DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

Down the hallway, Anora sees two people refusing whoever is outside entry, calling out that the Hound is too close to risk opening the door as the desperate pleas outside increase in volume. And when Ty throws open his window, he sees a middle-aged man he does not recognize, and a young woman that he does -- the barmaid, from the road, earlier!

The woman's wrists are red and raw from where she'd struggled against her bindings, but she is free now, evidenced as she runs for the window. "Bless you!" she calls out to Ty, "Bless you! The thing is not far behind -- help us in!"

Running over to the window -- which is not overly large, and four or five feet off the ground, the dark-haired man with the rough complexion adds, "Hurry! Morgan first!"

As he clasps his hands to give the girl a boost, a shuddering, snarling growl fills the night air. The Hound is close!

Tyravasiel blinks beneath his blindfold. The well-endowed human girl lives! There's a stroke of luck. And could that stranger behind her be the very Dolsten they've come here to seek? Ty recalls some mention of a familial relation between Broegan, the girl's father, and the elusive tanner. Why, it's almost as if these two have fallen right into their laps--

No. Oh, no.

Under his breath, Ty whispers, "Great Ladies of Law, Three Ladies of the Proper Course, pass by me and turn your heads from me, that I may live my life as I please..."

Even as he mutters his anti-prayer, the elf is reaching down his lean arms to grasp at the maiden's hands and help her up into the window. The blindfold remains but he makes no show of fumbling for her. Time is short.

Then, having done his part to heave the woman through, he stretches out and down for the male stranger below...

Balancing stealth with swiftness, Dufgal surveys the second story opportunities. Spotting a window with shutters yet unshut, he makes haste and hoists himself over the sill and into the dark room, hoping it is unoccupied as he hadn’t thought up his explanation for his ingress.

Now huffing his breath a bit, he turns and quietly pulls the shutters closed. He leaves whomever belongs to those voices he hears to their own fate just as he has had to make his own.

Almost ready to throw herself down the hallway to open the door herself, the woman is held back only by Ty’s fiddling with the window.

She crosses quickly, closing the door behind her. A wizardly sleeve is over the sill, as she peeks out around the elf, at the two below.

She’s about to weave some of her magick, so that they might easily climb a rope to the window, when suddenly the elf is leaning out and rescuing Hirot’s villagers with little trouble to himself.

"Lose one sense and the rest are enhanced, they say." she offers to the beggar-elf with an amused eyebrow.

"Where is your father?" the wizardess asks of the barmaid, once she is safely brought inside.

On the second floor of the Wolf-Spear, Dufgal gains entry and locks the stout shutters behind him. He can hear voices and footfalls all over the building as townsfolk race to secure the windows. He's in one of the better appointed guest rooms, one with a large bed, a chest of drawers, a trunk, a low-burning oil lamp, a washing basin and other fancy accoutrements. On the bed lie a pair of folded cloaks and a sack that smells of bread, cheese, and salted meat. The door to what he presumes is the hallway leading to the stairs is closed.

Downstairs, Ty helps first the young Haverson into the room through the open window, then the older man as well. Anora is suddenly there too, in her wizardly way, her surprisingly long hair flowing as she asks her question of Morgan.

The girl is breathless, her dress stained and torn from her forced march and then flight through the woods, but she finds her words easily.

"My father? He's not here? What?! My -- my father isn't here!? We haven't see him! Oh no! Where is he?" This last phrase holds a note of panic, and is far from a quiet utterance.

Behind the raven-haired girl, the man closes and bolts the shutters just as another guttural growl sounds from the night -- followed by a terrified scream.

"Quiet, Morgan! The Hound has come to Hirot! Lloré must not have filled the thing's gullet!"

"Then he died for nothing! And now my father too?!"

"Calm yourself, niece, we don't know that yet," the man says with a reassuring hand on her trembling shoulder.

Then, looking at Anora and the blind man, he adds, "I'm Dolsten. Brother to Broegan's wife, Morgan's mother. Last I saw him he was bound to a chair in the common room. That's when Lloré and I decided to slip out and save Morgan."

Dufgal lays low and listens at the door. He needs to catch his breath.

"You are known to us." Anora says to the man. "We’ve been sent here to lay eyes on you, by one Relfarious."

She tuts and looks out into the night from her place at the window.

"He has been unbound." she says, diplomatic with the truth of who orchestrated his release. "If the hound is here, then he can’t be at the stones, where I am sure your father is at this moment. Once he finds you missing, and the stones lacking fresh blood, he will return."

Mostly to reassure Lady Anora that he has returned safely and successfully, Dufgal tries to locate a recognizable voice from below.Unable to discern a friendly voice, an overwhelming fatigue comes over the thief and he crawls up on the bed, fully clothed, and lets himself drift off.

"Lloré.." The name sounds familiar. There are so maddeningly many humans in this outer world, and each one insists on having its own name, like an elf. The night watchman said something about him. What was it?

Oh yes.

"That wouldn't be the Skald Lloré, would it?" Ty asks. "He of many stories pertaining to your devil hound?"

"Relfarious?" Dolsten says, his brow knitting as though it's a name he hasn't heard in a very long time. "Relfarious the Shrewd? The merchant in Garion's Folly?"

Shaking his head slightly, some hard-to-read expression briefly crosses the man's features. "He... employed you to come here?"

Having regained her breath, her mud-speckled chest no longer heaving in such a distracting fashion, Morgan Haverson nods at Tyravasiel-Llir.

"Yes, he's a poet, and a singer. Do you know him, or of him?"

Another shout comes from outside, followed by another inhuman howl. It's no wolf making that sound -- behind the baying is a trilling, atonal and shrill. It's a sound that sets teeth on edge and hairs rising.

When the weird baying starts up closer to the inn, Ty feels his way along the window to make sure that the bolts and bar are securely in place.

To the buxom human's question, he answers, "We were told that he might have some knowledge concerning how the beast out there could be banished." The elf pauses, then adds indelicately, "Apparently he did not."

"Indeed, for our sins." the woman says, with a sigh, indicating that the task had been nothing but a headache since the outset.

"We were sent to determine your whereabouts, and to put the man’s mind at ease. We were told you had been expected by him, and hadn’t made the meeting." she goes on, though present circumstances made the whole thing moot, she supposed.

To Tyravasiel-Llir, she adds:

"We might still ask the crone what she knows."

Their leaving this town alive might hinge upon the beast and its own continued survival.

Let’s hope the old woman remained indoors tonight…

The howling and shrieking suddenly ceases as Ty makes certain that the window bolts are secure, and Morgan is suddenly at his side. She speaks no more of Lloré.

"I-I saw you and this lady on the road before. Are you... here to help us? Are you monster-hunters? Did this merchant pay you gold and silver to slay the Hound of Hirot?!"

Dolsten shakes his head at what Anora tells him and merely mutters, "That fool," to himself before he speaks again to long-haired sorceress.

"Lloré knew many verses about the old days, it's true. Tales of the savage kings who tamed this land with sword and spear, slaying black ghouls and demon wolves. He had his favorites -- old King Ulfheonar who confused one of those devil hounds, throwing off its scent with lamb's blood -- piercing the beast through the heart with his silvered spear!"

Across the room, Morgan adds, "Ymae knows such tales too. Though you'll be hard pressed to pry them from her. The Mad Widow makes... unreasonable demands of any who seek her help..."

The Wolf-Spear shudders when something heavy hits it. The sound comes from the other side of the building, but it's loud enough for Anora, Ty, Dufgal and even Aldric to hear. The impact comes again, and muffled cries go up from the villagers sheltering in the kitchen.

In a deep dream, a young Dufgal walks the woods with seven sticks in his arms. Each one selected for its unique shape and potential. Sharpened into daggers, fashioned into slingshots, manipulated into deadfall traps, twisted and woven into a crown, and some still would be painted and decorated to be his playmates. They had epic tales of adventure that spanned continents and inspired wonder and awe.
The bunnies would scurry in terror as he stomped through the heather. The birds waited til he passed to return to forage the ground. Only the crows seemed to show no deference as he made his way.
He never felt his aloneness. His imagination was a rich and rewarding friend.
The world was always his oyster on his walks and in his dreams.
And he relished the restful sleep for he was fully free.

As the sound of something crashing into the Wolfspear rattles the walls, the tired thief is startled awake. Was that also in my dream? he thinks, but the sound comes again. Dufgal leaps from the bed and places an ear to the door.

Aldric is adrift in an immense wine-dark sea, floating face up. Ice flows through his veins; he is so cold he can't feel any sensation, so immobilized he can't even shiver, can't even blink. Directly above him, shining its putrid light into his eyes, is the fucking moon, mocking him. Below him, he senses something vast and terrible moving. Something that could easily swallow him whole.



A voice comes to his mind from the void: But, dear Aldric, you have nothing to fear. It is the voice of the woman who he once called his wife. You've been swallowed whole already.

Acceptance of his fate dissolves his fear. There's nothing he can do about that, now. But maybe, with enough time and distance, with enough deeds and sacrifices ...

A loud boom rings out all of a sudden. It sends a violent ripple through the sea, and the rays of moonlight become harsh, painful. Memory of his circumstances in the waking world suddenly flood back into Aldric's mind.

The hound is here ...

He wonders if his time is running out to play the long game with Pelagia. Things might be getting too dangerous to play it safe, and risk might need to be taken in order to have any chance at all.

He wakes up with a start, opening his eyes to realize he's sunk beneath the waterline in the tub. He leaps forth, sending soiled water all over the bathing room's floor and walls. Gasping for air, he climbs out violently, forcing his blue-tinged, cramp-filled muscles to creak back to life. Rather than grabbing for a towel, he grabs for his broken oar, and strides out into the hall in the nude and dripping wet, shrivelled like a sunned prune from soaking in the water for so long.

"THE BITCH OF SHUL IS HERE!" he announces, his voice full of venom and righteous fury.

Up on the second floor, as Dufgal approaches the door there's the sound of running -- and then it opens wide!

"Oh!" says a middle aged woman who has two not quite teen children in tow. "Please let us in sir! The Hound attacks the inn!"

Through the now-open door, the big man hears an unmistakable voice -- Aldric's!

---

Below, in the hallway outside the bathing room, the bellowing priest stalks towards the common room, and the kitchen. He exudes seawater no longer, but redness marks his wet, naked flesh, his buttocks, back, and shoulders. The lashings of a hundreds jellyfish stingers, the bites of a thousand tiny barnacles, the sucker-tipped coilings of his goddess's long, prehensile tongue... Aldric is a man marked, and he knows that Pelagia wants this wolf confronted, and stopped.