Sorry I've been AWOL everybody; this has been a busy week.
Now I'll be in DC all day away from a computer, possible overnight. Please NPC Asheru as necessary.
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Asheru put a comforting hand on Wheatbeard's shoulder. "Just a little farther friend," he said. "Soon we'll be able to rest beside a fire."
Asheru gives the carvings a final glance over his shoulder before rejoining the group. "If we're going to rest," he says as he looks around the burial chamber. "We should return to the surface. This place belongs to the dead."
Caedmon stabilizes the Torch's Flames as best he can."It might be good to rest. Though could the winged things be some type of Dragon from the Stories?" Asheru trails towards the back of the band, distracted by memories gotten at second-hand. He runs his hands across the rough-hewn glyphs cut into the wall, tracing the grooves.
"Fire and terror..." he murmurs.
Would it be alright if I retrained divine favor into bless? It has a bit more utility. Also, Asheru is taking half+1 hit points.
Asheru unslings his medicine pouch. "I'll tend to the spiderbites."
With one spider dispatched, Asheru wastes no time in attacking another.
Asheru rushes to assist Tupilek in fending off the spider attacking him.
Asheru shrugs. "She hasn't said or done anything to give me pause. What troubles you?"
"If anyone is up there," Asheru says, shading his eyes with a hand, "They are no friend of orcs." But does that make them friends of us? he wonders. Bah! the familiar voice mutters. You think too much.
"Sometimes they don't know that they have no use for worldly goods," Asheru replies, casting a glance back at Garrilk's body. "But this is talk best suited for the campfire. The more time we spend here is less time we spend getting to the mudpits."
"Before he met whatever fate awaits him in the World Beyond," Asheru says as he rejoins the group, "Garrilk spoke of a burning lord. I think there maybe something older and fouler behind the orc attacks."
"Fire and terror..." Asheru murmurs to himself as he stands and walks towards his companions. "Fire and terror." He repeats the phrase, trying to dredge up anything from the Stories about a burning lord.
Asheru looks slightly agog at Garrilk's corpse, startled by the violence and finality of Moklik's action. Sinking to his knees, he puts a hand to the side of Garrilk's face and looks into the body's intact eye. "Tell me, who is the Burning Lord?"
Asheru helps Moklik rise, then offers him one of the fetish pouches. "Here, this will speed you to recovery." To Bonewright he says "Tupilek is not far off. We usually leave our dead on raised wooden beds to let birds and rain and wind carry the bodies away. But dinner for wolves seems like a fitting end for these scoundrels." He bites his lipped, somewhat dismayed at the prospects of leaving the death rites unobserved. Asheru also wonders if these men's spirits will find there way to him, to hound him for his lapse. Blood must be answered with blood, a vaguely familiar voice replies. Chiefson or not, he raised arms against his own kind. Let them rot. Asheru blinks. Did he say that out loud?
Seeing Moklik fall, Asheru trusts his companions to continue the fight and circles around to the injured hunter. He presses a hand to Moklik's chest. "Now is not your time," he murmurs. "One day, but not this day."
Asheru is momentarily transfixed by the ragged wound in Garrilk's scalp. Did I do this? he wonders as he looks from the wound to the bloodied end of his club. As the chiefson's henchmen approach, and Caedmon engages, Asheru stands over Garrilk, ready to strike any enemy that gets past his companion.
'Asheru, fall back.' 'Asheru, attack.' Asheru, watch my bow.' Asheru rolls his eyes. 'Must I serve the living as well as the dead? Nevertheless, he stoops to pick up Caedmon's bow before going amongst the injured.
At last, he comes to Garrilk and, instead of administering from his medicine pouch, he holds up the chiefson's head by his hair and stares hard into his sightless eyes.
"Who is the burning lord?" Asheru asks.
Sorry I haven't been around recently; a pretty nasty stomach virus put me out of commission for the past couple of days.
Asheru? My name is Setantha... Asheru shakes his head, blinks, then recalls the events of the last few moments. Never taking his eyes off of Garrilk or his minions, he takes a step back, moving towards Caedmon and the captive.
He holds the greatclub out in front of him, ready to swing at the next foe who approaches.
Asheru hisses in pain but presses the attack on Garrilk.
'Sall good. In a short lived Skull & Shackles game, I used Armenian as a stand-in for Aklo. Funnily enough, I was an oracle in that game too.
Elves speak French?
Typical... Asheru lays some cold-blooded ish on the bad guy, then whiffs the attack.
"No, Garrilk, we will not meet again," Asheru says with a grim smile as he raises his club.
Oh man, that viking archetype is shweet. For my own part, I've been looking long and hard at the rage prophet. But that's a little ways down the road from now.
Asheru was about to continue forwards and secure the captive, but he feels a presence urging him towards Garrilk. "Ignoble cur," he growls, his voice deepening. "You break the Law of Hospitality, then take up arms against your own tribe. The ancestors weep at your dishonor."
"If you want your prize," he says as strides between Garrilk and the elf. "You will have to get past this addle-pate."
Asheru spies the henchman dealing with the captive and runs toward him, skirting around Tupilek.
Asheru sets his feet and and holds his club across his chest, standing firm to accept either Garrilk's or his minion's attack.
Asheru stands goggled-eyed, not fully comprehending at first. "But... you..." Then, his face twists with rage and he points an accusing finger at Garrilk. "Insolent wretch, you dare threaten the life of a speaker for the dead?" He glares at each of the chiefson's companions. "Know this: Any who would shed my blood will call down the wrath of the ancestors!" Agitated whispers and mutterings emanate from all around Asheru.
"I would rather not fight my own tribesmen at all," Asheru replies. "But if a fight is to be had, better to have it on our terms." He turns to Bonewright. "Is your feathered friend clever enough to tell one human from another?"
"I know of Garrilk as well," Asheru offers. "I am no friend of his, but he has never wished me ill either, if we wish to parlay with him."
"And travelling a half-day's distance at night is even more foolish," Asheru adds. "Let us make camp while we still have light to do so, then take up the hunt come sunrise."
Asheru shrugs. "Why would a king be out in the wilds with only three other companions, only two of which were warriors? I do not know much of the ways of elves, but I would think a king's retinue would be larger." He points to the scroll. "Maybe they were escorting message-bearer from the king?"
"Whoever the survivor is, it is someone of importance. The armbands belonged to the Moisu, who accompany the elf king." Asheru adds. He holds out the fetish bundles. "But these will be useful should we encounter foes stronger than a starved cat."
"Perhaps we can glean something about them from what they carried," Asheru offers, then hunkers down to assist Moklik.
"It was not much of a conversation," Asheru tells the Bonewright, somewhat sheepish in the face of the other's amazement. "I could only recall the spirit for a few moments, enough for a few words..." He shrugs; he had never had to explain his affinity with the dead before.
Asheru lays the head back down and stands. "Humans, not orcs, did this," he calls out. He stands up and wipes his hands off on the corner of his cloak. "Unprovoked, it seems. These four were eating when it happened." Asheru shakes his head. "I do not understand."
"Wait," Asheru says and strides forward towards the corpses. Kneeling before one of the bodies, he gently turns it face up and tenderly wipes away some of the mud from its face. For moment, he holds his hands, trembling slightly, over the body. He swallows, his mouth suddenly dry, then he carefully lifts its head up.
"Forgive me for waking you," he says to the corpse. "But can you tell me how you lost your life?" He bows his head and awaits the reply.
"There is an omen easily read," Asheru says he spies vultures descending behind the massive rock. "Should we take a look?" In any event, he unslings his club from his shoulder.
Asheru watches Caedmona and Tupilek butcher the cat's carcass, leaning on his club as if the great length of bone was a staff. He straightens and raises a hand over the body. "We thank you, brother hunter, for the gift of your flesh," he intones. "Go now, and join your sires and grandsires in the world beyond." Turning to the Bonewright, he says "Omens are tricky things. This beast was under-fed, weakened. Perhaps the orcs pushed it out of its hunting grounds. Perhaps it was mere luck that our paths crossed. Sometimes a cat is just cat."
Asheru freezes at the sight of the beast. He fumbles about with his club and by the time he has it in both hands, the creature has already been dispatched.
Asheru is blithely unaware of potential danger.
Such as it ever was, Asheru thinks as he gazes at the boastful youths. No doubt some will flock to me before this over. He frowns at the thought of more spirits joining his coterie of the dead. "Those bracelets," he asks Caedmon, "They belonged to someone important to you? Someone taken by orcs?"
"Let us hope these tales of iron-armed orcs are just as wild," Asheru says. "I have no great yearning to spill blood." But there were spirits around him that did; he could sense their stirring, hear their furtive whispering. He drew his fur cloak tighter around his body, as if to avoid their contact.
"Well," Asheru says, "It is good to know, should we run out of strong drink on this ordeal, that Bonewright can take away our wits just as easily with sorcery."
I'm in Eastern Standard (US East Coast), which is GMT -5, I think? Monday through Friday I can post pretty frequently, but weekends'll be a little sparser.
"Well-met, Wheatbeard," Asheru replies. "To refuse a traveler a place by the fire would be a grave offense." "I am called Asheru," he continues, placing a hand over his chest. "Your people have visited us before, but none looked quite like you."
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