DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

Aldric reels in horror as the psycho girl sinks her teeth into his knuckle flesh.His finger dangles from her mouth as his stump spurts blood. Not much sensical comes to his lips, just a series of foul curses dripping with agony.

He grabs his wave-cursed oar and attempts to bash her skull in.

IN THE ALLEY (ALDRIC & DUFGAL)

Dufgal races up the alley towards Aldric and the vile little urchin that appears to be hanging from the man’s hand… by her teeth?! There’s a terrible, wet ripping sound and suddenly the girl stumbles back, spits something out and grins a red grin at the shocked, wounded priest. She might be about to say something, but Aldric’s oar flashes and clonks her on the head, hard. The girl goes ass over teakettle and lands flat on her face in front of the big thief, who arrives with his prize.

As he closes in, Dufgal notes not just the now unconscious girl, but a finger lying on the ground and Aldric clutching at a spurting finger stump. Blood bubbles and drizzles onto the ground as the man winces.

Then, down at the shop Dufgal just vacated, near where Wolf lies dying on the ground, the older bedraggled man emerges, knife in hand. Seeing his downed companion, he exclaims unintelligibly and kneels down.

"You stabbed him, you bastard!" he shouts. "He’s fucking bleeding to death!"

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ROUND 4
Init Order: Dufgal, Jenks, Wolf, Catkins, Apprentice?, Aldric

As Dufgal approaches Aldric, intending to throttle the threat, he is surprised by the swift strike to the head by the oar of Pelagia.

He barely has time to react when he hears Jenks from behind him. He quickly decides to veer off and disappear behind a building. He cannot be certain that Jenks knows of his affiliation with the cleric, so he figures that he can de-escalate by disappearing.

IN THE ALLEY (ALDRIC & DUFGAL)

Down near the shop, Jenks begins working on Wolf, trying to save the man's life.

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ROUND 4
Init Order: Dufgal, Jenks, Wolf, Catkins, Apprentice?, Aldric

"This is a waste of our time and our talents!" Anora says quietly to Ty, feeling flustered at the priest’s stubbornness.

"Yes! Yes! I suppose that would suffice, Father!" she calls out, while ushering some of the more burly villagers into place so that they can seize on any breach.

"If you would just open the door, I’ll slip inside!" she says, readying a spell in her mind in case.

Aldric is satisfied by the cracking sound hitting the young psycho's stupid face, but it makes for a poor compensation for the pain in his hand. "FUCK!" Aldric cries out, clutching his hand once more as Dufgal arrives. He tries to draw upon Pelagia's mercy (a dry well, that) to heal his stump.

"Ah, Dufgal! I have never been so happy to see you! By all that is holy and true, please do not leave my side."When he reveals his wounded hand now, the bleeding is gone, and the stump is completely healed over. The finger, of course, has not grown back.

Ty was not present when the lockbox was opened, having been called away at that crucial moment by Father Aldric's plight with Kreig the thegn. (It amuses the Fates to demand his service and then frustrate his success. With good reason does the elf avoid the Three Weavers whenever he can.) From the general furor, Ty has been able to intuit that the lottery was rigged, but not precisely how.

Was Father Beacom truly aware of the ruse? What of the thegns holed up with him?

"Is it possible, Lady Blue, that some of those within are quite ignorant of the Jarl's scheme? What was the manner of it? Tell them, and a few at least may come over to our side."

The burly thief makes eye contact with Aldric as he veers off path and into the shadows. He trusts that his intent is clearly supportive and not neglectful. His expression might be translated as, "I’se trying to draw ‘im off you!" even though all the cleric can see are two caterpillars doing the wave across his brow.

Anora raises a hand once again; this time for the villagers to wait another moment.

She clears her throat, and calls once again to the Father:

"We have… since learned that the lottery was fixed by the Jarl and his sorcerer. The people are upset, and suspect the church’s involvement. What do you know of the selection process, Father?"

Dufgal beckons to Aldric and flashes the gleaming metal of the prize to reassure him that it is safe.

Aldric throws Dufgal a sly grin and murmurs a low, "Good man!" as he slips into the shadows with the hulking thief. On his way, he steps on the back of the finger-biting waif, pressing her face into the mud as he passes her prone form.

Aldric gestures with his middle finger down the street to the man calling for a healer, and whispers to Dufgal an obvious question.

"Did you stab him with the gods-fucked hammer? Praise Pelagia, how did it go? Did it feel ... potent? Surged with power, perhaps?"

He was eager to know if their caper had finally paid off.

As soon as he thinks Aldric and he are totally out of sight, he quietly answers the cleric. "As po-tent as mah fist!"
It seems Dufgal was new to the word, but did his best. His grin was more emotion than had graced his face in a week. Camaraderie with Aldric, a sense of purpose here in Hirot, and small successes along the way have all combined in the thief as some measure of giddyness. He feels as if he had snuck three sips of his dad’s special juice.

Anora takes a defiant step forward, so as to better speak with the Father. She hadn’t been cowed by the Jarl’s dogs thus far, and she certainly wouldn’t be cowed now that the village stood at her back!

"Of course. You did your duty well.

As for the farce, well… the Jarl had introduced a mechanism with which he could select a name in advance, and place it aside for easy plucking during the pubic lottery. A rudimentary misdirect, but quite effective." she says, with some lament in her voice.

AT THE CHURCH (ANORA & TY, ALDRIC & DUFGAL APPROACH?)

Anora's words resonate inside the church, inside the structure architected to amplify just such tones of voice -- such declarations. Several villagers have spilled and filled in behind her, but none look too keen to press forward with their knifes and clubs in the face of the cold steel wielded by the three on-guard Thegns. They are Ofenloch, Kreig, and Haedrick, their names muttered in some fear by the villagers gathering behind the lady in blue. Behind them, Utherl is prostrate on the ground, evidently still recovering from the cord Dufgal had drawn across his neck.

Ofenloch holds both sword and shortspear in his strong hands. The quiet, scarred man has only one eye and a stink Anora can smell from ten paces, but he certainly looks able-bodied enough to split two or three skulls before the villagers could overwhelm him.

Haedrick and the strangers have spoken before, at the Wolf-Spear. He seems perhaps smarter and more sensible than most of the other Thegns -- he seems canny. The mustachioed northman wears a heavy fur cloak and wields a hand-and-a-half sword that gleams in the candlelight.

Kreig is the man with the topknot and the facial tattoos who pursued Aldric, and who Ty blinded. He seems to see well enough now. He was at the tavern earlier as well, and stands a head above the others. They know by now he is quick to anger and to judge. He lacks a keen edge on his wit, perhaps, but the battleaxe the brute hefts is enough by itself to give Anora's whole party pause.

The two silent brothers keep the doors open as Father Beacom comes further forward, his brow knitting and his jaw clenching at the sorceress's words.

"This is a grave accusation, Lady Anora. Be clear. You mean to say the Jarl has been choosing who dies in the lottery this whole time?"

The pain of losing a finger had completely abated now, due to Pelagia's healing touch. He considers fetching his severed finger, but decides to leave it in the mud alongside the bitch child.

Gods be damned, that one has such potential!

There is precious little time for scheming, however, as Aldric overhears the growing fury of the townsolk gathered at the market square. Glorious! Now that he had reunited with Brother Dufgal, it was time to find the elf and the wizard. Who knows how much trouble they had gotten into without Pelagia's guidance!

"The others are surely in need of our skills Dufgal! Lead us through this crowd! Or through the shadows, if you think it best."