DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

Aldric rises, potatoes in hand. "That sounds like a terrible plan. I'm in."

Seeing that Father Beacom has not left his post, he sees no opportunity to replace the missing warhammer with his carefully-crafted spud replica. Well, fuck. He hands the potatoes to his followers, wondering if they could do the job for him. But, he didn't trust them. Anyone stupid enough to willingly follow Pelagia was not the person he wanted for this job. Instead, he bids them to boil the potato sculpture in a stew. Once they are done, he strongly suggests they should come check on him at the Jarl's, and make sure all is well. "I'll set this business with the lottery straight, Pelagia as my witness!"

He also feels no great urgency to wait for Wee Tocs, who has already departed. The children of Hirot had thus far turned out to be quite the little shits, and he had important business to attend to. "The boy called me Alldick, can you believe it?" he says to the group as he follows them, fighting against the invisible currents. "Alldick!"

Anora let the others worry about security. For now, she needed to seem like she was in control. Whatever would happen next, it must be as if Anora the Blue had willed it so. And if it was not willed by her, it should at least have been expected by her.

She was loathe to lose the overwhelming force that was the citizenry of Hirot. The Thegn were fighting men, but not her fighting men!

No. She didn’t much fancy the idea of being separated from the flock, especially at the suggestion of an unknown quantity like this man…

Some other plan would have to come to the fore between here and the great gate.

HIROT (ALL)

By the time Master Jenks and Wee Tocs carry their bleeding, unconscious companion to the edge of the market, they are already too late. There's too much commotion in the center of the town, and the four strangers are engaged in some new folly -- leading three of the Jarl's thegns and a long tail of outraged villagers up the elevated road towards the Jarl's great house.

"Is theys goin' to turn theyselves in?" Catkins asks, holding the side of her oar-bruised head with one hand. "Or is it a trick?! The Pisser -- he's a tricky one!"

Tocs answers, but we do not hear his undoubtedly snide reply over the din in the village.

---

Walking alongside Ty and Anora, Morgan glances back at the three thegns -- they are playing along so far -- and the pack of angry townsfolk behind them.

"So what is the plan?" she asks urgently when they have climbed a quarter of the way to the great house. Rounding that first switchback, she adds, "We don't want townsfolk with us if we're pretending to be captives of these three behind us, do we?"

"The plan shall present itself when we reach the gateway!" Anora said, trying to sound sure!

"I’m not so sure we want to lose our number advantage!" she warns the others!

"We just need to avoid bloodshed in those opening moments! If we can only speak to the thegns inside and show them how much of the village is aligned against those two…"

Ty glances up the causeway to the Jarl's gate, where a separate group of irate villagers has already gathered.

"It's, ah, hard to make out," he adds, addressing Morgan, "but I believe I hear more of your townsfolk congregated up the way. We'll have no good means of dispersing them, buxom lady, even if we so wished."

Leading the way, Anora sweeps up the rising road to the great hall like she is in the vanguard of some great cavalry charge — and it is no wonder, with now almost three dozen people at her back. Red-faced Morgan’s concerns are answered by Ty, and then flung to the side in favor of urgency and the wizardess’s desire to use the mob at hand. At the top, they find another score villagers pounding on the door, rattling heavily shuttered windows, and shouting.

The calls are forceful, and come one after the other from a variety of angry voices.

"Come out, Jarl, you bastard! Show yourself!"

"Open the door! Answer for your crimes!"

"Explain the box, warlock! The lottery was a sham, you picked who you wanted to die!"

Those men turn and gape when the elaborately-haired, blue-garbed sorceress climbs the last of the muddy earthen causeway, leading her fellows, a trio of thegns and a gaggle of Hirotians forward. Those already present at the hall are armed as many of the irate villagers are, mostly with staves and clubs and a whole collection of felling, splitting and broad axes. They grip them tightly as they try to understand what this unruly host’s arrival means.

"The Jarl and his cunts are shut up tight!" a burly, bearded man missing a front tooth bellows. Pointing with a mattock at Ofenloch, Haedrick, and Kreig, he asks, "What’s about them? Why ain’t they in stocks or irons?!"

Aldric enjoys the sea of villagers sweeping to the Jarl's stronghold.
He takes the man by the shoulder, pulling him to his brackish, moist embrace, and speaks to him like a man he's known since childhood.

"Your anger is warranted, my friend! That one was a cunt hair's width away from splitting my skull with his big, dumb axe!"

"But now, hear my words: It is not our past transgressions that define us, but our present embrace of the righteous mission! The ocean does not ask where the water has been but welcomes every stream, every drop, into its expanse."

"But if he even smells like he's going to stab us in the back, we'll fucking gut him. Bwahaha!"

It is Aldric's goal to wield his bawdy humour in service of keeping this motley mob together, so that they present a stronger front to pressure the Jarl into cooperation or submission.

Anora opens her mouth to speak, when Aldric takes the opportunity to give a sermon instead!

When the man is finished, she nods. He would be a powerful man, if he had only pledged his service to one less fickle.

"We mean to come inside!" Anora calls above the din, meaning to address the armed men inside! She left it vague on who exactly ‘we’ meant.

"We have the Church Father, the Jarl’s armed men and all of Hirot at our backs! And we have indisputable proof of the fiction Sylle Ru has weaved here in the village!"

Seeing so many of their fellow townsfolk already under Anora’s sway, and with Aldric’s bolstering banter, it takes not a moment for the besieging Hirotians to join up with the newly arrived throng of outraged villagers. They now number more then forty, not including the strangers and the thegns!

As Anora marches forward towards the heavy, sealed doors of the great hall, cheers go up and weapons are raised. Aldric, though, feels something in the air. Like the ocean has drawn back from the beach, leaving fish flopping and a greasy black muck that will claim all who are fool enough to walk in it. It is like his goddess has drawn a breath and is holding it.

Tyravasiel-Llir senses something as well. As pleased as the Three Fates were regarding the exposing of the sham lottery, they have fallen quiet now, waiting to see the outcome of that revelation. By all accounts a chaos beast is still loose and will still claim innocents in the night. The Sisters may have more yet they ask of the wayward elf… the slaying of the Hound itself! Lest Ty’s pursuers suddenly find his trail is straighter and shorter than they knew. The sky is clouding as the day wears on; are those three faces the fae-born sees above the great house? Faces fair beyond comprehension on the left, and in the middle. And a crag-faced crone with a peering, piercing eye on the right.

For his part, Dufgal goes along with the crowd, silent and wary in his way. All three thegns have weapons drawn — a ward to keep excitable rioters at bay, surely, but perhaps to use against those within the hall, if necessary?

Anora’s calls towards the Jarl’s domicile eventually result in the opening of a small sliding door above and to the right of the main entrance, those heavy, iron-reinforced double doors that stand firmly shut. A man’s face appears in the small window — or rather most of it.

"What do you want? Go away!" Haelf Halfson says curtly, his bright eyes wide and fearful.

Ty sees something in those green eyes, something familiar. Somewhere in this man’s lineage there is faeblood.

Dufgal scans the face of the keep and tries to find the point of easiest ascent. Just in case. He figures that, at minimum, he may need to open the gates from within. All of his other attention is on the thegns, watching for any sign that they might betray their hidden agenda.

Bent-backed, Ty hobbles and taps his way forward until he's placed himself between Anora and that face by the door.

"We shall not go!" he wails. "For a dire crime has been committed against the folk of this village, and it must be answered. Hirot herself now stands at your gate, in the person of her chosen emissary, Anora the Blue!"

The elf bows down until the broad brim of his hat all but scrapes the mud. He raises his free hand, arm extended, and points back at the magnificently coiffed sorceress as if his were the very finger of destiny.

"Listen now to the voice of your people! The voice of justice, and of truth!"

No pressure!

Anora waits an appropriate amount of time before speaking up:

"This is not some rabble intent on butchery. It is a gathering of souls seeking justice. You see the Jarl’s men at our backs. They listened to our words, and saw the truth of the choosing box!

We went first to Justicia’s holy place, and so convinced the thegn’s and Justicia’s own servant. They live, and breathe, and share our greatest fears. Yet, they shared those fears before we unveiled the conspiracy of the lottery. I am certain that you within share this very same suspicions…"

Aldric smacks some noisy bastard on the back of his head and signals to everyone around to be quiet and listen to Anora the Blue as she levies her accusations. Normally, Aldric likes to be the centre of attention, but he's happy for Anora to take the lead on this, and with it the risk!

Halfson listens to Ty, and then Anora as Aldric quiets the crowd. He hesitates before responding, but finally says, "What crime? What... conspiracy?"

Before anyone can answer, another small, high-mounted door slides open -- this one on the other side of the barred doors. Another face appears in that space. An uglier, meaner face: Clohn's.

"Ignore her, Haelf!" the man says, practically spitting he's so angry. "And ready your axe! Witch, you are witless to come here! Kreig! Ofenloch, Haedrick! Why do you stand impotent!? Strike the bitch down!"

The bald man's eyes then narrow. "Or has she ensorcelled you!? Have you been bewitched, enthralled by that woman's conniving tongue?!"

A pause, the intake of many breaths all around Anora. "Or has she done this to the entire village, bedeviled you all?!"

The burly thief positions himself for a backstab on the nearest thegn while maintaining a hopeful look at Anora as if to say, "You’se got this, Lady"

"Orioc!" Anora calls above the accusation.

"Orioc, come forth! I suspect you know the truth of this, too! I would not bandy words with a man who sees devilry everywhere but at his own back.

Were I powerful enough to ensorcel this village, I would simply swat you aside like some common swamp-stinger!

Praise Justicia and all the rest that I still rely on words and reason!"

Still stooped in his attendant's posture, Tyravasiel-Llir follows the exchange with mild but mounting alarm. It seems to him that perhaps some important details of the Jarl's ruse have been left out, or steered around. It sounds like the bald one is no friend of theirs, and the other-- who must be 'Haelf the Halfwit'-- may not have the brain for an involved tale. But as Anora has implied by her summons, there are more crucial ears within the Jarl's hall. Ears that may be near enough to hear.

"Indeed, my lady!" Ty supplies, loudly enough to be heard through the keep's door and peep-holes. "Tell him about the secret tray within the lottery box. The tray where one chosen name among so many was placed, to be plucked out-- seemingly at random, but in truth, by design! The secret tray that we have found out, and now hold as proof of treachery against the people. Whoever placed that device within the lockbox has been marking out men and women of Hirot for their deaths!"

"Your word against the Jarl's!" Clohn shouts at the beggar elf. "Kreig! Kreig you betraying swine, strike the bitch down! End this nonsense!"