Goriel and beyond, part 3

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose checked out the small room as Argus and Desiree made their plans for using Harker as a means of communication (what a concept, Rose thought). Truthfully, there wasn't really much to see here. She found herself idly fingering the chess set. Interesting, that that game had made it this far from what she considered civilization. It wasn't played universally in Veracia, by any means, but quite a few members of the clergy had learned to play, at least in areas not cursed (she really couldn't think of it any other way) by the presence of a cardinal or bishop who insisted that any form of free-time enjoyment was inappropriate for a member of the Luminositan Church. She'd been a decent recreational player in her youth, but hardly had any exceptional talent for the game, unlike some of the older churchmen who, she gathered, included in their numbers many of the strongest players in the country. [OOC: Art imitates life; this was true of 19th-century British chess. /OOC:] She derived more than a moment of amusement, thinking of the way some of those crusty old goats -- "gentlemen" -- would have reacted to a call to play in a setting like this, with --

... Wait a minute.

The black king on this set (really a dark gray king, but no matter) looked familiar. Very familiar.

"My lord -- Argus?" she called; no need to keep up the act here. She brandished the piece. "Doesn't this thing look a little like those figurines that Blaise was carrying?"

[Alberich]

The oversized pieces were certainly made of stone -- the same kind of stone as the figurines and the larger statue Rose had once seen at Stone Man Pass. But there was a large difference in craftsmanship. The rendering of these pieces was cruder. That was especially notable in the kings. The kings were shaped like frowning bearded men's heads. Desiree thought they both bore a distant resemblance to Lord Arman himself, but the white king looked sterner and the red king more depressed. Or constipated. All the pieces were set with gems, the red with garnets and small rubies, the white with zircon and mother-of-pearl. (The board was some kind of marble and doubtless very heavy.) All-in-all, a pointlessly gaudy, needlessly expensive, and awkward way to play the game - you couldn't just shift a piece over with your stronger fingers and deftly snap your capture up with the weaker, as Rose had seen done. Unless you were a chess-playing troll. These clunky stone blocks required the whole fist. A typically vulgar Gorielian display.

[Drannin]

Argus contemplated the pieces. "There's definitely some common craftmanship," he said slowly. "Which leads me to wonder how extensive Blaise's connections are in this area."

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose nodded. "That's one question," she said. "Another is whether it originated here, or whether the set came from wherever the rock came from, and was brought as a gift for some Duravsky chieftain. I'd assumed that whatever weirdness Blaise was involved in had started while he was on the Southern Continent mission, but who knows, maybe it's up here instead. Knowing whether the rock of this set is local, or from the south, would shed some light on that question. It would be nice to get a sense of those origins." She cocked an eyebrow in Desiree's direction; that shouldn't be hard for a skilled getera to explore. Then she grimaced. "Then again, it could all be a coincidence. Primitive rock art isn't exactly my specialty; Miguel could do better. These may not look as much like Blaise's figurines, or the statues on Stone Man Pass, as I thought. Certainly none of those things had anything as elaborate as these gems." She indicated a ruby. "If the Stone Man statues had had these for eyes, they'd have cost the entire national wealth of Veracia to build. One way or the other, it'd be nice to know more about the mines..." Her voice trailed off.

-----------

Yes, that should do, Therese decided. The modifications she'd made to the pewter work should provoke a ... strong reaction in Clan Duravsky. She mentally rehearsed the cover story she'd use when she took the thing there; it had to be airtight.

-----------

"Well, it's all consistent, at least," Rip noted to Shorty. They'd talked to at least half a dozen people about Jamie, Tamina and Udo, and every last one of them had shuddered and pointed out of town. "Guess we might as well follow the trail."

It didn't take long before they realized the trail they were following was marked not only by cringing Gorielites ... but also by blood.

[Jack Rothwell]

"You know." Tamina began, staring morosely at the entrance of their miserable shelter where rain water had started to patter. "When the weather turns bad onna hunting party back in the killikah lands and we can't get home we build a shelter. We weave leaves, make roof from branches, make a little fire, poke hole inna roof... s'warm, s'comfy, singing songs to beckon in the nyan... the rainbow that follows after the storm." The kobold sighed and pointed to the falling drops. "This is cold 'n'wet 'n' no-ones singing anything at all. It's sadded... saddendid.... ahh.... saddening. I'm sad." She finished, as one reaching an unfamiliar conclusion.

[Alberich]

...back in the killikah lands...

Udo wondered that she disliked her native land so much,* but then, maybe that's why she was travelling.

"Well, now," said Udo, "it's summertime and it's not that cold, but I can make a little light if you want it." It was true. While he wasn't a mage academy graduate and without his staff was nowhere near Tamina's level, his battlemage training included a few basic pedestrian tasks. Even without his staff, he could do that. "And if you're cold..." - he made sure at least she had a blanket over her. And if the same blanket was over himself (and Jamie too, he supposed), who was to complain? She'd said she was cold, after all, and being close would help them stay warm. A very basic hygiene spell was enough to get the water out of the blanket and her fur. (It wasn't Udo's strongest skill, but for the circ's, it was just perhaps good enough.)

"When I was a boy, we used to camp out sometimes" -- not often in his case -- "And we'd have a fire too, and we'd bring...sweet, sugary things, and hold them over the fire on sticks 'til they almost melted, and gobble them up. Burned my tongue but they were good! And we'd sing songs too." In fact, he hadn't really been an enthusastic outdoorsman as a boy. Bloodsucking insects, going to the toilet in the dark and tripping over roots, scary night sounds - none of this had suited the young Udo at all. But Tamina wanted cheering up, so she was geting the happy version. "We had one that went like this..."

And he sang her a little ballad about a naughty fox that sneaked through the wilds and the city. He stole a chicken and gobbled her up. The Queen of the Foxes warned him not to do that; so the next day he stole some of the farmer's money, went to town, bought a chicken, and gobbled her up. The Queen of the Foxes warned him not to do that, either, so the next day he sabotaged the farmer's cart. When the wheel broke off, the farmer lost a chicken, and the fox claimed her as lost property and gobbled her up. The Queen of the Foxes said even that was forbidden, so he pretended to fall in love with a chicken, wooed her well, convinced her to run away to marry him, and then gobbled her up. The Queen of the Foxes was furious and confronted the fox, who argued back to her that he'd always obeyed her queenly commands, so that she had no cause to complain. Asserting her queenly authority, she cast a spell on him, so that by day, when the foxes sleep, he should be a fox; but by night, when the foxes hunt, he should be a chicken. He tried begging for mercy, but the only mercy she'd grant him was that he could run faster than most chickens. And he spent the rest of his days being chased by his own brothers.

"What did you sing about? Before it was time for the rainbow?"

Stopping for a song while pursuing a dangerous quarry wasn't always a well-omened choice, but no one here adhered to that superstition. And there was no way the mining party was leaving the village 'til morning, so it wasn't as if they had anything better to do.

* Udo still thought "killikah" was a curse word.

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose was developing a case of the fidgets.

Her Special Ops background left no doubt in her mind that wading through this endless protocol with the rival Gorielian clans was somehow politically necessary. However, it didn't seem right. Theirs wasn't a political mission, at its root; it was an operational one, to find and deal with a man who had nothing to do with the squabbling in Goriel. They were just wasting time here.

Or were they? She was coming to the conclusion that Blaise had escaped into the hinterlands of Goriel. That would make sense; he was obviously on the run, and men on the run didn't hang around in places where they were likely to be detected. The clan structure of the city marked it as a place where detection would be too easy. But on the other hand ... what if one of the clans had not merely detected the man, but co-opted him? Without knowing Blaise's motivations for running (that was what the Patriarch really cared about, after all), it was an open question whether he could be thus co-opted or not. And if the answer was yes, there was one outfit that had something to gain by doing it ...

She decided to take a chance, and moved close to Desiree; what she was about to say could land them all in big trouble if Argus' anti-snooping device was leaky. I wish we could transact this telepathically, but I don't think she's ready for that yet. [OOC: I searched for evidence that Desiree had used the mind-speech previously, but couldn't find any. If I missed it, please let me know and I'll retcon; Rose would definitely use that in preference to talking out loud. /OOC:] She lowered her voice. "Don't let this question leave this room, but do you know whether there's anyone from this disagreeable Clan Zukalin among the geteroi here? Or if there's another way to get contacts among them?"

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Therese, now en route to Clan Duravsky with her payload, would have liked to get an answer to that question as well ... but first things first.

[Jack Rothwell]

"What did you sing about? Before it was time for the rainbow?"

Tamina had giggled and clapped her way through Udo's tale of chicken chasing and now searched her mind for a song to sing of her own.

"Ahh don't know if the words would umm.... trans-load... link... no... change... to your words well, but the Killikah sing this one for when it's raining..."

The kobold drew a deep breath and launched into a tune called 'Leesha vaa teesh*'. Tamina had a surprisingly pretty singing voice, and doing the action in her native tounge ironed out the hesitancy and mispronounciations she often had in 'yooman' speak.

The song itself was a story about the aggravation of bad weather and the importance of remaining cheerful. One part of the song ran...

"Ka leesha sah dreep kee kalah
Doh zul doolah te grahalama
Te yoosha el iaval
Dah iaval doolah kay leesha hial
Te tray veesa
Dra te nofah
Ki doolah sa doos gigah sey ta ta ta
Ka leesha tila dreep kee kalah"

A very rough translation would have been.

"The rain is making my fur wet
But this does not enrage me
I reject the concept of crying
Because crying doesn't make rain stop
I have freedom
And I'm carefree
It won't be long 'til happy says hi hi hi
But the rain is still making my fur wet."

The finished the song a few minutes later and beamed at her companions.

"Leli does it better but I like it. Makes me happy. Oh! Happy again!" She smiled wider.


OOC No prizes will be awarded for figuring out which tune I bastardized those lyrics from. Anyhow, I'm off for a bike ride. /OOC

[Drusia]

"Don't let this question leave this room, but do you know whether there's anyone from this disagreeable Clan Zukalin among the geteroi here? Or if there's another way to get contacts among them?"

"No, certainly not," I reply with assurance, "As of this morning, Dina of Clan Gibazov is the only visiting getera - aside from myself. Do you... suspect that Clan Zukalin might be involved with Blaize?"

-- Desiree

OOC: Nope, Desiree has never used mind-speech, never been subjected to it, and if she were to be so without warning she'd likely scream in surprise/fright. ^^

[Alberich]

Making merry music at the mouth of a cave in wild, dangerous country -- perhaps that was not so well-omened either. But the three adventurers were all optimists by nature, when they gave thought to the future at all, and at least two of them were cheering up and thinking happy thoughts. Udo was thinking that the public transportation of Tsuirakushiti should have music just like that, to soothe the passengers as they bustled about their busy days. He was sure they'd love it. Jamie and Udo both applauded and hugged and petted Tamina while they praised her performance.

They did not think they were being observed, but they were. They did not think on what they might be rousing from its slumber, but rousing something they were. Something old and something far more at home in dark caves than they.

Jamie supposed it was her turn - and she was about to rend the air with the kind of song she knew best - when there was a sound to the back of the cave. The voice was loud and resonant and male, but not fully human.

"YAWWWWN!"

They paused and looked back into the dark. There was a glint of something metallic. Udo grabbed his staff and summoned a light, illuminating the cave back to its rear - and they saw something they hadn't before.

It was a manlike figure, a little over three feet high but extremely stocky and strong. In fact, it was about as broad as a full-grown man, with powerful, clawed hands and large feet. Its complexion was stony, its abundant hair and beard scraggly and mossy. The beard hung to its knees, and maybe that was for the best, for it wore no other clothes. In the matter of color, only the eyes stood out, for these were a sort of shiny blue.

In the light from the staff, it blinked and stretched and spoke. The voice was not so thunderous as the yawn had been - but it still had power.

"That was lovely!" it said. "Wake up to that any day!" It grinned. Its teeth were huge and stumpy - and made of something shiny. Once it got a little closer, it sat on a handy rock and folded its hands in its lap. Warily, Jamie lowered her rifle.

Udo tried talking to it -- "Good evening, then! May we ask who or what you are?"

It scratched the back of its head with its knuckles, and yawned again so that they winced at the loudness. "I'm the Kobold!" it boomed cheerfully.

"Wha--?" said three voices together.

"The Kobold!" it repeated with assurance. "There's only one of me and I'm it! Any silver mines opened up lately?"

The three looked at each other. Arguing with this strange magical mannikin about its name might be dangerous or even pointless. But when had that ever stopped them?