In Crawlinghome's jail...
Viri waits a moment for Syb to regain her bearings.
"Hopefully she'll do her job properly this time. Let me know if you feel anything missing or out of place, I'll put it back," she says as the dwarf catches her breath, then gets to her feet rather quickly. In the meantime Viri reforms her force field shield again, making sure it is both fieldy and forcy to an appropriate degree. She doesn't manage to make it fit her bodily contours this time, opting for a more egg-shaped field, but that ought to work similarly well.
"Feels a bit better than usual, actually," Syb notes, motioning Viri to follow her over to the captain. While they walk, passing by the slightly cowering jailor, Viri makes conversation in her usual way.
"May I ask how that felt by the way? That was originally intended to simply cause severe cramping, although that mutation effect is much more interesting. I was not aware that was something that derives from that path," she says, garnering a somewhat annoyed look from the dwarf.
"It did cause severe cramping," she says. "Right down to the heart." That seems to be all that she's about to say, though, as they are almost immediately back at the barracks, where the captain appears to still be winning at dice.
"Captain!" Syb calls out. "I brought back the sorceress!"
The captain looks at her, then at Viri. His mustache quivers one way, then the other contemplatively.
"Well. I assume there's a good reason she's not in the cell?" he says.
"There is," Syb nods. "She doesn't just heal, and I'll leave it at that."
"Ah, I see," the captain nods back, looking at Viri. "I don't suppose you'd like to be level with us now on the dead dwarf business, would you? Or at least tell us what you actually want here?"
In the doctor's office...
Martingold starts to steer the conversation in a more personal direction.
"Well, essentially what we want from you guys is a cure for the plague. If that is unavailable then maybe directions to a place that might have a cure for the plague. If that isn't available then maybe directions towards a place that might have directions towards a place that might have a cure for the plague."
"Now as for your next question, the foxes that left the holy lands are bad because they are incredibly selfish and love to scam innocent people out of their stuff. After all, the default impression that people have when they see a fox is "fox=bad" and they only ever see the heretics. Now the reason why we are good is because we loyally followed the teachings of the Fox God and stayed in our Holy lands, refusing to come out and bother innocent people. I hope this answer was satisfying..." he tells the dwarf, pausing for a moment. "Can I ask you a question? Earlier you mentioned that this was a city of exiles. What did you get exiled for? I can understand if you don't want to tell me."
As Doctor Dave considers the question asked, he starts to speak on different matters. "I would be more than willing to look into this plague for you. We'd have to talk this all over with the mayor of course. He will need to know about it, but he might also have know of people who can help you."
For a moment he is silent, then continues. "My reason for exile was... political. In my place of birth there was a ruler. His word was law and his followers could do no wrong. All the wealth and knowledge they collected should be for him and his followers. I objected to this, merely by saying that perhaps the ruler could be wrong and perhaps we should share our wealth. Wherever I went, the ruler's cronies had spread the word that I was a criminal, an evil man and that I should be shunned or even killed. Baseless accusations, of course, I just didn't agree with them. So I went into exile and I found a bunch of people who shared my fate," he tells the fox and shrugs.
"That's the short version of it, I'm not going to go into details. But, a few decades of keeping the population of our little slice of heaven healthy and here we are. So, do you have any other surprises roaming around our city we should know about? I'm sure I can convince the mayor to listen to your plight, but if you keep trying to be sneaky there's going to be accidents," he gives the fox an inquisitive look.
In Crawlinghome's armory...
Rev takes a look at the various armaments and armor in store at the armory, noting the variety of stabbing, slashing, chopping and crushing implements. A whole bunch of swords of varying lengths, daggers, spears, that kind of thing. The armor, though, skimps on the metal much more, looking to be mostly cloth or leather. It's probably quite adequate, Rev surmises, though he wouldn't really be able to judge the craftsdwarfship of any of these, having no real points of reference. Some of the armor, he notes, has yellowgreen vertical lines painted on it for some unknown reason, giving off a very light glow even in the not-quite-darkness of the evening.
All in all he should be handily able to imitate all of this on the surface level with basically no trouble, including the weapons, provided he doesn't mind them being largely useless and being unable to let go of them.
At a large dwarven logging camp...
Faer, intrigued by the sight of the likely goblins, draws closer to get a better look and listen at them, creeping along the undergrowth and hoping that the dogs aren't about to pick up his scent - mercifully they do not, and Faer begins to make out what exactly the creatures are talking about.
"Ooh, watch out, here I come!" says a goblin painted mostly red, swinging his fist at a nearby pot-bellied one with blue cheeks. The blue-cheeked one dodges easily.
"Haha! Can't hit me, dumbass. Look!" he points at the sky, at which the red one looks up. The blue-cheeked one follows with a swift, graceful kick to his kidneys, which sends him sprawling onto the ground. "See, that's how you get 'em. Distraction!" he says, nodding at the third goblin, who seems to have been not so much painted blue as dunked in a barrel of woad. His dark orange eyes contrast very much with his skin.
"I see all," the blue goblin replies, then starts to nod rhythmically. The blue-cheeked one considers this, which gives the red-painted goblin ample time to kick him in the shin very hard, causing both goblins to fall to the ground. The blue goblin kicks the red one in the stomach firmly, prompting a groan.
It's hard to say for sure what they are doing there, Faer thinks. And the rest of the logging camp is unfortunately much less interesting, featuring about the same, already familiar sights of logging dwarves. Sure are a lot of them around these parts. The warehouse and the lumber mill, meanwhile, are of the same pyramid-like construction as the farmhouses outside the village - the lumber mill is mostly only recognizable as such because it seems to have two entrances - one side where logs are placed, one side where sawn logs are found. The warehouse is similar in construction, except it only has one exit filled with ready lumber.
Outside the mayor's home...
Whiskers is as exasperated and unsubtle as ever. Perhaps more so. Making a distinctly uncatlike roar as he plants his face into the ground and takes a good, long moment to calm down.
"FINE! I'll come with you, but keep in mind that I am on a time-sensitive mission," says he, walking in past the mayor, who closes the door. His hall looks very nicely furnished, the woodwork being surprisingly elaborate and well-done, depicting various scenes of dwarven life. Passing through it, the cat wanders after the mayor into a well-furnished dining room, where a table seemingly made of an old oaken shield propped up on three equally sturdy-looking wooden legs awaits them. The walls here are covered in paintings, and a lantern hung up over the table sheds a pleasantly minimal amount of light on everything around them, keeping the paintings nearly shrouded in shadow, with slight details of dwarves and mountains becoming possible to make out as his eyes adapt.
"Hop onto the table, my good cat," he says, inviting Whiskers to jump atop it. "I prefer not to have to crane my neck so much to speak with you." As he does so, the mayor clears his throat. "Right then, where were we? Ah, yes. A talking cat? Surely you can't be serious?" he says, adopting a look of incredulity. As Whiskers seems about to explode in impatience again, the mayor laughs. "Only kidding, of course, we'll get this done as quickly as possible," he says, coughing slightly, then looking serious.
"Right then. You wanted to know something about the sporetime puffball, was it? You really shouldn't worry about that. It's going to explode in a few days, does that every year. It's for the farmers, you see. And if you pop it in advance, it'll be slightly less effective. We're tightening security lately because someone always does it," he says and sighs.
He raises a finger. "Now for that answer I'd like to tell me who you represent. For the sake of posterity if nothing else. Only fair, wouldn't you say?"
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Topic: Outfoxed - Chapter 1: A Sense of Direction (Read 14532 times)