Mountain(s) of Madness

[Sareth]

[OOC:] Things did get just a bit odd, eh? Well, while we wait to find a SAFE way to explore Ayiee further...[/OOC]

Jasmine sat up with a groan and rubbed her head. Her body was considerably stiff and sore from laying out on the side of the road all night, but that was nothing to the splitting headache she was suffering from. When she figured out who had clubbed her in the head, he or she would learn a thing or two about pain.

She rolled over and collected up her pack, checking through it to figure out what all was missing from it. Answer: nothing, surprisingly.

"Well, at least she's not added thieving from her mother to the list. Jamie, when I get my hands on you I am going to give you the tanning of your life! I don't care how old you are!"

Hoisting the pack, she began walking into the mountains.

[Viking-Sensei]

"Well, it's weird." Lucas said, walking around Ayiee, who tried to track him with her eyes until she almost rolled them into the back of her head. "She was in a big pile of broken or badly damaged looking... whatever she was... I figure it must've been the remains of a dwarven something or other, but then again that's based mostly on the fact that I appeared in the northy northest parts of the Northern Confederacy, where there's supposed to be a bunch of dwarven ruins. I don't know dwarfish for crap... grandpa always favored my sister over me when he would get into his long-winded stories about the dwarves, and dwarven studies was an optional class at Sashu Mu... one I didn't take. For all I know, it could've been an abandoned Elven facility... or even human, given her design and appearance, though I really doubt any humans ever had anything like her."

"She was smashed up... arms and legs all broken, head cracked open, crystals scattered and smashed. Fortunately, all the whatever-she-ises look like they were made to be compatible, so I just kept rummaging through the other remains until I found a complete set of the crystals to stick in her head. Then I swapped her arm out with a mostly-intact one, and she started doing the rest of the work herself. She went together sort of like one of those store dummies they use to advertise clothes - pegs with crystals in them fitting into sockets with more crystals in them... but when she was done, the blue "skin" she's covered in now grew to cover all the joints too."

[AdamZero]

"Wait, the crystals... grew?" I leaned close to Lucas, then leaned more toward Aiyee. "If I didn't know crystals did that on their own.... but over a set path? Just on there own.... sounds like massive skin replication... damn." I ate more toasty bunny. "This is good rabbit."

I smiled and continued eating. "But while were talking about ruins, or mentioning them in passing." I swallowed a big bite. "Jamie did you ever really have a plan about going into that damn mountain ride? Or were we just riding by the seat of your well fit pants?" I gave her a 'Serious business' stare. I hope she got the message, but to add to it. "Cause while I'm sure I would have gotten the mission to waste the doomy reactor they've got in there anyway, I'm sure it would have been a year or so AFTER I'd gotten up to a decent level of skill in mundane demolitions!" I growled and leaned back.

"I mean seriously, what did you think was down there?"

[Graybeard]

Layla walked quietly back to the house, wondering if motherhood was making her soft.

Actually, that wasn't exactly what she was wondering. It was more along the lines of: How can I reconcile the joy that Zachary gives me, and my need to take care of that one small life at any and all costs, with the casualness with which my guild throws lives away? The question had been bothering her ever since the episode at the pass -- not that she'd had any use for the three men who died, and to be sure, they'd have killed the people on the stage just as casually as she'd been expected to kill them, but still. And now the discovery that Arty had been casually killed by one of his own people ... It's as if they thought getting him off to a healer was too much trouble. Well, serves them right to go and get themselves killed as a result, she grumped, unaware of the irony of that thought. I don't like this. The Gewehr has changed.

Of course, the Gewehr hadn't changed at all; Layla had changed.

She was giving serious thought to taking Zachary, disappearing from town, and going off to manage the winery that Galina had talked about, when Faye finally caught up with her. "What's wrong, honey?" Faye asked, concern obvious in her face.

[Sareth]

Uh oh. This does not bode well. At least it got Marcus off of thinking of making Ayiee into a finger puppet. "Well... Without knowing the layout of what all was down there, I kind of had to play by the seat of my pants" I answered. "It got us most of the way in, right? And now I have a better idea how to get deeper in next time. I'll give it a few months and then..." I rubbed my hands together with a smile. "Dwarf stuff! I just snatch up some of it, sneak on out, and sell it to those loony dwarf freaks and retire to a life of pampering!"

Not only did Lucas and Marcus not look impressed, even Ayiee was giving me a "O Rly" sort of expression. Feeling just a little cross at their lack of confidence in me, I glared back. "Well, it's not like you had a good plan for blowing up their whatsit. It took Mr. Unmagic to get that job done."

Marcus started looking a bit run down again. It actually made me feel a bit bad. I had been treating him a bit rough lately.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm just a little frustrated. I shouldn't be taking it out on you."

[Viking-Sensei]

Lucas munched on his chunk of rabbit absent-mindedly. "You know, if you're interested, I know where a ton of dwarf stuff is. Nobody's ever really wanted to see it... and I didn't bring most of it back because it was too much of a pain in the ass to carry... but there's a ton of stuff up there that's probably never been seen by human eyes. 'course, we'd have to head through troll territory first, so we'd probably better find Grope again if we're going into Troll territories."

[Sareth]

"Grope? Is that the troll we ran into the other day, called you his friend?"

At Lucas' nod, I smiled.

"He's about 15 minutes walk thataway."

[AdamZero]

I shrugged, not showing how glad I was that Jamie was really capable of apologies. "Meh, I'm just a little down. Dying does that."

At the mention of Grope, I couldn't help but blink at the name. "That.. um... .are you sure you got the translation right? Like, it's not 'Siezar' or 'Grippa'?" I tried to think on my troll knowledge. Limited. It was usually the last thing necromancy covered, and I was still... very still much learning.

I finished my rabbit chunks, "Good eye catching a male, the preggers taste funky." I looked to Jamie before standing up, tossing the chunks of bone into the fire, except for the skull, which I'd picked clean and removed of all meaty bits. I was short on focus elements. A good skull came in handy now and again. I pocketed it, rather than store it in Boris.

Relaxing I let my mind loosen up, and I noticed a very determine will approaching, from far off.


"Ah crap. Your mom's awake. Pissed. She won't get here till nightfall but....hmmm" I blinked once and another thought came up.

"Okay, so did I run the whole 'diversionary family plan' by you?" I looked to Jamie. "Cause seriously it'd get your mom of your case."

[Sareth]

"No... I don't believe you did..." Something about that sounded mighty suspicious. I don't know why, but it just did. In fact, it sounded downright unsavory.

Of course, given my profession, unsavory might make it a selling point.

"If it's a 'you pretend to be married to me, and we're off on the honeymoon, and we'll write when the baby comes' sort of plan, I'll give it a pass. Otherwise, do tell."

I began packing. I knew my mother, and was pretty sure that if he was saying she'd be here by nightfall, she'd be here by noon.

[Graybeard]

Actually, Grope was no longer a 15-minute walk (at least 15 minutes of Small Ones walking) from the camp with Marcus, Jamie and Lucas; he was making tracks to the north.

"I must see my own kind again," he told Chippy. "No offense, but talking to you or the Small Ones just isn't the same."

"No offense taken," Chippy said. "I get horny sometimes too." Now what did he mean by that?

Even a troll's muscles and lungs tire after enough uphill walking. The baleful presence of the Small Ones' compound behind the razor wire provided Grope compelling, if unfortunate, reasons not to side-hill his way over to the next ridge line, so there was nothing to do but descend into the gulch between ridges coming off the main mountain massif to the east, then climb laboriously back up on the north side of the gulch. As he puffed his way up the side, he thought, at least this route means that I'm not being followed. Small Ones would have more sense than to do what I'm doing.

When he crested the ridge and paused to catch his breath, he noticed a distinctive odor blowing in from the east; it was still early enough in the day to be getting downhill winds rather than the prevailing westerlies that would kick in soon. A kill has been made here, he thought. Trolls are carnivores, but they aren't scavengers except in times of dire necessity, and normally he would pass such a thing by without investigation. This one, however ... there might be a reason to see what was going on. Once his lungs were recharged, he turned and headed up the ridge line, and it wasn't long before he came to the source of the odor.

The remains of a large deer or elk were lying under a tree. Grope dispersed the cloud of flies it had attracted and knelt to inspect the carcass. It had been efficiently stripped of most of its meat, leaving only bone and hide, but it was the hide that interested him, not the meat, anyway. A quick glance at the fur was enough to tell him what he wanted to know. There were three places on the hide where small pieces, maybe an inch square, had been carefully cut away -- just the right size pieces to ritually incorporate into a Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom-Robe.

I am among my own kind.