DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

THE MAD WIDOW YMAE'S HUT (ALDRIC, POOR ALDRIC)

The afternoon's activities for wayward Aldric are a different affair entirely.

It will be years before he can ever untangle the visions and memories of this time, if in fact he ever can... but there are disjointed images and sensations seared into his mind's eye. Glimpses of bare, sweat-slicked flesh. Dark faces looming and leering in the dark as two people work in what seems a tireless, almost panicked passion. Ymae is young and gorgeous and beyond willing at times, and old and wretched and scaly at others. He will remember her long, probing tongue in his mouth, her pendulous and shriveled breasts swaying to and froe, and also the arch of her back as she rode him, a slender beauty with flowers tangled all through her silver-gold hair. He would also remember spilling an absurd amount of his seed into the fire, guided by his lover's hand... and then coming to his senses outside her hovel, naked, his clothes bundled in his arms.

Before the sweat-soaked, breathless man stand two figures: Ymae, smiling and even more beautiful than she had been at times during their tryst, and a roiling, shifting figure comprised of smoke, flame, and darkness. That eerie figure stands behind the witch, and glowers with blazing eyes in such a way that Aldric can practically hear the thing shouting BEGONE!, but the Mad Widow places a hand on her tender bare breast as she regards the priest.

Her words are gentle.

"I thank you, Aldric, Warden of Pelagia. Return here at dusk for your reward."

Dufgal remembers the glass that he swiped from Dolsten’s place when he knew nothing of the man or his whereabouts. He tried to make his face neutral so as not to belie too much of his awkwardness.

Aldric has been through the dark and perverse before, when the Bitch Queen took his soul as her own. The leering shadow-faces and pendulous glands were, in the light of those memories, tame by comparison. He took to his work without shame, for he had none, and without reservation, for Pelagia was always watching, and that was much scarier than all the other things in her hut combined. He fills the hovel with song and curse words like that of a seaman.

Once he finds himself outside, spent and naked, he holds his oar stiff and vertical. He wards against the second figure, whose power does trend against Pelagia's in an alarming way. Should his soul become entangled between the two beings, the battle for possession would surely leave him worse than dead, and he did not like that one bit. Swallowing hard, he attempts to extricate himself - always a difficult thing after bedding a woman, but never were the stakes so high!

"That is Witness, not Warden, Ymae. She sees all that I see," He says this as he throws on his robes. "Until sundown then!" As he moves, he realizes how withered his body is from this encounter!

Beneath the coarse cloth that binds his eyes, Ty glances from Morgan to her would-be paramour. Then he tilts his head, as if locating Llore by the sound of his salutation.

"Driven off is a charitable choice of words, friend," Tyravasiel demurs. "We survived, while others did not. I claim no more. We have the Sea Bitch Pelagia to thank for our good fortune, I think, for the holy father who leads us--" Ty chokes a tiny bit on those words, but proceeds-- "is a cleric in her service."

The elf pauses, then says, "You are the Skald Lloré, whom Morgan Haverson came here to seek? When it comes to surviving where others have not, you are in a class of your own! How did you manage to elude the beast, there in the very place of sacrifice?"

Ty nods along with the skald's tale, as if it's the most reasonable thing in the world.

"Indeed, sir. It's a shame that the fellows on the biers up there didn't think of the baying," the elf says. He has the good sense to wave in a more or less random direction, rather than toward the Sky Biers they passed earlier. "Now, you say you were trussed up on the sacrificial stone? Pray, Master Lloré, who did the trussing? And more importantly, who did the untrussing? The lady of your devotion and her uncle had fled by then, had they not? I've been confused on this point, but no doubt you can make it clear."

"Why I did, sir," Lloré answers. "We presumed the beast would not care if the bonds were tight or loose. It's appetite never seems dulled before by such details!"

Shifting perhaps a little uncomfortably, he adds, "So when the monster passed me by, I was able to struggle free."

Morgan rubs briefly at he red, raw skin at her wrists, and she regards Ty with interest, wondering where his line of questioning is going.

"And what story might that be?" Anora asks with raised eyebrow. She had wondered if Dufgal might make himself scarce to go investigate on her behalf, and so allow her to fish out the parchments she still saw at the fringe of her mind.

Still… an answer was an answer and this one might just fall into her lap!

"And yet you presumed the beast would care whether you were tied or untied at all upon the sacrificial stone." Ty presses his lips together, as if puzzled, then seems to wave the thought away. "In any case. You free our Morgan here, then nobly, but loosely, bind yourself-- did you do the binding, friend, or was it Dolsten?-- bind yourself to the stone, to await your sure demise. But at the last extremity, inspiration strikes; you bark back at the hound, and off it bounds, leaving you to work free of your bonds and make your escape."

The elf rubs his chin. "Dolsten and Morgan must have fled for their own safety by then," he surmises. "It's a shame there was no one to witness your braving the beast but yourself. At least you are a storyteller, young sir, and can give a good account of it."

IN THE BACK YARD OF THE SIGN OF THE THREE RATS (TY AND MORGAN)

Wee Tocs just watches and listens to this whole exchange with interest, but Lloré's face falls when Ty continues to pull at the threads of his tale.

"Sir, I am not sure I understand the intent of your questioning. After we freed fair Morgan, Dolston took her back to the village while I did my best to play the part of the sacrifice. I bound myself as best I could, but I was alone, and I am no sailor, no master of knots!"

Sniffing a bit, perhaps not noticing Morgan's eyes on him, the skald continues. "I was prostrate on that slab, and ready for the end, sir! When it did not come, it's true, I was alone. I said my blessings and thanked the fates for my fortune."

The elf nods along with the skald in apparent sympathy.

"The gods must have chosen to smile upon your remarkable bravery," Tyravasiel conjectures. "After all, any other human would have shuffled out of those loose bonds as soon as Morgan and Dolsten were out of sight, and taken to his heels. What profit is there in facing a murderous beast, with none there to admire you for it? Or gainsay you, if you later choose to pretend that you have? I myself would have made an early escape. But I am a mere beggar, not a poet. Poets are made of sterner stuff, are they not?"

Ty just lets everyone sit with that idea for a moment. Lloré in particular. Through the blindfold, he watches the other man's reaction.

Then he lifts a shoulder. "You have my admiration, sir. And now, Madam Haverson, if you are done speaking to the hero, I would ask you to guide me back to your father's inn."

AT THE MARKET SQUARE (ALL)

By the time Aldric gets his bearings, fully regains his senses and decides to make for the Wolf-Spear, two Thegns stand guard near the locked strongbox which has been set on the raised platform rather than the elevated pedestal -- which still needs repair.

In the town center, Anora, Dufgal, Ty and Morgan have also gathered, returning from their respective tasks at roughly the same time. The barmaid was keeping her opinions of Lloré to herself, the elf discovered, and she seemed not a little unsettled by the fact that the skald might not have taken her place after all, despite his continued claims that he did.

The sorceress and thief have packed up their maps and documents; they carry the witch's folio carefully as the priest staggers up to his companions...

Aldric stumbles into the market square, his robes hanging off him like he’d just wrestled a storm and lost. He mutters curses under his breath, each step punctuated by a wince, as approaches the others.

"By all that it is wet and scaly, the only reason I stand before you is by Pelagia's grace," Aldric moans as he pauses to stretch, rubbing his lower back with a grimace. "That old crone had more tricks up her sleeve than a fucking octopus! I’ve pulled muscles I didn’t even know I had..."

Truly delighted to see the cleric alive and well, Dufgal cannot contain his attachment and clumsily gives him an awkward embrace.
"I’se very chuffed to see you, Brother Aldric. Don’t think for a minute that I wasn’t worrying ’bout you the whole time!"
The thief pulls back from the hug a bit wet and wonders to himself just how a man stays so moist all day and night.

"Perhaps you would like to wash yourself down, Aldric? Only I fear the beast will sniff you out tonight should you let the scent… fester." she says, through a deliberately steady face, so that she would not bring up her breakfast.

Blissfully unaware of the fell bargain struck at the witch's hut, Ty merely contorts his lips in mild puzzlement at the talk of tricks and pulled muscles and festering scents. There are questions on his tongue, but his self-absorption serves him well in this case; the elf breezes past them and instead nods in the direction of the church across the market square.

"I have it on the authority of a human urchin that Father Prick, who presides over Justicia's temple, confirms the names drawn from the lottery box. That means he must be in on the grift. If we have any way of loosening the cleric's tongue, I would much like to know precisely how our Jarl always manages to draw the names of people he and Sylle Ru want to put out of the way."

"I had some success getting the witch to speak more freely! Perhaps I could garner the same results from the cleric!"

The thing with the witch had been a lucky stroke. She had caught the woman in a moment of emotional weakness. The cleric could be riled to anger, she was sure, but would he be as susceptible to her magicks?

Aldric returns Dufgal's embrace as best he can, though the big man's squeezing arms do illicit an aching groan from the Witness's lips. Ah, trusty Dufgal.

He listens intently to Ty's information, not surprised at all that the priest is a charlatan and grifter. It was clerics like him that gave honest Witnesses like Aldric a bad name (and made it harder for him to pull off his own grifts).
"Work your magicks, Anora the Blue, but don't expect me to sleep with that one!" Aldric blurts out.