Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

As we play, occasionally we'll close a thread and open a new one to keep the size of threads (and relative complexity) down to a dull roar. Here's where we store the closed posts from the history of Errant Road.
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Alberich
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Alberich »

Matysh smirked scornfully at this dialogue. If you wanted to insult a man, you called him a crawling worm or a bleating ewe or a bitch or something - not a big, strong troll. He didn't have that much regard for women but even the girls he knew could prod a man better than that. Actually, they could do much more painful things to a prisoner than these two knew, who seemed pretty helpless without their fucking beaver.

"Exitalis."

Silly, silly women. They couldn't even say the name right!
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Graybeard
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Graybeard »

The group was beginning to come back together, the last wriggling remnants of the bizarre monstrosity inside Carloc having finally been laid to rest. Sister Rose was much the freshest of the spellcasters, and she set to work healing the injuries of those who'd been involved in the close-quarters fighting, until she herself started to tire. As she worked, the party members swapped accounts of what they had seen and done, although Rose and Therese didn't mention their deduction about Exitialis yet; that was still in the speculation stage, and bitter experience had taught them both to stick to the facts at times like this. Besides, there were ... implications that were going to have to be thought through.

"Like it or not," she said once she regained her breath, "I think we're going to have to stay in camp another night. It's too late to make it back to Goriel, and I'm not sure we're going directly back there anyway. Some of the possibilities of that bandit camp are -- unsettling. We'll have to address those in the morning, when we're not so tired. Resting and getting our strength back has to take priority. But there's one thing we have to think about now."

She gestured to their captive, still struggling against his bonds and hurling imprecations at everyone in sight. "What are we going to do with him?"
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Alberich
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Alberich »

Matysh had two suggestions. "Kill me!" he said. "Or suck my dick!"

Rose found, happily, that there was no real need for her healing skills. Tim had already throughtly knitted up Udo's wounds and Tamina's -- healing was, after all, his strongest skill, the one thing at which he excelled. Argus, Therese, and herself hadn't been wounded at all. Nor had Harker. Drusia hadn't been hurt much and had already proven capable of healing what little wounds she did receive.

Tim had wandered over to where Rose was, to listen to what she had to say. He agreed with her idea of looking for the bandit camp, even if it had to wait until morning. After what they'd just seen and heard, he would not be satisified 'til he'd seen the body, and he didn't think anyone else would be, either.

Udo was tired from his ordeal and decided to rest on the ground. And could anyone blame him if he happened to crawl over next to a certain sleeping kobold and rest there? Or venture just one little comradely pat when no one was looking?
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Drusia
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Drusia »

"What are we going to do with him?"
Matysh had two suggestions. "Kill me!" he said. "Or suck my dick!"

I roll my eyes.

"As you wish," I say. I step behind him, put one hand on his chin, the other on his shoulder, and yank. Many people thing that, to break a neck, you twist to the side, but that is within the normal range of motion. To snap a spine, you must pull it in a direction it normally doesn't go. The slight twist to the side is only to line up the bones in the most ideal orientation for dislocation.

In any case, I'm rewarded with a popping sound. As the bones move out of alignment, they shred the spinal cord, resulting in paralysis and death.

I give him a moment - I don't want him to bite me. Once he's stopped moving, I pick him up and sling his corpse over my shoulder. "Unless anyone objects, I'm going to chuck him over the side with his friends," I say, turning to head up the ridge.

-- Drusia
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Graybeard
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Graybeard »

Sister Rose turned to stare at what had just happened, appalled at the casual ending of a life. "Drusia!" she said. "He was no threat to us, bound up the way he was. We could have taken him back for a fair trial in Goriel, you didn't have to --"

"Actually, she did," Therese interrupted, her voice still as calm as though she was discussing dinner plans for the evening. "Your faith in the judicial system of Goriel is -- misplaced. He would have had a 'trial' lasting about five minutes, then been delivered over for execution in a way slower and much more painful than what just happened to him. This was more merciful, I assure you. Besides, he would have had to be guarded around the clock until we got back. We don't have the resources for that. If Drusia had not done what she did, I was going to do it myself." She put a hand on the hilt of her sword.

Rose's shoulders slumped as she considered what Therese had said and weighed it against what she knew of the city-state. Finally she nodded unhappily. "You're right," she said. "I don't like it, but you're right. Leaving him alive wasn't really an option." Just like it wasn't, that time back in Albigenish, either. But that doesn't mean I liked what we did then, and it doesn't mean I have to like it now. "If you want to dispose of the body, go ahead, but let Tim and me do one thing first."

The two Veracian clergy had probably never done a Rite of Repose for a man who merited it less, but there were some things that just needed doing.
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Drusia
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Drusia »

I nod at Therese, indicating to Rose that what Therese said is correct.

It isn't, technically - as an outlaw, he wouldn't even receive the usual five minute trial. As far as Goriel is concerned, he's already dead, and anything done to a dead body is fair game. However, the point is moot.

I lay the body down - Rose and Tim can do as they like. I'm not sure where Rose gets her high horse on this one considering she was in the process of slowly castrating him not that long ago. But again, the point is moot.

"So," I say, turning to Therese, "Do you have any idea why there was a tentacle monster in some guy I killed thirty years ago? Cause, I'm not sure about anyone else, but that seems pretty strange to me."

-- Drusia
Last edited by Drusia on August 12th, 2012, 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Graybeard
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: OK, so brief pause as requested, but meanwhile, to deal with a dangling loose thread:]

A troll could easily make a hundred miles a day in convenient terrain, and while the mountains may have been rugged for humans, they were a veritable garden path for trolls. Sonny settled into the loping, distance-devouring gait of his kind, and started back for southern Veracia, putting his mind into the kind of quiet, meditative state that allowed him to eat up the miles.

Toward the end of the afternoon, however, he started to sense something disturbing.

Male trolls weren't magic users, but that didn't mean they were totally insensitive to the presence of magic. As he crested a ridge, he became aware that something had happened, one or two ridges ahead of him, that didn't feel right. Magic had been used there; big-time, destructive magic. That was very odd. The Small Ones tended to avoid these mountains, and according to his aunt the Chieftess, such few as did venture into them were no more inclined to use magic than he himself was.

I'd better avoid that, he thought. Unfortunately, heading downhill would make for tougher going, and it might also increase the chances of encounters with Small Ones who could use magic -- possibly of the destructive kind that he thought was out there. There seemed nothing of it but to head into the higher country along the central ridge line of the mountain range. That would make the going harder, and would expose him to some natural dangers -- but that was better than being exposed to unnatural magic.

He changed his route and started to climb.
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Alberich
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Alberich »

[OOC: No further pausing needed; please delete the message that I reduced to a single period above and don't delay anything anymore. Since Therese is a "semi-NPC"...]

"No idea," said Therese. "I've never heard of anything like it." In this she was like everyone else present. "But if we're going to check out their campsite tomorrow for this other man's body, maybe there'll be a clue there."
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Graybeard
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: Uh, Therese is intended as my "secondary" player character here, as Brad will be heading into happy, familial retirement with Lillith as soon as they can get back to civilization. She is not an NPC. Anyway:]

"Do you have any idea why there was a tentacle monster in some guy I killed thirty years ago? Cause, I'm not sure about anyone else, but that seems pretty strange to me."

Therese made a rare foray into dry humor. "Same here. The monsters we normally deal with are of the human kind." Perhaps that answer would deflect this elf's interest away from the subject for the moment; this wasn't the time to introduce her concerns about Exitialis.

By the time this exchange was done, Sister Rose and Tim were done with their Rite of Repose. "He's all yours," Rose said to Drusia as she straightened. "The sooner he's out of my sight, the happier I'll be."

Therese watched with interest as the two Veracians put away their religious hardware. "Does that ritual actually do anything? I mean, I accept the existence of gods and goddesses other than those whom I worship, but ..." She let her voice trail away. "I'm sorry if I give offense."

"You don't," Rose replied, meaning it. "Until a few weeks ago, I always thought the Rite of Repose was mainly to comfort the living, not to settle the dead. But then a few things happened ..." Her own voice trailed away as she remembered Dead Man's Hill, the Peaceful Dead, and some other things. "Let's just say it couldn't hurt." She exhaled deeply. "We've tarried too long here. Let's head back to camp."
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Tamina sleepily pulled to her feet at Rose's suggestion with a tap to get Udo back on his feet, and meandered back to the main group yawning and stretching.
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