Interim 1

On Doirind

Noteworthy, since we are on the topic, Doirind separated from the group on the day following our ending to Ep 1. She never went to Merewatch, and broke away on her own heading north into the Draw Gap after getting some quick names and location descriptions from Kray and Thorn.

In the departure, she was rather curt. She was extremely closed off and short spoken against Ivor, and was sort of acting like a bitch. It seemed like she wanted to burn the relationship down there at the end to establish a parting of ways that was definitive and promised no renewal in the future. To Ivor, I'm pretty sure this was no problem. He grew up around hard-edged Dannein women who spoke their mind and sometimes bitched people out and bounced to make their own way in some other direction.

For anyone with a bit of insight, and Sorcha Rhone picked up on this immediately, it was clear that Doirind still had to now wrestle with a problem that she had thought she would never have to deal with.

Doirind had planned to die in the Black Ziggurat. Being that she escaped the jaws of death, she now found herself faced with something that might be even worse : a shameful pregnancy from being raped by a monster. This was something that Doirind had no intention of facing with anyone else, least of all people who knew something of her past.

So time passes. Maybe everyone wonders. Rhone asks about Doirind, even if no one else does. For a time it is unclear. Later though, Kray and Thorn (maybe others) do come to find out where she settled. Chief Rine of the Bardh knows that the Bat Hannoc woman built a shelter out in the hills north of Low Creek. She lives there alone, and has spoken to make peace and get permission to homestead from Rine, but she does not accept callers who would seek to treat with her.

Rhone learns about this through the grapevine if not from Kray and Thorn directly. Rhone immediately requests to go see Doirind.
She wants to help her. It will be up to those guys (again maybe others who weigh in) on whether to make contact, get Rhone out there, or come up with some interchange to get a real update about Doirind first hand or not.

Tosi was nicknamed Pounder because of his savage skill with the Mace-axe.


Slaver and ex-slave traded blows and insultsfor almost an hour until both men were cut and bruised without either one really gaining the upper hand. But Pounder, wielding the heavier weapon and the bigger mouth, had begun to falter and Ivor easily capitalized on it, finally netting the slaver and skewering him fast to the deck of the Howl. Ivor then scuttled the knar, burning Tosi alive on board.

.

Rolling to hit Hasticha.

Gains and Losses

Lanthan passes the cup to the man sitting at the table. "Here, Thorn. Port is on me. Not like you couldn’t afford it; you seem to be doing well for yourself. Not like the tough slogging it was working for Pandios, yes?"

Thorn shrugs. "I’ll take it anyway, Lanthan. A gift given in brotherhood, not charity. It’s true, Yshala’s smiled on me as of late. And frowned as well. As is her way."

"As is her way. But come, tell me, how has she blessed? And how has she cursed?"

"Do you want the blessing first, or the curse?"

"Always end in a blessing, my friend."

Thorn gives a small smile.

"Very well. About a month back, Kray found me at a tavern in Caerlleon, saying he had a small job to keep me occupied. I had been complaining the day before, and he doesn’t like to see his men bored, so he sent me on a trip with a mule train. Carrying some spice or rock, I don’t remember because I didn’t care; the job was just to get the mules and their drivers from Caerlleon to Gael Gap without any trouble. Seemed simple enough. I mean shit, we had just finished a job fighting demons that cost Talius his life, so I figured anything on this side of the Azan would be easy as a Poyamese whore, yes? So I went down and met the caravan master, a sweaty lump named Beadheard. Didn’t like him as soon as I saw him, but as long as he met Kray’s terms at the end of the trip, I wouldn’t complain.

"The first two nights were as trouble-free as I expected; inns in Bronspur and Bravel with warm stew and a bed. On the morning of the third day, we were about two or three miles south of Bravel and we were ambushed. I’ve encountered bands of desperate men before on the road to Poyam, but not as many as poured out of the trees and the bush south of Bravel. Somehow they decided to come straight at me, instead of any of the wagons or pack animals. I sliced a few of them up, Lanthan, but there were at least thirty of them, and they had me pinned down before too long.

"Expecting a knife across the throat, I was surprised to see fatty Beadheard step into my field of vision along with one of the bandits. The lad looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place him.

"Beadheard gestured to me and said to the kid, ‘Is this the one, young—’ and then he said the fellow’s name.

"I heard the name and knew exactly who he was then. This was the kid brother of a fellow who had died at my hand a few years back in a contract that had been poorly handled."

Lanthan interrupts.

"Poorly handled by whom?"

"By me. I killed his shit of a brother."

"What for?"

"Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I was fairly sure I was alone in this knowledge. It turns out I was mistaken, and now my mistake’s kin was after me for revenge. It was all fairly well put-together, now that I think about it.

"Anyway, they tied me up and threw me in the woods, and left me with Beadheard and the boy.

"The fat ass-driver asked the boy if he was going to kill me, and the boy said he was. Beadheard lowered his own blade to my throat and used it to pull out a pendant I had around my neck. Grasped it, sliced its chain, and said, ‘Well I suppose he won’t be needing this,’ and walked off."

"And the boy?" asks Lanthan.

"He stayed behind to kill me, I guess. I’ll never know, because by then I had the ropes off my wrists behind my back, and it was into the arms of the Gellir for him."

"Stupid boy," remarks Thorn’s friend.

"Yes."

"Now wait, Thorn. How is this a curse?"

"That fat fuck took my pendant, and I haven’t been able to find him this whole month. Kray knows little about him, surprisingly, but neither the man nor his asses have been seen in Caerlleon or Gael Gap as far as I’ve heard. They just vanished."

"A pendant is the curse? What’s so special about this pendant? ...Come now, don’t look so glum. Tell me about this precious piece of jewelry. Who gave it to you?"

"Nobody gave it to me. It belonged to the man who raised me. A pendant stone with blue swirls and green splashes in a near perfect copy of the Alornic Sea and everything surrounding it. Urdav used to teach me about the places far from us using it. Really, my only real treasure."

"But he never gave it to you?"

"Nah. His murderers took it from his body after they killed him."

Lanthan ponders this.

"And you found his murderers and took it back?"

A pause.

"Yes. On the other side of the lake. Fighting demons. Rescuing small children."

Lanthan breathes, "Yshala … What about the blessing?"

"Strangely enough, it involves the child I helped rescue. When we came back from the Drakkenmire, she was with us in Poyam under Kray’s uncle’s protection. Kray and I decided to move back to Caerlleon, and she didn’t do so well without us, I guess, because a short while later and she came and lived with us at his estate for a while. She never did adjust to the city and its enclosure, but slowly she began to feel more comfortable around us, I suppose, to the point where she began talking more about the things and people she had lost on the other side of the lake… pondering the life she had lived thus far.

"I suppose I was also thinking more about the strange experience I had over there, because one day I remembered that her mother had spoken to me of my own mother. My own mother, whom I had never met, and for all I know abandoned me or died when I was a babe. This girl’s mother had told me at one point that she could show me an image of my mother, if that’s what I wanted. We had been on our way from one shithole to the next, and I had promised her that I wanted to see this image once we were all out of that hell and safe… well, she ended up dying, I guess, so I never got to see what she’d promised.

"I was walking in the estate garden with Sorcha, the child, one day, and I brought it up with her. She said it was a difficult thing to get to these images; that her mother could most likely do it, but that she was unsure as to her own abilities, at least in Jeres. She said she would have a better chance of success in the very shithole her mother died in.

"I told her that was not going to happen any time soon, and that was as much as we talked about it that day.

"A couple weeks later, Kray and I were on a trip through the Draw Gap with Sorcha. We camped for the night near Melig Trade, I think. It was late summer, and storms were in the area; one had just passed and the ground was soaked. She sat next to me at the fire and told me she could try the images that very night. I shrugged. Nodded. We went a little way away from the camp and began setting up her drawings for the ceremony; she was telling me where to draw what, and then telling me where to sit and what to do and how to think. She’s a child, but Lanthan, she has one of the biggest personalities I have ever witnessed. I had no problem doing exactly as she bid. She told me to focus, and I focused. She asked me to listen to her voice. I already was.

"She spoke some ancient words.

"My eyes opened, and I was no longer at the campsite. I was in the back of a wagon. Night had switched to day. Summer to spring, apparently, and there was not a cloud in the sky. The wagon was riding down a trail, and I had a stick in my hand. Looking down, I realized I was a child. I was using my stick to hit a hay stuffed doll before me—a toy, painted with scary facial features to make it look like a Gandish Goblin.

"I heard a voice behind me. A woman."

A tear leaks out of Thorn’s eye. Lanthan watches, mesmerized.

"A beautiful voice. ‘Well done!'"

"Who was it?" asks Lanthan softly.

"Mother," whispers Thorn. "She crawled over the front of the wagon and sat with me in the back. Thick black long hair. Bright eyes. Strong hands covered in Dannein swirls and tattoos. Smile as radiant as the sun overhead. I was so happy.

"I heard another voice from the front. A man, driving the wagon. My father. I couldn’t see him, but the voice was strong, and I knew I was loved and protected."

The tears are streaming from Thorn’s eyes.

"Then what happened?" Lanthan asks.

"She held my hand. Then she put her thumb on my forehead, then on my lips, then on my heart. Made some sort of sign, I think. Then she smiled and said, ‘I love you, Aemlar. I bless you for all of your days, strong little hero."

Lanthan smiles and the two sit in silence for a minute.

"Yshala, but that’s beautiful."

Thorn nods and wipes his eyes. He finishes a second cup of the port that Lanthan has put before him. He sways slightly.

Lanthan grins. "Aemlar, eh?"

Thorn looks up at him, no smile on his face. "Nah. Thorn for me. Aemlar’s the name of a hero."