Re: Something Wicked this way Comes...
Taalkar watches as the wizard disappears with a handclap. Looking closely at the key with his eye, he ponders what he has to do next. Why was he expected to find Malthos? Frederic actually knew the guy after all.
He reaches down to his belt for his favorite cup, this level of thinking generally required booze. Not finding it's target, his hand called to his brain for some assistance. His neck got the message and bent his head forward and down even as his eye tried to maintain a level gaze at the key. Suddenly finding himself looking down was a little disconcerting but he noticed something even more alarming, his cup was missing. He glances around the floor before he recalls dropping the cup in the desert after his trip with Frederic from the Astral Plane. He REALLY needs to work on his landings, he remarks to the stone walls.
It was then he came to another startling realization, he hadn't eaten or drank in days. It was strange. He had lived a hard life which often led to a scarcity of meals and even rarer boughts of drinking but he never remembered not being hungry like this. Looking at his waist he notices that his tunic was loose and sagging slightly. His once taught clothing now hung loose where his dwarven ponch once rode proudly.
Oy, I gotta do somethin' bout that. At that thought his stomache began to grow and stretch to fill the ample waistline of his armor. Much better, he says with a grin as he pats his round belly, Time to find Jory and my drat brother.
Pushing his thoughts outwards his brother, Hey you mutton-chopped, rock chewer, Where in the hells did you get to?
Re: Something Wicked this way Comes...
Sliding up from the stone next to his brother "I merely had to finish up some business with a man I'd given my word to...such things cannot be forgotten."
"But that's taken care of entirely...hopefully"
Re: Something Wicked this way Comes...
"So what is next, have you spoken to Jory yet ? "
Re: Something Wicked this way Comes...
Not yet. Let's go pay him a visit and see if'n he knows where that Malthos is lurking.
Re: Something Wicked this way Comes...
Returning to the the collapsed passage where you first found Jory, you find him much as you left him... Encased in a standing stone sarcophagus, with naught but his face showing to speak.
The smell here has subsided a bit as collage workers have, at some point, cleaned away the putrid blood.
Still, it looks as though the edges of his face have been rubbed raw, where he likely attempted to worm his way out of his prison, with little success.
He calls out as you approach,
"Oy! I was hoppin' you lot might come back! Ye ain't got a scrap o' meat or some such on ye, would ye?"
Now that you look at him, you see that he's gotten thin... His cheeks sunken an hollow, like a man starving.
He moistens his lips, with a nearly feral and ravenous look in his eyes.
"Bein' stuck fer so long gives a man a right big appetite."
Re: Something Wicked this way Comes...
"Hmm, I wonder. Not quite dead....not quite alive eh."
Tossing Jory a ration out of his sack as his near coffin slides around a bit to only hold him fast from the waist down "Try that out, we might just have to fix whatever Malthos did to reanimate you...I don't want to have to worry about you looking at people like they are pork chops after all"
Thinking to himself for a minute he comments under his breath a bit "Probably easiest to just finish killing you then raise you properly...hmm"
Re: Something Wicked this way Comes...
Jory snatches the ration, and scarfs it down hungrily.
"Pork an' long pig taste a lot alike at the end o' tha day, if'n ye cook 'em right..."
He shrugs, swallowing a chunk of the dried meat.
"Raw too, really, when ye get down to it. Though the toughness varies a lot dependin' on how they lived."
He finishes scarfing down the ration, and looks visibly better.
"So, what can I do ye fine gentlemen for?"