On the way to a doctor's office...
Martingold, in what is turning out to be a rather long performance, continues his corpse impersonation all the way over to the doctor's office while Doctor Dave and Ray chat about the fascinating topic of insomnia and sleep cycles, a discussion they both seem remarkably interested in given its obvious lack of appeal to anyone Martingold would willingly bother with. These dwarves take their linguistic filler seriously, it seems. Fortunately, the walk's not that long, and soon after passing the giant puffball they find themselves at the doctor's place, which is a respectably sized pyramid near the village center.
The inside of the pyramid, one is pleased to note, is rather more cozy than one would expect, with the small foyer branching off into two distinct pathways - one probably leading to the doctor's own quarters, the other to his place of work.
"If you would be so kind as to leave him on the operating table when we get to my office, that would be lovely," the doctor tells Ray as they walk into a reasonably-sized room with counters covered in books and confusingly ordered doctoring tools, such as sharp knives, forceps, tongs and other such fascinating implements that Martingold is mostly unfamiliar with. In the center of the room is a very robust table, very noticeable due to being metal, unlike a lot of other things in this village, with equally robust leather straps on it.
"Will do, doc," Ray says, laying Martingold on the table, which feels a bit cold.
"Oh, and could you be a dear and fasten the straps around the hands and feet? It's such a bother when they slide off of the table if you accidentally bump into them," the doctor then mentions as he walks behind one of the curtains separating adjoining rooms, and Ray freely complies, strapping Martingold in quite a bit tighter than he would like.
"Done, doctor!" he calls out. "I'll be outside if you need anything!" he then says, and starts to slowly walk out of the room, quickening his pace until he's out of sight. The sound of the doctor's front door opening and closing can be heard a bit later, and roughly a few seconds later the doctor has returned, carrying a fresh set of surgery tools and brandishing a scalpel. He stops at the table, looking at Martingold again, then at the scalpel.
"Well now, I'll just make a standard Y-incision and have a look inside of you. Unless, of course, you would rather just tell me what this is all about?" he says calmly, then looks at the door. "Don't worry, it's just the two of us here. Your secret is safe."
In Crawlinghome's militia building...
Viri takes a moment to wax on about the perils of centralized sorcery.
"We are a decentralized organization. Centralization has a tendency to prevent equal spread of healing. Instead focusing on the home city and surrounding areas. Centralization has also proven in times past to lead to corruption. Healing is free, preformed in priority of those who require it. Not purchased by nobles who stub their little toe. Not to mention centralization has a tendency to attract witchhunters, doesn't matter how beneficial the magi are, there are some who's lives bare the scars of misused magic. They fail to see past their own hatred."
"That's all fine and good," says the captain. "So let's summarize. You're a sorceress from an order of healers I've never heard of, and you were coming from a human village, and maybe a human city with a decidedly non-human name toward our fine village via the woods, despite the hundred miles in any direction from here besides the woods being goblin country. Then you heard somebody scream from three miles away and sprinted the distance straight through rough terrain, undergrowth and trees within a couple minutes while working your sorcery in the meantime. Hm."
He pauses for a moment, raising an eyebrow at you. "How about we let you work on that story a little longer from the inside of one of our cells? Maybe throw a bit of truth in there somewhere, might help - it usually did for me, heh. Think about it for a bit, and then we'll speak again, all right?"
He gestures at one of the shorter dwarves present and points at Viri, and she moves to escort her over to the cells. "Show her to her room, Syb. Next to Tom, preferably."
Inside a conspicuously helpful tent...
Nabbing the map without a second thought, Faer makes his way out of the camp, still unseen by any of the curious dwarves as he disappears into the nearby woods, which is pretty easy to do, given their general thickness. A perfect getaway.
Now then, the question is, as one would expect, a pretty significant "what now?" - could just follow the big trail out of town, since that's guaranteed to lead at the very least somewhere different, though its already branching nature in the map leads Faer to believe there may be more to it than merely following the path. Or maybe try to infiltrate the village to see if they haven't got some more precise information as to where he might want to go from here? Or perhaps an even more clever plan in the vein of his earlier misdirection ploy, one that his lesser peers could not even begin to imagine?
In Crawlinghome's jail...
Rev purrs appreciatively at the jailor, which she takes as an invitation to continue petting him. After a little bit of that, Rev walks away from her and toward the cell of Tom the prisoner, who seems to not be paying much attention to him, instead continually trying to rile his jailor with raspy renditions of meows. The jailor looks a bit concerned when she sees Rev walk close to the cell, and particularly so when Tom takes notice of this as well.
"Hey! Look at that, June! Seems to be working! C'mere, kitty! Meow!" he starts to say, looking relatively kindly - though that's not saying much, considering that he's considerably filthy-looking and greasy as well. He does seem reasonably non-aggressive, so Rev gets even closer and squeezes through the bars, getting himself inside. Observing this causes the jailor to get up concernedly. "See!" Tom says at the jailor. "Animals love me!"
"It's 'cause you smell like one, Tom," the jailor says, and Rev feels a tad offended, considering that the cell smells quite a bit worse than most things one would commonly find in nature. Maybe an overcrowded fox den after a very long winter might be comparable, though he's not sure if it would surpass this stench.
"You're just jealous that he..." Tom starts to say while gently picks up Rev, checking him out for a moment, then hugging him close while petting him gently, giving tactile confirmation of his greasiness, "...yeah, that he likes me better." He looks Rev in the eyes with an amused look. His rather small beard has a scent of stale vomit to it. "Don't you, kitty? You'd be up for keeping me company awhile, I bet. I could tell you stories, and give you some of my rats that I caught so that you stay with me and pretend to understand what I'm saying. You could do that for me, couldn't you?" he asks with a smile.
Outside Crawlinghome...
Whiskers, having failed to advise Rev beforehand due to taking his own cat form and being poorly disposed to interruptions, has by this point already found his way into the village using an analogous method, as well as spent some time looking at the vaunted, currently fenced-in (and, according to some of the writing on it, strictly forbidden to approach) puffball of Crawlinghome. So long, in fact, that he really feels like he ought to get some more information out of the watchman posted and patrolling the area. Strolling up to him in cat form, Whiskers speaks.
"Excuse me, sir, but what exactly is this puffball? I've heard so much about it," he says, following the watchman from the side. The watchman rather fortunately seems to have heard this question before, and does not bother to look his way.
"How many times do I have to tell you people? That's the sporetime puffball. It's super important. No, you can't touch it. Thing needs to mature optimally and burst on its own, or it won't be as good. It'll just be a few nights at worst. Now keep walking and stop looking at it," he says. "Unless you're looking for some serious tr-" he starts to say, then looks in Whiskers' direction, though a bit higher. Finding nothing there, he looks all around, everybody around him still walking about their daily business. "Damn kids," he mutters as he resumes his patrol with added vigilance.
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Topic: Outfoxed - Chapter 1: A Sense of Direction (Read 14567 times)