Fetzen

The North Road

I feel my roleplaying motivation coming back. I have to admit there has been a global and somewhat severe lack of it over the last one and half weeks and pretty much everyone I am in contact with can probably tell about my sloppyness. Once my headache this evening is over I'll get a post up. Apologies @everyone :/

King's Pass Mountains

I have to apologize for my lack of interaction. There isn't even much of an actual excuse I could bring forward in my favor aside from two, three days in between I had an excessive job workload. I simply have been experiencing a somewhat global lack of desire for roleplaying the last one and a half weeks and I guess pretty much everyone I am in contact with can tell that I've been quite sloppy :/

I feel its coming back slowly, but still it probably won't be until tomorrow until I actually start to deliver because headaches are a nasty thing.

King's Pass Mountains

Stagcross... the very name was an illusion. A deceit put up by the inhabitants of this place so no wary traveller could anticipate that this actually was not the place any stag would dare to cross, but instead a rat's filthy nest. Or was this too much of an insult against the species of rats ? Vadymc had seen rats much more cleaner than this village as he did not even want to know what kind of soft and muddy stuff his large feet were sinking into. At the very least there were shoes around them, even though the journey here had added a lot to their overall wear and tear.

The assassin had potential to stand out of the crowd and that did not change as he approached the tavern. Added to the smell of excrements came that of vomit and spilled drink, the latter probably being the least intolerable of the three. Unfortunately the conversation that hopefully was to come would take a lot longer than he could hold his breath, so he would have to try and keep his own stomach at bay so not to add to the carnage already unfolded.

He shoved past a few people clogging up the entrace, having to duck in order not to bang his head against several supporting crossbeams. The tiefling's eyes looking out not for the counter and the drinks that were sold there, but for the one that might have made the anonymous call. A woman of magic, a sorceress. Someone who had potential to be well distinguishable from the drunken crowd. He found her in the midst of a few other people that had already gathered around her and approached them.

"I'd like to apologize for interrupting your conversation, but... are you Ana ?"
He hoped that if she was then she could already guess why he approached her.

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

Tyrvariél is way too much of a cutie to just abandon him!

The North Road

Talic would have been much of a fool not to anticipate the event of everyone having to introduce himself. He would have been even more of a fool not to think of a cover story for himself -- just in case any of his listeners would get second thoughts upon hearing the truth and come to the conclusion that trying to denounce him might bring more coin for less risk than trying to slay the beast. He still would have revealed his true name and origin since it was quite probable that someone recognized him anyway, but the explanation of his presence here would have been a well-prepared lie. For many more ordinary people the noble families of the Citadel were a society whose members were eager to prove themselves towards each other even if it was potentially life-threatening, so claiming that he had been given the task to slay the beast for the sake of Rastoch glory would have been plausible. He had already proven to the public that he wasn't good at jousting, so why not try to restore his family's honor by proving that he was a good hunter ?

All irrelevant now, at least for the moment. Talic's plan was on the verge of derailing silently already.

It had been a fluctuation in the corner of his eyes at first, something easily to discard. Then however the other people around him started to turn heads and even called out for someone. Then he saw her, too: A young woman, almost looking like a girl... and she had a bow. A rapier had been plugged into Talic's own hands when they had been a fraction of their current size already, so an armed youth could not be a big surprise to him normally. The circumstances weren't normal in any way though as he had serious concerns about his parent's actions back home. Was she a one-woman killing squad on a manhunt for him who simply had failed to avoid discovery more thoroughly ? It would have explained her diving into the dangerous forests without insinuating her being crazy...

Talic went on red alert. He tried to duck and cover behind the stone cairn that happened to be adjacent to the small gathering, however his ludicrous size was anything but helping with that. His hand reached for one of his spears and formed a tight grip around it. These things were not only good for stabbing, they could also be thrown. A not so conventional weapon like a bow with much less range, much more limited ammunition and lower speed, but with an impact that was very significant even if not conducted by someone of his stature. He'd not allow himself to be killed that easily even if that meant behaving much less relaxed than anyone else!

Even he could see that his first thought had been erroneous soon though. An assassin would not reply to any kind of conversational attempt, but instead either try to get the job done or abort. That didn't mean that he would not have to watch her more closely though, if not for the sake of his own safety then for the sake of preventing her obvious hot-headedness cutting her life very short. Believe it or not but at least some nobles even had compassion for other people and Talic's stomach cringed upon seeing just how carelessly she kept shouting at the party. Was it really that difficult to understand that making loud noises on purpose had great potential to either attract or shy away whatever entity had just roared in the depths of the forest ?

The attractive potential appeared even more critical to Talic as he agreed with Heddwyn. As much as he would have liked to get out of damn Fero as quickly as possible as much did he have to admit that even his resources were limited.

"I think he's right. I at least could use a bit of sleep and I doubt that tired eyes will improve anyone's aim with a bow either. So why not stop holloring, calm down and arrange for a camp while we still can ? Preferably not right at the rim of the forest maybe..." There was no real intention of Talic to make himself sound demanding or even just 'significant' in any way, but he also could not avoid that his voice was very dark and no less chesty.

The North Road

@Stitches

How did you get this top-secret photograph of my brain's inner workings ?

The North Road

I've got a suspicion!

The beast doesn't actually exist as a biological, magical or any other physical entity. It is there mere fact that all believe there is a beast that drives people crazy enough to behave in quite unusual ways, causing other people to think 'there's something really wrong here! Maybe he or she is posessed ?' and explaining it with your typical default approach: 'There must be some kind of evil in these woods!'. This in turn leads back to square one.

Proof ? None. Slight indications that would be in accordance with said theory ? Hell yes!

_{Please don't take it seriously!}

The North Road

Given that a lot of character interaction probably will take place and as an information to our GM (thanks for the awesome RP!) in general I'd like to provide a little info about my activity profile.

I have a full time job (still, quite a privilege to be honest!) and therefore am active writing primarily on the weekends. I usually do reading within the week as well, but not much writing due to lack of time and mental capacity. Things will probably clear up once I'm on vacation again or can compensate for some leftover overtime. My time zone is GMT+1.

Please do not hesitate to post whenever you want! This is just meant as an info in case you'd like to pick up more intensive interaction with Talic :)

@goodmode Did you read my PM ? :)

The North Road

Talic basically just wants to get out of Fero Province and he has reason not to waste time, so I think it would be appropriate for him to just stick with any leader that will emerge from the party :)

The North Road

The further away Talic had gotten away from the Citadel, the more surprised the ex-noble had become. He had expected his humongously large feet to take a bath in mud mixed with remainders of grass right now, but instead they were treading on a neatly arranged section of pavement still. Slowly it dawned upon him that the average capital citizen's opinion about the remote north regions might not exactly be up-to-date if one wanted to wrap it in nice words, or rather shamelessly ignorant if one insisted on being blunt. It was a nice surprise: Maybe this would be over quicker and easier than he had anticipated ?

Or probably not... He had seen one of those stone cairns before, but the fact that the neatly paved road seemed to end just behind this one was a clear sign that he had indeed reach the very northern border of the province. So yes, this still had its full potential to become a long, dirty and no less dangerous crawl. Talic twisted his head, checking his rear before checking who was already waiting in front of him and noticing with pleasure that noone was to be seen behind him anywhere. Had they already found out ? Had they already organized a manhunt and had it already gotten on his tracks ? Those kind of questions had been roaming in Talic's head for days by now and, while he wasn't pissed off by them, he'd be glad for some fresh thoughts for sure.

Talic's problem was that he was easily recognizable even in the middle of a crowded marketplace. Any spy hired to hunt him down probably would have an easy game jumping from place to place and just asking the same set of questions: 'Did you happen to see a walking tower ? Like this big, maybe ? Yes ? Where did he go ?'. For this reason he had went cross-country for the major part of his journey so far and it even seemed to have worked: Nobody in front of him looked like a hired killer as well. Well... at least not a killer hired against humans anyway.

His eyes jumped from face to face, briefly inspecting everyone waiting. A woman with hair even longer than his and a set of improvised looking armor... a lucky one, given that almost everybody else didn't seem to have even that. A burly man with a bow... Why did he use it as a walking stick ? Hopefully he knew what he was doing. Last but not least another male, a swordsman it seemed. One brief glance at his face already told a story about having been lucky at least once in his life. So these would be his companions either until the other side or until death. A slight shiver ran down Talic's spine at the thought of the latter possibility.

"Greetings!" he stated, trying to avoid anything that could hint at his noble origin. There was no point in making a point out of it. Talic then positioned himself at the wayside next to the others, wondering if they were waiting for anybody else to come.