"I have heard of similar troubles in the east. The spawn become bold. The big tribes plug their ears and refuse to change. Fools." Matoskah's eyes glitter, as if sharing a secret. "But I have heard that change comes to the Winter Meet, whether the tribes would have it or not."
"Change comes, even to mountain stone.", notes Wamblee, a little glumly.
When there is a lull in the conversation with Matoskah, Marianne asks her brothers to gather round to have a private talk.
"Listen, as much as I love beating Wamblee at daggers, I'm getting restless. Samen, Samoon, have you found what you were looking for? If we want to find answers or allies, I think the Winter Meet is the place to go."
"I am growing to agree with Mar. But how has your progress been?"
Samen nods. "There's much information to be gained here, but the library just tried to eat me, so it might be best if we were off. I'd like to see if there are some resources I could take with us, but after that, I'm ready to go. I have an idea I want to explore."
"...eat you?"
"Yeah, some guy with some pretty neat leaf tats offered me all the knowledge of the library if I was willing to pledge my life in its defense. I'm guessing the whole thing is some kind of tree elemental with librarian thralls. Probably a pretty effective system, but I'm not interested in putting down roots right now."
He can't help himself, and snickers at his own wordplay.
Wamblee gives Samen a look.
"That...pun.", and shakes his head.
Marianne studiously ignores the pun. "So the question now is - are we going along with that caravan? Safety in numbers would be nice if darkspawn are, you know, literally everywhere these days."
"We may well draw the darkspawn upon that caravan.", Wamblee notes.
"And we may well save the caravan with the help of other fighters!" Marianne retorts hotly.
Samen waves his hands dismissively. "Whatever you want, Mar. Maybe there'll be safety in numbers. I need to go pick up some copies I ordered. I'll meet you at the exit when it's time. Sound good?"
Wamblee looks unconvinced, but does say:
"They do stand a better chance with us. But if we join them, we hold. I am not bringing down woe on someone and leaving them without doing all I can."
Marianne nods. "Fine. No more running away." Upon her back, the bowstring of her longbow gives a faint blue crackle.
One last, long ramp, and you see dim, reflected peaklight at the end of the tunnel. The same librarian is waiting at the entrance. She smiles as she sees you. "Going down on an up day now?" She laughs. "You all like to go against the grain. eh?" Without waiting for an answer, she says, "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Well brother, you want a ride down, or do you have a more creative solution?"
Wamblee glances down.
And down.
And down.
He turns to Samen.
"Yes Samen. I would like a ride down."
Marianne smiles at Wamblee and Samen. "Brothers, you may have beaten me going up..."
and without another word she hurtles toward the precipitous edge of Uluru, running too fast to stop, and...jumps.
Her look is far too calm for one staring at the rapidly-approaching ground. With a look of reckless defiance, she waits to feather fall until she is only one hundred feet away from hitting. She drifts the rest of the distance slowly.
"heh. Show off."
Samen bends at the knees slightly to give Wamblee a decent grip, turns on flying when he latches on, then swan dives after Mar.
Marianne rubs her hands together briskly. "Well? What say we find that friendly oread merchant who was offering us money."
"Thank you for the lift Samen. I can see the sense in that, Mar."
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Iniga wandered the streets, her golden eyes flicking from exotic sight to sight. Truthfully, she is a little anxious being in a place surrounded by trees. Flaming hair while angry wasn't the most ideal ability to have where trees or undergrowth was present, so she remained very much aware of her emotional state and constantly on the lookout for danger.
It was a surprise then, for Iniga to see a flash of red hair. Thinking that it looked familiar, Iniga pushed through the crowd, spotting Wamblee, Marianne, Samoon and Samen before running up and giving them a hug.
"Marianne, I'd know that shade of red anywhere! Imagine running into all of you here! While unexpected, its certainly a welcome surprise. One of you will have to tell me how you managed to get Samen's head out of a book to go travelling. Do you all want to find somewhere quiet to catch up? I have time, I'm heading north next on some caravan to the Winter Meet, but I don't think its ready to leave just yet."
Marianne's face lights up. She gives Iniga a long, fierce hug- expressing some emotion beyond seeing her cousin. "You have no idea how good it is to see a friendly face." She quickly wipes at her eyes- could carefree Marianne have been crying?
Clearing her throat, she says, "Yes! Let's find a place to talk. We're...actually looking for a caravan north ourselves!"
Iniga notes Marianna wiping her eyes, but doesn't want to make much of a note about it, not wanting to appear tactless or cause embarassment.
"That's actually incredibly fortunate, why don't you guys join the caravan that I'm journeying with at the moment. I could pay your way, or perhaps maybe offer yourselves up as defenders? I don't think the journey would be that dangerous if you were worried about that..." Iniga trails off, not entirely sure how skilled her cousins were at combat, after not having caught up in a few years.
Marianne recovers quickly, and shakes her head laughing. "You're looking at spawn slayers, Knees! We can handle ourselves." The childhood nickname grates for a moment, but Marianne's smile is friendly.
"We'll tell you all about it!" She sobers again, and sighs. "The good and the bad."
Upon seeing his cousin for the first time in many years, Wamblee's face creases into a smile.
"Cousin. It has been far too long. What has become of you since?"
He raises a stony fist - and his knuckles appear far harder than before, even for an oread - in the traditional Firenze fist-bump position.
Samen squints his eyes at Iniga in confusion. "Who are..., oh, it's you! You're not dead! Great! What brings you all the way out here?"
Iniga gives Samen a quizzical look before bumping fists with Wamblee in the traditional greeting. "I didn't realize that supposed to be dead? No-one told me" she remarks with a mischievous grin before giving Wamblee more of her attention.
"I've been travelling for a bit. Left the army and been visiting the
cities mostly, before I thought I'd see how the other half lives and see more of the other regions. Its certainly been a bit of an experience to be sure. This is really just the latest stop on my travels, so it was very good fortune to run into you guys."
Iniga isn't entirely lying in her commends to Wamblee but you get the feeling that she's holding some information back and being a little evasive in her answering of the question.
Marianne smiles, a bit sadly. "We could use a bit of good luck." She puts a hand on Iniga's shoulder. "Iniga...Mother and Father are both dead. We hardly had time to have his funeral before..." She shakes her head. "Sorry to drop it on you, but family should know what's going on with family."
Iniga looks like she was kicked in the chest, her poise is gone and there are tears in her eyes. ”What? When? How? Uncle and Aunty where fine when I left a little while ago. I have been writing letters to Aunty while travelling and no-one contacted me.”
Iniga looks bewildered for a moment before collecting her thoughts.”Was it dark spawn? Did someone make it suffer in response”
Leaning up against a tree, Marianne looks around, gaze hooded and wary for listeners. She seems a bit older, with suspicion weighing upon her features. "It was treachery. A rich sylph called Rentwyrth was doing some dirty business in one of the local mines. Dad found out about it, and had an accident." The word is laced with bitter sarcasm. "We had to go to Forge after his funeral...for complicated legal reasons, and his estate. The important thing is...yes. Samen put an end to Rentwyrth."
She sighs. "The roads to Forge were dangerous. Mom got sick on the way. After we cut through all the stupid crap, we were ready to leave town, we thought we had won..." She shakes her head again - a denial of the fact. "but we lost her. She was gone," a loud angry snap, "just like that."
Looking down, a vitriolic murmur, "I think she gave up."
She looks up, instant regret in her eyes. She glances around to see if any of you heard.
Samen nods and continues the story. "Then, whatever Rentwyrth was doing in Rokeredge blew up in the town's face. There was an elemental beast demon that robbed people's wills through brass. I killed that thing too, then Mar goaded another elemental into killing one of Rentwyrth's heirs.
"On our list of things to do, in no particular order," he ticks on his fingers as he lists them out. "Find the remaining heir, meet up with the elemental at the breathless valley, discover why dad had these imprisoned elementals, figure out how to permanently kill a dark worshiper who's been hounding us... He pauses for a moment before ticking a final finger. "Oh, and ideally, not lose anyone else. It was nice seeing you again, but we really should be on our way."
Iniga broods for a moment. A small part of her had really wanted to force feed approximately five feet of steel into Rentwyrth but it sounded like Samen had beaten her to it.
She snaps out of her mood though at Samen's comments, rather puzzled. "Have you changed your mind? I thought Mar suggested that we all head North together on the same caravan? Surely I'm not that terrible at company" she finishes with a slight grin.
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Marianne rolls her eyes playfully, grateful for the distraction. "Ignore him. If he's actively pushing you away, it means he's afraid you might become a friend." She looks down, then corrects herself. "Scratch that. Don't ignore him. Be nice no matter what he says and he'll come around." She sticks her tongue out at Samen.
"How are you with a bow, cousin? I need better sport than poor Wamblee here."
Iniga raises an eyebrow at Marianne. "You should know by now cousin that I never shy away from a fight - I'm always in the middle of it. Means that I'm less accurate with a bow" she remarks before poking her tongue out. [b]"I might have a bit stronger of a draw with a bow than you though, having good arm strength does occasionally count for something. Still, if you ever wanted to pick up a blade, I bet could give you all the sport you desired" she smirks, highly amused at the competitive nature of the conversation.
Samen frowns and crosses his arms petulantly at being perfectly pegged by Mar. "Fine, but if you die, I'm not mourning you."
"So nice to feel welcome around family" Iniga remarks in a light tone, while rolling her eyes at Samen's comments before looking at Marianne.
"Back to your various tasks, is that why you are heading North? Searching for more information?'
Wamblee seeks a place to resume speaking in the conversation.
"We aimed to find allies and information at the Winter Meet. It has been frustrating to endlessly be hunted. Though for better or worse, we have changed since our flight began. I for one was not this effective at the Way of Root when I returned to Rokeredge."
Iniga observes Wamblee with a calculating look in her eye, picking up on some of the subtleties as to what her cousin had said.
"Why have the four of you all been so relentlessly hunted? You told me everything had been resolved, you killed the brass demon elemental, and Rentwyrth. What other reasons would a dark worshiper be tracking you? I fought them often and such dedication is...uncharacteristic at best."
Iniga doesn't expect an answer, but she is still trying to get her head around what else she might be missing. She pauses before giving up for a moment and responding further to Wamblee.
"I could probably help you find allies at the Winter Meet. People like talking to me, and I could probably steer some people into your direction."
Wamblee looks at Iniga.
"Sharp as ever, cousin. I for one would speak more freely with fewer people in earshot."
"I'm not quite as book smart as Samoon but occasionally I can see the details on a particular situation. Personally, I always felt safer speaking in a crowd - its larger, noisier, and movement restricting, making it harder to not only listen in, but get into a position to evesdrop."
The skald shrugs for a moment, indicating she didn't much care either way. "Still, if it makes you feel more comfortable, feel free to lead onto a quieter location if you wish, its your story after all."
"I see your point, Ni. But it is not just words that are a concern.", Wamblee says before seeking somewhere quieter - and with no eyes to easily spy.
Samoon, who has been counting under his breath for the last few minutes, rejoins the conversation. "This caravan is very well provisioned. Unless I miss my guess, each of the passenger wagons will hold about...four to seven people. I think we shall have the privacy we need."
He gives Iniga a hug. "It's good to see you cousin. Sorry if I seem a bit far away. I have a lot on my mind." His eyes are dark, haunted.
Eager to change the subject, Marianne says, "Well, I'm going to see the caravan master about when our watches will be tonight - have to earn our keep, after all!" Her tone is falsely bright, reminding all of you of her mother. "Care to come with me, cousin?"
She waves her hand to the three brothers. "Find us a good wagon, boys. We'll be back in a few."
Iniga doesn’t push Samoon on why he looks so haunted in comparison to the last time she saw him. Some things were better left alone temporary. She does return his hug, holding him tightly before letting go.
”Sure, I can tag along with you Mar” she continues, falling into step behind her cousin.
Away from the els, Marianne says, "Samoon is in a tough place right now. We met his old lover, Albreane, in Forge." She thinks for a moment. "I don't think you ever met her. Anyway, she died too. That elemental Samen mentioned...the one that promised to meet us at the Breathless Valley...it was a violent, awful thing. It killed Albreane." A sigh. "Samoon had just gotten her back after they broke up years ago. And now she's gone."
"I thought you should know, but I didn't really want to get into the whole thing in front of Samoon. No reason to drag his heart through it again."
Iniga nods solemnly. "Thank you for discreetly preventing me from indirectly causing further pain then Mar - the last thing he needs is for me to rake over the coals of that one again. You are correct though, that I hadn't met her before."
The candles go by as you make slow progress with the caravan. The dirt roads--little more than game trails at times--are rough and bumpy. Odakotah welcomed the Firenzes to the caravan, and you can hear his ebullient voice now, calling to keep up the pace, and occasionally singing a snatch of an orean chant. The heavy footfalls of earthen oxen keep time for his song.