DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

"My sentiments exactly, Anora the Blue. Besides, if Ty's ears can detect swaying bossoms, the swayings of a bridge will be like child's play to him."

Ty knocks a few loose stones down into the slurping muck below, but then finds a patch that seems solid -- a good landing pad for those willing to risk a leap!

Tyravasiel-Llir gives the solid bridge section a demonstrative cane-tap.

"Come ahead, Father Aldric!" he cries. "The leap is not far. Then may you stand ready to catch our traveling lady, should her skirts befoul her."

Aldric was about to insist ladies go first, but decides its better to get it over with quickly. He makes a run for it, which isn't pretty, but gets the job done.

"Now you, Anora!"

Anora grabs up the surplus material of her robes, so as not to impede her stride and then leap.

"Distribute your weight on that side!" she warns, buying herself time to stump up the courage to make the undignified jump.

Then she goes for it…

A few more stones tumble down into the bog when Aldric makes his leap, but Anora sails across the gap with surprising coordination, landing lightly and gracefully beside the priest. There is certainly no need to catch the woman, who smooths her skirts and continues on her way, leading the trio the rest of the way across, and off, the bridge.

The other side of the Muckmire Fen is a lonely, stinking, still place. With the bustle of Garion's Folly and the calls of her fisherman, and wading mussel and snail-collectors now distant, the wind and the quiet gurgle of the mire dominate, though crow caws can occasionally be heard from the west, deeper into the woods.

Those green and gray pines stand like walls, preventing access to the land west of the fen, the slopes that eventually start climbing towards the peaks of the Trolltooth Mountains -- which lie far beyond Hirot, their destination. Three centuries before, the King's Road was cut through these woods, and remains a walkable path... though the footing is poor and the way dark and gloomy, a tunnel of sorts through the dark forest. Branches reach and shift in the wind, creaking and rustling as the trio begins the next leg of their journey.

"Its scarcely a surprise that the man and his sons didn’t make the journey, given the condition of the roads." Anora says, not commenting on the athleticism she just displayed. If they thought they were transporting a feeble, helpless arcane practitioner, then maybe now they would reassess.

"The coin given to us to determine the why would have been better spent restoring the bridge." she says, but then her mind goes to the spell that sits just out of reach for now…

Dufgal traced the trio’s journey from deep within the treeline, being mindful not to step on any fallen detritus. He still can’t be certain that they haven’t been followed, so he waits until they make camp for the night to approach. He gnaws on a piece of jerky to fill his belly and fuel the journey.

Aldric keeps up, in a fashion, huffing and puffing and squeaking and stumbling. If they thought they were partnered a feeble, helpless divine practitioner, then they were right!

But he does keep up, as every step takes him further from the cursed ocean.

"I take no issue with people spending their town's money to line our pockets. A most noble and holy donation to the church."

Thinking on the wet all about, Anora wonders aloud:

"And do you suppose our hot-blooded companion is currently enjoying your Pelagia’s cold embrace?

He could be an inch below the surface and we would scarcely be able to see him."

Ty follows amiably enough in the blue wizard's wake.

"About this task of ours," he cuts in. "Does it seem at all strange to you, madam and father, that the Muckmire Merchants' Guild should provision and reward this expedition to determine the fate of one rustic woodsman and his sons? For the coin we're to collect, Relfarious could buy himself five new woodsmen."

---

DEEP IN THE DARK FOREST, THAT NIGHT (ALL)

Miles pass underfoot as the trio walks deeper and deeper into the forest. Broken paving stones and tangles of gnarled roots are stepped around and over, and the grey sky overhead is only visible fleetingly through the branches and tall, swaying, softly rustling pines. The quiet deepens as the day wears on, and the funk of the wood — the smell of rot and decay, of mildew and mold — pervades.

It is otherwise easy travel, as not only is the old road is straight and mostly still walkable with a bit of care, but no brigands emerge from the trees with crossbows leveled, no rat-sized spiders or seeping black horrors drop down from the twisted canopy above. Dusk approaches as the group begins to talk about where they should overnight, and the topic is suddenly underscored as they come upon a roadside ruin, what clearly was once a roadhouse, a way-point one day’s travel from Garion’s Folly. The inn is now only a depression, moss-covered foundation stones and rotten timbers, further sign of the Kingdom’s abandonment of the western frontier.

"Let no one mistake you for the sentimental kind." Anora says, looking at the man askance. Never-mind the fact that she had just mentioned that they would have been better off simply repairing the roads…

When they come upon the room some time later, she wonders if she ought to have risked the jump earlier, given that most of the day passed without incident. She supposed there was still time yet.

"Is it bad manners to set ourselves up in the ruins of an old inn, do you think?" she asks the others. "It feels a bit like laying down in a cemetery."

Tyravasiel is already gathering twigs, pinecones and bark for kindling. He tosses them down in the middle of the ruin, then sets down his backpack and collects some fragments of stone from the old walls. Crouching, he arranges these to form a ring that pushes in the dry wood. What remains of the structure may serve as a windbreak, should the weather turn sour. The walls will also limit the visibility of their fire.

"I choose to think that whatever hospitable souls might haunt such a place would be glad of our company," he reasons, opening his pack and rooting within. "What are we but lodgers, somewhat after the fact?"

"As long as the ghosts don't ask for money, we will get along just fine."

Aldric watches with the approval of a farmer as Ty sets up the camp with excellent foresight. Of course, Aldric is too winded and weary to contribute much to the effort, so he spends time catching his breath. Once it is caught, he uses it to attempt to compose a prayer to Pelagia.

"Hail Pelagia, queen of the brine,
In your kingdom, our destinies entwine.
With every crest, our fears align,
Yet in your presence, our hearts... incline?"

"Gods, that is terrible. Let's try again, hmm?"

"So let us sing, of love and dread,
For Pelagia, queen of the ocean bed.
In her embrace, our souls are fed,
With both love and fear, forever... wed?"

"Oh fucking hells. She might just drown me here and now! What I wouldn't do for a proper, regulation, standard-issue prayer book for followers of Pelagia."

Dufgal makes his approach as slow as a snail. There is so much debris on the forest floor that any wrong step and the crack or crinkle would give his position away. Of course, the thief knows that these three are not marks of his, but he feels that truly surprising them will impress them greatly. And he hasn’t felt this much ambition in years. It’s coarsing through him powerfully. It’s becoming immensely challenging to slow his breathing as well as his footfalls. Yet steadily he draws near. He even hears Aldrich’s last attempt at a rhyming dedication to his goddess. It makes Dufgal try to think up one. Noses be red. Violence be blue. The water queen might be blue … too. He likes his rhyme quite a bit that he even feels a rare smile take shape on his lips.

The fire is going and darkness has fallen by the time Aldric finishes waxing poetic... or... whatever it is he's doing to regale, appease, or hide from his watery goddess. The wild sounds of the wood mingle with the snap and pop of the fire, which throws a welcome heat, as the damp of the day has worsened, yielding to an evening chill that's going to make sleeping on the ground uncomfortable.

"You might instruct your followers…"

Theoretical though they might be for now…

"… to construct a stopping inn here, Aldric!" the woman remarks. "Unless you hope they’ll climb to this mountain top of yours in a single night’s rest."