DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

Aldric's wife -- and aye, his daughters -- would know the kitchen of the Wolf-Spear for what it was. A well-stocked, well-equipped, well-used and well-loved place. They would have known that it was the food that brought the locals to the inn every night, in happier times. Venison and partridge hang in the back, drying, there are racks of spices, bags of grain, blocks of cheese, big loaves of bread, pots and pans, a bushel of fiddleheads and other greens, a full larder and more.

But tonight the fire is cold, the large iron kettles are empty. No stew simmers, no delicious odors waft from roasting meat or baking pies. It holds promise, this place, but clearly no meal has been prepared here for some hours.

Tapping along with his cane, Ty follows the sound of Aldric's voice to the bar. He makes a show of feeling over the mugs before wrapping his fingers around one and lifting it to his nose for a sniff. It requires an effort of will not to grimace.

The mayflies' piss-water, of course. Always the piss-water. Tyravasiel sets the mug down again and slyly eyes the shelves through his blindfold, looking for a bottle of wine or perhaps harder spirits. He's found that the humans can't foul those drinks up as terribly as they do their 'ale.'

"What would a hound care for the manner of its feeding?" the elf asks innocently. "Phantom or otherwise? When the beast invades your village, do you suppose that it first draws lots back in its lair to decide whom it will seek out and devour?"

Dufgal simply sits and sips. He’s had worse ale. He’s really excited about the prospect of a hot meal. The drama behind him has drifted into a mind bubble the moment he decided that it wasn’t his job to be a hero. We each must wrestle with the arbiters of fate. The fugitive fingersmith had wrestling with his hunger to focus on. He gulps down the dregs of his cup and goes back into the kitchen to offer his help to Aldric. His hands are filthy but it’s his boredom and hunger driving his offer, not his skill or experience.

"Unbind that man!" Anora barks into the chaos, as the villagers struggle to subdue their man.

"You double your indignity by keeping him against his will. As for this practitioner you have thrown your lot in with…" she says, with a derisive snort. She supposed these folk were comfortable enough with the arcane arts. "Know that I am of the cloth too, and I do not share his mind on the matter! Better to face the thing with arms than wilt away!" she says, and lets her longsword be seen, as she folds back her robes.

A wizard yes, but one that knew the value of a sword…

Tyravasiel-Llir lofts a little sigh, as if to say, Well, we're in it now.

He turns and manhandles the shelf of spirits behind him until he's felt up a suitable bottle of wine. The elf retrieves his prize-- such as it is-- works loose the cork, and drinks directly from the bottle.

As he does so, Ty listens for anyone in the crowd who might speak to Dolsten's apparent absence. He's the one flyspeck among these flyspecks about whom Relfarious has shown a pecuniary interest.

Anora's command catches the villagers off-guard, causing several of them to jump. The woman has a voice and when she refutes the seer's claims, and then bares the pommel and hilt of her sword -- the circle widens around her and the bound innkeeper as though she's been discovered to have the plague. And then, suddenly -- chaos ensues. If Ty or anyone else has hope of hearing some specific utterance regarding Dolsten or his absence, it's lost as many voices and opinions crash together.

"She's right! Let the man go!"

"No! Then the hound will come for us instead!"

"The Jarl and the Seer have no idea how to stop the thing! We're just feeding it our own! Weapons are useless against it!"

"They know that! They are working on a plan, and just need time!"

Ty is drinking wine that isn't much better than the village's ale and listening to all this when a voice sounds beside him. A boy's weedy voice, maybe from a child of fourteen. Light-footed, the lad had closed with the elf quietly, expertly, using Dufgal's exit into the kitchen as cover.

"What a cock-up, yeah?" he says. "There's no one here with the balls to go against the Jarl, bunch of frightened twats. Most of them don't even realize what's really goin' on!"

When Ty looks over, the boy is smiling as he adds, "I'm Wee Tocs. Who're you then?"

---

In the kitchen, Dufgal comes across Aldric preparing a... meal? With two buckets full of a slop that looks -- and smells -- like the leftovers from some earlier and perhaps regurgitated meal at the Wolf-Spear, and the trimmings and leavings of the butchering and cooking process.

"CEASE!" Anora’s voice booms over the din, as the woman summons as much baritone as she can muster for the proclamation.

"The Hound has already taken your minds, by the sounds of it. What harm if it comes to claim the meat!" she chides several of the whining villagers!

"Untie him!" she commands again to those nearest the ropes!

"Dufgal! Excellent timing. Help me carry these... ugh! rather heavy buckets of slop!"

And by help, he means for broad Dufgal to do all the carrying, as he makes clear by plunking the buckets at his feet.

"Tonight, the people of Hirot shall witness a miracle! Our tentacles are slowly closing around the Sylle Ru's congregation. With careful application of theatrics, and just the right amount of force..."

"Dufgal, what's all that shouting about out there?"

The burly burglar grabs the buckets and carries them to where Aldric indicates. When the cleric of the Brine Bitch asks about the din in the den, he looks at him and shrugs.
I’se thinking they’se don't know what’s going on either. Moods is high. Mayhaps they’se hungery too.

Ty does his best to cover his surprise at finding a human child suddenly standing next to him. Despite the tumult in the inn, he retains the presence of mind to cock an ear towards the lad rather than looking directly at him through the blindfold.

"We'd best keep our voices down," the elf confides. "Lady Blue is in high dudgeon!"

Ty takes another swig of the really very poor wine, makes a face, then murmurs, "My name is Ty, young Master Tocs. A humble beggar, far out of his element. And how, pray, do you know what is really going on? Might it have something to do with your considerable lightness of step?"

"Hello Ty," Wee says, "nice to make your ‘quaintance. And I just haves eyes in my head is all. And ears on the sides. Old Father Beacom says its ‘cause of all our sins that the devil-wolf come. But it’s not that."

The boy’s voice lowers to a whisper, even as Anora bellows and two villagers reluctantly move forward and begin to untie the man many of the townsfolk call ‘Bull.’

"It’s Sylle Ru! He’s controlling the thing somehow!"

In the middle of the room, Broegan shakes off the last of the ropes and rises up violently, kicking away the chair he’d been bound to. He towers over Anora the Blue, but she does not shrink away.

"Cunts!" the man swears at his neighbors and once-friends, raising a fist as if he intends to strike them. "Gods-damned cunts!"

Turning to the wizardess, the red-faced, burly man shakes his head. "Sorry for the language… m’lady. And thank you for your kindness. The kindness of a Gods-damned stranger, you fuckin’ cunts!" he swears further at the ashamed faces.

Four strides takes the man to the wall where firewood is stacked, and there he finds his broad axe. The wrought iron head is pitted and weathered but sharp; it is an imposing weapon in the big man’s hands.

"Who is with me?!" he shouts to the crowd before heading for the door…

Anora holds up the palm of her hand, as if it were a forcefield that could divert the man’s intent.

"A tense time for us all!" she says, soothing the sore feelings she had surely caused in the room. "We are creatures of instinct, I’m afraid!" she says, with a sorry sigh.

"For whom is the axe intended?" Anora asks; the whom a sly indication that maybe the beast was a poor first target.

Dufgal hears the ruckus from the crowd and Anora’s voice ringing clear. He pauses to listen for sounds of trouble. He is bonded to Aldric but feels a fierce protectiveness for the mysterious and regal lady of blue.

Aldric, too, hears Anora's voice as he nears the door. "Everyone must be getting hungry!" he blathers, and pushes through the door, ready to announce, with appropriate dramatic flair, that the ritual for creating supper is about to commence. But, as he enters, the words catch in his throat as he surveys the chaos in the room.

Oh, bloody hell!

As the formerly-restrained Haverson reaches for an axe, he wonders if his moment is lost. His desperation and shame have been set on fire, and now burned with rage, and it was spilling over to others. If only they could have harnessed that! No matter. He calmly locates Ty at the bar, and urges Dufgal to bring the slop buckets forth.

As Broegan attempts to assemble a mob, and Anora attempts to redirect it, Tyravasiel contemplates his wine.

"Sylle Ru? The Jarl's Seer?" he drawls. "A bold accusation, Wee Tocs!" Or so the elf imagines. His grasp of the village hierarchy is vague at best.

After a moment, Ty's nose wrinkles under his blindfold and he offers the bottle to the boy beside him.

"What have you seen with your two eyes, and heard with the ears on either side of your head, that would make you think the Wizard Ru is behind this visitation?"

Dufgal, being well-used to doing as told, trudges the slop buckets from the kitchen out to the main area.
Again he looks up at the spear and wonders if the reason it’s named the "wolf spear" has something to do with this hellhound. Could it possibly have been the same one that was fought off in this village’s history? Should someone be grabbing and using that weapon?
The simpleton has no one to ask the questions that plague him. He stands staring at the lot of folk to see if anyone is noticing him.

If Anora is suggesting some subtlety to the axe-brandishing inn owner, he’s in no state to pick up on it. He does hesitate at her raised hand, though.

"The wolf!" he says incredulously. "It’s for the Hound, for the beast!" Looking around, he again asks, no demands, "With me! Morgan needs our help!"

Aldric’s hesitation when confronted with this scene does not sit well with Pelagia, with the depth-dwelling, salty bitch-goddess. The man is suddenly filled with the urge to piss, and also the suddenly crystal clear notion that this Hound, this wolf… must be somehow connected to the moon! Shul’s powers are surely at work here!

Dufgal comes behind the man, lugging the two foul-smelling buckets, and nearby Ty’s concealed ears perk and twitch. Hoofbeats, outside. Several horses.

"Only who the Jarl finds in his ‘and each lottery day," Wee Tocs says in response to the elf’s question. "An… he’s a wizard, a spell-thrower. A master of dark arts!"

Anora looks about, having lost track of the men sent to guard her in Hirot. She nods her assent to the inn-owner, and sets herself up to follow him outside.

She doubted the others would follow the mob to the sacrificial stones. She doubted she would venture there herself. But she had done her part for Law by massaging the townsfolk to action. She could content herself with that much at least!

"Lead on!" she says to the innkeeper, stepping out of his way!

Feeling Pelagia's eye come upon him is the worst feeling. Like a crack of a slaver's whip, it fills his spine with the urge to bow, and his legs buckle, dropping him unceremoniously to the floor, prostrate and kneeling. But as her salty brine of truth fills him, he is left with a burning and bitter anger that eclipses his terror and erases all his schemes. He explodes, red-faced and spitting.

"The moon!" he starts yelling at the top of his lungs as he staggers back to his feet. "The fucking, thrice-damned SHUL, is behind ALL OF THIS. Fucking Wolves, moon-worshipers all of them! I should have known!"

"Pelagia has sent me a vision! Shul, the crater-faced cunt, Pelagia's most treacherous and despised enemy, is behind everything. Pelagia, I beseech you, SHOW US YOUR POWER!"

With that, he ushers to Dufgal to place buckets onto a prominent table, and he begins to pray to Pelagia.

"Bitch-Queen! Hear my prayers! This village is like the putrid slop before you! It's people are like these scraps, being feed to animals! Show them how you would transform them! Purify them! Save them!

He stands upon the table between the two buckets, chanting, calling, writhing!