"Ah, you." Leaning heavily on his staff to avoid slipping on the fragmented, but still fresh ice, Ulor advanced across the street towards the man who had spoken in reply to his inquiry. On better examination, there was indeed amid the wares laid out on the stall near him something which seemed close enough to what he had been seeking. Incense... Truly, it was odd enough that there should have been any for sale so far from any temple, but then, that was probably how it worked in those large, intolerable cities. Some might even have private shrines, something only nobles could afford back in the moorlands. But then, the people who willingly chose to live in such tremendously aggravating - not to mention dangerous, he silently added as an instinctive spasm of his left arm, which had swung upwards to preserve balance over an insidious spot, stirred the wound in his shoulder into making itself known with an abrupt surge of renewed pain - place had savage customs as was only too obvious.

Upon reaching the stall, Ulor distinctly saw that his suspicions about the merchant's very possibly inflated price for the holocaustic offering were not baseless at all. This sort of incense was not worth anything resembling that in any state; now that the indiscriminate freezing enchantment had left its mark upon it, its value had only plummeted further down. At the monastery, he recalled, novices were made to pay penance for procuring damp wares from the bog-treading traders at full price. Had he brought the superior anything like this in his youth, it would have been more than a week of forced vigils for prudence. But this was what he would probably have to rely upon to perform the ritual, and it was only well that the denizens of the beyond were not as concerned with such things as other deities. However the matter might have stood, an excessive price was not something he was eager to yield.

"Twenty-five?" he made little effort to conceal the irritated and disdainful tones in his voice, "I will have you know I was trained in the priestly ways, and this..." he gestured at the incense, "...would barely be fit for immolation on an anchoretic gravel altar. Now, I need it for something important, so..."

Here, he was momentarily distracted by the sounds of an altercation behind him. Apparently, what passed for some sort of authority had arrived on scene, and was berating - them, probably. Or maybe not. Either way, that did not interest him, and he reverted to the merchant.

"I will be generous. Twelve, nay, ten gold I will give you for this."

Whispering lost words of power, Ulor passed his right hand over the wound in an intricate, swirling series of gestures. From the cut there began to pour a sanguine red mist, which coalesced in mid-air into the pulsing, writhing shape of a fleshly tendril whose end opened in an almost implausibly wide, thickly-toothed mouth in which was nested a spherical, inhuman black eye with a hollowly staring white pupil.

"No more. Time is short, I am not patient, and other [i]things[/i] are even less so. Should they fail to be appeased, they will be discerning enough to know who is to blame. You would be fortunate if they were to accept such prey at all."

Once more, a sound recalled his attention to the street. This time, it seemed to be the voice of the primal invoker remarking something about not having killed their attackers. Disregarding the greetings exchanged by the others, Ulor, slightly concerned about his prospective findings, cast a glance backwards, and was not reassured to see her kneeling near one of the figures with a dagger in her hand. It fortunately was not the parch-skinned creature, but nonetheless it would have been well to ward it from unwonted recklessness. Swiftly reaching out with a mental appendage through the air and into her own well of consciousness, he soundlessly whispered [i]"The withered one must live. The secrets he holds are surely valuable."[/i]

As indeed they ought to have been. Never had he learned of an incantation that could work upon anyone what had happened to him. It had been, he now understood, the conjuring of an anomaly in the folds of time. The inexorable advance of the grey wall of ages had somehow been slowed about him, and him alone, for a blink in its unyielding surface. What power could bring about such wonders was curious indeed; and he surely would not waste the opportunity which now materialised before him.

But, first, there remained this other matter, perhaps even more relevant. Turning back to the merchant after what had been a mere instant, Ulor finished, the tentacle extruding from his wound swaying from side to side, but always keeping its gaze fixed on the man:

"Ten gold for your goods, or brave the hunger of that which lies in wait. Be swift. What shall it be?"


[hider=Mechanics]

Ulor casts an unsettling [i]Silent Image[/i] to intimidate the merchant into lowering his price to 10 gold.

Intimidation roll: [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/rolls/3040]11[/url]

He also speaks to Arthera via [i]Awakened Mind[/i], mentioning that the Drifter is more useful alive than dead.

[/hider]

[@The Harbinger of Ferocity]