Without (quite) realising he's doing it, Allandír reaches out to place a hand over one of Pril's own. "I - I'm sorry." He spends a moment or two in silence, allowing the gnome time to recover.
He nods his assent as she forces a grin and tries to move on: "As you wish, I am happy to change the topic - but... I say this as someone who has lost many, many more battles than he has won, and who has been forced to flee leaving countless unburied fallen companions: if they - if the temple - meant something to you, it is right to mourn it. That doesn't have to be now, and it doesn't have to be with me, and-" he grimaces "-I certainly don't advise you to mourn the way I did as Pelanor, which was to vow endless revenge on all responsible. But don't pretend you aren't upset by it."
He coughs hurriedly. "Alright. I'll move on."
He squirms slightly under her scrutiny: "I, ah, I didn't ask you for your details or numbers, but I suspect that isn't going to work as a reply, no? No. Ah. OK then."
He looks away briefly. "I, ah, I don't have a number to give you. I mean that both as Pelanor and as Allandír, but for different reasons. As Pelanor, sex was simply a way of celebrating life - another day survived, a narrow victory or even a narrow escape, or a crushing defeat but we are still alive. I didn't keep track."
His green eyes meet hers once more. "I can tell you though that I have not experienced both, ah, 'petal and stem' as either Pelanor or Allandír." His eyes narrow, and he grins. "And I am somewhat curious as to what you mean when you say there's little difference in elven terms between the two!"
He hopes that will serve as a useful distraction.
Pril just barely maintains her rigid smile as Allandír's conversation touches on mourning. When he shifts the conversation away from such a baggage-laden topic, her smile softens and he can sense her quiet thanks.
"Oh, now you want details," she says with a huff, surreptitiously wiping her face. "How about let's just say that in the darkness and with appropriate ... adjustments ..." Her face reddens again. "Mr. Name-Not-To-Be-Revealed and his wife were almost indistinguishable."
She takes another drink of her water.
"She did have more stamina and better technique," she adds. "Although, he was a better kisser."
She looks quietly down at her now empty water glass.
"Thank you," she says quietly.
Allandír gives a shrug, and sympathetic smile. "After the day I have had, it is nice to get something right."
He quirks an eyebrow upward: "And for you to end up in bed with a husband and wife simultaneously, something either went, ah, marvellously wrong, or horribly right! Either way round, it sounds as though you have had an adventuresome life, in all sorts of ways."
His voice softens. "But I don't think I could do that. My, ah, connection to the Eternal Rose is more as patron of art and beauty and peace... but all the same, my interpretation of her view of love is as something given to one person at a time. That's, ah, that's NOT to judge how anyone else interprets things." He hastens to avoid giving inadvertent offence. "It sounds like it worked for you and for Mr. and Mrs. Not-Revealed, and that is all that matters. But I am aware of my own, ah, limitations. I doubt that I could give my full attention to more than one person at once."
He narrows his eyes in mock-suspicion, although his smile is broad. "I suppose you're going to tell me it's something that gets easier with practice?"
"I honestly couldn't say whether it gets easier with practice," Pril responds as a more natural smile returns to her face. She wipes at her nose. "That's my only experience with more than the typical number of bedmates. I think it was their hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary. They had arranged to spend it with my aunt, but by nightfall, she had sampled so much of the inn's mead, she was utterly useless for anything other than a doorstop. So they approached me and after my initial shock, I decided, what the heck, I was after new experiences after all."
She looks around the tavern, before continuing. "And since I've gone over and above in giving out personal information ... My first was a gnome blacksmith in the town I grew up in. After that was a dwarven priest of Torag. Talk about stamina. The elven couple. Then ..."
Her eyes grow distant again and darken. "You know, as much as I've enjoyed our evening I think I'm going to say goodnight. As you've said, it's going to be an early morning." She gives Allandír a nod and a sad smile and hops down from her chair.
She makes her way out of the tavern, but rather than head towards the inn, she walks slowly towards the wells and the river nearby. She takes a seat on the bench and pulls her feet up to wrap her arms around her knees. She looks up at the stars and then out across the river. One hand moves down to finger a small charm bearing chain that dangles around her ankle. The charms seem distorted as if exposed to great heat.
She can no longer restrain the tears and they flow with abandon.
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He does nothing more, simply sitting and watching the darkening sky above him.
The small woman starts at Lucius' words. She considers trying to wipe her face, but decides that it's pointless at this stage.
"Thank you, Cardinal d'Borja," she says in a strained voice as she accepts his gesture and his handkerchief. She continues to sit until her emotions are more restrained.
"What troubles me?" she says finally. "Regrets, Cardinal. Regrets over things done and things left undone. Regrets for things that could have been and will now never be." The tears begin falling again. "Regrets for ..." Her voice breaks and she struggles to regain control. "Sorry, Cardinal. It's still too close to talk about."
She hugs her knees closer and begins to shake with sobs.
Allandír gives Pril a grave nod as she makes her excuses and departs. "Thank you for your company this evening." There's more that he could say, but it seems unnecessary: if she wants to do this again, or talk to him about her hurt, then she will anyway; and if she doesn't then no amount of talking will make it so. Sometimes, silence really is the best option. It also happens to be something he's good at.
With a sigh, he signals for the bar tab (monks don't appear to trouble themselves with such worldly matters, he notes rather drily) before making his own way out the tavern.
It has been a long, strange, day and there is much to reflect on as he wanders home. Memories long-buried have resurfaced, and new experiences are in the process of being formed into memories. He decides that before bed he will spend some time in wood-carving, giving shape to his thoughts. He has a small bin of off-cuts that he uses for this purpose and he rummages around seeking a suitable starting point: larch, beech, yew, elm, oak, ash, thorn... ah yes.
Hello darkwood my old friend.
Time passes and sawdust accumulates until eventually he is happy that the emotions he has worked up over the course of the day will not trouble his rest.
And on this point, he is almost correct - one last, errant thought does pass across his mind before sleep takes him:
I wonder what her tattoo looks like?
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The two sit there for a long time until silence falls and then, slowly, moves from awkward to simply companionable.
"Better now?" Lucius asks eventually.
The gnome then takes her leave to presumably retire for the evening.
You take your rest in Breachill over night. The next morning, you reconnect with Alak Stagram and make your way back to the ruins of Citadel Alterein. The Bumblebrasher goblins bid you greeting, eagerly awaiting the chance to return to their homes once you clear out the dungeons beneath the keep. But for now, the rest of the upper level beckons...
Pril seems quite chipper this morning as they make their way to the fortress.
"You know if there is a ring of elf gates below the Citadel, it would make for a great base for exploration," she offers as they walk along. "Can you imagine the places they would lead to? And if the deed is lying somewhere around then we could set it up kind of like a tourist attraction!"
Once they arrive at the quiet edifice, she heads through the main doors and around towards the north side. "South before and North this time."
The northern hall leads past a door and into a large open area. A judge’s bench, a witness stand, and councilors’ tables are the only remaining indication of this room’s previous use as a formal courtroom. Benches have long ago been smashed to fragments and strewn about the gallery, covering the floor of the room in debris. Through several empty doorways to the north, a large, ragged opening in the citadel’s wall is visible—along with what appears to be a corpse wearing silvery armor, lying on a muddy lump in the center of a pool of water that has filled much of the collapsed section.
As Lucius approaches the corpse, it suddenly rises up out of the water! The corpse is impaled on the spiked shell of a strange monster. Small but bright yellow eyes watch from the sagging flesh of its head, the most prominent feature of which is a curiously shaped, toothy maw twisted into a perpetual grin. Its stubby arms and legs are impractical for both walking and swimming, though the algae-caked claws tipping each limb are deadly weapons.
A second creature rises out of the water nearby as well!
[ooc]Everybody but Lucius and Pril may act![ Will update map later. The creatures are in the pool of water./ooc]
Allandír seems to be in good spirits as he joins the assembled group, giving a grave nod to Lucius and Alak, followed by a more cheerful nod, as well as something that might even be a half-smile, towards Pril; which fades a little as she mentions Alseta's Ring. He winces slightly. "The aiudara are complex magical artefacts. Contrary to what the halfling criminal suggested yesterday, they do not, ah, readily lend themselves to such usage."
And, even if the enchantments on them have held over the millennia, he is not keen on giving just anyone a means to bypass the protections on my homeland's borders and just walk in whenever they feel like it. No point in saying as much and starting an argument this early in the day, of course.
As the Cardinal approaches the dead body, he watches cautiously, ever alert for trouble. He is therefore not entirely surprised when the corpse proves to be a lure for an ambuscade. "The greenskins used to do something similar in the Goblinblood Wars. Cardinal, I suggest you fall back towards me - I will cover you."
Suiting the word to the deed, he fires several arrows at the one nearest to Lucius.
Dead on her feet by the end of the night, she walks home slowly, looking forward to climbing into bed to sleep for a few hours.
Stepping lightly up the stairs to her family home, she unlocks the door, eases it open very carefully, and tiptoes inside... where she's inevitably descended upon by a pack of teenagers, all pulling at her sleeves and trying to whisper over each other.
"What happened?!" "We heard you went to the keep! "Was it cool? "Tell us about the
With a weary smile, Nell extricates herself from her siblings and goes to sit in the living room, the five of them following eagerly behind. From experience, she knows that any attempt to dodge their questions and send them to bed curious would be more trouble than it's worth, so she curls up on the couch and begins to tell a shortened version of the tale. Thankfully, the audience is most interested in the slaying of monsters, and Nell is able to satisfy them with a few vivid descriptions of the fire elemental crumbling into dust, the battle with the imps, and the grauladon's quick death at the tip of her blade.
The Harlow siblings stumble off to bed, all mumbling good-nights to each other, and Nell is finally able to sink into bed, sleep coming almost as soon as she closes her eyes.
Bright eyed and ready to face the day, Nell rushes to the Cardinal's defense.
They should have gone back to the town, fell asleep in the dish pit, drinking and telling tall tales to Nell Harlow. Gull Peeper doubts very much anyone even told Warbal her Bumblebrashers were safe, they could have done that at least.
Nobody cares about goblins, and none of these few called to serve were heroes, excepting maybe Nell Harlow. They did not care about those they were protecting, they would just save the fort and then give it back to bad, boring HeckKnights. That would not do, nope. Gull Peeper would need to stick with them, keep them apprised of their promises.
Drunk and sad, the goblin throws shingles and rocks at the pond where the big dinocroc was living. They wished they could run back to the circus, find Null, and go back to being a duo again, back to when life had meaning, even if meaning was just do spinny tricks with their teeth and swindle unsuspecting tall folk.
They curl up and sleep on a lonely corner of the rooftop, alone.
The Cardinal bows his head briefly at the sight of the dismantled courtroom. "This was truly a place of law. Perhaps if the fortress is cleansed then it can be again." He says solemnly, before stepping closer to examine the corpse.
Gull Peeper skulks forth beside Lucius, upper lip curled in a sneer. "Perhaps when fortress is cleansed it will stay with the goblins who love it very much," they grumble.
As the spiky corpse turtles emerge from the water, Gull Peeper needs little convincing to protect the Cardinal, lashing out with their dagger.
"These not goblins, ugly elf," they shout, "pointy turtles! Maybe you need glasses!"
He winces slightly. "The aiudara are complex magical artefacts. Contrary to what the halfling criminal suggested yesterday, they do not, ah, readily lend themselves to such usage."
"Oh, dang," Pril answers with a disappointed expression. "It sounded like fun; Gallivanting across the world." She shrugs.
Ervan quite suddenly and rather violently slaps his hands together. This creates an outburst of static electricity which, after he incants arcane words, leap towards the two creatures assailing his companions.
Ervan zaps the creatures, one hurt more than the other. Gull's attack doesn't pierce his target's shell, but Nell lands two powerful strikes, badly wounding her foe! Alak moves up alongside the half-elf and delivers a powerful strike with his greatsword, finishing off the creature! Allandir fires upon the other one, landing a good hit to its neck!
The remaining turtle-thing attacks Lucius , biting and clawing the cleric! Then it withdraws its head and limbs into its shell, the spikes bristling outward to try to ward off other attacks!
"Don't step into the water!", the wizard barks as he conjures forth another torrent of deadly electricity. The faint smell of ozone tickles his nose as the arc strikes the creature's shell.
Somehow, the turtle-thing has the wherewithal to rock its shell and completely dodge Ervan's lightning arc!
Pril berates herself for letting her thoughts drift and allowing herself to be caught flat-footed.
She races forward with enthusiasm past the water to strike at the beast from the far side.
Allandír easily switches targets, firing two arrows while trying to remember what these beasts are.
Lucius's crossbow bolt strikes the monster's shell, but it shatters to splinters as the creature uses the shell to block the strike! Pril's attacks don't harm the thing.
Allandir recognizes it as a graveshell, a dangerous ambush predator. The beasts are surprisingly intelligent, even capable of speech! The elf drives an arrow through the gap in its shell, lodging it deep within the beast's neck.
"Enough!" the graveshell rumbles in the Common tongue. "Don't kill! Surrender! Surrender!"
The wizard purses his lips and mentally runs through a difficult mathematical equation to calm down. "A wise choice," he says with a certain calm to his voice. "Now, to make up for your initial transgressions, compensation seems in order."
He then eyes his companions, hoping none of them are aching to finish the graveshells off - or worse, abdicate them of any and all responsibility for what happened.
"Oh, dang," Pril answers with a disappointed expression. "It sounded like fun; Gallivanting across the world." She shrugs.
The elf gives her a smile: "I am not ruling it out, but the aiudara are carefully protected from the, ah, careless or ignorant: activation requires a key, which can be a physical token but might also be a password, piece of music, spell, even a stellar conjunction." He shrugs, lightly. "What can I say? My people are capricious."
Then he frowns. "Of course, I also have to bear in mind that the last time anyone secured an artefact allowing them an unconventional means of travel, the results were, ah, unfortunate. To say the least."
Allandír relaxes slightly as he hears the thing speak, although his arrow remains pointed directly at it. "Of course. Graveshells. The things are predators by nature, but we may be able to reason with it?" This last is more of a question, since he himself is not skilled at negotiation.
The graveshell shakes its spikes and dislodges the corpse that was impaled upon them. "Shiny armor. You take, I go?" it rumbles.
"So, you're saying that if we find whatever dingaflugie operates the gates then we could use them to explore?" Pril replies, her cheerful tone returning.
"Yes, you go!" Pril says with a gesture pointing towards the mountains.
The graveshell grunts and begins to lumber away from the keep, heading for the hills.
"What a curious beast," Alak remarks, watching it go. He turns to Lucius. "Cardinal, are you alright? It seems to have done a number on you."
"Hopefully we won't see it again," Pril says as she steps gingerly across the rough floor and back into the room.
"Are you ok to go on, Cardinal?" she asks.
"Good," responds with a nod. "Let's move on!"
With that she bounds off towards one of the archways to the west.
This open area with a clear view into the courtroom to the east is littered with piles of filthy blankets, half-gnawed bones, and other signs that some sort of creature is squatting here.
Near the entry arch, a pile of blankets draped over an overturned desk serves as the nest of two warg puppies! These warg puppies are just a few days old and each about the size of a domesticated cat. When you approach, the puppies both growl and bare their little teeth, but they also make no move to attack.
"So, you're saying that if we find whatever dingaflugie operates the gates then we could use them to explore?" Pril replies, her cheerful tone returning.
Allandír nods. "That is correct, although I would advise a certain amount of ah, caution. There is no guarantee that the other side of the gate is still functional: you could end up, ah, stepping into a volcano, for example. Or five fathoms deep underwater." He gets the impression, for some reason, that his warning isn't being fully heeded.
The tall, gaunt elf blinks as the blankets move to reveal the puppies. "Good heavens." It's the first tone of real surprise to his voice since this affair started.
Pulling back the hood of his cloak (which reveals nothing more than the usual pointed elven ears and his lank, black hair, in case anyone was wondering), he sets his bow on the floor and kneels down beside the warglets. "Hey there, little ones. Hungry?" He rummages in his pack for some jerky, although he is careful to drop it just in front of them rather than offer it to them from his hand. He is rather attached to his fingers, and hopes to remain so for many centuries to come.
"How did you end up here, I wonder?"
The wargs eagerly rush forward to devour the rations. Allandir can see that they are both scrawny and malnourished. After finishing their meal, they sniff at the elf curiously, little tails wagging!
Ervan purses his lips when the elf bothers to feed the beasts. Pups or not, they are a scourge. "Two young spawns of Rovagug. Hrm. It makes one wonder where their mother could be. Judging by their malnourished state, I bet she's either dead or stuck somewhere else. Let's hope it is the former for she'll be beyond reason if we run into her."
Allandír gives an oddly gentle smile as he gingerly picks each of the warglets up in turn to give them a quick examination, careful to keep his hands well away from their jaws. "Hmm, somebody hasn't been feeding you, have they, little ones? What happened to your mother?"
He turns as Ervan speaks, his green eyes glittering as he does so, although his voice is soft. "Perhaps, although I believe you may be getting your, ah, deities confused. And whatever my mistresses have in store for me over the coming centuries, let me assure you right now that it is not as a slayer of puppies."
Allandir can see that both warg puppies are females. Despite their malnourishment, they appear to be otherwise healthy. They are young enough that they could grow into friendlier creatures than others of their kind if given love and support.
The wizard shrugs. "They're creatures of destruction. Never a plus, always a minus, aching to reduce others to zero. I'd leave them here, for wherever their mother might be, she won't be happy to see us walking around with them."
"Oh, they're adorable!" Pril gushes as she falls to her knees and holds out her small hand for one to sniff. She turns her big green eyes up to Allandír. "Can we keep them? Please!!!"
The puppy sniffs Pril's hand, then licks it a few times. "Arf!" she says excitedly.
The wizard shrugs. "They're creatures of destruction. Never a plus, always a minus, aching to reduce others to zero. I'd leave them here, for wherever their mother might be, she won't be happy to see us walking around with them."
The elf sighs, running a forefinger and thumb along his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose. "Alas. Now I know how I must sound when I'm talking about greenskins." He lowers his hand and forces a smile. "Might I suggest, ah, that we do what a wise person suggested to me recently, and judge them on what they do and not on what others of their species have done?"
"And as for their mother, I don't see her here. It would appear that she has, ah, abandoned her daughters to starve. I don't plan on being a part of that."
"Oh, they're adorable!" Pril gushes as she falls to her knees and holds out her small hand for one to sniff. She turns her big green eyes up to Allandír. "Can we keep them? Please!!!"
Allandír gives the enthusiastic gnome a smile. "Well, I don't see anyone else looking after them."
He picks the two female warglets up by the scruffs of their neck and holds them up to his eye level. "What do you say, little ones? Are you coming with us? There will be food."
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The wargs bark excitedly. "Arf! Arf! Food! Food!" they say, mimicking Allandir's accent as they pronounce the word in Common!
Allandír grins, despite himself. "I propose to take that as a firm yes." He sets them gently back down on the floor. "Alright then, come along. And stay close - there's bad things around here."
Picking up his bow, he resumes scouting the ruins, trying not to trip over the puppies as they scamper round his feet.
Pril attempts to restrain her excitement as the pups follow them enthusiastically. "So, one for you and one for me, right?" she asks, giving the elf a shove with her shoulder.
"Let's try the doors to the north," the gnome says.
Allandír resists (just!) the temptation to return Pril's shove by giving her a pat on the head, knowing that he would be unlikely to survive the aftermath.
"We'll see," he deapans at the gnome. "An animal like this, it's a big responsibility..."
She looks up at the tall elf and bats her eyes at him. "I've always been very responsible," she offers up.