for a few seconds-- perhaps looking back in your direction-- and then they resume moving again.
Rikka watches Stirgen press on with amusement. She pops the cork on the jug, sniffs at it cautiously before touching just a bit of it to her tongue, then casts a glance at Klo. "Did the satyr say what sort of potion would be your 'reward'?"
Knute shrugs at the groups' consensus to keep moving, and follows along. I'd prefer not to be setting up camp in the dark... Still, the ranger is heartened by the sight of game and fish he recognizes. We won't starve, if we're here for a while. We should be able to find food, though it'd mean leaving the path, he ends doubtfully.
"A token?" the ranger mutters at Halla's suggestion. He fishes in his pockets and pulls out a few coins. "Whoever you are, please give us any luck you can spare," he thinks, placing the coins with the others on the shrine.
Kló looks down at his own jug, which has remain untouched. ”He said nothing.”
The big man takes a drink from a waterskin as he dredges up what he can remember of his first encounters with Alfheimr. ”I stumbled through some caves in a storm a week before Jól. Deeper than I expected. I passed strange murals into a side-cave, and I was suddenly walking out of a cave-mouth and into bright sunlight." He gestures around him as if to say 'into this'. "The blizzard was going to last hours, so I explored. Then the music got me. Then it’s just blurred memories of working and drinking." He shrugs as he stoppers the skin, "Then you all.”
He scowls as Stirgen just keeps going, ”You think he will stop at some point?”
Perception:
Stirgen hears but incoherent mutterings of those that ply the path behind him.
"A token? Ah, yes I think that would be wise, but probably not silver."
Tassidar places a gold coin on the shrine.
"I can't be the only one that sees those travelers on the road. Should we talk to them?"
"And I've been considering your questions Knute. It is entirely possible that time will have passed faster in our home world when we get back, but not so extreme their parents will have passed. Distances here can be skewed as well as other things. This place is much like the heart of my homeland, but everything here is . . . so much more vibrant too an extreme. I fear taking the time to sleep here. I find myself worried about finding our way back for that matter. Maybe that is why Stirgen is so driven."
Rikka, uncorking the bottle gives you a scent like the earth after a fresh rain. A little tendril of mist, or something like it, trickles upward from the mouth of the jug. Your very-cautious-tongue-tip gives you an extremely odd feeling: you just lost sensation in the tip of your tongue.... that in itself might not be too weird, as numerous herbs might numb your tongue.... but what's rather more disconcerting is that you can't feel your tongue with your lips, either. Or with your fingers. In fact, when you stick out your tongue to peer down at it, the last half-inch of your tongue seems to have been replaced by a shred of fog.
Welp.
Fortunately, after another second or two, the oddity goes away, and your tongue is its usual, pink, slimy, reassuringly-solid self again.
Knute- there seems to be a broad variety of wealth represented here. The rat skull and the little seashell, for instance, wouldn't be worth anything in your estimation; there are also small, battered discs of copper so dinged and scratched that you might call them 'coins' only because of their general shape. Conversely, you note a ring that is made of some metal that gleams like white gold, set with a stone that sparks like a rainbow-- surely that would be a nice jarl's fortune, not something to be just left on a rock, and yet, it has been-- and even what you think is a tiny pile of uncut gems. So, there appears to be no commonality of wealth on the little shrine.
Tassidar also fishes out a coin from his belongings, placing it onto the pile of rocks and further adding to the decoration. Nothing happens with the little mementos you have all offered, to the best of your perception, at any rate.
Rikka finds the wispy tongue effect startling and delightful. She recaps the jug and places it carefully in her pack.
He scowls as Stirgen just keeps going, "You think he will stop at some point?"
By way of response, the seiðr worker makes a small gesture indicating the strange land. "Stop or be stopped. He may end up stomping more grapes if he isn't careful."
At the shrine, Kló takes a moment to add his own offering. A threesome of well-used fish hooks. After a moment, he looks over at Tassidar. ”I will need rest soon. I have apparently been stomping grapes for a long time.”
At Rkka’s response, Kló turns to look after Stirgen again and nods. Then, using his thick hand to shield his eyes from the golden sun, he looks from Stirgen to the other walkers. ”Should we ask them about this road? Or where it leads? Or maybe the Market?”
the big man sets off after Stirgen, and towards the road walkers. "Stirgen! Hold up!"
Unfortunately, with the sun behind them, the figures far ahead on the road cannot be seen as anything other than dark silhouettes. They're humanoid-- beyond that you can tell little. At Klo's shouting to Stirgen, however, they seem to pick up their pace, moving further down the road.
Stirgen also hears Klo's shouting, but, before he can answer (howsoever he might do), he starts to feel an odd twisting in his gut. Abruptly-- as far as Stirgen is concerned-- the road becomes broader and the grass shoots up to knee height. After a second or two of disorientation, he realizes it's not the world that has grown, but himself that has shrunk-- down to about half his height, it seems.
Everyone else sees Stirgen take another step and... suddenly diminish, standing half as tall as he did a moment ago.
...So, yes: that happened. Stirgen is now three feet tall, give or take a few inches. Bwuh?
Rikka watches Stirgen shrink and says to no one in particular, "Well, that didn't take long." She glances at the pig beside her, "Let's go."
In no particular hurry, Rikka and Sausage saunter along the road watching the bushes and grass along the way for signs of mischievous fey.
Now what would cause that?!
Tassidar... well, there is a spell used to reduce a person, and the symptoms you see certainly seem to match. You heard no spellcasting, and you see no spellcaster, but then again, he was a little bit away.
Stirgen's pace upon the path slows even further from a cautious step to a near halt as he clearly ponders upon something.