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[Tack]

Yeah - first time I've tried writing a story. All criticism is heartily accepted and wanted.


Adil Toteseng moved with care, his feet slowly pattering across the ground as he doused his torch, wincing as the brief but loud "hiss" cut the air. This deep into an enemy fortress, it would be his eyes against theirs.

Adil was a very unrenowned treasurehunter, just the way he liked it. Renowned treasure hunters tended to make enemies, mostly on the grounds that they could say that they killed the renowned treasure hunter. As such, he went as far as he could to avoid fame, so when he had to do some of the dark side of treasure hunting, such as this, it paid to not get seen in the first place. And in a fortress this size, it paid very well indeed.

Moving quickly now, he turned a corner, and ran across a hallway, ducking into an alcove while a pair of guards walked past, their conversation echoing away. Running over to one of the many side passages, he began counting, ticking away the points on a map he memorised barely twenty minutes ago. Quickly moving to a point between the third and fourth hallway, he pulled his pick from its strap on his back, and tapped a small groove in the rock, nodding with satisfaction when it burst through the wall on the other side. Taking a quick look around, and a step back - he kicked through the thin wall - to reveal a very surprised looking noble halfway through his meal.
"Shit"
Quickly, he looked to his sword - no time to draw, his pick, the noble, his pick again, and with a mumbled apology, he buried the sharpened point in the top of the nobles skull. Twenty seconds later, he was running back out into the hallway, his newly cleaned pick back in it's holster, the body hidden underneath the dining table, and a few new rings in Adil's keepsafe bag, slung at his waist. With no time to bother testing the other walls, Adil just kept up his steady pace until the wall between the fourth and fifth hallways, checked his momentum, and shoulder barged the wall in. Falling to the floor, he was met with a much more relieving sight.
Gems - piles upon piles of rough gems met his eye, twinkling away in the torchlight. Adil had already known there would be way too many to carry, so, hoping that the map wasn't wrong in this respect either - he moved to one of the smallest safes along the wall. Some work with his lockpicks, and the safe was open, spilling out hundreds of small diamonds. Sifting through them, he felt something larger, and smiled, pulling out a pink diamond roughly the size of his fist. Stowing it in his keepsafe bag, and upending the safe into his, other, larger, sack - he stood and started to run.
No need for stealth here - he'd already gotten what he needed, which would also happen to be the entire fortresses most prized posession. Sprinting along the corridor, and around the corner, he came face to face with the two guards from earlier. Without hesitation, he kneed the first guard in full in the face, and, spinning, caught the other guard by the collar and shoved him through another one of the fortresses thin walls, before turning to run again, angry shouts sounding in the corridor behind him. Finally, he got to the emptied lakebed that he had entered from, and grabbed onto his escape rope which he'd left just for that occasion. Ignoring the wetness of the rope on his hands, he began to climb.
Meanwhile, the guards had recovered and had roused the entire fortress, chasing after this dwarf which had stolen their gems.
Getting to the top of the rope, Adil quickly rummaged through his pack until he found what he was looking for, his brand new flint lighter.

The idea behind the rope actually belonged to his second in command. Seeing as the team had always used a rope to both enter, and escape any hostile situations, he had decided that it would be better if the hostiles didn't actually come after them. The idea was approved by consensus, and from then on, every dwarf carried his usual pig tail rope, soaked in dwarven beer.

As the guards and soldiers began pouring into the lake bed, throwing spears, arrows and insults, Adil calmly lit the rope on fire, and walked away, while any soldiers which had foolishly tried to climb it began jumping off as quickly as possible. Making his way through the trees outside the fortress, Adil followed the smell of a roast to find his packmates enjoying a spitted mountain goat. Turen, Adil's lifelong friend, and 2IC, turned to face him - a wide grin on his face.

"How did the gnomes treat you?"
Adil, ignoring him, simply walked in, grabbing a mug of beer and quaffing it.
"Shut up - pack up - and lets just get the hell out of here"

[Tack]

Some small things before I do the BIO.
(1. Yes, I have left a great many opportunities for short stories and backstories - and yes, I will definately not be writing them, with the exception of an extended bio on a few characters after a startling relevation or two.
 2. The names are horrible - I know. I just have trouble finding names that sound good while not plageurising or lapsing into the "Bimbur Bombur Bofir" style of dwarf naming.
 3. Not all of these were written by me, noticeable by the dramatic changes in writing style. Just an fyi)

Half an hour later, while the caravan was bouncing along, Adil looked over his pack. Some were those who used to be renowned, some just people he'd come across in his troubles.

Behold. The Bio.

First up was Turen dozing in the closest corner, with his characteristic scar across his face, a scar he got fighting orcs for money in the gladiatorial games. Adil had re-united with him some 60 years ago, before the party had first been formed. Now, he was the most loyal person there, a big thing to say for such a tight knit group. His war hammer, one of the most well crafted weapons of the group, was an artifact gained from his last prize fight, a brutal deathmatch against the half-orc, Jugglash. Unfortunately the half orc escaped, leaving Turen with a mark to remember the fight, and the fighter.

Next along the line was Tanesh Iralikokes. His past was slightly more unbelievable than the rest. While there are many heroes in dwarven culture, the main criteria is that said hero had killed some astoundingly great amount of things, while being part of a well-known fortress. Tanesh used to live in a small fortress, and thus, his kill-count became unnoticed. Until another, far more well known hero - Kartek Shansek the murdering of bloodoaks - was in the area. This hero, taking his fame for granted, walked into a tavern and tried to steal a fawning damsel out from underneath Tanesh's nose - commonly heard of in taverns, very uncommonly heard of in reference to Tanesh. Naturally, the drunken Tanesh took badly to this, and challenged the hero to a duel - by which he meant a barfight - and killed Kartek. Naturally, this made him both infamous and outlawed, so instead of suffering the beating and two months of jail for murder, he decided to stow away in a caravan. A caravan which, by some supreme chance of fate, contained a group of pissedly happy dwarves and an elf, who had recently blown all of their money, (gained from selling a few priceless artifacts here or there), on vast quantities of booze. Thus was he immediately (if rather clumsily) inducted into the pack.

Next along, sitting far away from the rest, was Servu Get'seng. Servu sat contentedly leaning against the far wall of the wagon, his proximity from the other members not through choice, but rather through the psychotic instability of the "dog", Perkele, which was lying on his feet, quietly growling. As Adil had put it - "A beak dog, a warg and a war dog all chip in to sire the worlds biggest bastard of a dog - which co-incidently then finds the only dwarf who's leg it doesn't feel like eating". Servu, the youngest of the group with an age of thirty-seven - was good with animals. This, combined with his obscure history, made for a great many rumors around the group. Some say he used to earn a living training cave crocodiles to safely juggle babies with their teeth. Others say that he was raised by animals. However, his story was known only to Adil, who kept it secret despite the entire pack's efforts to get it out.

Fourth up was Motev. Nobody knew his last name. He didn't know his last name. Brought up as a peasant, Motev had origionally discovered his talent at the age of six, when he crawled out of a pig tail bag belonging to a goblin which had been shot dead on the doorstep of the fortress. However, rather than becoming fearful due to his near-abduction, he simply got angry. He reasoned that if the enemy could have so easily gotten into this fortress, why were dwarves not able to get into theirs? From that day forward, he practiced with the lockpicks scavenged off that goblin, until the point where he was able to begin raiding goblin fortresses, stealing goblin children, only to kill them outside the fortress. Time added age and wisdom to his experience, to the point where he became known as one of the greatest master thieves of all time. However, his reputation worked against him, and after narrowly escaping a trap set by an entire goblin fortress, he began looking for a quieter way to make a living.

Last of all was Siira, the only non-dwarf, and non male, in the entire pack. Adil had always had the idea that anything any other race could do, a dwarf could do better. So far, he had only been proved right, except for one area. It seemed that a lot of people who wouldn't give up information through torture, would give it up through a few drinks and a pretty, listening ear. Unfortunately though, dwarven women were not the best at seduction. Hence, the elf. He'd come across her bleeding, after a goblin ambush, and had decided that she was worth keeping, at least for ransom. Soon, however, he found himself getting more and more attracted to the elf - giving her more and more privileges and freedoms. Finally, Turen  had pointed out the trick she was playing on him, and Adil, grudgingly, decided that if she was good enough to seduce a dwarf, she could bloody well seduce anything. Since then she had proved to be a remarkably quick learner, from "how to pick locks", to "how not to bitch about animals and trees getting killed". Still, she had insisted on being the one to build the wagon, cutting thin, delicate slices from a number of trees. All in all, she almost fitted in with the group, which is more than any elf - or human could acclaim to.

Together, they made Adil's "rat pack". A group of treasure hunters/bounty hunters/thieves, which were all at the pinnacle of their respective arts. Pride shining in his eyes, Adil turned and hurled the map container at Turen's head.

[Tack]

After the customary scuffle, Adil crouched next to the now-unrolled map on the floor of the wagon, where the rest of his pack was crowded. "All right, where's the next hit"? In front of him, a map was spread. Toren poked at a point with gusto. "The gilded torniquet". "What, another stupid fortress name?" "Fortunately, no. It's an actual Torniquet"

"A torniquet used by the king himself, at the battle of Murderriver. He wrapped it around a wounded upper arm, and retired to bed soon after. However, that isn't what's amazing about it. The torniquet is made completely of adamantine strands"
Immediately, all ears suddenly perked up a little more in the caravan (or a lot more in the case of Siira).
"Wow, that could make us rich for life" exclaimed Adil.

Toren's face, however told a different story.
"What?"
"Just a problem, mate... It's religious."

Adil, as a rule, had always avoided religious relics for two particular - and very worthwhile reasons. 1. They tended to make people renowned. 2. They tended to make people dead.

Adil, also, as a rule, had done every mission that Turen had thrown his way. The two rules were conflicting very strongly at the moment - heavily swayed by how much the thing would be worth.

Turning to Turen, he plaintatively asked "Are you sure there isn't anything else we can do?" Motev shuffled forth, and, pointing a finger at a part of the map which had been scribbled out in red, he proclaimed, "Weedy meadow, Outlawed" Shifting his finger, "Happy Valley, Outlawed - The hills of mooring, Outlawed - The trenching halls, Outlawed... The gluttinous forests."
"Kill on sight, I believe", Servu's voice perked from the back of the caravan. Motev turned to regard him, and then returned to the map. Grimly, he said "We're runnin out of stuff to steal, Adil"
Adil squinted at the map in dismay before asking, "What about the last haul?" Siira gave him a sidelong glance. "You mean the gems and rings you just drank, or that priceless, and therefore useless gem we have rolling around in the back?"
Indeed, the gem had been unceremoniously dumped in the back of the wagon after it had been rejected for the fourth time, and was now rolling back and forth along with the rocking motion of the wagon, while the dog halfheartedly snapped at it as it made it's way back and forth past it's head.
Adil, watching the comedic display, theorised - "Can't we... you know, break it?"
Servu wiggled the toes of his left foot, and, obediently, the dog raised it's behind enough for servu to retrieve his foot and plant it on the gem as it rolled past, pinning it.
"Sure, but the value will drop dramatically. Considering the style of living we're all accustomed to, the gems we sell from it should last us for the trip to the torniquet, no further."
Adil sighed, and again regarded Toren.
"You sure it's worth it?"
Toren, his opinion never unvalued, replied. "Yes. We can break the gem, and as Servu said, the value would drop. But adamantine doesn't do that. We could take that tourniquet apart strand by strand and sell it, and we'd probably get more from it than if we sold it in eighths or sixteenths. You, yourself would know". With a wave of his hand, Toren indicated Adil's pack which had been thrown against the wall, his signature adamantine tipped pick glinting out from underneath it.

In truth, he'd gotten that while drunk after one of his biggest raids. He'd specially asked one of the master smiths in the fortress to tip his pick with adamantine, and had woken up with his purse and keepsake bags almost empty, and the smith's address written on his arm. Following it, he had arrived at the door, to find the smith presenting him with a work of art and a mining tool in one. Adil had at first argued, but after seeing it shave a sliver of stone from the wall with a halfhearted drag, and carve a deep groove with a flick of the wrist, he had hastily re-considered, and held it in high regard ever since, considering the amount of times it had saved his life.
He also had to pay for the blacksmith's walls to be re-smoothed.

The dog, having captured the gem, clenched its jaw muscles and shattered it, bringing about a sudden silence among the wagon. Seeing that there was nothing edible inside, it then started glumly spitting out bits of diamond and blood.
Adil regarded the broken, hollow gem, and sighed. "All right... We'll get the bloody Torniquet"

[Servu]

Am I the only one who finds this story worth commenting? I think it's really well written so far by the way.

The name of that elf does bother me. Firstly it doesn't sound like an elven name. Secondly it's a finnish name. I find it disturbing to have my nationality connected to pointy-eared tree-hugging forest hippies. This is not the first time either, for some reason this tends to happen every now and then.

Then I remember our strong green party, strict enviromental laws and all those 'scandals' about this and that lake getting polluted and how some patch of forest in our northern wasteland is threatened by some cricket that migrated from the south. Might be the elvish language tho.

##edit:This story is clearly not getting the attention it deserves. Also a character would be nice. Anything goes really, surprise me.

[Tack]

Sigh... here I was beginning to hope this thread would just fade away into obscurity.
Thanks for re-instilling my faith in my own writing ability. Heh, seeing 148 viewings and no replies really wears you down.
Also - finnish name? That is awesome. However, she's stuck with it, while I hunt around for a more acceptable, while still unplagerised elvish name.
Finished off the character list too. hooray.

[Servu]

Oh come on guys. This is how you treat a guy trying to make a nice story to amuse you?
The elf name is okay, as I said you are not the first one to do that, neither would I call it plagiarism. I guess It's as good as any for the yankees here. I'll probably be the only one reading this who can't help to think her as a 12-year-old girl.

edit: grammar fix

[rosedrake]

wow, after giving it a read, it's actually very interesting! people should give more time to read this...

1. a bunch of thieves is always interesting.
2. dwarven master thief! ha, i'd never think of that!
3. adamantine torniquet. wonder how much dorfbucks that would be.

D: lack of comments demotivate me too, but don't worry! i'd be checking on this thread often, so try not to disappoint me!

[Cirius]

Cirius thoroughly endorses this product/event.

For the name issue, I generally just generate a couple of worlds on DF, dive into legends, and see what springs up. It's often quite surprising how fitting some of the names are.

I desparately want the religious arc, if only so I can steal religious items from temples across the world, melt them down and construct something worthwhile, like a mechanism, from them, and so I can have bands of dwarfs whose only purpose is to undermine as many temples as they can find.

"I hereby declare this temple to Vetek open."

RUMBLE...

"Where the hell did the temple go?!"

Good tale, keep it up. Don't lapse into apathy, or I will feel an overwhelming urge to kill off Tacken the butcher.

MUAHAHAHAHA

[Tack]

Woo... I has endorsement. From another well known author. Thanks guys, I'll post this afternoon, or tonight.

EDIT: Sorry, I found that adil's reasons for going for the tourniquet were pretty shallow, so I re-did that post. I'll post some new developments tonight.

[Tack]

No... Tacken didn't do anything!

I know this one is a bit longer than usual, but I just couldn't find a point to stop writing.
(and yes. I invented a use for gnomeblight, and a new solution. Sorry for not keeping to DFrealism.)


Fast forward a few weeks.

Adil looked around suspiciously. When they had arrived at the gates to a temple, Turen indicated that they should continue onwards. Now the wagon rolled along a road, while groups of dwarves and men decked out in white robes walked around in groups. After almost a minute of listening to the forboding clock-clock of the wagon wheels on stone road, he wheeled and confronted Turen.
“Why are we just walking into this bloody place if we are planning to steal an artefact?”
Turen, suddenly intent on sharpening the spike on the back of his war hammer (which never needed sharpening anyway), remarked offhandedly, “Well, I never said it would actually be here.” Adil, ignoring Turen’s wide eyes and flapping hands, yelled “You sent me here for a bloody legend!”
Turen stared at Adil until he calmed down. Of course, Turen was a valuable friend, and never before had sent him off on a wild goose chase. There’d be a good reason for this.
“Yes” Turen replied.
A moment of shock, then Adil screamed “WHAT!?” into Turen’s upturned face. Meanwhile, Three dwarves and a human walked up to the now stopped caravan, and inquired if anything was wrong. Turen, with no change of expression, turned to them and said “We’re on a pilgrimage, and have come to see the Arch-Bishop. A member of our party needs... curing”. The dwarves and man all looked at the red face of near-exploding Adil, looked eachother in understanding, and turned back to him.
“Ok, we get that a lot. You can park your wagon in the depot up ahead and to the right. The box is inside the temple”

Turen reached past Adil and flicked the reins, starting the horses moving again, signalling for Tanesh to take the reins, and pulling Adil back into the wagon.
“Ok. Listen quickly. It’s not a legend as such. But it is well known that only the Arch-Bishops know where the Tourniquet is.” He immediately fixed a harsh stare over Adil, stopping his upcoming rant in it’s tracks, before continuing. “We all know how much this thing is worth. It’s worth the trouble, and does exist. Now – when you go in to “see the Arch-Bishop, you aren’t actually seeing the Arch-Bishop. He’ll be behind a window and wall, like a much more complex and sturdy version of the ones found in human abbeys. There’s no lock for Motev to crack, and even with your pick it would alert too many people if you tried to knock down the wall or window between you. However, there is a way in which the Arch-Bishop gets into the other side, as well as a way the Arch-Bishop gets outside, to here.”

Meanwhile, Motev pulled out a map of the complex, the many tunnels shown, and the tunnels that the team should be using, highlighted. Motev always seemed to have a map.

Adil studied the map carefully, then looked up at Turen. “Interviews and Inquiries?” -  He queried. Turen looked back at Adil. “Aye. But harder than usual. He’s a religious fanatic. Money, torture, it wouldn’t work.” Adil looked at Siira.
“He’s a religious fanatic”, Turen repeated.
“What then?”
“This”. With a flourish, Servu pulled a vial out from his rucksack. “Ketarack”.
Kettrack was a very, very rare and expensive drug. Gnomes had discovered a short time ago that by combining the tongue – loosening intoxication of Sunshine, with the psychotropic properties of gnomeblight, a potent brew was made that could, for a limited amount of time, make the person who imbibes it believe that everyone they were talking to were able to be trusted with anything . Due to the dangerous uses of the drug, and the near impossibility to gain both of the essential components, without being friends with the elves and kobolds simultaneously – the research was abandoned, stepped on, burnt, exploded, and all of the researchers killed. But not before one of them told the stunningly simple recipe to one of the more stunning elves in the elven trading caravan there that season.

Adil gaped in amazement. “That’s... that’s perfect. So all we do is send someone in to have a long chat with the Arch-Bishop, and meanwhile we slip in, drag him into a tunnel, drug him and he tells us everything?”

Turen started rolling up the map.

“With luck... a hell of a lot of luck”.
“So... who is going to talk to the arch-bishop?”

Turen pointed at Adil. Adil followed the line to his chest, moved slightly to the side and looked behind him, and, seeing nothing, turned back around to see that the telltale finger was still pointing at him.

“Like hell”
Turen gave an exasperated sigh. “Look, Adil. You asked to take the last one alone, and we let you. Now you have to go do the boring stuff, and we’ll take care of the business”
Adil looked around desperately. “What about... Tanesh?”
Turen gave Adil serious look, and said – “Look, you know that Tanesh has a problem with talking to people”
Adil, sticking with the point, retorted, “Then it’s character building!”
Meanwhile, Tanesh, who had heard his name mentioned, turned in his seat and gave a serious nod.
Adil and Turen looked at him in confusion.
“Is that a nod as in, you will talk to the geezer, or a nod as In, you want me to?”

“ ‘ll go talk”

“There. Settled”
Two minutes later, Tanesh got out of the now stopped caravan and started shuffling up the stairs towards the main temple. Siira, with a toss of her hair, started brightly talking to the guards while the rest started to creep in single file out of the back of the caravan. Servu stayed put.
“Are you coming?” Servu inquired. Servu shook his head. “I’ve got a bad feeling that I’m going to be needed here. Go ahead.”

The team, now comprised of Turen, Motev and Adil, moved around behind one of the secondary temples, and sure enough was the stairs indicated on the map. Adil looked around.
“Here we go. See you on the other side.”
One by one, they vanished into the darkness.

[Cirius]

I request, nay demand a cameo as the Arch-bishop!

Even if it ends in a tragic, drug induced madness leading inevitably to a comedy death.

[Tack]

how about a comic, drug induced madness, leading to a tragic death?

ASIDES:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I like to think of Tanesh's voice to be a barely audible rumble!
          Adil is far over-mentioned in my stories, with Turen providing mainly comedic relief.
          My very first post, I was all dosed up on Terry Pratchett and Matthew Rielly. Now, I'm moving into R.A. Salvatore. I think it
          reflects in my writing, so hopefully quality doesn't suffer.

[Tack]

Arch-Bishop Cirius started at the ringing of the bell, which signalled the arrival of a pilgrim with a problem to throw at him. It was always a problem. Nobody ever came to say the hymns with him... Or say happy birthday. He couldn’t even remember what his birthday was, though his bones screamed “old” every time he tried to get up too fast, or tried anything faster than a quick shuffle. Getting his cane, he pushed himself upright, pride cutting short the agonized groan before it passed his lips. Walking to the door, he prepped himself, and then shuffled out into the hallway outside his bedroom, which, due to the wisdom of the ancestors before him, had been built relatively closely to the speaking chamber. Sighting an initiate walking down the hallway towards him, he straightened and lengthened his gait, trying less to look like he was relying on his cane, but more that he had it for fashion. The novice passed, seeing an old man in his prime, and the Arch-Bishop slumped back into his shuffling gait. Reaching the door to the audience chamber, he took a deep breath, and pushed open the door, his hand sliding along the smooth spot on the rock where he had pushed open the door in the same way over so, so many years. Moving into the chamber, he gently closed the door behind him, and slumped into the seat designed for him, just as the door opened.

The temple had been designed simply for that purpose – the visitor to the temple taking enough time, at an average walk, to reach the audience chamber after the arch-bishop had entered the other side. Cirius remembered a time when he used to enter the audience chamber well before the pilgrim, or pilgrims arrived. He could even, if he quickened his pace, walk around the shortened hallway the guards use to expel troublemakers, to the other side of the audience chamber. Once, in his reckless and heady youth, he had – running around to meet the dwarf personally when they opened the door. He had nearly fainted from shock.

Cirius was jolted from his reverie when the gentle scraping of a chair on the other side of the grating announced the pilgrim. He waited a second, and then pulled a lever which opened a small aperture, so that a painting of the Arch-Bishop was revealed to the person on the other side. The painting showed only Cirius’s face, locked in an expression of casual interest, and wrapped around a cylinder, to make it appear more lifelike. When seen through the window and gauze from the other side, it could easily be mistaken for Cirius himself.

Hearing nothing from the other side, Cirius leaned forward to the speaking tube.
“Something troubles you, my son?”
A quiet shuffling could be heard at the other end, followed by almost a half-minute of silence.

“Um...”

The silence continued. Cirius settled in further to his seat and pulled out his nail file.

MEANWHILE

“Wow”, Motev exclaimed, examining the walls as they walked further into the temple complex. “These walls are actually really well engraved. I could almost call that one a masterful work!”
Adil chuckled. “I didn’t know you were such a lover of art.”
Motev turned to regard him dryly. “I’ve crept into enough major fortresses to know what’s good and what’s not.” Turning to regard them, he said “The places with the great art usually have the noble’s kids.”
Adil stopped his chuckles, his reprimand clear. Motev was still an expert, and a very callous individual. The fact that he appreciated art just made him more dwarven. Turning, he asked. “So, where are all of these guards? We haven’t passed a patrol for a while.” Turen stopped. “I hadn’t thought of that. We must be getting close.”
“Must be? Didn’t Motev have the map?”
“Why would he take the map into the place we were about to raid?”
“Then why didn’t you memorise it?”
“Hey, You’re the one with the good memory!”
“All right! Let me think!”

Adil looked around, trying to get his bearings.
“Ok. We passed to hallways close to each other twenty seconds ago. The first one was it.”
Turen Sighed. “Ok, then what”.
“By the map, his bedroom should be close; we’ll drag him in there, dose him, question him, and get out quiet like. No quick and messy this time”
All three nodded on cue, and they turned around back to the hallway.

Cirius stopped playing cup-and-ball, and again looked at the parchment next to him. For trivial entertainment (trans. lulz), he had decided to write down a list of words that the obviously shy dwarf on the other side had uttered since the meeting began. So far the list was contained to: Um; I’m; Hi; I’m; my name; Problem; Um. Cirius sighed deeply. This dwarf had some problems. Meanwhile, the door behind him quietly opened, to accommodate three dwarves – Motev with a gag-rope held stretched between two tightly clenched fists. Turen moved to the side and started imitating an old man’s harsh coughing as the pair quickly converged on Cirius. Soon, the old man (dwarf?) was bound and slung easily between the two. A knock on the door sounded, and the whole party tensed as a voice called out. “Are you right, Your excellency?” Turen moved towards the chair, and, imitating the harsher voice of an elder, he called out “I’m fine”.
“I could get you a glass of water if you wish”
“I’m in an audience. I don’t need anything just yet”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
At this, Turen paused, and hearing no reply at the other end prompted him to add an extra “Thank you”.
“Oh, okay. I’ll see you later, your Excellency”.
Turen waited for a few long seconds, then ran to the door, opened it, and checked both ways down the corridor before gesturing wildly to the two and keeping the door open so that they could hustle out the door with the bound Arch-Bishop, and run down the hallway. Turen closed the door, walked over to the chair, and pulled aside the cylinder so that Tanesh could see his face. Leaning forward, he tapped on the speaking tube a few times, before saying. “Hey, I’m standing in for the old man. Hopefully the guards will just hear a mumbled conversation, and we can get out of here without much fuss, eh?”
His reply – “Turen... Hi”.

Adil and Motev moved quickly into the bedroom, and closed the door behind them. Placing the old man in the chair, Adil reconsidered, and placed a cushion on the chair before replacing him, and untying most of his bonds, re-tying him to the chair. Leaning down close to Cirius’s ear, Adil whispered. “You either speak quietly, or you don’t speak. Understood?” At the Arch-Bishop’s nod, they removed the gag.

“A cushion. I never thought of that. Much more comfortable”
Motev paused in puzzlement.
“You don’t seem very fazed”
“I’m just trying to ascertain why you’d kidnap the leader of the most powerful religious orders in this area”
Adil cut in: “Wait... Most powerful?”
Motev turned to regard him. “You didn’t look at the artwork? Hmm... Well, this entire temple is dedicated to Armok”
Adil stiffened, and stared at Motev.

“Shit” He said over the rising chuckles of the Arch-Bishop.

Looking over at the Arch-Bishop, Adil pulled out his vial and popped the cork.

“Turen and I are going to have a very long and serious discussion. Here, old man, drink up. It seems we don’t have as much time as I believed.”


Turen, meanwhile, was sitting and having a very one-sided conversation with Tanesh. A knock at the door suddenly made him pause. Turning around, he called. “Who is it?”
“Your water”
“I said I didn’t want any”
“Now now, If I don’t look after your health, who would?” said the young human as he opened the door. Seeing a young, scarred and very armed dwarf sitting there gave him sudden pause. Dropping the glass, he squeaked “Guards”.
Tanesh, hearing the conversation, and the door open, stood up. Once the word “Guards” came through the tube, he sighed, stepped to the side twice, and, bracing his feet, slammed his palms into the wall, breaking the stone and knocking that section of the wall in. Pulling free his sword and hand-axe, he strode into the audience chamber, just as four guards rushed in around the boy from the other side.


Outside, the guards still engaged in flirty conversation with Siira suddenly stiffened as a resounding crash came from inside the temple. The guards gave a quick apology and moved to run towards the temple, like many of the guards and, the now surprisingly well armed monks, were doing at that time. Siira stopped the leader with a hand on his arm, and, in her most bright and innocent voice, said. “Don’t worry, It’s just my friends. Everything is fine.”
The guards, however, stiffened at the word “friends”, and, turning, brought their weapons to bear on the pair. Servu turned, regarding the elf with open shock. “Honestly... sometimes you just...”
Letting out an angry groan, Servu stomped his foot, before letting out an ear-piercing whistle. Suddenly the growling in the back of the caravan, which had, until then been a background noise, became louder threefold, and a huge dark shape leapt from the wagon, pivoted, and leapt right over the infuriated dwarf. The “dog”, easily as high as the dwarf’s ribcage at the shoulder, looked up at the guards, teeth bared, and as Siira unsheathed her two wrist-knives, and Servu pulled out his mace, the guards were too busy wondering how so much rage could be fit into just one, baleful eye.

[Tack]

Yeah... Ideas be whizzing through my head... but I reckon I'll probably call it a night. Can't get ahead of me-self now.

[Servu]

I think I just overdosed on this stuff.
then I just screamed MORE.

What comes to the dog, I can only think of one name good enough.
Perkele.

Also, you knew I prefer mace as a weapon! Awesome!