Fetzen

New Beginnings

Batharyn internally let go of a sigh. At least today his employer -- or slavedriver, as he'd word it -- had refrained from trying to slap his cheek or shouting at him all too loudly in front of an entire main hall filled with guests from whose only the first half was drunk enough not to understand it and laugh at him.

There were some details he missed about that strange new guest though. Even for him who had only very recently been employed as an auxiliary she distinguished herself from the crowd like a sore thumb with her rather noble, richely decorated clothing. However he didn't realize her tensing up so much as he approached her, or maybe it was because he was so used to basically everyone paying a huge lot attention to him when he was coming closer. The movement of her hand wasn't anything that was capable of drawing his suspicion in such a casual situation like the one he believed to be in currently and also if one had no idea about magic in the first place except for its mere existence and some possible effects that could be achieved with it one had a very hard time considering that it might be... missing.

"The white stallion ? Oh, erm, I saw that on my way in..." He smiled gently at her, but his lips were thin and rather tense while his eyes darted over to the tavern owner for several brief moments before switching back to the woman in front if him. "Yeah, or course you can come with me." Damn! That kind of horse alone was a very solid indication for wealth, not to mention Salina's clothing, of course. He really would have liked to try and touch the saddle bags to find out what might be in them, but that would now entirely impossible. He would be able to see the things though, perfectly legally. His mind was already creating primitive plans what he might do later on.

He offered Salina the right of going first by gesturing with his huge arm and open hand towards the door, then followed her. She'd be able to feel the floor vibrate beneath each of his steps. "I have to admit I'd really like to have a ride on him. Never have seen such a good horse before..."

New Beginnings

The tavern's owner had turned his head away from the table in front of him the moment he had heard the rather poorly maintained entrance door creaking as it was turned open. It took a few seconds more for him to get rid of the boredom in his facial expression thoug has he only slowly realized that the person that had just entered could be one of the more interesting ones. One didn't see such a nice looking, almost white haired woman in such a richly embroidered cloak every day. In fact he had hardly ever seen such a person before here. Normally his guests were all the same every day, at least judging by her apperance.

As Salina approached his position, he didn't fail to notice the clinking sound emanating from one of her small bags. So she had money, too, maybe ? How interesting! Hopefully she was hungry and would eat a lot. He'd have to treat her very carefully, so better try and put up a good, gentle smile! One couldn't say that he was completely successful with this attempt though. Having been stuck in this place for many years hadn't exactly helped his memory about manners. His double chin wobbled all over the place as he answered her questions.

"Alright. I'll see what can be done." With a lot of experience and perfect knowledge about where to find which item he turned around and straightforwardly thudded over to a large wooden shelf where obviously the more valuable beverages where stored. Searching through the many rows of wine bottles, he continued to talk to his most recent customer: "I'm sure I have a good red drop here and I'm also sure I can serve your needs for food with a large piece of roasted meat or so, but I'm still waiting for my auxiliary. If he doesn't arrive soon I'll take care of your horse and fire him..."

He pulled out a large, dark green and unlabeled bottle and put it down onto the desk in front of her. On his way one could hear him mumbling something like "...that stupid little bastard...". As he was presenting her with one of his finest (though by elevated standards still rather shabby) glasses to drink the fermented red grape juice, the door was opened again. Heavy breathing could be heard, so intense one could almost think it didn't come from a human but from a very large animal.

"Batharyn!" the tavern owner shouted right across the entire room, hardly taking Salina's ears into his immediate considerations. "Move your butt over here, excuse yourself and then quickly take care of this woman's horse!" The aforementioned person hurried over, some of the wooden floorboards giving so much way under his feet that it looked like he was in grave danger of stumbling. He didn't though and also he only caused little noise, at least for someone who was scratching along the ceiling with his hairs and had shoulders which were close to requiring two chairs.

"Yes, yes. I'm coming. Sorry, sorry..." his chesty voice traversed through the room, dripping with timidity.

New Beginnings

Vodrahin was one of the major towns in the region. While -- as it was rather typical for the small human kingdom of Hadral -- the outer circles primarily consisted of poorer people's wooden housings which turned more and more into farmer's buildings separated from each other by bigger and bigger fields the further one went away from the town's center, the latter one had already fallen victim to what in modern times probably would be called 'gentrification'. Times were peaceful, at least in this part of the world. Along the eastern borders however things were about as tense as the weather after a day-long sweltering summer heat. War had not yet started with Ythrim, but rumors had it that preparations for it were already underway while envoys were still at least pretending to try and avoid the worst.

Not that this would have been of any significant relevance for the local inn. One could say that the Nail In The Coffin was doing quite well at putting some real meaning behind its strange name. At least not few of the patrons had already reached a considerable level of drunkenness despite the fact that it had not been that long ago that the sun had sunk below the horizon and the tavern had opened. Its scattered, reddish light was still illuminating the wide roads sufficiently for the more wise of men to make an escape, even though it was a lurching one.

The inside was filled with warmth from guests and an open fire in the middle of the room. It served primarily the purpose of heating, light and entertainment, the cooking was done at a separate place not accessible for the common visitor. Due to its central position, shadows of furniture and people were dancing on the decently decorated wooden panels all around the large room. A large, rather chubby looking man was waiting behind the high and broad counter for someone else who had not arrived yet. It was the tavern's owner who at this time also was responsible for accepting any orders from his guests.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

@The Fated Fallen

It's 10 years since school, so I probably wouldn't be able to translate an original text to any modern language right off the bat. However Latin is very interesting in some aspects which it doesn't share with other languages I know about, especially ordering of words. It's far less relevant because the syntacical function of a word in most cases can be identified by the way it's modified from its base form. And as far as I can remember there are far less flat-out stupid and ridiculous exceptions of exceptions of exceptions that most modern languages plague their speakers with.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

I'm not clever. At least I don't consider myself to be. I only had Latin in my late stages of school because it appealed to me more than any of the alternatives.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

@The Fated Fallen If it helps remember that the original word for 'bear' in Latin language is ursus. I find that quite helpful in case of Ursaren :)

New Beginnings

Batharyn

Stats:

• Strength: 17
• Agility: 9
• Intelligence: 12
• Height: 7.8 feet
• Weight: 400

Current Gear:

• Dark leather clothes that can protect him from bad weather.
• Thick linen clothing. Not exactly very nice looking or even expensive, but it offers good warmth and comfort.
• A short but very sturdy sword (can also be used as a lever), a small crossbow he can use to shoot a climbing rope with a hook, a garrotte, a set of lockpicks and some minor other tools required for his kind of work
• a draft horse for those occasions when he needs to get out of town. Going on a real long journey would require additional preparation though.
• A lot of pockets, but one won't find many coins in them. He is very far from being rich.

Batharyn is a thief. He has descended into killing before, but these had been sad emergencies. He takes jobs from his involvement into the local criminal network, but on most occassions works for his own good. He usually stays in one town until the local 'resources' so to speak have been sufficiently exhausted or until he feels that he has drawn unfortunate suspicion. Usually any of these conditions only comes true after a time long enough for him to have rented a more or less small, humble room or even a small hut or house for him to live in.

He doesn't know anything about magic, nor does he know much about what the usual frontline soldier would call fighting. He can be considered quite successful with what he does though, even though one might add that he sticks to a more conservative approach and only seldomly want to engage in stealing tours which obviously are much more risky than average. One probably doesn't want to start a bar fight with him though. In fact a tavern is where he often works when he either currently is out of jobs or wants to put up a deceptive facade for a while.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

@BCTheEntity I read your last post and thought it might be a good idea to give you a hook where you can get Settionne in since he has already positioned himself. If Settionne doesn't want to attack it's @POOHEAD189's turn I'd say since he's the one ultimately controlling the Rog and making the decision who he's going after next. If Settionne wants to attack he'll be recognized anyway.

edit: An-Hasst, if undisturbed, probably will require a bit of time to get his crossbow ready to fire. He's not exactly in peak condition anymore.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

So far things had been going on relatively well, at least as far as An-Hasst could survey the overall situation. He had taken a major bruise which was easily visible by the reddish stain than started at one point on his back and went down in a broadening line to his legs, but he also was surrounded by several slain rogs. Settionne had gone out of his sight or rather the other way round, but before the Skayleigh could try and regain knowledge about that strange and small man's position, something else happened...

Or rather: It stomped towards him. Hopefully this was the largest one of the bunch -- not because otherwise he'd have to share the honor of having dealt with such one, but because otherwise they'd probably all share the unfortunate misery of death by... being already halfway split in one half by one single hit of this halberd ? Obviously the situation would have been so insanely much better with him havings his hands at that weapon and the Rog having to deal with his petty bajonets, but before An-Hasst could even dare to think about trying that wicked thing out he'd have to get rid of its owner first somehow.

Some inner feeling told the Skayleigh that the simple application of brute force, despite its successes so far, was in grave danger of being insufficient against that kind of foe. This thought truly was the case once the Rog suddenly swung his weapon for the first time. An-Hasst, having underestimated its vast range at first, had to throw himself and his so far clean looking face into the trampled and blood-stained mud beneath his feet. Luckily he merely looked like being a behemoth who'd be massively impeded by his own bulk, so he found himself able to get back up into a crouched position and rush sideways before the Rog could deply his disgusting, but heavily armored foot against his stomach.

The Rog experienced some delay with tracking that strange enemy with the golden-colored hair, but the concept of faster-than-he-looks-like probably wouldn't take indefinitely to gain a foothold in the ugly creature's mind. An-Hasst recognized the opportunity and approached the Rog's left armpit from below, ramming one of his blades into where one could, for technical reasons, hardly apply solid metal plating. With the additonal support of his other hand the blade pushed the rings apart like a wedge and sunk into the Rog's flesh.

The Skayleigh couldn't tell if the action had been a deliberate one or a reflex response in order to protect the injured armpit, but the Rog's left arm immediately moved in in order to close the gap between them and his torso, the effect being that An-Hasst's left hip was impacted by the Rog's elbow. The much greater flexibility of his scale armor didn't exactly help to block the path of the black, solid armor of the Rog. Had An-Hasst been Argon or Ursaren he probably would only have been thrown to the ground again, but, while he looked heavier than the lizardman, the opposite was the case and he was actually tossed away by several feet.

It only helped to amplify the amount of pain emanating from his left flank. Lying in the mud again and trying to get up as quickly as possible, the Skayleigh's efforts were hampered by the feeling of blood seeping into his stomach and at least one of his ribs being broken. He wasn't out of the Rog's immediate range and despite hating it, the wisest course of action at the moment probably was to get further away. After all and from his different point of view now he could see Settionne again. Hopefully that bloody bastard would finally start doing something and buy him enough time to stabilize and get his crossbow ready! That was... if the man would be actually willing to attract the Rog's attention and the latter one would actually be willing to buy it. Otherwise he'd have to do somehow with the one blade remaining and despite his injuries.

On the good side of things one could add however that the Rog was hemorrhaging blood at a rapid rate. The creature angrily ripped out the blade from its deep wound and tossed it away. The amount of power behind the halberd's moves hopefully would have greatly decreased. Still... getting hit by it ? Better not. At least if you were only very lightly armored.

@POOHEAD189@The Fated Fallen@Sypherkhode822@Banana@BCTheEntity

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

@FetzenPost straight forwardly, sir.

@POOHEAD189

Aye aye, sir!

*secretly procrastinates execution of orders until after sleep*