DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

Aldric shrugs. He is happy to put this demonstration of his impotence behind him. "Yes, onward! If we shed tears on every random person killed by village mobs, we'd have a whole new sea. Anora, didn't you have to find a farmer? This Dolsten fellow?"

Dufgal follows the pack of thegns and villagers for a short while when the armored man who stayed behind to give Anora, Aldric, and the blind beggar more information caught up and passed him by. It gave him pause that he could no longer see the others. Should he continue his pursuit in service of curiosity not knowing if he had the support of the crew? Or should he return and take their next direction? He tried to find his true opinion, but found a deep chasm. He didn’t have any stake in this mission or that. His only motive was to leave home and now that he’s left, he lacks clarity of purpose. Is he meant for service? Perhaps so. Perhaps not. One thing is clear, he is no hero. He is but a meager cutpurse following an elf who relishes in deceit, a holy man who seems to have many skeletons in his closet, and a high class witch who has yet to prove her craft. Where does he fit into all this? Could he find gold and glory with sword and spell?

Dufgal’s feet had made the decision for him. As he began thinking about his crewmates, he unconsciously started back toward them. He could see them discussing their next move. He waited under cover just listening. He may even be waiting to see if they will leave without him and reveal his destiny to be truly alone.

"Don’t you suppose the same thing could have already happened to this Dolsten?" Anora asks, irritated at having been outdone through threat of arms.

"Unless they’ve resolved to sacrifice the women first, and make themselves a monastic order." she goes on, assuming that no village of men would do themselves out of all the women. It was likely that their man had been sacrificed already.

"Let’s wait for Dufgal’s report. It’s as likely as not that he returns in locked arms with the woman." she says, imagining their man taking the daring rescue upon himself.

Ty looks around him, as if only now realizing that the big thief is not standing with them.

"Oh, he's gone off again," the elf muses. "Are we certain that Dufgal is gathering matter for such a report? Obviously we've not discussed it. He could be picking the villagers' pockets, or murdering stragglers."

Tyravasiel-Llir says this without a whiff of disapproval.

Aldric drops his trousers and takes a piss on the side of the road. While he waters the plants, he

"You got Dufgal all wrong. He doesn't murder stragglers, he murders assholes. Should get a bloody medal for it, too - there's far too many of those in the world."

He shakes out the last drops and rejoins the others. "Well, since we're waiting..."

He finds some shade under a tree, closes his eyes, and takes a snooze.

Before peeling off from his stealthy pursuit of the main group of villagers and the horsemen behind them, Dufgal sees that the path through the woods they take is fairly well-worn and relatively recent. He glimpses some shapes in the heavy mist that might be standing stones, and if that’s the case, they are no more than a hundred paces off the road.

The fledging thief’s heart leaps and sinks upon hearing the words of the magewoman. She thinks highly of him! And he will disappoint her if he returns empty-handed.

Then hearing the blind beggar elf continue to dredge up his fray with Orfum makes Dufgal think he may need to repeat the offense just to shut him up. He grits his teeth to try to calm down but it doesn’t help. His breathing is ragged.

Luckily and unluckily, Brother Aldric decides to release his trouser snake in full view of the thief to relieve himself. The urine trickled downhill towards Dufgal’s boot which nearly made him break cover. But the respect of the others won out. They must think of my value as outweighing any transgressions. At least this interruption got his mind off Ty.

He braced himself and stepped through the bracken bush and into the clearing where the trio stands.
I’se seen them standing stones where they mean to sacrifice that chesty wench. Not but an hour’s slow goings from ‘ere.
He paused to see if the lady was pleased with his intel. Now he addressed the men directly.
ain’t safe for us to try anythin’ on account of them armored fighters. They'se too much for us. We'se s’posed to protect the lady, right?

Dufgal felt the risk of offering an opinion, but he was trying to find his voice in this crew and the only thing he found that he could care about was the task of protecting Lady Anora.

They were supposed to protect Anora. She had hoped that her protection could be extended over the mistreated woman. Perhaps their own attempted ruse had made the villagers suspicious and sealed the woman’s fate all the more. They may not leave her be now.

"Perhaps we can beat them back to the village and speak with some of those less inclined towards sacrifice." she says finally, with a defeated sigh. She supposed the most reasonable people would have stayed behind, rather than march a woman to her death.

Aldric responds to the news with a shrug. The whole world was crazy, and he had his own problems. He was more concerned with his inability to command these cunts than he was with the woman's fate.

Part of what preoccupied him was that he had chosen not to draw upon Pelagia's power during the confrontation. She had even wash up a spell of command upon his mental shores. But, he had been too intimidadted to use it. Not so much of the thegns, but of the interaction with Pelagia, however tangential it would be to her consciousness. The thought of her being even slightly aware of him again made him need to take another piss.

After Anora announces her intention to head into Hirot, he is happy to move forward with their venture and put this behind him. "Onward, then!"

He begins striding toward the town, with an even more exaggerated pompous air than usual.

HIROT!

It is hard to tell with the dour weather, the fog and the constant drizzle, but the sun is near setting when the three men and the Evoker arrive at the gates of Hirot. Nearly four full days of travel it has taken them, but finally their destination is in sight. In the few hundred pace distance between where they met the Jarl and his men, and the evidently doomed girl and the villagers, the wooded moors have given way to dark, wet, mist-filled fields. Those fields are spotted with farms, such as they are, modest ones with ramshackle fences and dilapidated old barns. No animals or people are present in those dozen homesteads, and now a muddy track leads off the road to the north towards the walled village of Hirot. It is defended by a low earthen rampart topped by a fifteen foot high wooden palisade; the pales are sharp at their tops. At the back of the village, visible above that palisade and the fog, a causeway rises to a great hall resting atop a steep ridge. Lights flicker in that hall, but they are partially obscured by the black hearth-fire smoke that hangs forlornly over the place, looking like even it is frightened to venture beyond the town walls.

Moving closer, the travelers sees that the village's stout wooden gates, eight feet tall, are sealed. Braziers burn above them, up on a defensive platform that connects to the elevated catwalk that presumably runs along the inside of the wall for its entire length. Two solitary figures can be seen on that catwalk, and one raises a cry as the other blows a horn, and as Anora and her protectors approach.

"Who goes there!? The gates of Hirot stand closed, strangers! Return at dawn!" comes a man's gruff voice.

Aldric slams the button of his oar into the ground three times. He speaks with the utmost authority he can muster.

"We are here on urgent business from Garion's Folly as representatives of Relfarious the Shrewd of the Muckmire Mercantile Guild. We have been on the road for four days and eager for refreshment."

"Your man, Orioc, has arranged to meet with us tonight." Anora calls up, annoyed at more unpleasantness from these villagers.

"Would you have us tell him you barred our way, or would you do that yourselves? He’s sure to be irritable upon his return, given the business of the day." she wagers, knowing little of the man’s mind; save that he had the kindness to stop and trade words with them for a moment.

"Hirot's gates close at dusk, on account of the Hound!" the watchmen shouts down at Aldric when the reluctant priest makes his plea.

But then Anora steps forward, and she names someone that perhaps the two guards know. Garion's Folly is four or five days hence, through a dark wood and across water -- it might as well be across the continent. But...

"Orioc?" the second man, who hasn't spoken yet, says. Right away, he seems to be the more level-headed of the two. "These lands are doomed, travelers! Why has your Guild sent you? Only our Jarl commands the opening of these gates now, once the sun is down. Orioc is one of his trusted Thegns, but... did you see them? At the standing stones?"

"We met them on the road, with Morgan bound and driven before them." Anora goes on, with a displeased look on her face.

"Does Dolsten yet live?" she calls up then, thinking that they could simply turn on their heel there and then if the answer was no. Whatever got them away from these dour folk in this dour place.

Anora and Aldric seem to have their parley with the rustic gate wardens well in hand, so Tyravasiel-Llir holds his considerable tongue. He stands aside, bent and hunched and leaning upon his 'cane' in the humble beggar's posture that he's practiced while traveling in human lands. The elf's cropped ears and alien, too-green eyes are covered by his blindfold and broad-brimmed hat.

Dufgal tries to look unimportant while listening to the dialogue and assessing whether they will have a hot meal and a warm bed or not.

Both spearmen atop the wall react when Anora mentions Morgan. The loud one, the first to issue his challenge, gathers something from a cord around his neck and presses it to his lips. "Have mercy on her, Justicia!" he's barely heard to say.

"Morgan, aye," the other man says. "The girl is a joy, but her luck's run out. It was her lot drawn. Her father's in pieces."

Then, when the richly garbed practitioner of magic asks about Dolsten, the men look like they are about to respond when another voice sounds on the other side of the gate, from within the village. A muffled conversation is had, with the two soldiers looking down and behind them for a moment before they both disappear. Soon the sound of a bar being removed and heavy latches being opened reaches the ears of the wayward and weary travelers, and the heavy gates are swung open.

The two guards man those big, wooden, iron-reinforced doors, holding them open, but between them a third figure stands and gestures a crooked wo-fingered greeting. He is old, and wears musty robes that look like they once were covered in arcane and occult symbols. His voice creaks when he speaks.

"I am Sylle Ru, seer and advisor to the Jarl. Who are you, that has traveled all the way from Garion's Folly through the dark of the night, 'neath the demon-dog's muzzle?"

Aldric consents to the questions of this holy man pledged to a lesser God, if only to expeditite their entry.

"I am Aldric, Witness to Pelagia. I appreciate your poetry old man, but we travelled only with the sun, and saw no muzzles, demon or otherwise."

Tyravasiel-Llir makes such low obeisance to the Jarl's man that the brim of his hat scrapes the dirt.

"I am Ty, master. A mere beggar, to whom blessed Pelagia has demonstrated such wisdom and such kindness through her cleric that I am turned acolyte, if she will have me."

The elf studies Sylle Ru from the shadows of hat and blindfold. He has little regard for human conjurors, but it seems prudent at this juncture to make nice with the shabby fellow.

"Pray master, in your role of advisor, did you advise the Jarl to sacrifice that fulsome maiden to this demon dog?" Ty asks out of mere curiosity; there's no hint of disapproval in his voice.

Anora does her best not wrinkle her nose at the old practitioner. She takes him in, and silently measures herself against him. It was him that had the idea to satiate the creature with human sacrifice, she supposed. A crude weaver of the arcane, in that case.

She holds her tongue to see how the man responds to the accusation, though the elf didn’t deliver it as such. She suspected that the man would be taking her measure at this moment too, and so she thought it better to leave some things unknown, so as to keep him on the back foot.