Goriel and beyond, part 3

[Drusia]

"You're here for Eli." She said, every word clipped and over enunciated. "Well, take him. Take him, and goddess damn you. Damn you, and damn me too for agreeing that you have to."
Then she turned and vomited into the bushes.

I - what?!

"What?" I ask. "No! I'm here because of rumors of a 'half-elven clan' in Goriel that turned out to be you all. Why would you think..."

Looking at them, my eyes widen.

"What has Eli done?" I ask. Then, with dawning horror at exactly who isn't in the room. "Where's my daughter?! What has he done to her?!"

-- Drusia

OOC: That was not where I was expecting that to go. However, it was awesome. **high fives Sareth**

[Alberich]

For Tim and Eli to go out alone in Goriel city at night was a risky move. For them to go to a late-night drinking establishment and ask about the Gibazov and Zukalin compounds, this too was risky. For them to split up afterwards, each to spy on one compound, was -- what is the technical term? -- batshit crazy. Yet that is what they did. Eli had provided Tim with a sketch of the symbol he was to use. Then, going bold or stealthy as the street demanded it, he made his way to the southeast side of town.

The Zukalin compound was not right beside any intact buildings. Its walls were thick and ugly and several blocky towers adorned the walls. This place was made for practical defense rather than gaudy display - or perhaps the original gaudy-display bits were long since destroyed or sold. The buildings that had once stood near were burned or flattened or otherwise cleared. Yet one could hear distance celebratory music from in there, and some shouting. A man on his belly could get pretty close by using debris for cover. In the darkness, a galdy could do it easily, and a silka with the greatest of ease. All he needed was a place to shelter, and he found that easily beneath the collapsed remains of a wooden building. What did he care for comfort at this hour? The point was to spy, to learn, to find a way to do some harm...

Yet before he could sketch the symbol and prepare his spies, he overheard voices nearby - and one of them seemed familiar. In perfect concealment he could see a small band of about ten, well armed and bent on mischief. The leader spoke to the others.

"Here we are, my brothers - and remember - when we have one alive, we get him away, and defend ourselves only. Well we know these cowards would flee our spears if we pressed them boldly - but so would our prisoner. Prisoners are all that matters - and a great reward to all of us that we take one. Now say - what is the difference between a mountain climber, using pegs and ropes to scale a sheer face, and a Zukalin warrior faced by us?" There was a pause for dramatic effect. "One loops his peggings - and the other poops his leggings!" They stifled their laughs despite his rank - oh, yes, that was Luka Yurkashev all right. The hidden speaker then began to make tactical dispositions - to prepare to ambush any Zukalin that left the compound, or attempted to return to it.

Eli might watch. He might interfere. He might help. He might leave. He might just lie back and reflect on the stupidity of these humans. But what, in truth, did he do?

[Alberich]

Rip, Shorty, Jamie, Udo, and Tamina peered out from behind the rocks. A patrol on horseback (or at least shaggy-ponyback) went by and they hid again - then looked when it was safely gone. Their initial assessment had not been correct. This did not look like a mining village. It looked like an armed camp. Even the miners who'd come with them from Goriel city were now swanking about with weapons rather than tools, and while there must be some mining going on somewhere, they seemed far more concerned with guarding the operation than with carrying it out. More of the strange rifles were also in evidence. Even if there was no evil wizard lurking around somewhere, the adventurers could not fight this lot - they'd be overwhelmed, though they'd doubtless take a heavy toll on the defenders.

Fortunately, despite the patrols and guards, the ground was too uneven to watch every piece of it, and the Gibazov tactical dispositions weren't all that smart. Said Udo, the best place to start was the mine itself - the confined spaces would play to their natural advantages, and if the wizard wasn't hiding there the way the girl had said, someone important who knew where he was would be. No one voiced a better idea - and it wasn't too hard to see where it was, and even see what looked like an unguarded entrance. Creepy-crawling and making short rushes to avoid patrols, they made their way towards the opening.

Circumstance split them up -- Jamie, Tamina, and Udo had made it to the entrance and were sneaking down while Rip and Shorty stayed back with the parrot, waiting for a patrol to go by. They could see that this area was not closed off - there was a path winding down to a dark archway of sorts, no doubt the entrance to the mine proper. You could follow the path down or you could scramble down the cliff if you were in a hurry. Best of luck, there were no guards here - only a skull wearing an iron helmet, set on a shelf as if to warn them.

And then, as if overdue, all Hell broke loose.

The skull began to shout in a weird, metallic voice -- "INTRUDERS!!!!! THREE INTRUDERS!!!! ONE MAN ONE WOMAN ONE CATGIRL!!!!" -- ingrained habit made them shout "Kobold!" -- "INTRUDERS!!!! THREE INTRUDERS!!! ONE MAN..."

The patrol turned their way, and guards were rushing for another opening - the only way to safety was down to the mine opening, the fastest way possible, down the cliff. There'd be no clear field of fire for the enemy, and if they wanted to fight in pairs before the gate, or chase the intruders through the confined spaces of a mine - they'd have some casualties for sure. Down the cliff they went - Tamina most easily, Jamie with agility, Udo with less of that. Scrambling and tumbling they made it to the bottom - Udo, however, having lost his staff halfway up the cliff somewhere. No time to recover it! They made a mad dash for the dark opening, and p'chow!!!!!!, a bullet ricocheted nearby. The smell was beastly. But the cover was inviting. The three intruders rushed inside.

Tamina's fur stood on end from the smell - and a large shape in the distance. "Should run..." she wanted to say...Udo thought they should run forward before the enemy got there...

ClankclankclankclankclankclankCLANK!!!!!!!

...a huge solid gate dropped behind them, sealing them in the mine. Well, that was one less decision to make. There was no sound of pursuit but Tamina seemed very worried about something up front.

"Hey, Bluenose, gimme some light to shoot by, willya?"

Well, even without his staff, Udo could do that. Concentrating, he summoned a magic light and fixed it to the ceiling above them - and before them was a fearsome sight.

[OOC: Which I will describe in my next post, as it's bedtime for Alberich. Been looking forward to this one. Rip & Shorty aren't coming to the rescue just now; but they aren't captured, either, and will be important if these three get out of here.]

[Jack Rothwell]

Eli shook his head and departed. The group waiting outside would prove a valuable distraction for Tim, and he certainly had no desire to stop them. He made his way further into town to find his assignment.

The Gibazov compound looked, to Eli, like a building on the cusp of needing rennovation, a story told in the faded paint, a guard on the wall whose shoulder plates showed flecks of rust, a threadbare banner fluttering in the breeze. The gate itself was thick and well-maintained, too well-maintained, as it turned out, to present any easy entry even for a creature as small as a Silka.

The half-elf leaned back in the shadow of the alleyway and clucked annoyance, weigning up his options and vaguely wishing Gabriel was here in case things went sideways.

'Burn it? Don't be moronic, the guards lining it would probably notice. A galdy? Yeah, that'd be fantastic, raise a demonic-looking big cat and make everyone scream and panic. Con my way in? Ha! Not in this lifetime...'

He picked up the silka which had failed to gain entry and eyed it with a thoughtful look. The creature itself looked back with it's front paws clasped as if reflecting on it's caster's mood, maybe it was.

The sudden sound of footsteps coming from the other direction caught the half-elfs attention. Footsteps which were heading directly towards the compound, a light turned on in Eli's head.

'...or, there's option number four.'

He stole a quick glance around the corner to spy his quarry. A middle-aged man as bald as a plucked chicken, emaciated in a rich robe that marked him as some species of aristocrat. An armed guard accompanied the noble, thankfully on the far side, which made it easier for the half-elf to do what he was about to do. As the man drew to the edge of the alleyway Eli stepped out and collided with him in a trip which sent the half-elf to the road.

"Aah! You brute! What is the meaning of this?" The noble stumbled into the arms of his bodyguard and righted himself in a series of quick, furious gestures, the guard stepped between them with the ringing noise of drawing metal.

"A thousand pardons sir!" Eli cried, holding up his hands in a placatory gesture and affecting a drunken slur. "I was just on way home and must have got turned around somewhere."

"You want me to gut this worm, sir?"

Eli cringed and made a whimpering noise, the noble shook his head in disgust.

"Pathetic drunks, just strike him and let's be on our way."

It was a hard shot, but the half-elf had taken worse. He licked the bood out of the corner of his mouth with a rueful smile as he watched the pompous man depart, he carried on staring as the gates opened and swallowed them up. Then, with a tired sigh, he made his way back to the alleyway, sat down on an empty crate and closed his eyes.

In the pocket of the nobleman, the silka opened hers.

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose moved immediately to "Sister Rose Standard Thought Number Seventeen": let's see if I can defuse this.

"Whoa!" she said, stepping into the middle of the proto-mob and raising her hands. "All questions have answers; most even have good answers. But let's start forming and asking the questions first, shall we?"

For all of Rose's vaunted magical Empathy and other magical talent, she had no direct way of influencing others' minds magically, other than communicating with them telepathically, which was a one-on-one technique. However, strength of personality would work in some settings where magical manipulation wouldn't. The temperature in the room dropped a degree or two, Argus stopped working on whatever powerful earth magic he'd been about to summon, and Brad stepped over to tend his wife with a Hygiene spell.

That left Rose talking directly to Drusia. "Thanks for coming," she said dryly, "but you come at a rather -- tense time. In no particular order: your daughter is fine, and is currently in another clan's compound on an exchange of geteroi. You know what those are? If not, we can talk offline, it's a good role for her to play with us and she is in no danger. She's also found a --" might as well call it what it is -- "lover there, another woman, who wants to escape the clan where they're serving. But that's all good, as far as we can tell. Desiree took it kind of hard when we went to -- Getsemiel, but she's doing better now."

She ticked others off on her fingers. "We couples are fine. Did you know that Brad and Lillith got married?" (It would have been better for the happy newlyweds to break that news themselves, but they were busy comforting each other at the moment. Also, she chose not to elaborate on her own "couple" status with Argus.) "We four were asked by my church to go on a mission regarding a scary man we met on the way to Getsemiel. I'll want to talk to you more about that later, but Desiree is helping with information gathering in her getera role and Eli and a friend are out fact finding as well." Now comes the hard part... "Eli ... something has changed him, Drusia. I don't think he has changed, he has been changed, by evildoers with strange artifacts. We -- worry about him. But in my judgement he has not become an --" she checked to make sure the damping was still up -- "Errant. So that's a problem, but I think a solvable one."

The wall of text over, Rose took a deep breath and went from giving answers to asking one rather obvious and important question. "But just what are you doing here?" It had to be more than a routine, coincidental checking on a band of half elves. Didn't it?

[Jack Rothwell]

In the alleyway, Eli was certainly doing a passable impression of a drunk. In his mind's eye he saw blackness with a single spot of light that came from the inside of the coat, he heard the muttered tones of polite conversation drifiting by, the motion of the man's stride created a swing which rocked the silka's caster involuntarily.

Abruptly the motion slowed, and changed into a dizzyingly drop of gravity as the man sat down. He heard the scrape of a chair which confirmed his transport had just sat down.

'Out and under...'

The Silka followed the command to the letter. It scurried out of the pocket and dropped to the floor in a flash of dark brown fur, disapearing under the table.

The room was a dining room, that much was clear. The length of the furniture and the maze of boots told the half-elf that much. Logic dictated that the solitary pair of feet at the end of its length belonged to the most important man. A quick sprint (and a narrow jump to avoid being crushed under a large heel that jumped up and down with a man's laughter) later the silka was seated amicably a foot away from the leader of the assembly.

The little creature sat down and started preening itself with little concern for the situation. Eli settled in to wait.

[Alberich]

Most of the boots were leaving the room anyway - thus the "maze" the silka had to navigate. Small wonder at this hour. There were various greetings and goodnights to "Yuri Mishyevich" - that must be the careless old fool who'd carried the spy-mouse inside. The tone seemed genial overall. Yuri was left alone with an older man, one he addressed as "Kiril Vanyevich" and seemed to defer to. They seemed to know each other well, as fitted family. They got out some kind of game with stones [OOC: From a distance you might mistake it for Fox and Geese] and made small talk about wine and wives before they got down to business.

"So, Yuri Mishyevich, what is the word from Monsieur Laballe?"

"It is of mixed quality, Kiril Vanyevich. He implies that they have the ability to lay hands on the stones; but is leery of further credit until next week when we pay - you know we're in deepest with them..."

"Naturally, for they can get stones in a hurry! You explained the situation to them?"

"Yes, Kiril Vanyevich - I said it again in multiple ways; that we might soon be Second Clan and in a position to pay them much faster, and much more besides - that things have changed greatly for the better - but that we must have display to ensure that it is we, and not some other, that steps upward to that place. Yet it is hard to say whether he wishes to deny further credit, and so hurt his chances, or simply to impress upon us that the strings are in his hands before he gives way..."

Kiril was on his feet, pacing around agitatedly. "We must have those stones. Lord Semyon insists!"

"No doubt, Kiril Vanyevich - but Monsieur Laballe is not of our clan or even of our country, and has no true appreciation of these things. How were we to know the Second Step would so soon be in reach? When the wind makes a sudden change, the wise seamen shifts the sails!"

"But do you think he will come around?"

"I think but I cannot say - he is a most wearying man when the subject is debt...."

There was a great deal more repetition along those lines. Nothing was resolved, nor could be resolved in this late-night meeting, but at least Kiril was informed. Eventually they turned to more gossipy topics, and now it was Yuri's turn to ask: "What news of the Chepilesky?"

"They were bold this morning - and if the Yurkashev do not extract some blood soon, I think they're on the road to summon them."

"Can it be? For certain there may be gold to be had - but there are swords in front of it! A ruby in the serpent's throat is best left there."

"That may be, Yuri Mishyevich, but some of them are too hasty and talk too freely, and I think they are preparing another delegation to push for a settlement. Perhaps they think Lord Shashenka will pay from frustration, while his mind is elsewhere. If so they do not know their men - they'll get their blood. Out of someone. Maybe before we wake up!"

Then they turned to more gossip, and a discussion of Monsieur Laballe's taste in wine (weak, foreign stuff, but tasty in its way) and his lack of skill at chess, and then there was some more gossip about marriage negotiations. Apparently the Gibazov had a real beauty they were hoping to marry to one of the Duravsky mucky-mucks, but the Duravsky kept insisting on mine-shares for dowry, and -- for reasons the speakers didn't articulate -- that was simply out of the question.

How tedious they were. Why couldn't they liven their talk up by playing chess, or bring in some flowers so the silka could watch them grow, or something?

Despite Kiril's frustrations, the two made ready for bed or further doings with warm goodnights. This left the silka free to roam the compound. It heard nothing else of likely political interest, and certainly saw no sign of Blaise or death magic. However, through its eyes, Eli was able to learn a little more about these Gibazovs. They were far likelier than the Yurkashevs to wear comfortable robes in the evening, and made far less display of their weapons (though belt knives seemed to be a universal in this country, at least for men of status). And some of them went to bed with their wives or concubines, and some got up to strange and uninhibited deeds with the "kept women" - at least, he assumed that's what they were, 'cause two guys shouldn't be sharing one wife like that. Idly he wondered what a celibate young fellow like Tim would do, able to spy on all the boys and girls, and boys with girls, through the eyes of a silka.

[Drusia]

"We four were asked by my church to go on a mission regarding a scary man we met on the way to Getsemiel. I'll want to talk to you more about that later, but Desiree is helping with information gathering in her getera role and Eli and a friend are out fact finding as well." "Eli ... something has changed him, Drusia. I don't think he has changed, he has been changed, by evildoers with strange artifacts. We -- worry about him. But in my judgement he has not become an --" she checked to make sure the damping was still up -- "Errant. So that's a problem, but I think a solvable one." Rose took a deep breath and went from giving answers to asking one rather obvious and important question. "But just what are you doing here?"

Eli hasn't killed Desiree. I breathe a heartfelt sign of relief. And... Eli might be fixable? That's good. Well, except...

"Eli has gotten bad enough that Lillith thinks I should kill him, and you're just letting him run around the city?" I ask, tilting my head to the side. I pause, and turn to Lillith, who seems to have stopped vomiting, adding "Congradulations, by the way. If you ever need somewhere to stay, know you're welcome in Snamish." Whether they care to stay there or not is another matter.

Anyway, back to Rose. "I'm here because you all have kicked up a whole sea of rumors. Another Peregin heard about a half-elven city in the north called Racosky. Fortunately for all of you, she decided to enlist my aid in tracking this city down. Since her informant was here in Goriel, we came to get more info - and that's when the name Cleiviein came up and I realized that Racosky was actually Tsuirakushiti, and that my friend was tracking you. I vouched for the three half elves, saying I'd checked you out already, but she said we might as well take another look while we were here. She's a friend of mine from the war - and like me she doesn't harm half-elves, only those who've turned Errant. I trust her not to harm an innocent half-elf - but not enough to tell her about Snamish or reveal that Desiree is my blood. I expected to spy on you all for a bit, satisfy her that none of you were Errants, and get her away from you. Now... Eli's situation complicates things. If he is behaving as you say... it may be out of my hands, no matter if he can be returned to his former self."

I pause, letting that sink in.

"Now... what precicely do you believe is affecting him?" I ask. "And how? Rose, you seem to think he isn't that bad off. Lillith appears to disagree. So, I ask again, what has he done to earn these opinions from you both?"

-- Drusia

OOC: Did the server totally freak out on anyone else today?

[Drannin]

(OOC: It did for me, Drusia. Technical difficulties, I'm assuming)

Argus spoke up. "The incident that sticks out in everyone's mind happened to involve a group of slavers. They managed to snatch Desiree, but didn't get very far before we found and restrained them. However, before we could turn them over to the authorities, Eli just... killed them. No interrogation, no due process or what have you, he just flat-out gestured and killed them in a rage."

"Things have gotten worse since then," Harker muttered. "Eli was never fussed on humanity in general, I noticed, but he's been getting worse ever since. Violent, erratic. Keeping to himself. I dunno, Rosie says it's something being done to him, but I just don't trust the guy anymore. I feel like he'd knife you in the back in a heartbeat if he thought you were a danger to him." The familiar shook his head. "You'd have to see for yourself. He just ain't right."

[Graybeard]

[OOC: Yeah, server glitch, apparently OK now ...]

Sister Rose shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Harker's right: I think it is something being done to him. He somehow got his hands on an amulet that positively reeks of magic, and the longer he's had it, the more possessive he's become about it, and the more -- erratic his behavior is." Is the word "erratic" too close to "Errant"? I honestly hope not, but it fits. "Another thing: once he picked the thing up, which was in either Getsemiel --" Drusia would know the significance of that town -- "or a little village right before that, his magic suddenly got incredibly, almost uncontrollably powerful. He did a Heal in Getsemiel that damn near killed the person he was healing, rather than fixing his injuries, because of a tremendous magic pulse that he couldn't control. I wondered about it at the time, but I didn't have any reason to suspect the amulet was involved. I do now."

Brad picked this moment to chime in. "Tim would know more about that, Rose." That got him a surprised look from his cousin as he explained to Drusia. "Tim was the other one you saw with Eli and me. Young Veracian priest, a little naive and idealistic --" to hear something like that from Brad, of all people, is a rather ... strong statement, Rose thought -- "but nice enough, and he's really worried about Eli. They're still out for the night, being detectives together. I think he knows more about what magic gadgets Eli has and what they do."

Rose nodded. "Right on the mark. Tim has been bugging me to do something to 'rescue' Eli from the thing, or at least rescue his soul." There was a trace of bitterness in her laugh. "Considering my role in the church, I don't think I'm as good as rescuing souls as I ought to be. But yes, it's probably time to do something to get that thing away from him ... before he's the possession and it's the possessor. If it's not too late already."

[OOC: I wanted to make sure, to avoid continuity breaches, that Rose did already know about the amulet, and grasp its potential significance. Just in case there's any doubt, she does. However, I don't think she knows about the book, although I'm not sure.]