Eyes of the Lich Queen IC II

[Sallera]

The assassins are quite free of identifying materials, having brought only the tools of their trade; indeed, they do not even wear Claw insignia.

[MoleMage]

"I think diving into their midst brandishing an axe so aggressively might have something to do with it, friend." Daiya helps collect all the loot as well, looking at her friends.

"There must be a better way to identify all these items than using those pearls. Does anyone know of a quicker spell or the like?"

[Postmodernist]

"If we return to Regalport, I'm sure Irelia could find us something. If not, she's sure to send us in the right direction."

[TheFallenOne]

"They didn't seem to mind Shard's unreasonably sized sword very much", Grimmgang muttered, but then let the topic rest.

"So, what about the bodies? I'm quite fond of Daiya's method to glean information from them, but the Lyrandar ferry might have some objections to transporting corpses. We might fit one in the bag and just dump the others in the water, or any better ideas?"

[TekHed]

"Perhaps one of us could return to the Swiftwind on the ferry and return with our ship's own skiff..." Shard offered.

[TheFallenOne]

"That's... simple, but effective. We can cloak the bodies with the bard's magic like we did when we boarded the Cloudreavers in case someone comes too close to us as well."

[TekHed]

"Very well. I shall accompany you...in case there are any more attempts to make goulash. It has certainly never appealed to me...goulash I mean. You organic beings are so inefficient with your constant need to stop and stuff your faces followed by further delays while you excrete your odiferous offal. Perhaps some day you will learn to do as my kind does, and sustain yourself off of the ambient energy of the cosmos..."

Shard smiled well-meaningly at his dwarven compatriot.

"I do look forward to spending more time together Ser Grimmgang. I know you weren't feeling well on our return from the Dread Hold, but perhaps we will have time to catch up to and from the Swiftwind, before your organic bowels get irritated again and I don't see you for the rest of the voyage..."

[Postmodernist]

Xaxhan clenched his jaw to keep it from gaping after Shard's comments. He tried to contain his mirth, but it bubbled up occasionally in the form of little smirks. "Right, then, it's settled. 'Ser Grimmgang of the Irrigated Bowels' and 'Ser Shard the Goulash Slayer' will accompany the bodies while 'Lady Daiya the Sane' and I go in search of the skiff. Oh, and Shard, I don't think your sword is unreasonably sized. Some might consider it overcompensation, but you should simply ignore them and their blade envy." Xaxhan shot a wry glance in Grimmgang's direction before deferentially asking, "Shall I obscure the bodies now, or shall we wait until later?"

[TheFallenOne]

"I indeed do not take well to being on a ship. As it happens, just now I suddenly got a feeling quite similar to sea sickness. Surely it must be the expectation of entering another ship, it's not like anything else just now happened to cause me discomfort." He gave Xaxhan a knowing look, expecting the subtext to go past Shard as usual.
"And you got it a little backwards. Shard and I pick up the Swiftwind's ferry, you two guard the corpses. Daiya has the best chance to notice passerby soon enough, and you can obscure them. Just let me finish stuffing the big guy in the bag so we already have one out of the way. I'm afraid you have to take hold of this so he can fit." Grimmgang produced the dessicated corpse of Thraxis and casually held it out to the Seren. "I'm sure the little guy fits in Daiya's haversack quite neatly."

[MoleMage]

Daiya takes the drying body of the gnome with a slight look of annoyance, stuffing it unceremoniously into her haversack.
"Well hurry back. Sitting here on corpses all day isn't exactly the most fun I can imagine."

Pulling her blindfold off and sitting near the prisoners that they had dragged into an inconspicuous spot, she looks over at Xaxhan.

"So, singer. I suppose this would be a good time for a lesson in reading, if you would be willing to show me some basics."

[Postmodernist]

"Now?" Xaxhan asked, genuinely surprised. "The lighting is dreadful, and well..." he rummages through his pack, looking for something to teach with. He extracts a quill, some ink, and a few sheets of parchment, along with some notes and a half-tended journal. He nearly blushes as he extracts a copy of The Daring Lass of Aerenal before he remembers that Daiya cannot even read the cover.

"Alright, then. Come here. Reading is the strongest magic yet uncovered. It can take you to strange lands, teach you secrets long hidden, and let the dead speak to you across the centuries. Moreover, writing is thinking itself. You can be the cleverest chap in all Khorvaire, but if you can't convey your thoughts by putting ink to parchment, well, what good are those thoughts? So, where to begin?" The Seren pointed to the script on the first page of the racy adventure novel. "These markings are letters, and they each represent a sound. Put the sounds together, and you get a word. This is an 'A' and it says 'aaaaah.' Well, usually, sometimes it sounds like 'aaaay' or even 'uuhh,' but we'll get there." Thus, the bards lesson began- on a dock, near the bodies of some freshly slain assassins.

[Sallera]

Renette greets you with a smile as you find the ferry, stepping aside to allow you to board. "Good to see you again. You're with the Swiftwind, right? Will your companions be joining you later?" Irene pulls the boat away from the dock, setting a course for the Lyrandar galleon.

Thaddeus is on deck, as seems to be his wont. "Ah, you have returned," he says with a nod. "I hope your business has been profitable. Have the date and destination of our departure been decided?"

Things remain quiet on the dock for some minutes, but the literacy instruction has only begun to get interesting by the time Daiya hears someone approaching. It doesn't seem to be a particularly hurried pace, but its path is likely to take it past your position.

[TheFallenOne]

"Maybe, not sure yet", Grimmgang said evasively to Renette.

"Hi Thaddeus. Quite profitable, and bloody." Once the Lyrandar people have departed he dumped the body from the bag of holding with a soft thud. "Assassins, mere minutes ago. Two more bodies back at the dock. Got a way to transport them without alerting your housemates who may be less inclined than you to trust we didn't start this?"

[Sallera]

Thaddeus frowns slightly at the body's unceremonious presentation. "I am aware you have many enemies, yes. I do hope you are not planning on keeping these aboard for long?"

"We can send the launch for them, but such a course of action will not allay suspicion, if that is your goal."

[TheFallenOne]

"Nah, we'll dump them into the sea soon enough, but on the coast with nothing to weigh them down that was no option. And I'd say suspicion is better than knowing we transport corpses, wouldn't you say? Ready when you are."

[TekHed]

After checking in and stowing their gear aboard the Swiftwind, Shard took the oars on the skiff back to the docks (being of longer limbs a boon for rowing). While it did so it stared at Grimmgang, a look on it's helmed face unusually pensive, as if struggling with what to say. Finally, it's wan smile returned to its features and it spoke in a curious voice, made curiouser by it's polyphonic dual tonality.

"I have been giving some thought to what should be done if we manage to survive our current trials," it began. "You have spoken only briefly about your past, Ser Grimmgang. About your quest to bury the fallen in the Mists of Mourn. Once we have undone or deathly curse, will you return to that quest? I too have a quest, though it has only recently begun to get clearer. For a long time, memories of my past were hazy, clouded like a vivid dream that fades soon after one wakes. I believe I was sent here to stop a great evil, and I do not believe that this Dragoneye is it. Recently I have been feeling a call to the East. There is something off with this place and time, as if a dream has been twisted into a nightmare. I believe I have been sent here in order to rectify that...or perhaps I am the last living legacy of my people, a refugee of a better dream, a lingering Shard of what once was."

[MoleMage]

"Someone is coming. Best hide those before they move past." Daiya interrupts the lesson just as she is starting to understand what is going on, and once the bodies are moved she begins studying the letters again, grasping how they form words.

"It seems like a better method for which letter makes which sound could exist. Why is there not one letter for each sound? Why do the "c" and the "k" and the "s" all need to exist, when the latter two cover all the sounds a person can make?"

[TheFallenOne]

"What you don't even really know why you came here?" Grimmgang chuckled with little humor, looking out over the misthung water. "And I hate to break it to you, but the Principalities are pretty much as far east as east goes unless you want to go on an entirely different continent, and frankly we already got eough things to worry about on our own turf.
And yes, you can bet I will continue trying to lay the dead of that War to rest. This whole thing was just to get some extra funds for that, and Sur'kil had connections to two marked Houses which was a boon as well. Little did I know things won't end with the temple and we'd end up going to war with the Emerald Claw." His face darkened, betraying a good amount of displeasure about getting into more than he signed up for.

[TekHed]

"I agree; first things first. We are, how do you dwarves say? 'Up to our beards' in hot water?' Still, it is good to contemplate the future...to lend hope that we will survive the present. Entertaining such a notion, do you really think that extraditing corpses for burial is the most efficient use of resources? Think of all those yet living who are in need of aid? Or, if one were to think more...hmm, large...the most effective way to accomplish your agenda would be to dispel the Mourning altogether."

[TheFallenOne]

"No, not the beard, that doesn't say much in height, assuming no recent encounters with flame-throwing mercenaries of course. And probably not water either, depending on your disposition towards swearing." Grimmgang gave a genuine laugh, but it quickly faded with Shard's next words.
"Fixing the Mournland? Are you stark raving mad? Leaving aside for a moment that it can't be done, let's look what would happen. Cyre is some grade-A real estate, cities and all, right in the middle of Khorvaire. If it suddenly becomes habitable again every nation will want a slice of that cake, preferably the juiciest. You'd just start the Next War, killing tens of thousands. Nice job breaking it hero."

[TekHed]

"How do you know it cannot be undone?" Shard queried. "Even Daiya cannot see the future...Your knowledge is not infinite, and from the sound of it, you have never even thought to ask the question before. As for the real estate...I imagine that the Treaty of Thronehold would cede the land to Cyre's rightful heirs and exiled population."

[TheFallenOne]

"I don't know it can't be done. But I know that every nation, every Dragonmarked House would be interested in fixing the land, and yet with all their ressources they didn't. I'm a scout and a soldier, what are my skills gonna do to remove some countryspanning magical or supernatural blight? What I can do is work towards giving the dead a proper burial, get their undecaying bodies out of this wasteland. THAT is something my skills can accomplish."

[TekHed]

"You sell yourself too short Ser Grimmgang." Shard quipped, as the faint outline of the docks became visible in the distance of the fog. Near the shore, Daiya and Xaxhan could just catch the eerie red and blue glow giving faint tint to the cloying fog.

"Perhaps the economic powers of the Houses have tried and failed, but so have many entrepreneurial endeavors failed many times before seeing fruition. Perhaps you will not undo the spell or whatever it may be...but that is not to say your skills would not be invaluable. I will make a pact with you: If we get through this with our lives; if you will help me seek whatever is to the East, I will aid you in your quest to brave the Mists and intern the Mourners. Not to make light of your goal...but I sense the Call I am feeling is of a more pressing nature...the dead of Cyre do not decompose after all, and will still be awaiting your funerary ministrations upon our return, assuming we do not join them in Dolurrh."

[TheFallenOne]

"They'll still be waiting in a hundred years if nothing is done, that's the problem in the first place!" His raised voice echoed through the mist as he vented his frustation from many previous conversations where his plans were dismissed or considered no current concern. "Right now I'm the one guy who tries to get. this. done, and once this business with the Eye and Claw and whatnot is concluded that's what I will work towards. Not some fool's errand to fix the Mournland, or even some mystery quest you don't even know about yet on an entirely different continent that concerns me not."

[TekHed]

"I understand your frustration...you think "later" means "never" but but for every thing there is a season. The dead do not mourn for the living, and if what I feel is indeed a foreboding of the future, there may be no living left who will mourn for the dead..."

A few more rows of the boat left them floating gently downstream and Shard added merrily, "Do not be upset Ser Grimmgang...Life is but a Dream."

[TheFallenOne]

"Ah, philosophy now", Grimmgang said with a displeasured 'tsk'. "Tell me this then. If life is a dream - who is the dreamer? And what's the point if it's not the true face of reality anyway? That's why I'll never agree to a thought like this. It marginalizes our actions, experiences, desires. This is real. This matters. And I'll have no preacher tell me otherwise."

[TekHed]

"The Dreamer is the Dream itself. The Great Wheel turns, the Ages advance. This no more invalidates your existence than does the changing of the seasons. However, just because you choose to ignore the great forces that work upon you, does not mean that such forces will ignore you. Our current predicament should be proof enough of that...My path is not to preach, but to crusade against the Dreaming of the Dark. I can feel it, like a discordant note within the song, threatening to bring down the symphony with the cacophony of chaos...if something is not done to stop it, the Mournland will be the least of the nightmares that plague your sleep."

[TheFallenOne]

"Watch your words", Grimmgang said, his voice rumbling with suddenly brewing hostility. "How long ago again did you drag your shiny crystal ass out of the earth again? What do you know about a century of war. Fourty years of active military service. A cataclysm wiping out an entire nation in an instant and leaving the rest of the continent traumatized. I lost friends, companions and family in the War, and the Mourning took four out of five from our company. A single second and they were all gone. Don't you ever dare to downplay that and claim that this little tingling in your head is bigger than that unless you got a lot to back up that claim. Are we clear?"

[TekHed]

"You have lost friends, family...I have lost my entire people; my entire world. I...do not wish to lose this one as well." was all Shard said in reply, suddenly somber as they neard the docks.

[TheFallenOne]

"Who is that even supposed to be, your people, your world? You keep using strange terms like Circle and Cruciform, and now you just added Turning Wheel and Dreamer of something to the list. I have little idea what any of that is supposed to be. Except that Sur'kil seems to be Circle, for whatever reason."