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Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

I am trying to do the same, however it merely takes a look at my status message to see that this might be delayed :/

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

Last Part of part 1 ? I never knew there actually are parts...

Descent into chaos

"Why not try it out ?" came Ferthyr's voice, somewhat annoyed and certainly with impatience in mind. Bardeck's companion drew closer towards the scene, resting assured that noone else was around anymore who could pose any threat.

"If I understood it correctly we're not planning on staying much longer here anyway. If there's such a meeting we could at least try to get there in time and watch from the distance. We don't need to engage." Ferthyr was honest with saying this. While he had interest in finding out if they were being told the truth since there was hardly anything else with real purpose they could do, he had no interest in deliberately maneuvering himself into yet another fight.

Clearly, Ferthyr was speaking towards his companion and not to the man on the ground. That didn't stop the latter from being an issue though. "What do we do with him ? I don't see any reasonable point in killing. We will never be able to clear this place from any signs of a recent fight anyway. So maybe just give him a chance and let him go ?" Ferthyr doubted that the man could go fast anywhere anyway, given the massive injuries.

"I suggest we just use those horses they've gladly left behind for us..." Each time Ferthyr grinned, a row of razor-sharp, small teeth became visible even to the less attentive observer. He turned around, walked towards one of the steeds that had not run away during the fight, put his left foot into the stirrups -- and inadvertently demonstrated that there could be some serious issue with his weight.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

Internally, An-Hasst let go of a large sigh of relief. Ahhh, finally a hotspot of competence inside of this overcrowded mess of utter ignorance. Not exactly generous, charming or maybe just even not providing him with that certain impression of repudiation, Geradin at least appeared to know what he was doing. Only a few moments of self-praise later there was a bit of information that the Skayleigh considered vital: Foul magic ? Infused into the rock itself ? Now the original constructors of this dwarven forge wouldn't have done that to their sacred environment, would they ? So the answer was clear

"Thank you." he told the dwarf, before noticing that progress appeared to be made on the other side. It was obvious that it would take a while to clear that passage, but it would be a second way out. An especially good second way, since a passage which had been blocked previously probably would not be used by any dark elves as a second way of ambush vice versa.

The Skayleigh found it wise to stop wasting time and help Ursaren -- after all he was a damn large heap of proud half-giant muscle who could help move at least a few of the smaller rocks until his wounds would have healed completely. However there was something else... Something... ugly and very uncomforting. Why had he not felt it earlier ? Maybe because it was too faint and he had been distracted, but there also was the possibility that it had just started now.

The idea of that made him thud over towards the excavation site and try and help digging. The earlier this passageway would be free to use, the better!

@Banana@The Fated Fallen@BCTheEntity@POOHEAD189

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

Gartoj

- In Shazah's tent -

The dramatically oversized drow had silently hoped for a quick and efficient discussion instead of being forced to drag himself through a fruitless debate of bullshit. Yet what he had been confronted with had definitely surpassed his hopes in terms of being brief. Good on one side, but on the other there had been severe... deficiencies. They had been of a kind Gartoj would never have explicitly thought of, let alone mentioned them in the public. The first and foremost of them simply was that the leader of a party he himself had put up should not get himself drunk... He had not counted how many times Shazah's lips had made contact with the rim of his tankard, but the ubiquitous smell of booze in that tent had been disappointing enough. The drow felt less easy as he left the tent, not taking notice of the fact that one of his own kind had been in very close proximity all the time.

What to do now ? Try and follow some of the other people who had been in there with him ? It would have been worth a try if there had been less -- and maybe less diverse. With so many different races it was difficult to predict the social dynamics in there, wasn't it with what little information he had ? However that Draconoid could reasonably be considered an unstable element out of sheer experience.

So instead of caring about others, Gartoj opted for caring about himself. There still was a decent and especially large breakfast to be fed into his stomach. And then there was the question of equipment... He'd have to separate those items of foreseeable value on that kind of journey from those that would merely be ballast. At this point Gartoj was already wondering about when the first one of his future party would find out about the irony behind the fact that he, a mage focused on ice, would have deliberately stranded himself in an entire desert made out of the frozen element. He even was looking forward to that possible moment as it would allow himself to designate someone being a fool. What could be better for a mage than being surrounded by what knew and could manipulate best ? An ubiquity of fire didn't make an additional flame in it less dangerous as well.

- In the camp -

Sluggishly, the drow pushed himself forward through the busy area back towards his tent. The reflections caused by polished steel attracted his view immediately, but... could he really afford to take both of his swords with him ? Gartoj was enough of a realist to know that his efficiency with these weapons was unsatisfying at best at the moment, so better not be weighed down by two of those things. One would have to suffice. That set of lockpicks however... He'd never leave without that! Of couse it was an item bound to invoke grins and chuckles in the face of everyone who didn't truly believe in snow elves which could posess anything that required to be unlocked -- a mindset Gartoj assumed pretty much everyone in the party would share, except for himself.

For him, snow elves were an intriguing theory. He too had heard about tales of the past of something fiery having happened in the high north. A vague, crude allotment of statements about something humans had sought for, hoping that it would win some kind of conflict for them. Another riddle waiting for either resolution or utter elimination, both things Gartoj could appreciate from a strictly analytical point of view. He loved unconventional approaches and, quite frankly speaking, so far he had not gotten the impression that the resistance would hold up against the apotheoses without some kind of miracle. So there wasn't really much to lose anyway, except for a few months or years of one's life which would have possibly remained intact otherwise, of course. Science was a risky business, he knew that. It was not the only risky business he was attending to.

Ah! The rope! Now that had to go with him for sure. Even without any tall buildings there'd probably be plenty of cliffs and other obstacles waiting for that kind of tool. It was a solidly made bundle of fibers, strong enough to hold up against the enormity of its owner and outfitted with a hook at its other end. Not exactly an ordinary hook, but the devil's in the detail, especially those which can't be seen. The piece deviated from the color of steel, betraying the fact that it had been made out of a different, darker material. Wrapped into a modest layer of cloth Gartoj could rest assured that it wouldn't damage anything else in his large backpack.

Still there were hours left. Time Gartoj spent on what he could do best: Find good things to eat. He bought as large quantities of salt meat, breat, water and wine as he could reasonably carry and find in the camp. By the time he was finished and approaching the rendezvous point, the little dispute between Reed and a couple of men Gartoj failed to identify had already started to unfold. However he arrived late enough to remain oblivious to the fact that other individuals had already opted to take sides. Should he intervene ?

Better not. If there wouldn't be a fight maybe that would help teach those men that there were better options to flat-out brutatily (and that hammer did look brutal!) and if there would be a fight it would help to find out who was capable of what even before their journey had started. And maybe it would drive away the boredom the weather seemed to inflict not only him with. Was there a subtle smirk on Gartoj's face ? The drow put himself down onto a small trunk that happened to be nearby, ready to spectate what would happen now from a hopefully save distance.

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Summary: Lazy drow getting himself ready for the begin of the upcoming endeavour, then finding out that there are people who obviously want to bash their heads on a mutual basis and watching silently. At least as long as he isn't dragged into the conflict deliberately or by accident.

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

Gonna try and get something up tomorrow at the latest. I'm currently experiencing health issues again. Sorry :/

Descent into chaos

"How dare you!" was all Bardeck would find himself confronted with at the beginning. The soldier was defeated physically, but he left no doubt about what he considered himself to be on the layer of psychology and honor -- quite the opposite. "What the hell do you think I am 'working' for ? Don't you even recognize the most primitive of uniforms ?" The man bared his teeth and met Bardeck with a facial expression completely filled with anger. However it was rather obvious from the remainder of his body language that he was also suffering from very considerable pain.

At least there were no attempts to secretly reach for his weapon and stab the muscled man while he was so close. "Oh yes, go on and kick me! Once I'm dead you won't know anything, fool!" One deep, heavy breath was immediately punished by violent coughing, causing blood to spill out of the man's lightly bearded mouth. It took some time for him to recover and continue speaking: "We're a simple escort, and you won't be amused by the fact that we've been escorting a regional administrator!" Well... a very 'small' regional administrator in the metaphorical sense, but still a person of more than average importance. Nothing Bardeck and the reddish monster needed to know. "You could have triggered more attention than you might be able to handle!"

In the meantime, Ferthyr found himself confronted with a little dilemma: Should he kill the one trying to get away or let him go ? While the latter option certainly was more comfortable, it also held the risk of unnecessary bits of information leaking through. Whomever this man would report to, that one would know when he and Bardeck had been where. Of course they could alter course and do whatever pleased them, but still it caused concern in Ferthyr's mind. Yet he was less of a monster than he looked like and opted for being lazy. Turning his head here and there in order to reassure himself that the man was heading away, he approached his companion and the defeated with the broken rib.

"How are we doin', hm ?" was what Ferthyr asked, directed at the injured person and with a sarcastic smile written on his face.

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

Gartoj

Not enough!

With as much ferocity as one could possibly put into an item of such vanishingly small mass, the goosequill was pushed through the small opening. It was plunged into a black sea below of it, but as much momentum as there had been initially as quickly it was killed before an inevitable impact would have destroyed the carefully cut tip. With small, violently separated droplets adding themselves to the mess already created around the little jar, the tool was rapidly guided back to Gartoj's journal.

Or was it a journal ? A bookmaker possibly would claim it to be far too riddled with non-alphabetic elements, while a magician -- or a mathematician, as far as one could say that such a person existed -- would scold its author for being far too... chaotic. A stream of thoughts jumping from sheet to sheet to even mere fractions of a sheet in an not always sequential manner. Only few had ever looked into the drow's tent since his arrival at this camp, but those few had already made sure to let him know that he was wasting his resources on nonsense. Almost needless to say that Gartoj's view of the matter was a very different one. Right now he was merely trying to calculate how much bread, water, wine and other supplies he would need for the upcoming journey on the basis of an estimated duration. He was quite sure that Szazah would ultimately have his will come true, even if there were people seen around him to whom the attribute 'unusual' could be assigned in the best case.

However Gartoj possibly wouldn't be Gartoj if his most immediate surroundings wouldn't at least partially mirror the things he was thinking others to be. That pathetic assembly of wooden pieces beneath his butt was hardly a match for his size, but building an own one would most likely do nothing but openly present his lack of artisanal talent to the entire Moving. Maybe one day he'd just happily sumble upon a leftover piece of a trunk that he could simply roll in and use as a replacement ? That hammock next to him had been a different issue... He had been forced to reinforce both it and the poles it was hooked up to right after the first time gravity had blasted him through it. Otherwise ? Well he had not yet tried out what the stablemaster would do upon seeing him approaching. Those beastkin definitely had some advantages sometimes. Or those of his own kind who were blessed with actually being more normal.

Yet most calculations came to an end and so did this morning's one. Moaning a little under his self-inflicted backpain, the drow stretched himself and got moving. The sound of rain coming down made him feel just a tad more miserable rightaway. Just... why ? Snow would have been a much more appreciable thing, but it appeared they were right at the borderline where it no longer was too dry, but still too warm for such things to happen with comparable intensity. The nights in the tent weren't long enough to let his clothes dry completely, so by now they were pretty damp on the outer layers and providing their environment with quite a bit of an distinct odour. Gartoj could keep himself as clean and tidy as he wanted, but he simply couldn't solve that problem with the means available. Once there'd be more wind it wouldn't matter anyway.

The drow got himself moving, pushing his enormity forward towards the tent he had been told about. In this completely soaked ground he couldn't help but find that to be quite a tedious effort: His weight was pushing his boots far deeper into it, increasing the work to get out. Tracing him along this camp wouldn't be too hard. He hadn't slept all too well, so hopefully this would be over soon. Hardly anything was more annoying then people dragging themselves and other along in a discussion that could have been shortened dramatically if individual preparation had been better. With mixed feelings and slight rings around his eyes, Gartoj entered the location and inspected the others. Something - or someone - was smelling like fire. The idea of aggressively sniffing around in order to identify the culprit was tempting, but ultimately saved as a means of retaliation in case anybody would complain about him. He wiped his white hairs out of his face which had immediately decided to cling to his skin the moment they had made contact with water.

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Summary: Under-amused and tired drow expecting orders that hopefully will get him out of the miserable location.

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

I've read through the replies so far and have started work on my post as well.

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

I hope to be able to do the same.