Iniga
The priest nods meekly at your words, and Wamblee's. "Yes, I will contemplate it indeed." He nervously looks at you and the mercenaries, searching for any lingering signs of anger.
"Samen, I know that look on your face," Marianne says with a touch of maternal disapproval. "Stop thinking about ways to leave - we've hardly been here a candle. Go talk about magical theories or whatever with the other spell people. Odakotah said that one of the meet games was magical duels, so go have fun with that."
"We can seek allies here, and warn others of the rising threat of the Dark. Also, do not forget what was lost."
Wamblee glances meaningfully at the priest's wagon.
Samen looks startled at being called out. "What? I didn't even say anything!"
Knowing that flimsy denials will get him nowhere with his stubborn family, "Alright, fine, I'll see if I can track down any other elemental activity around here."
He turns on elemental vision and wanders around the meet, looking for any interesting hits.
"Good luck brother.", Wamblee replies to Samen before the youngest Firenze brother departs.
"Samoon, let us seek out that apparently friendly chieftain and his table."
Samoon nods. "Capital idea, brother. And I must say," he doffs his traveling hat a moment, "very well done impressing the elders. We'll make a public speaker out of you yet."
Marianne trails Samen, watching out for anyone taking undue interest in the wandering tattooed oread.
Margherita confers with Iniga for a minute, pointing to a large area of wagons and livestock away from the food. "Looks like there's room for us to set up camp on the far side over there. That's where we'll be staying. I think I see some real food on the tables over there, so me and the els are going to fill our bellies. If I don't see you tonight, come see us tomorrow, si?"
Samen, you wander the grounds, scratching and sniffing with your Sight while also managing to avoid any eye contact with a thousand loud strangers. Eventually, you make your way through the crowds to Amatshe - the Standing Stone. The weathered, dark stone stands upright like an ifrit bar of gold, seemingly about to topple under its own woozy height. And yet here it stands now, as it has stood for thousands of years.
And before your Sight, it is an ancient, brooding thing. Like a fly flicked by a sleeping warthog's tail, your mind recoils from the immensity of the mountainous elder being before you. If ever it were to awake-
Marianne, warily stalking the length and breadth of the Meet behind Samen, rushes over as he falls to the ground. She leans over. "Samen! Are you okay?"
Samen shakes his head, clearing the stars from his vision. "Bleurgh..."
He does his best to hold back his breakfast, despite its best efforts to escape. "That..." he gestures toward the monolith, "That one's gonna be a problem. If whatever has been agitating the other elementals gets to that one, it's going to make the Dark the least of our concerns. You wanted to see a god, Mar? There you go."
She frowns, looking up, then back at you. "...Samen, that is a tall rock. Not moving."
panting, catching his breath, "Sure, sure. What do you suppose that dragon thing looked like back home before it went nuts? There's a lot I don't know, but I know an elemental when I'm looking for it. It may not be a god, but it could certainly kill us all seven times over without straining itself."
Iniga smiles at Margherita politely. "You need not worry, you will still see me tonight. Just because we had a small disagreement doesn't mean that I won't hang out with you and your els - I care about you guys too much to do that."
Margherita smiles and nods, and a small amount of tension goes out of her shoulders. "See you around, bel tatuaggia."
Arching an eyebrow at Samen with an expression between frenzied thought and attempted calm, she says, "Well, maybe the two elens who have a history of waking up and agitating elementals should...back away from this for now."
She tugs on your arm, looking to meet up with Wamblee and the rest at the table of Ambrosia.
Away from the entrance, on the flat floor of the valley, a plain of rugs and merchants stretches before you. Wares of silver finery are hawked on purple rugs ; irritating incense sold upon a coarse cotton mat ; spears and knives laid out on an anvil.
Past the rugs, you find the food areas, which are mostly separated by fare: boulder pits for the oreads, chomping and laughing; fire pits for the ifrits, frowning in concentration, cooking the meat just right; and, away from the smoke of the ifrits, pockets of undines relaxing beside chilly stone pools, partaking of fish. The few sylphs you see stay with the ifrits, coughing on smoke.
On the far side of the valley, slightly uphill to command a better view, are the tables and tents of the chieftains, spread in a meandering line. Wamblee, from his talks with Odakotah, points out the banner of Ambrosia - blue, crystalline eye upon trunk with roots below black soil, surrounded by red mushrooms dotted with eyes of their own.
Wamblee notes the banner.
"Brother, there is Ambrosia. Let us approach, and see what talks may be had."
The Ambrosia table, one long slab of wood easily forty feet long, is loaded with salt rocks, rich clay, and honeyed sandstone. For other elens, there are plates of winterberries and chilled pea soup. Dozens of oreads mill about and converse in the open areas nearby, dipping ceramic cups into jugs of sour umqombothi beer underneath pavilions of colored leaves.
The chieftain has not arrived yet - his place stands empty. Surrounding the feasting table are drummers and dancers, each group laughing and encouraging the other. The drummers, grinning, play faster and faster rhythms, seeking to challenge the dancers' feet, and the dancers respond in kind, frenzied footfalls stomping and alive. Judging from their members, Ambrosia tribe seems to be healthy and prosperous.
You see other sights: stoneshapers sculpting new creations of twisting rock before your very eyes ; a rowdy group of adolescent els wrestling good-naturedly in the mud ; and a horde of children wildly chasing an igneous goat.
Wamblee, a dignified oread el, wearing a many-pocketed robe of deep browns verdant greens catches your eye and approaches you. "Ah! Bear-bringer, Cedarsmoke surprise. Your presence calls to mind an old story of your tribe, and I was wondering, Wamblee son of Hotah, if I might have your permission to tell it."
Wamblee soaks in the explosion of sensation as he approaches.
The thought bubbles up.
Why? Why would Father leave this? Why would he not return with Mother to Cedarsmoke?
His thoughts disperse like spilled oil when the griot addresses him.
"Shared roots to you, griot. You indeed have my permission as well as my full attention. May I also know whom honours me so?"
He bows slightly. "Shared roots. I am called Yatshela. And I thank you for your indulgence, Wide-shoulders. I would desire to hear your own tales from your own lips, but for now I must prepare my story."
The griot walks toward a small, colorful tent, leaning on his oaken staff as he does so. Three gourds tied to the top of the staff, yellow brown and green, punctuate his gait with soft taps and shakes.
Marianne clears her throat to get the attention of her brothers and cousin. "Uh, so that big stone in the middle of everything? Samen says it's a huge elemental, or maybe a god or something." She pauses. "Just in case we were feeling, you know, happy, or safe, or content for a second."
Wamblee gives Mar and Samen a quizzical look, then follows the griot.
Samen nods pleasantly at Marianne's description. "I should probably ask around about it, but that would require talking to people... hmm..."
Spes says, maybe hurt all the bad people and then talk to them?
Looking annoyed at Wamblee's lack of reply, Marianne turns to Iniga. "Do you think those mercenaries would help us out if things got bad? Like burning Hands and weird rock giants?"
Samoon scoffs. "Most elens can be counted to help precisely themselves when things get rough. Any more than that belongs in one of Bree's trashy romance..." He trails off, brow clouded with sudden grief.
No, little one, it's not my place to hurt them out of righteous wrath. I'm not very good at talking. That's why I'm hesitant.
Nevertheless, Samen will attempt to ask around about the giant statue.
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Iniga reflects for a moment before nodding. "I think I could count on them to help me if we needed aid against something that they felt was within their abilities. I don't believe they would give up their lives for us though, and I don't know if they would do it for anyone else - I have probably earnt a little more favour with them than someone else."
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In the midst of the stony silence, the quiet mumbling, the plaintive questions, the bitter memories, and the measured cadences, the griot clears his throat. He is standing in front of his tent, made of a thousand autumn leaves, the flaming, dying colors somehow preserved against time and cold. They rustle crisply in the wind, a scarecrow's whisper.
Looking directly at Wamblee with wise, clear eyes like honeyed amber, he says, "Ha, a journey without purpose. Nothing in my tent that I need right now, Cedarsmoke surprise. Come, my friends!" He says the last in a deep, surprising stage voice, laughing.
And he starts walking back toward the feast table, tap-sshhh. tap-shhh. There are seeds, or perhaps grains of sand, trapped within the gourds tied upon the staff. Approaching the roughhewn feasting table, Yatshela motions all of you toward standing-places surprisingly close to the right hand of the (still-absent) chief. The storyteller goes the opposite way, uphill toward a small stone dais. As he gets closer to the stone, the activities start to die down. As he places one foot on the dais, the conversations tumble to a halt. And now a hushed, expectant quietude.
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Yatshela the Griot suddenly fills the silence with a rich, rumbling voice that rolls over the audience.
"I have caught a story. It is all a lie. It is all the truth."
His head turns, taking in every member of the audience. "Will you listen? Will you learn?" A pause. "Will you remember?"
The crowd responds, YEBO!
"Once, long ago, there was a tribe. A proud tribe. This tribe was called the Skyward Ash. "
"This was a wealthy tribe. This was a peaceful tribe. This was a tribe that embraced outsiders, learning their ways."
His eyes pause a moment at Marianne, Samoon, and Iniga. "For when you understand a people, a tribe, they are no longer outsiders. When you understand a people, a tribe, they become your people. They become your tribe."
YEBO! the oreads gathered around the table shout louder, responding in storytelling ritual.
"But, in the night, this tribe was attacked. El and ele burned, and they became as their name: ash. Now this peaceful tribe was gone, and there was no peace."
Who attacked this peaceful tribe?
Who burned this peaceful tribe?
Who mourned this peaceful tribe?"
LALELA!
"Today, we have wealthy tribes. We have proud tribes. We have strong tribes."
YEBO!
"But where is a tribe of peace?"
Confused silence, as the griot breaks the rhythm of the story.
Grim now, "That is the story I found. I now set the story free. Will you rem-"
a twinkling spear, coming down from an impossibly high arc, slams into the griot's chest. You somehow know it has pierced the old storyteller's heart. His staff clatters to the ground, spilling rice upon the dais. Yatshela falls, the rice now stained red.
Wamblee had indeed taken the offered place. He had expected to have an opportunity to absorb Oread wisdom and had thus listened intently.
And then, Yathela died.
Wamblee sought his killer. To break any hint of resistance and drag thwm before the griot's tribe.
Samen sighs as he readies his staff. "Well, volc."
Chaos erupts immediately. Screams and cries of dismay. Weapons taken up blindly in anger, searching for a killer. All the oreads from the feasting table run in all different directions, some headed toward the river, some to Amatshe and some to the neighboring tribes, who have heard the screams coming from Ambrosia. The panic starts to spread, like a newly kindled fire.
You see no open ground for the attack to have come from. But then you see the subtlest of movements from a faraway copse of pine trees upon the hillside. On a different day you would say such high arc from such a distance would be impossible, but this does not seem to be a day that believes in the idea of impossibles. You are certain the attacker crouches within the branches and needles.
Samoon takes a vial from one of his coat pockets and drinks it down in one shot. His head fades from view, like a drop of dye diluted by too much water. He starts walking. His chest, now stomach, disappear, enveloped by unseen mist. The legs are still walking, unperturbed, but then they too vanish, top to bottom. The left arm is already gone, and finally the right arm fades to join the invisible march.
As Wamblee searches the grounds for the attacker, Marianne turns her attention to the weapon, the spear used to silence the storyteller.
Even from thirty feet away, Marianne's hawk eyes pick out details of the spear. She shouts out in a rush, "That's the same weapon, the spear with gems on it, the same jerk from the bar and the guy that stole-" She stops short here and looks around. "Uh, that stole our 'treasure'."
Running toward the spear as she shouts the warning, Marianne reaches for it, hoping to deny the enemy one of their tools,
But the obviously magical weapon vanishes in a puff of blue fireworks smoke. Marianne coughs and splutters curses, angry but unharmed.
Wamblee calls:
"The killer lurks in that copse!"
With that, the oread runs towards the hill, seeking the assassin!
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Samen collects his thoughts to make an argument about why charging into a conflict with largely unknown parties might not be in the best intrests of the Firenze family. By the time he opens his mouth, however, there is nobody left to listen to him.
With a roll of the eyes, he takes off after Wamblee.
All right Spes, we're going to try to beat up some bad guys. They killed someone who did nothing wrong, so apparently it's our job to make sure they don't get away with it. Don't worry, I'm confused too.
Iniga draws her sword more or less immediately, frantically searching for signs of an enemy
"You should take command of your company - there might be more enemies nearby" she remarks in an undertone to Marianne (if she is nearby) before heading in the direction that Wamblee pointed to, sprinting alongside the oread.
Rather than strain your eyes, you simply keep your gaze on the exact area where you saw the small movement. After several long moments of charging, you reach the underboughs of the pine. Twenty feet directly above you, Matoskah the arrogant gemmed oread sits upon the first true branch of the pine; everything below is unblemished trunk.
Matoskah has not noticed you - he is chanting to himself, rubbing a pale pink-red gem embedded in his left forearm.
With Assegai in both hands, Wamblee closes the distance to Matoskah, with a stone-cold expression upon the oread's face.
Then, he drives one hand at blinding speed towards the gemmed murderer.
Wamblee runs up to find Matoskah in deep meditation, chanting to himself. Thinking only of a slain storyteller, the son of Hotah strikes twice,
precisely hitting his opponent's solar plexus and diaphram. The wind is knocked utterly out of Matoskah, and he gapes and chokes, unable to collect himself for a moment.
Samen moves up, channeling raw energy into the staff . Then, he tries to take a swing at Matoskah.
Instead, he ends up waving Spes at him. "Hey, you abandoned this one."
Marianne shoots two quick shots,
and both stick in his right leg, thwock thwock.
Samoon remains unseen for the moment.
Matoskah recovers from the shock of the attacks, and with a soil-eating grin, rubs a small yellow topaz stuck deep in his cheek. Eight mirrored copies of Matoskah spring from the gem, obscuring which is the true el. Nine Matoskahs make stupid, clownish faces at you.
Wamblee's grim countenance does not shift an iota at Matoskah's attempts at illusion.
He focuses, and drives stony fists, elbows, knees, and feet at those mocking faces.