SillyGoy

What Lies Below

Lord almighty, how is she such a bitch?

What Lies Below

“Oh my Gods, you are testing my patience!” Ernst half-growled half-laughed. “Ohohoho,” he held his heaving chest. “How is it even possible for you to be such a bitch, heavens above?! You make me want to wring your neck, just nnnnrrgh!!”, he choked the air physically with his hands to emphasize, before bringing them down to take one of the last spoonfuls of pottage from his bowl. “And please, don’t talk about something like archery if you don’t know shit about it, because let me tell you that brute force is a big part of the art, as the good training sergeants have drilled me into knowing and having. I can do speed well enough, but you really need to have a proper body to be able to draw good stones on the bow, or your arrow will either not have enough force to fell your target or probably flop on the ground uselessly. Granted, accuracy is a big deal, but I’ve hunted deer long enough from distances near and far to get a good knack at it. Trust me when I said earlier than I can pin a man down from a hundred yards, but you probably won’t.”

He took his tankard and took a long swig from it, clearing his mouth and throat of the residue of food and replacing it with the sour taste of good beer. “Speed doesn’t matter much in archery unless the enemy is close and you’re being shot at yourself.”

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“Actually, yes, I am short of lovely people to drink with every night, but that’s because most of them died from famine, some died due to banditry, and the rest of them are either scattered around the Empire looking for work like I am or stubbornly refuse to give up our dead village, starving to death; and the only other living member of my family and clan, as far as I know, has fallen back to prostitution to sustain herself,” he said, cheerfully enough, picking from the river fish on his plate and reducing it into bones. The salt was just right; the tavern keep was consistently a good cook! “But if not a mage, Kat, then what’s your role here in the party? I don’t mean to, say, offend, but what can you do with just one arm?”

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After Kat’s first statement, Ernst made a strange face and reared his head back to allow for another brief but rather mocking double-chin expression half-shielded by a simultaneous partaking of a piece of fish. His eyes weren’t trained on the girl, but he was having a quite a rough time focusing on his meal, with every spoonful of pottage serving as a distraction from the mirth he was trying so hard to bottle up.

But after Kat had said all that she had to say, Ernst let out a considerable length of laughter and shook his head. “‘What makes you think I’ve been there?’”, he echoed between hiccups. “Gods, you are such a bitch. Just the way you said it -- wow! I’m seeing flashes of red, insulto kaayo ka! Ah, Basileos on the Throne,” he settled down, looking into her eyes with a sort of serene expression painting his face. “You don’t have many friends with this kind of attitude, do you? You’re a fierce woman, and… uncharacteristically so.” The long word managed to escape his mouth without a stutter. “Let me just guess here: are you a mage?”

What Lies Below

The spoon attacked the pottage and further diminished it. Ernst, uncaring for the soup’s plight, merely replied, “I was planning to go to the stables after this breakfast, actually. You’ve been there; what’s the price for a good horse?”

His eyes travelled down to her bulging bag. “And what are the shops that offer cheap but good items?”

What Lies Below

Yes, that was intentional.

What Lies Below

"Come again?"

What Lies Below

Ernst succeeded but only by three inches! Oh well, better than nothing, folks!

Let's look at further developments before placing more bets.

What Lies Below

"Hey," Ernst smiled, liking the turn of events as he was actually expecting her to turn tail and leave the building. "You'll find that the woodsman and the farmer are two of the most interesting kinds of people you'll ever meet with lots of exciting stories to tell; sadly, this one, named Ernst," he finally dropped his name, "doesn't have many to share, and what he does have, you can ask any other: born and raised in a village far away from here, come to this region to escape the famines and the poverty like the rest of ‘em -- but you, on the other hand, Kat,” the word rolled pretty well off his tongue, though the name was rather strange to him, “you look like a very interesting person. Silver hair, black skin -- your parents must be two hella curious people. Where are you from? You've got a mystical look about you.”

As he cut away another pork piece and ate it he said, “By the way, I ain’t buying you breakfast. Much as I like to be a, say, gentleman,” he was actually confused as to what Kat was jabbing him with the word earlier as he looked and acted like none of the sort, “budget concerns trump over that. Forgive me, eh?”

What Lies Below

Ernst has a +3 bonus when negotiating with commoners and a -3 for nobles; his base DIP stat is 4; can he placate the mad woman?

Find out in the next few posts!