Party 16

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"Bad? I don't think it is bad at all. Most of us go about life unable to find the courage or will to help our neighbors. It's why I became an adventurer in the first place. A band of them inspired me to got about saving people, or helping people that needed help. Now that I know the Abbot is taking it upon himself to help and fix people that are seeking his aid, and as far as I can tell he provides all of this at no expense. There are many churches back in the Dales that charge for such things and only occasionally do charity work." said Faria as she takes a brief peek in the window waving to Bella's mother before following to the hut where she begins to search for things. First a bag, then more daggers, then shortsword or rapier if she can find one, simple leather armor, some rope and a sleeping bag. "Could you answer me just what exactly is Washems...? Is it a clan or a family name?"

Faria while she waits for an answer heads into the shed, and for a moment has a brief moment of Deva vu as she knows mostly where to pick up everything, or at least how it was organized is immediately apparent. She moves towards the back of the shed where she almost instinctively knows where some leather armor is. As she is reaching out for the sun hat, something moves behind her dropping down and she feels pain in her exposed right shoulder. Something sinking into her skin. Twisting and turning she pushed off her attacker creating just enough space for her attacker to miss. "Bella is this a friend of yours or am I free to kill it?!" she shouts going for her only weapons. The straight razor, and medical knife.
 
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From outside the shed, the rest of you see a creature the size of an elf drop down on top of Faria. As the two struggle, Faria turns around and her attacker comes into better light from the doorway. The left side of his face does have fine, elf-like features. But the other half is a mass of black, shaggy hair, with three red eyes distributed among the follicles. A savage mandible surrounds his mouth, and he jabs at Faria's chest with a dagger while laughing breathlessly.

"Mishka, no!" cries Bella. "Don't hurt him!" she shouts to all of you. She makes a few tentative moves towards the shed, then turns and runs awkwardly back towards the doors of the inner courtyard, yelling, "Help! Help!" as she goes.
 
Astryos turns to chase after Bella, "You set us up!" He shouts angry at the assault. He catches up to the bird-headed elf and shoves her to the ground to prevent her from rallying any help. In the corner of his eye he sees movement, one of the scarecrows has come to life! "What is this?!" he demands of the felled woman, pointing at the slow moving scarecrow, "Explain yourself!"
 
Cassandras attention snaps to the sudden assailant. She watches as Mishka (as he apparently was named) attacks the elf. "Faria!" the half elf cries out, far too late. She scrambles forward, trying to wrench the attacker from her ally. A swift foot darts out from the figure, ready to keep her at bay. In that moment, everything seems to slow. Cassandra feels a warmth push from her core to her limbs. To her surprise, instead of matching the sluggishness of the surroundings, her arms move swiftly, rotely, as she batted aside the leg, giving her an opening to strike the foe in the head with an extended palm. The moment passes, and quickness returns to the world. The monk stops. Was...was that ki? The half elf knew all about ki of course. But...while diligent in exercise and practice, she had not ever really grasped something so...spiritual. Until now. But, did I already master this? In the first life, before all this? The monk frowns. Just one more reason for her to need the missing memories; she had not considered how much training and study she may have lost.

A laugh from Mishka reminds her of the current situation. Later, she promises herself. "Just back off already!" She shouts at the attacker. "You're outnumbered"
 
Faria extended her hand to hold the creature back, and heard the call not to hurt him. The elven man in front of her refused to give up the assault despite calling out to stop and that it hurts. She grit her teeth as he came forward and she finally got the knife free. Struggling with the straight razor she lifted that hand to fend off the attack from the man she managed to keep the mandible from sinking as deep but it had longer reach that she had anticipated. As the knife came for her however, the training of her old life of knife fights came in and she twisted out of the way. "I won't stop defending myself!" she barked at her assailant as she swung the knife cracking the creature straight on top of the dome near his multi eye'd face. As her friends joined the fray the initial fear began to subside and instead her instinct to wait until one of their friends made the creature flinch or distracted it's attention began to kick in. Whatever this elf's issue was could be sorted out once he was weaponless and possibly laid out flat on the floor.
 
Still at the back of the group, Varius spots something drop down on top of Faria. Running in, he swings the machete in his hand, missing the creature and knocking a flowerpot off a nearby shelf and onto the floor. It is only at this point that he looks properly at the figure before him, taking in the eclectic mixture of humanoid and bestial features. He seems unsurprised, and instead just shakes his head and mutters to himself under his breath.
"What are you playing at?"
 
Bella lets out a cry of shock as she falls to the ground. "What are you doing? I need to get Washems who can stop Mishka! He's going crazy." Propping herself on her hefty ursine elbow, she looks to where Astryos is pointing, towards the ambulatory scarecrows that approach the garden gate. "What are you pointing at? There's nothing there! Now you're going crazy! The Abbot won't teach a crazy elf his secrets." She stands up and recommences her awkward shuffle towards the doors to the inner courtyard, watching Astryos warily as she goes.

Back in the shed, Mishka seems to be enjoying the mayhem. He stows his knife, rubs his palms together, and then separates them, drawing out a taffy-like strand between his hands. He looks over at Varius briefly, then clicks his mandibles together and whips around at Cassandra in an attempt to wrap the gooey strand around her throat.
 
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Not having a lot of room in the shed to move our swing his weapon, and finding the unbalanced weight of the blade in his hand awkward and unwieldy, Varius grunts in irritation. Rather than try and take another swing, he pulls his arm in close to his chest and rams Mishka with his shoulder, dropping him to the ground.
 
As the focus shifts off her, Faria finally manages the dexterity of flipping open the straight razor finally and slices across the creatures back neck for a horribly shallow cut, but an aimed pommel strike to the base of the head draws some blood and seemed to have been all the opening that Cassandra needed for putting the creature down. Faria lets go of a breathe as she looks around as if expecting more attackers, and then her gaze passes from Mishka to the blood on her knife handle. Somewhere in her mind a voice echoes through it. 'You are a killer. Your only skills are in the delivery of death.' Faria pushes this thought aside, rather than dwell on it, as they had to decide what now. Kneeling down she checks Mishka's body for any further weapons, before shaking her head and lifting up the strange creature. "I'll take him back to Sharath, and restrain him before allowing the Abbot to heal him."

She briefly tries to look at the wound on her shoulder but the angle makes it impossible to see and instead she opts to ignore the pain. The freezing air and snow held much more of a bite against her skin than the wound, and she wasn't a stranger to such things. If unhindered she would carry him towards the church/abbey.
 
Doing a quick scan of the shed and finding little else of use, Varius grabs two smaller axes and hurries out after Faria, quickly catching up.
"Wait. I think it best we don't venture off alone. You wouldn't want to be separated from the rest of us if another one of those..."
He glances at Mishka.
"Things, happens to attack. Staying all together is ideal, but at least in pairs."
He lowers his voice, as if worried about being overheard.
"Plus, call me paranoid of you wish, but I don't trust this Abbott at all. He's up to something."
 
Cassandra dodges a swipe aimed for her, as the others leap onto Mishka. She moves swiftly as the creature begins to fall. Two quick blows is all it takes. The assailant drops with a loud thud, eyes rolling back. She takes a deep breath, collecting herself. She notices a simple looking staff among the various things. Well...the weight will be off, but it'll do. She grabs it, then realizes the others had moved on. "Hey, wait up!" she says, catching up with the two as they continued back inside. She looks at Faria. "You sure you don't want one of us to carry him in? It looked like he got you pretty good in there."
 
"I will call you Paranoid, but that isn't an insult for it's an instinct to survive which I totally understand," says Faria as they walk along. "First of all let me assure you if something were to happen like that while I was alone, I can run really fast when I need to. Faster than most people. Secondly, mistrusting the Abbot isn't a bad thing, I am currently on the fence about all of us. Can I trust being alone with you Varius?"

Faria gave Varius a searching look, her yellow eyes meeting his for a prolonged moment before walking again. "I'm sure we've met somewhere before... in a previous life or lives, or.... something. The thing is I can't really recall anything so for all I know my mind could have easily been altered. Did it ever occur to you that the reason for all of us being dead might have been because we were enemies? Or killed one another?"

'And why am I bringing this up? Change the subject girl, you need people to trust you. Just like you need the Abbot to trust you,' she thought to herself before making a visible shake of her head. "Sorry, my point was of course the Abbott is up to something, we are all up to something. We for example are trying to survive, and maybe find out what happened to us before. We need to trust for now, but that doesn't mean we can't keep our eyes open of course."

"I'll be able to manage it well enough up this hill, and to Sharath" she says to Cassandra in elven. She gives a brief glance back to Astryos shouting a ways away. "Speaking of pairs... if that's a rule you want to keep to than many someone should see what he's doing? or were Bella got off to?"
 
The North Wing

The door that Astryos opens reveals a large open room filling the entire ground floor of the smaller North Wing. This looks like a dining or meeting hall; a long table runs across the space, and many candles of different colors and sizes provide illumination, though some light also comes in through stained glass windows. Beyond the table is a large fireplace, and the familiar smell of the stew Bella served earlier permeates the place. Stairs lead both up and down. A dulcet voice carries from above, singing in elvish about a "lass from Katakass" and the misfortune that befell her when her father wished her to marry a cruel neighboring lord, when she loved another.

The Outer Yard

In addition to the rusty dagger, a quick search of Mishka's robes turns up a scroll with the following written on it in elvish:

Bite fire tasty taste
Mishka proud to tell you your flesh is gone
So easy to build with your bones
Make bold tower and knock it down
Don't complain to me, I'm not the devil

Mishka weighs almost as much as Faria herself, and she's slowed considerably carrying him. On the way back to the abbey courtyard, Bella and Astryos are nowhere to be seen, though Cassandra did catch a glimpse of Astryos dashing through the courtyard doors during the struggle in the shed. When the three of you reach the East Wing, site of your prior conversation with the Abbot, you are stopped just inside the door by the massive, looming form of Arback, who now stands blocking the way. He lets out a low, guttural groan and stretches out one arm in a gesture of forbiddance. With the wan daylight creeping in through the open door, the scars that crisscross his skin are evident, as is the fact that he has one brown and one blue eye.
 
"Oh hi Arback nice to see you again," says Faria matter of factually waving a free hand that momentarily stops holding Mishka, before Faria nods her head to the side where she is carrying Mishka. "Mishka I believe it is had a scuffle with us, and now I'm taking him to see Sharath. He's still upstairs right? Would you terribly mind stepping out of the way?"
 
arback.jpgThe East Wing
Faria, Cassandra, Varius

It's unclear whether or not Arback understands Faria's words. He neither acknowledges her request, nor does anything more than vocalize internally, without opening his mouth, so that a deep vibration rumbles through his scarred chest.

The apparent impasse is marked by the dissonant tolling of a bell from across the courtyard. In the darkness beyond Arback, the confined Washems, whose ruckus had dimmed down to a constant undulating background noise, crescendo back to the cacophony you first heard. The brute before you seems unfazed by this fresh riot, and continues to stare impassively at, or through you.
 
Astryos dashes across the outer yard to the Northern Wing. As he nears the door he shouts, "Cloven! Cloven! Mishka has gone mad!" As he enters the north wing he is taken aback a moment as he takes in the scene before him. The weight of the room impresses upon him and suddenly he feels as though he must speak more politely and with less urgency, as though he were in a library, "Cloven!" but he catches himself and makes his voice echo through the room, shouting, "Cloven! Mishka has gone mad! Bella needs you! Hurry!"
 
The North Wing
Astryos

The several candle flames burning along the length of the table seem to bloom in answer to Astryos' call, painting shifting afterimages across his eyes. The voice upstairs has moved on to a different lyric:

From high atop the castle's spires, the Devil took him for a ride
And dancing down, drove to the ground, our dear departed Astryos

cloven_s.jpgIn spite of these visual and aural shocks, Astryos is able to keep calling out for Cloven. Moments later, the candles retreat to their prior appearance, and the singing stops, replaced by a bleary, slurred voice. "What? Who's that? Who calls so loud?" Footsteps thump on the ceiling above, and soon thereafter, a man who could easily be related to Bella and Mishka appears at the top of the stairs. He is, if anything, a bit stranger that the two of them, for in addition to his elfin face having stubby horns, a second, smaller, cherubic head rests on his left shoulder, lolled to the side and apparently asleep. With a dark, heavy, lobster-claw hand, Cloven grips the handrail as he slowly descends. He's a bit shorter than Bella, but much broader, proportioned more like a dwarf. With every ponderous step, something clanks and sloshes under his heavy-looking brown robes.

Cloven squints down at Astryos, then goggles and rubs his eyes. "Hey, I know you. You're one what Otto brung in, but you got no business walking about. You're dead, sir. Stone dead. And as for Mishka, your news is old; boy's been mad half his life. Now let's get you over to the East Wing and back to your nice cool slab where you belong." He pauses a moment, in contemplation. "But maybe just as well you came this way; it's close enough on lunch time. Cheswin!" he calls up the stairs, "Lunch time!"

A moment later, a deep, deafening bell rings out from above, tolling thrice before the noise begins to dissipate. This wakes Cloven's smaller head, which wrinkles up its features and begins to bawl. The horned head turns and sings a lullaby to its crying counterpart as Cloven continues down to Astryos. "Help me with the stew pot, won't you, sir? You look like a strong enough bloke, for being dead and all that."
 
Faria continued to try and implore Arback to move, so she could get past with Mishka but there wasn't much that seemed to peek the man's interest more than obscuring their way forward. On a whim she tried in elven to perhaps let them pass or escort them up to Sharath. "I'm not entirely sure this one knows the urgency of the situation," says Faria before shifting Mishka's weight on her shoulder to get the weight a bit more comfortable. "Bella! Sharath! You in there? Could use a little help getting past the doorman!"
 
Varius steps forward, arms folded across his chest. Even though he towers over his companions, he still stands several inches shorter than the doorman. Nevertheless, he draws himself to full height, trying to look as imposing as possible.
"We are going inside. Either you let us past you, or we go through you."
 
arback.jpgThe East Wing
Faria, Varius, Cassandra

The penned-up Washems are quite vocal in their excitement about the midday meal promised by Bella earlier. "Lunch! Time to Eat! Serve it up!" and other such orders in elvish rumble down the long, dark hallway where the extended family lives. Others cries are mere inarticulate moans and yawps. Some of the Washems have started up a rhythmic pounding to accompany the call for food. Faria's entreaties to Bella and the Abbott are caught up in this sonic riptide and dragged under. Her lone lone voice hardly stands a chance of reaching anyone upstairs.

Face to face with Arback, Varius can better see the jagged scars and places where one tone or texture of flesh transitions rapidly to another. Despite the surroundings and his patchwork appearance, the huge man has a not unpleasant fragrance about him, like exotic spices. He studies the top of Varius' head and echoes back, "Through you," in a low monotone.
 
The Devil killed me? What devil? the elf thinks, distracted. He snaps to when the singing stops and is taken aback at the monstrous creature he sees descending the stairs. His eyes narrow as if to focus the abomination into a single creature but he is as much a monstrosity as Bella. This is not the place for prejudice. he reminds himself. "Cloven" he says with a broken voice. He clears his voice, "Cloven. I will help with the stew later, Bella needs you. Mishka has attacked someone!"

Astryos moves to open the door, inviting Cloven to leave first.
 
Cassandra watches the scene unfolding around her with growing concern. She had seen behavior like this. Some people couldn't be persuaded. Or threatened, she notes, watching Varius posture. She can't help but roll her eyes a little. Combative gestures rarely lead to actual compromise, just combat. At least, as far as the half elf had ever experienced.

"....maybe we should just go. I don't think we're getting anywhere here. Astyros might have found some help already anyway." she says, "Probably don't want to pick a fight with the gatekeeper anyway" she adds quieter.

Regardless, she eyes the hulking Arback and stands tense and ready. If she is going to get dragged into a fight, she isn't going to be caught unprepared.
 
cloven_s.jpgThe North Wing
Astryos

As Astryos begins clarifying the situation to Cloven, something large scuttles about under the long dining table. Seen through the chair legs, it looks briefly like one of the scarecrows, crawling on all fours. Thus distracted, the monk's explanation trails off and Cloven is left with both of his mouths hanging open in confusion. "So Mishka's roughhousing and Bella's tattling. Sounds like regular times around here. Welp, if you won't help, it makes no difference to me. Don't think I ain't do this every day. Just let me load up this soup and we'll be off. Abbot'll fix you up." The smaller head sticks out a long, forked tongue.

Cloven trudges over to the large fireplace, where he kicks a small wheeled cart in front of the hearth and grunts as he hauls the massive pot out onto it. On the wall above his heads, the cladding is ornamented with a large wooden disc carved to resemble a rising sun.

The wheels of the little cart groan in protest as Cloven pushes the steaming cauldron to the door. "Back before long," he hollers up the winding staircase before going out into the cold.

arback.jpgThe East Wing
Faria, Varius, Cassandra

Past the well and across the courtyard, some fifty or sixty feet away, a short, stocky figure emerges from the bell tower, with a small wagon in tow. From this distance he appears to have some sort of growth on one of his shoulders. Behind him, Astryos stands holding open the door.

Once the new arrival has pulled his cart as far as the well, it's clear that the mass on his shoulder is in fact a second, smaller head. As he keeps coming, the larger, horned head calls out, "Now what's this? Three more of you? Wandered out of bed and now got yourselves locked out? 'Tis undignified, no way to treat the dead. Definitely a matter for the Abbot. Arback, await!" He commands.
 
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"I'm afraid your slightly mistaken, we're not dead. At least not any more," says Faria looking at the ones approaching. 'Good Astryos got someone else, they should be able to get to Sharath.' She took brief note of the person's appearance and began to wonder if they in fact where the freakish looking people around here. 'Actually I guess Varius is starting to fit in.'

When he commands Arback to 'Await' she looks to see if he is listening to that command if so Faria pushes past heading into the building to eventually lay down her burden.
 

arback.jpgcloven_s.jpg​
At Cloven's order to "await," Arback looks over to the two-headed man, but doesn't move from where he stands blocking the doorway. It's only when Cloven gets closer and says, "Arback, assist," that the big brute steps forward, lifts the steaming soup pot off of its carriage, and carries it inside. Cries of exultation go up from the cells as the aroma fills the building. Cloven follow Arback inside and opens a wide cabinet full of chipped and worn bowls, cups, trays and spoons.

Arback seems to have lost all interest in guarding the doorway, and Faria is able to slip through and put Mishka down on a heap of straw. "Sure, let him sleep it off there," comments Cloven through the anticipatory din. "Now back up to your slabs with you. I'm sure the Abbot has use for you still." He waves his big lobster claw towards the stairs and then starts piling bowls onto trays.
 
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