The Lion's Way

"Foster father..." Imoen mutters. She scratches her head. "Look, I can be useful, okay? I stole this too."

She pulls out a slender length of polished wood topped with some sort of reddish gemstone. A wand.

"I almost hope the wolves come after us! I could fend 'em off with this bad boy." Imoen gives the wand an enthusiastic wave through the air.

Aiwë's hands shake as she reels in Bert. "Oh, you're right," she begins, voice a hissed whisper. "I'm sorry. That qualifying label completely negates the love and care he's shown you, as well as your familial responsibility to reciprocate. Now I definitely understand why you stole from home and took off without a thought. Even so, we're currently being hunted so the most useful thing is one less person to babysit right now. So unless that thing raises the dead, take it HOME, IMOEN."

Imoen listens carefully, eyes wide. "My friends are being hunted?" She glances over the worn battlefield again. "Look." Her voice drops to a low whisper. "You think me just some silly girl, but it seems to me like you and my friends need all the help you can get. I've done some hard things in life, and I know more than you think I do." She takes a deep breath. "Tell me you want me gone one more time, and I'm gone. But remember, I'm the one who snuck up on you."

Suddenly exhausted---weird, Bert does not weigh that much---Aiwë leans down and cuts the rope again, and Bert falls beside Keggruk.

"Whatever, Imoen. It's your life." With the bodies beneath them, the parallel "and your death," is unnecessary.

She ties the third and final lasso and aims for the most intact looking archer. Even with Snitch's help, Shelur can't get her coordination right. She mutters a quiet orcish curse in the back of her throat and reels in the rope for another try.

Wirrow, after being spooked nearly out of heart function by the appearance of Imoen, barely keeps herself from shooting the pink-haired girl in a panic. How had she not noticed?
Was there something else here causing that, invisible like Imoen must have been?

As the conversation on the side deteriorates into more of an argument, Wirrow at first tries not to get involved, but then finds she can't get a word in edgewise. Imoen stealing from Candlekeep would only bring more people hunting after them, and those lot had already decided they didn't like Wirrow for some magical reason... Aiwe also makes a rather good point. Several.

Harsh, but direct; Wirrow wishes she had thought of all that. But people and figuring things out involving them aren't her thing. Surviving? Well, it was supposed to be more a part of her. She tries to tune out the slowly rising voices and focus on that.

If the wolves weren't going to act predictably, then other things could go wrong. They could be attacked, by the wolves, or by something else. Imoen would try to use her (stolen) magic wand, and Wirrow doesn't have a lot of faith in the girl's ability to use it carefully... or even be responsible enough to know how to use it at all. If only she could figure out why...

Imoen exhales in relief and nods. "Good good good..."

She watches as Aiwe reels in the rope. "Can I try?" The girl narrows her eyes, and then with a flick of her wrist sends the lasso right around the dead archer's neck. A nudge from Snitch secures the line, and Imoen giggles lightly. "Such a useful little critter!"

Then she tries to pull the body in, but after a couple of useless tugs she sheepishly hands the rope back to Aiwe.

Aiwë takes the rope from Imoen and pulls it in. Once the archer is safely next to the other bodies, she drops the rope, scans once more for watchers or dangers before climbing down the tree.

Well. That would do it.

As the wolves leave and the insects reveal themselves, Wirrow adopts a simultaneously disgusted and fearful tone. "Well, that's probably all we need from here, right?" There's no way Aiwe hasn't seen the bugs.

She starts to back away from the road, in the direction they had come from. She can't help with carrying Keggruk's body, and she can't do anything against tiny threats like that either.

Aiwë drops from the trees. She deposits Ossein on the dead archer's chest. "Here you go. Catch up as soon as you can." Then she grabs Keggruk's arms and pulls him over her shoulders with a sharp exhale and begins to jog back through the forest.

"This will do nicely, thank you. Oh Imoen and Wirrow, feel free to take whatever items you would like from this body, we won't be needing them. I recall something said about arrows."

Ossein begins the process to raise this archer as his new bearer.

Aiwë knows how to pace herself for long travel. She has practice carrying heavy loads. Keggruk's head lolls over her shoulder as Aiwë jogs, the mark of Gruumsh staring at her in her periphery.

She keeps her eyes forward, and jogs.

The dawn is new, and true to character, Wirrow had woken up far later than everyone else the day before. That extra alertness and energy has turned out to be an advantage now. Though she isn't sure how long it will last as the sun rises and the day heats up, she's glad for it in the moment.

Hmmmm I wonder what will happen if I...


Ossein focuses trying to speed up the process in order to blend in better, and have a less messy bearer. He's not sure what this will do with the ants crawling in him, maybe his bearer will grow mandibles, or maybe some chitin in place of the missing skin? That could be handy, Bert died way too easily.

Imoen keeps pace with the other two, having had less rough of a night. Unfortunately, her mouth keeps up too.

"Wow! I'd almost forgotten what it's like to feel real dirt under my boots!"

"See that bird there? It's a robin! You can tell from the reddish-orange breast. The ones around Candlekeep are practically tame. Why, this one time..."

"Do you think those wolves could be following us? I've never really seen one up close, except for a taxidermized one. But that doesn't really count, does it? I wish I had wolf legs. I bet I could run forever!"

"So... how about them boys? I heard Mesen talking about you, Aiwe. He seemed pretty infatuated..."

"Wirrow! It's such a pretty name. Like 'Willow', but with some 'aarghh' in it. I don't suppose you've ever thought to take up piracy? Just think! Your pirate name could be 'Wirrow the....' Hmm... You know, I can't think of anything good right now. You might want to rethink this whole 'piracy' thing."

With her pink hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, Imoen finally seems too winded to keep up her babble. But no complaint passes her lips.

Aiwë doesn't have the energy to spare to beg Imoen's silence. If Wirrow has any sense or fear of her assassins then she'll quiet the girl herself.

"Get them out."

Shelur occasionally splits off from the group to lay diverting trail and misleading signals. She has only rarely done so amongst such green undergrowth, or any undergrowth of any trees for that matter, but she thinks her father would be proud.

She doesn't think much else, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. Keggruk's armour makes noise as she walks, creating a rhythm with her footprints.

thump clang-thump
rattle
thump

The sound drives her as she moves ever forward, completing her orders.

Oh well, Ossein tried to consider his traveling companions when bringing his bearer back to life. Good thing Ossein can't smell.

Leaving the arrows in, his companions might need an extra few, Ossein has his bearer hobble over to Bert. Picking up Happy, he greets his friend.

"Hey Buddy, sorry I dropped you, Bert died and I had to get a new body. But we're good now, perk up, I'll make sure to put you in a nice campfire tonight. I just need one more thing."

Digging through Bert's old belly wound, Ossein has his bearer pull out the package Keggruk had given him to hide from the guards in Candlekeep when they were searching everyone. It's likely either what they were looking for, or something embarrassing. Knowing paladins it's likely the second. It might be some juicy correspondence. Maybe he has a mistress and he didn't want his daughter finding out. I should probably just destroy the evidence and let gis family remember the best version if him. Not the side of paladins that Ossein is familiar with.

Giddy up new bearer....thata way. We really need to get aquatinted you and I. I'll tell you a few stories about me tonight, and you can tell me a few about yourself. Let's wait until later tonight when everyone is asleep, it gets quite boring, you'll see.

Now back to the matter at hand. Holding happy in one and the mystery package in the other. This is a difficult decision, Ossein's burning hatred for the paladins of Hoar bleed over into his feelings for other paladins. Best to keep that repressed while around others, but what they don't know won't hurt them.

The burning torch and the mysterious package get closer and then draw away from each other. Back and forth as the new bearer shambles. Quite like Ossein's decision before him.

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