[WFRP2e] The Power of One - Part 2 - "Transire Benefaciendo"

[MrAbdiel]

Bella shouts the report to Signore Cestié.

"Maso! They- they're flying! Goblins!"
"What?"
"Flying! Goblins!"
"What?!"

Maso holds the yoke with one hand and produces a steel mirror on a stick, holds it to one side then then other.

"Well that's -... I've never seen- Hold on!"

You snap off your pistol shots at the soaring goblin pursuers. Neither are clean killers like the shot you took at the orc - but considering you're both flying through the air, and you're firing pistols, you can be pretty proud of yourself. One pistol ball smacks into the shoulder of one of the flyers, the other almost misses but smacks into the top of the goblin's foot. Both dip, flapping wildly; the latter loses control with his spasms of pain and spirals catastrophically to the ground, falling out of sight to make what you assume to be a fantastic smear just behind the lines of confused Bretonnians as they run off the land-bound greenskin forces. The other shows admirable tenacity, if you could permit yourself to admire such a creatre; looking up at you with red-eyed malice and glee as it stabilises and angles its soaring to rejoin pursuit. Cestie begins forcing the machine to climb. Pedal-power will take the machine higher, but once the goblins have bled off enough momentum they won't be able to pursue higher, though for now they continue to bob and flutter and gain; the uninjured doom diver and his resilient, desperately sadistic companion.

"Shoot them, Taalia! Shoot them!" Bella calls, as she juggles your spent musket into the pod with her held between her knees as she resumes trying to reload your blunderbuss. At the rate the two flyers are closing, you might have just enough time to reload one pistol and fire before it's too late. If Bella can have Leonardo ready, you might get another shot from that weapon; but otherwise, it will be up to Signore Cestié testing the limits of his machine against aeriel aggressors for the first time, with the highest stakes.

You do not have time to appreciate the other milestone - you have emerged from the mountains, and below you are the hills of Carcassonne; the highlands of southern Bretonnia.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

One wounded doom diver, and one healthy one, remain in pursuit.
You have time to reload and fire one pistol!

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


Taalia felt her stomach come up to her chest as the flying machine yoke was drawn back and it took a steep climb upwards. The manoeuvre was useful, she knew. The goblins were propelled by a singular initial explosion of energy and were basically coasting along as gliders, their momentum able to be maintained as long as they didn't attempt to gain altitude.

Not that Taalia was keeping count. By the time she managed to reload one of her pistols, she pivoted around in her seat and half-leaned out of the machine; the wind whipping at her hair as she drew her gun up, aimed it at the slowing goblin and pulled the trigger...

[MrAbdiel]

When you pivot to snap your last shot, the lead glider is almost upon you - the reliable snap of your pistol dispatches another bullet to that finds its mark. The goblin shrieks, curses you in its black heathen tongue, and loses enough momentum in its pained recoil from the shot that all it can do is snarl and howl up at you as it dips toward the ground to smash into a hill somewhere behind you.

But the last goblin, the one with the pistol ball in the shoulder who has maintained form by sheer desire to cause you misery on its lunatic final flight, is still with you. Just a few feet away, losing speed as you gain it but perhaps not fast enough. You look behind you at Bella in her pod, and reach for Leonardo...

...But the seamstress, overwhelmed with the tasks of receiving firearms and trying to reload them while a flying machine swerves and dips and gunfire goes off two feet away from her, is not done. She is trying to work the ramrod but her movement is restricted in the pod and the reload isn't complete -

"WAAaaaaaghhhh AHAhahahha!"

Releasing his grip on his flappy wings, the goblin does what no doomdiver has done before - survives impact with his target. Dirty green digits snatch on to one of the the flying machine's larboard wings. Immediately, the pumping revolution of those wings judders and stalls as the greenskin is pulled up and snarled between the revolutions of the wings on those sides.

Bella finishes her reload and is ready to hand off the weapon to you, but you can't fire the blunderbuss at the creature on the wing - the scattering shot would tear the light wood and canvas to shreds, dooming you all.

"Get off, you-" Cestié cries, one hand holding the yoke as he fumbles for his sheathed short sword with the other.

All of this calamity is compacted into a couple of horrible seconds that you will remember in perfect detail for the rest of your life. Cestié has stopped pedalling so the wings are set and gliding, rather than stressing the frame as the wing assembly on the larboard fails to rotate with its hanger-on. The goblin hangs on to the wing with fingers and bites on with teeth, and then all at once the wing's construction gives way. The machine is a lightweight design; it relies on its slender dowels and waxed canvas and minimalist design to defeat gravity, but is not designed to stand up to intentional damage. The canvas on the wing gives way, and the goblin slides back snapping dowel after down and slipping free completely; cackling and howling as he spins away to the ground leaving one of the larboard wings jammed, the other mangled and stripped, and half the teeth of his upper jaw embedded in the frame.

Immediately, the flight of the machine loses integrity, and you begin sharply descending.

"Bloody- damn! Damn, we're going down, girls! Brace! I'm going to try to... glide us in!"

It's a rugged, terrible descent. Maso tries to bleed off speed by yoking up the nose of the machine but he is hard pressed not permitting the wounded machine to go into a spin.

You almost get away with it; but the machine is travelling a little skewed as it touches the top of a Carcassonne hill, and still too fast. The contact hits the wheels at an incline; the front wheel rips off right away. You remember the tumult, and the ripping crunch of the light woods you helped cut and sand splintering and smashing; and one tremendous burst of pain.

And then nothing.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

It is the fate of heroes to experience terrible reversals in their march towards a greater destiny.

Also I must go to bed. But I invite you to offer Taalia's dream/coma fantasy while she's out cold.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


The clear water gently pushed past Taalia's feet and through her toes as she sat upon the riverbank, a throne of soft grass about her ad the umbrage shade of tree's protecting her from a late afternoon sun. She didn't have to work today, that was always a bonus! Instead she had time off where she could sit by the fresh-water river and enjoy its final moments before it snaked around a hill and disgorged out into the vast, blue ocean several hundred meters away.

The birds sung in the foliage. The river kept its gentle voice as flowing water rolled over rocks, the gentle warmth within the current carried forth from up along the water-way where the tree's provided no shield and the warmth of the sun was absorbed by the running stream. But here, where the umbrage loomed protectively over the creek, here was an ideal spot that Taalia kept a secret. Or at least she tried. She knew her brothers, sisters, mother and father all knew about it. The gentle strum in the air from the crickets and frogs. The choir of birds nestling within the trees. The pleasant breathing of the river.

"Look, Molly, look!" Taalia piped up excitedly, straightening her shoulders as she peered through the natural hedge-canopy of the surrounding forestry and spotted a broad set of sails upon the ocean beyond.

The creature to whom she referred, Molly, was not interested. Instead, the white-and-chesnut cow was laying on its side next to the girl, its large, bovine head resting comfortably in her lap and her cheek receiving the absentminded, gentle pats and strokes of its owner. Its deep, heavy chest rose and fell in a gentle and slow motion, a signifier of peace and contentment with the situation.

"Oh, come'on, have a look!" Taalia beamed. But it was no use. The cow just didn't care.

Frumping her face, but smiling anyway, Taalia shook her head and kept her grin up as she returned her gaze to that ship drifting lazily across the horizon.

"I wonder where they've been?" she asked, her imagination running wild with speculation as all manner of exotic and far-off locations tumbled through her mind. Dreaded Norsca? Other provinces within the Empire? Far reaches of Bretonnia? The Wasteland? Oh - what if they had been to distant Araby?! Or Tilea?

The girl grinned, her hetero-chromie blue-green eyes transfixed as she silently watched the sea-borne craft slowly move onwards, its image disappearing behind the foliage of her own surroundings.

Then a bell rang out. A signal bell. Just a few short bursts of clanging, echoing communication, but already Taalia's tummy rumbled at the long indoctrinated response.

"Oh! Molly - it's early supper time!" Taalia beamed, looking down at her cows large, adorably-stupid head. It gave a token exhale as a response, sensing its smaller masters excitement as it begun to stir. "That's it girl, one...two...three...upsie-daisy!" the girl grunted-laughed-grinned as she helped her cow stand back up onto its hooves with that awkward gait, her own body rising to stand as she did so, crinkling her limbs about to shake loose the pins and needles.

"Drink what you like, but remember, the fences are there for a reason!" she said happily to her cow, the animals big eyes considering the human before it as Taalia leaned down to kiss it upon its broad forehead. Putting her arms around its large neck, the girl gave it a quick, tight hug before hurrying off.

"See you soon Molly!" her voice rang out as she hurried away, the semi-wild river and tree's slowly giving way to the arranged regiments of the apple tree's that stood to attention: row after row after row after row, columns and columns, square, neat, orderly. Their precious, red fruit had been harvested earlier during the week, but as Taalia moved through the familiar territory she could smell the lingering aroma of the sweet crops and vanilla. The girl's trot slowed down to a walk as she moved through the orchard, the sun glistening against her skin as her long, white-blonde hair was back in a single braid that ran between her shoulder blades. Her boots, excellent quality riding boots, were black leather and were one of her favorite possessions, the well-crafted soles enabling her to move through the grounds and simply enjoy her surroundings without having to worry about feeling any loose pebble or sharp stick she might accidently tread upon. And did she ever have to move through the orchard! Row after row, column after column, it was a vast operation that stretched for dozens of acres in all directions.

Traveling towards the centre of the orchard, Taalia passed discarded tools and mostly-empty barrels and bins where the workers would normally be depositing the red fruit of the trees, though no person was visible to her yet. She'd have to tell her father about that. Tools set aside and against the tree's for lunch breaks were fine, but it was unusual to see such untidiness towards the end of the day. Maybe some of the new workers would come through and clean up?

As Taalia walked deeper into the orchard, she could sometimes spot the blue haze of the ocean through the trees, its enormity hidden by the foliage of the apple tree's that surrounded her as she was only afforded glimpses through the patch-work of leaves. But, the ocean was not the only other object of interest, for soon she could see the sizeable, large house her family owned, seated at and rising above the centre of the fruitery. That is from where the bell had been rung. That was where they were to all gather and partake in a spring early supper. As the regimented orchard gave way to the open paved roads and court-yard of the home, Taalia spotted the huge wheels of the cider mill within which her father spent so many days producing and bottling that sweet, alcoholic golden beverage. Their names were on that drink, she was sure of it. The road connected to their house would take them down to the town and, from there, to the docks or elsewhere. Her father could never produce enough!

But never mind that: it was dinner time.

The house was large and built upon a foundation of stone, with painted white walls reaching up three storeys to a slanted, wooden tiled roof. The cream-white of the houses body was further decorated with lumber archways and glass windows that glowed softly with the golden light emanating from within, while a single, small open-air barn-stable sat adjacent to the entire affair. That was where the horses and single cow would rest. The horses from their work and the cow for its precious milk.

Stepping up onto the veranda, Taalia could see nine pairs of shoes already arranged neatly by the main door: everyone was here already, except her. Moving up to the collection, the girl leaned against the wall and withdrew her own boots and set them beside the others - her own pair being taller, more ostentatious than the others that were of simple, but no less sturdy make. Placing her hand on the entrance, Taalia slowly pushed the door open, the gentle creak announcing her arrival as she peered inside the large antechamber of her house, her nostrils immediately hit with the scent of slow cooked meat, sausages, roasted potatoes, gravy and - what was that sweet scent? Apple pie and custard!

Taalia moved inside, the door remaining open behind her as her ears searched for any hint that the others were home.

"Hello?" she asked, her voice echoing through the large house. Nothing felt out of place. Though she received no reply, she did not feel unwelcome. She headed forward and into the large welcoming chamber through which was connected the dining room and the kitchen. Passing by the former, she spotted the long table around which her family had sat countless times, the cutlery arranged and ready, the plates shiny and waiting, the candles set but not lit.

"Hello? Mama? Papa?"

The kitchen was ready. The food was all there and prepared. This was no great banquet or celebratory feast; this was just another supper. Cooked sausages, potatoes roasted golden, bowls with gravy and others with cooked, green peas and beans. The scent from the oven - pies and custard.

The creak of the door opening further brought Taalia around in an instant, her eyes open, a smile on her face as she knew others were arriving. Hurrying back to the antechamber, her excitement growing, she saw the doorway through which she had come was now even further open than it had been - someone else had used it! They were here, doubtless playing a prank on her! Smiling brightly as if ready to laugh at herself with the others, Taalia headed over to that door and opened it further, the warm, spring sunlight on the other side engulfing her completely.

[MrAbdiel]

When you return to the dining room, you find they have snuck in, indeed! Your father and mother seated in their chairs; your siblings arrayed along the long table and gabbling impatiently for you to join them, so you can eat together. As is sometimes the case with such dreams, the faces and natures of your family are both not apparent and do not strike you as odd for not being apparent. Not until you have sat down, and your father is leaning over to ladle some food on to your plate, does the illusion start to unravel. After all, this is not your home; this is not your family; this is not a life you have lived. And the first thing to betray the blissful fugue is the smell.

Foul. It rises from the food slopped on your plate - a repulsive splash of grey-brown mush that smells of rot and discarded scrap-flesh. Your stomach used to know how to eat such food; back when that was all that was on offer.

"Come-come, Nee-Ruh-Kaha. You no eat-eat, you no get dessert!" Your father, his russet fur with its familiar grey streaks crisscrossed with the stripes of his torture, implores you with paternal fondness.

"If you're not hungry, Mey-La, then your brothers and sisters will leave none for you!" Your mother warns, her eyebrow tilted; the norscan mistress seemingly in one of her doting rather than cruel moods for the moment.

"I'll eat it!" Vittorio cries, reaching over the table to grab your plate in his his hands and drag it greedily toward himself.

"Share!" Demands The Boy; with whom you played at swords in the northern snows between your oppressing duties.

"Boys, don't fight - you'll spill it, and ruin the tablecloth!" This is Bella pleading for peace beside them, her good nature falling on deaf ears as they tussle.

Bella's presence is the breaking point. This isn't right. You're not here - and as soon as you pick at it, all the manifold, insane conjunctions of characters strike you with all their absurdity and horror. But the moment you flinch and push back from the table, the chair beneath you crashes apart in a burst of clattering timber. You hit the ground so hard you taste blood.

"Taalia!" Bella whispers.

* * * * *

"Taalia!" Bella whispers.

You taste blood. And your body aches all over - the crash of the flying machine returning to your sense of events. You are on your back. Above you, a sky just now filling with stars tells you at once you have been unconscious for an hour or more.

Bella is a mess. There is a cut or scratch somewhere behind her hair line that has been trickling blood on to her face, which is now mostly dried in palm-smears to one side; but the smears have been cut through with the run of tears.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

You are battered and bruised for certain - down to half your maximum wounds, rounding up. This might also be a good time to decide on a new scar from the crash of the flying machine.

"Taalia, you need to get up - there's not much time."

Signore Cestié largely succeeded in his controlled crash. He bled off enough momentum that no one was killed, even if pieces of wood and canvas are scattered all around the top of the grassy hill where you have ended up. Even Milo was spared, thrown free of the crash and scooped up by Bella in the aftermath; mewing in distress when not being actively soothed. Bella's injuries, and yours, are largely superficial.

But Signore Cestié lies on his back, breathing in shallow wheezes, shivering beneath the blanket Bella has pulled over him while you were unconscious. Your immediate examination finds no critical wound - he was battered in the crash like you, and his old skin has split in places; likely some of his bones are fractured. All the same, you know with heart-splitting assurance that he is dying. His pulse is shallow, and slow, even though his breath comes in those wheezy puffs. Bella has been going back and forth between you while you were out, trying to manage the crisis; now that you are awake, and you have no miracle knowledge that might restore the flagging energies of your elderly friend, she sits with you both in the cold night air, sharing the helplessness with you.

Signore Cestié gives you a damp eyed, apologetic smile from where he lies. He reaches for your hand.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


From the shards of tattered dreams I rose, unwilling, tossed upon tides of pain that flowed and ebbed, and left me – searingly – awake, and – more revoltingly – alive.

The world of her family's dining room disintegrated away, consigned to the perenial life-support of a distant memory. In its place came into focus the night sky, a sheet of diamonds across a black ocean with a single, lone moon standing vigil and gathering the light it would soon reflect down upon the mortals as their sole source of illumination. Her head hurt. It ached, actually. As if she had suffered a concentrated hang-over reserved only for the excessive levels of drinking that stopped just short of sending the imbiber to an early grave.

The taste of blood. An aching mind and a pained body. Taalia grunted and moaned in the dull blanket of aching pain that chewed upon her nerves as she slowly sat up within the grassy field of their aerial decline. But harrowing and nauseating as these things were, obstructing her thoughts and seizing her attention, their efforts vanished the moment the girl spotted the weak and pale figure of Maso Cestie, his feeble image arousing within the girl a second wind that beat back all tormenting sensations and drew her immediately to her knee's and feet as she scrambled to the older mans side.

"Cestie - Cestie!" Taalia harkened, green and blue eyes open, her hand grasping for his as she returned his almost resigned visage with one of opprobrium at his current state.

Flashing her look down his body and up at him again, drawing her ear to his chest to takin in his heart-beat and breathing, the girls mind scrambled for to connect the accident with possible injuries as a wide variety ricocheted off within her skull. Pale...no outward lesions that were capable of such blood loss...internal bleeding.

"Get one of our backpacks - put it under his feet, get them above his heart!" Taalia beckoned to Bella, gesturing towards the crash-site and the collected remnants of their belongings.

Turning back to Cestie, Taalia gave the best reassurance grin she could, given the circumstances, her grip on his hand perhaps a little too strong as if she sought to tether him to the world and halt any spiritual ascension.

"Breathe easy - focus on me, Cestie! You're breathing so your lungs aren't punctured and you're still with me - how long have we been out?" she called over to Bella. Receiving the answer, she spun her head back to look to Cestie.

"If it were terminal you'd have gone by now Cestie!" she grinned and laughed, desparately hiding the terror clawing at her heart, her words almost to convince herself as much as her 'patient'.

"You stay with us, rest, recuperate; I'll get you to the nearest town! You can't let me enter Nuln and take all the glory for this on my own, can you?" she laughed again.

[MrAbdiel]

Bella is almost as desperate as you are to provide the best possible conditions, hoping to stave off the mortal event. She brings her own pack over from the wreck - drenched in fragrant grappa, from a smashed bottle of the spirit - and elevates Signore Cestié's feet as you instruct.

He gives you small nods at your encouragement, the same frail apologetic smile on his lips. You cannot help but feel it is not guilt for the crash; but for the looming moment of separation to come. He holds you hand for a long time; a half hour maybe that races by in the evening chill like a couple of minutes. Bella manages to get a small fire going to stave off some of the cold; forced to use part of the wreckage of the flying machine for fuel.

And then it comes; and no prayer or medicine can deny it.

A wetness in the old man's eyes gleams, as he smiles up at you.

"Taalia... You gave me... everything."

And then he closes his eyes, and his grip on your hand softens; and he is with you no longer.

He was right. His declarations of intention - to Nuln! to Nuln! - have been on his lips almost as long as you have known him, and his desire to bring his machine to the Miraglianan enclave and its community of artisans was no secret. In this much, he has fallen short of his grand wish. Yet he did not die like an unfulfilled man.

After all, you inspired him to finish the outlandish contraption and make his own modification to a design that Daedalo, and even old Leonardo couldn't make fly. You came with him to travel the length of the princedoms and republics of Tilea not as a lonely wanderer but a companion to people who loved him. You chased after him and talked him down when he lost heart in Miragliano, and ultimately saw him reunited with his lost son, and estranged father. And before giving him back his first family, you gave this lonely man wiling away his final years in a far flung village a new family also, by choosing him to participate in your salvation from obscurity and destitution. How many men live their whole lives without cramming in as much living as Maso Cestié has, in the time you knew him?

Bella embraces you in the sorrowful loveliness of the Carcassonne night, and shares the grief with you.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

I know I haven't given you much direction here other than misery to react to, but it seems fitting for Taalia to have another post before getting on with the business of gathering up belongings and carrying on on foot.

There are no more encounters in the evening. The critical parts of Cestié's invention are the plans, and the mithril gearbox, both of which are in tact; and with them, a skilled tinker or engineer could recreate the machine over time.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


One would think that Taalia had gotten used to loss by now. Taken from her family before she was even six. Cast across a world of slavery and destitution until taking the chance at freedom just a few years ago. Since emerging onto the surface there had been Rocco, among others, but only a handful had managed to penetrate Taalia's hardened, outer core to reach her heartstrings within. It was a mental and emotional defense mechanism, after all. She'd seen so many people die in the pits, people she knew, that becoming detached was the only way to stay sane for another day. But, Cestie was not one that she could keep at an arms distance, nor switch off her heart to. If she had had an adoptive grandfather that had encouraged her in every way, it was he, and now, having just breached beyond the Tilean landscape and into Bretonnia, he was gone.

Taalia felt the warmth intensify around her eyelids as her vision blurred and her lips pursed. As his grip loosened around hers and his old eyes slowly closed over, Taalia leaned forward and just hugged him. She held her ear against his chest and beheld those last few beats until the final moment of their finality that signalled his ultimate release.

She'd hold Bella's hand when the other girl drew closer, but for now all of her physical aches had rescinded and disappeared as not even the cool bite of the night air could draw the girls attention.

This entire adventure had been Cestie's idea, his dream - to see Nuln! Not just to see it, but to travel there as a pilot of his insane machine that not even the famed genius' of old could craft into practicality. It would have been his name that was etched into the history books, his likeness and memory hailed alongside the greats that his nation had produced.

Swallowing, holding back the worst of her tears, Taalia hugged her adoptive grandfather one last time before drawing back up and looking upon him.

If there was anything she had to say about it, that's exactly where his name would go.

[MrAbdiel]

It is a grim and isolating business managing Signore Cestié's body. This is Bella's first time doing this. Tragically, it is your second.

Once again, you have emerged into an alien land full of people whose tongue is not your own; and your first act in that place is to dig the grave of of your grandfather. In the dark of night, you and Bella exhaust yourselves making the old man's resting place as dignified as possible. His burial shroud is the canvas from the wings of the flying machine. Bella has a small camp spade mostly for digging fire pits; and it makes the job easier than when you improvised Rashabang's shortlived interment.

Spoiler: OOC: The Personal Effects of Signore Maso Cestié, of Bella Collina

Show

1 * Set of Corrective Lenses (For Reading)
1 * Aviator's Helmet
1 * Short Sword (Hand Weapon)
1 * Dagger
1 * Best Quality Set of Tinker's Tools, Compact
1 * Good Quality Writing Kit
1 * Flying Machine Plans (In Best Quality Scrollcase)
1 * Set of Keys (for the Workshop in Bella Collina)
1 * Mithril Gearbox
1 * Telescope
1 * Crossbow
15 * Crossbow Quarrels, in a Quiver
1 * Good Quality Leather Vest (Many nifty pockets)
1 * Warm Woolen Overcoat
1 * Purse with 12GC, 8S, 4p and three small gems each worth perhaps 20GC.
1 * Storm Lantern
1 * Inkpen
1 * Small Ivory Carving of a Donkey, engraved with the name "Lazlo"
Several cluttered notebooks full of technical notes of varying quality

It is traditional for a priest of Morr to bless the dead; even in small villages like Bella Collina, itinerant priests are directed to the graves of those lost since their last round.

You mark the grave with a spar of wood from the wreck.

"When we find a town... We'll show them where. We'll... make a proper marker. We just need to find which... Lord or Prince owns this land."
But first comes sleep. And after a few hours of desperately needed rest, you wake without the benefit of adrenal denial of pain. Bella has signficant whiplash and her neck hurts to move, but neither of you are concussed.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Give me a healing roll for you and Bella, as you begin your journey in Bretonnia. You're both, after the crash, at half wounds - but that's still lightly wounded, so 1d10 on a success, no poultice required.

I would also like...a Navigation Roll. From Bella, because you don't have it. vs77 - (1d100)[3]

Bella is looking over your plotted map, anticipating where you should go from here; but you can tell also she is watching you carefully. You are her best friend and vice versa; but Cestié was a level more special to you than to Bella - and she loved him. You have no stomach for breakfast; and without the smoke of the fire, your keen senses pick up a familiar scent - sheep. Higher on the slope, you squint to see the shape of a shepherd - a young girl, perhaps fifteen years old. She carries a shepherd's crook, and watches over a flock of a dozen sheep that graze the hills with familiar, chatty laziness. Perhaps, like Gaulfredo, she will look kindly upon a stranger without the local language. Or perhaps she will be scared - perhaps it is wiser to seek the road, and try your luck with elsewhere.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


It seemed that fate wanted to repeat her departure. When she fled the underground empire of the Skaven, she emerged upon the surface with the closest thing to a relative - as perverse as it was to think of - requiring a burial. And now, now that she had left the sunny lands of Tilea, she was being called to once more dig a grave and say some final words for one who had been good to her.

Naturally, her bond with Cestie had been more than what it had been with Rashabag. The ratman had not been consciously cruel, but his kindness steeped from the absence of cruelty, rather than deliberate impartment. Cestie, however, had fostered Taalia's development ever since he met her, providing an aged and experienced mind and arm upon which she could rely, learn and draw inspiration. Such had been his influence that she had continued her fascination with the mechanical, learning how to craft firearms beneath his tutelage and even becoming familiar with the workings of his flying machine. Naturally, she could not recreate itself from the plans, not yet anyway, but she had come to understand enough that she was able to assist with the experimental procedures and test-runs so that they could further refine the craft that had brought them so far...and yet had met such an ignominious end.

And so, battered, bruised and aching though she was, Taalia set to work digging a grave for her adoptive grandfather, and she kept at it for hours. She was a tough girl, used to hardship and toil, and it showed when she used that small spade to dig a hole six feet into the ground and wide enough that Cestie could be laid within, wrapped in an impromtu mumification with the materials from the damaged wings of the craft. Though it was the best they could do, Taalia knew that Cestie would probably find the situation amusing, and that made her smile just a little.

Filling in the hole wasn't as difficult, but it was still arduous and time-consuming. Hours and hours of gravedigging and re-allocation had passed before the girl was able to stand before the grave and utter a prayer from the little book that the High Priestess of Verena had handed her. Taalia had crafted a headstone from the remnants of the craft and Bella had picked some local flowers to lay upon it as a small wreathe. It was the best they could do under the circumstances.

"To Nuln he had told me," Taalia spoke while standing upright before the gravesight. She spoke both to herself and Bella, her eyes focused on Cestie's resting place.

"To Nuln, Maso Cestie. Thank you for everything," she concurred with a gentle nod, "we have to cross the mountains still to get there. We will see you on the other side."

oOo

Taalia spotted the lone little shepardess, her large rod ending in that curl intended to wrap around a loose sheep and draw them back into the flock. She looked barely younger than Taalia had been when she emerged from the Under Empire, and that she was out here on her own meant that she was either under extreme circumstances, or it was safe enough for her to do so.

Taalia herself was now dressed in all she had; her clothes, her armor, a rifle slung over one shoulder, Bella carrying the blunderbuss, her pistols on her hips, her shield on her back and sword sheathed. Around her shoulders was an impromtu harness that was hitched to the remnants of the flying machine that the girl was dragging behind her. The machines wheels that had been used to help land and take off were now serving a second purpose, as they allowed the taller, stronger Taalia to act as a human mule and pull their broken craft along with them as the rest of their belongings were stored within, as if it were a particularly ugly, skeletal cart and she were the donkey.

Should the girl look over in their direction, Taalia would draw one gloved hand up and give her a wave before continuing on their way. Bella and her were now strangers in a stranger, but beautiful land. It wouldn't do to bother the locals. No, they were much better off getting onto that main road and following it to a population centre. There, someone was doubtless able to speak Tilean, and there they could rest, recover and figure out how the hell they were going to continue now.

[MrAbdiel]

With your rickety shamble-cart, you weave between the hills down the slope and leave the shepherdess to her flock. Bella tries to take turns pulling the cart, if you let her; but you are certainly stronger, and any arrangement is going to burden you more than she. You do not have a tremendous amount of goods - you packed light to be able to fly - but it is easier to pull your improvised cart than to lash everything together and walk with it on your back for many miles, so that is what you do. Bella is confident she can fight the way back to the grave marker; and that she can navigate from here. The pass terminates in the land between the fork of the river Brienne. You must follow the road north, which will take you to a bridge over the river's east branch, and eventually to the town of Marguilles - the first town of note enough to appear on the map that your cartographer friend provided for you.

But before that, there is the road that winds slowly down from the foothills of the mountains to the interior of Carcassone. But on your first day of travel, just as the sun is high in the autumn sky staving off the chill of the wind for a few hours, you meet your first Bretonnian - for the second time.

The clop of hooves comes from behind you on the road in the distance first, so it is no surprise when a lone rider comes around the curve of the grassy hill you rounded not long ago. The road is wide enough that you do not need to pull off it for a rider; just to one side. But you and Bella pause to watch, as he comes around.

The horse is the biggest you've seen - the biggest you've seen, bar none. You had heard talk about Bretonnian horses, but the creature is truly a goliath of its kind; a warhorse larger than even the warhorses you'd seen under the Knights of the Blazing Sun riding out of Verezzo, or the draft horses that pull coaches and plows. Its coat is glossy black with striking exceptions; a white spot between the eyes, white cannons from knee to hoof giving it the appearance of wearing fluffy white socks, and majestic white hair of the mane and tail - whiter than yours. It is clad in a light panoply of studded leather barding which it has no trouble carrying at all; the rider's effects likewise trivial to its burden in saddlebags and a pack behind the saddle.

But the rider you have seen before - the knight in black and gold tabard, with scarred and battered mail. He rides in the sun with his helm off and coif and skullcap off, and you see the warrior beneath now - a young knight, no more than ten years the senior of you and Bella. He is not unhandsome - his skin olive, his hair is black; and his eyes are a pale grey, and all of these features are arrayed pleasingly in his presentation. A thin moustache does considerable work elevating his face from 'boyish' to just barely the right side of manly. His most unusual feature is a tattoo on his face - a jagged line that stars just at the line of his hair, drops down to above the right eyebrow, hooks back to the right temple then jags straight down over that cheek to terminate at the jawline. This, alone, seems quite unknightly; more of the kind of odd marking a pirate might have, or some thug in a city gang.

What he does not have with him is a glorious chestnut colored pegasus. But he is distinct enough in his person that you recognize him anyway; as does Bella, who reaches to grasp your hand instinctively as the knight - one of the fabled knights of Bretonnia - trots up on his massive steed and slows to a stop beside you. His pale grey eyes behold your ramshackle cart as he dismounts - then you, and the blunderbuss, marking this familiar elements of the encounter in the mountains - and asks in his incomprehensible native tongue:

"Pardonnez-moi, jeunes filles. N'ai-je pas... Rendez-vous, dans le col de montagne? Parlez-vous Breton?"

Spoiler: OOC: Successful Speak Language (Tilean) test, at +0%

Show

Breton has the same classical roots as Tilea and Estalian, in many cases. You think he is asking, politely, something about the mountains; and if you speak Breton.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

The two young ladies pushed on into this new, but undeniably beautiful land. The verdant green sweeps of the grasslands, the rolling, gentle banks of the hills and all of it framed by the snow-capped mountains through which they had just passed. It was an unusual sensation for Taalia, as she felt the impromptu harness clasped around her shoulders and waist, that they would emerge into such a lovely land only to have their arrival marked with lamentations.

Perhaps the walk was good for them though, for dwelling on loss would do little but drawn one into the self-reflective spiral. Cestie was gone. There was nothing she could do. Nothing she could have done. The sparks of the town festival were still in her memory. The first time she had talked to Cestie properly. The way she had unwittingly and amusingly embarrassed him in front of others by kissing him on the cheek, thinking it was the proper social greeting.

Taalia smiled, dew forming in the corner of her eye, a small snicker leaving her lungs.

As they carried on, the clippity-clop sounds of a horse rounding the hill from whence they had just came immediately grabbed Taalia's attention. Her ingrained slave instincts called her to alert immediately, as she unhooked the harness from her body and spun about...but eased herself when she saw who it was.

And the horse! The girls eyes widened as she beheld the enormity of the destrier, the huge animals size making even her feel small. Her heterochromia eyes remained transfixed on that warhorse, before the familiarity of the rider struck her mouth open in a silent gasp, before it morphed into a smile.

That was him! He had made it after all - some good news!

And it seemed like he was coming to a similar conclusion. He doubtless spotted the blunderbuss, the passing-familiarity of the flying-machine-turned-human-drawn-cart and, perhaps most recognisably, the firearm slung over Taalia's shoulder.

That firearm that had blasted a fist-sized hole through the chest of the orc boss he had been fighting.

< From the Bretonnian's Perspective >

The two women couldn't look less alike. One was classical Tilean or Estalian, her olive skin and beautiful, dark wavy hair framing those smouldering eyes. The other was from...not there. Her lightly tanned skin, towering and statuesque figure wore well-crafted armor with a steel helm upon her blonde-white haired head, from under which peered a pair of alert eyes, one green the other blue. She had to have been from the north, perhaps around the Couronne region, or the Wasteland or Nordland. Maybe even Kislev? Somewhere with exposure to the Norscans. Her face was handsome-pretty. Not beautiful in the classical, feminine sense, she was too tall for that, but her angular features were nontheless pleasing, though perhaps marred by the presence of a few scars. One ran right down the left side of her face, from her forehead, down over her eye and ending at her cheek, while on the other side was a lighter, three-line parallel scar that was visible.

Where-ever she was from, she was the first to speak, raising her right hand in an open-palmed wave.

"Ben incontrato e buona giornata!" she spoke with a smoky, sonorous voice.

"Parli Tileano?"

There was the phonetic word: Tilea.

The word 'parli' was also similar to 'parlez'.

[MrAbdiel]

Cestié had taught you the little Bretonnian he could remember from some hobby study many years ago - but it is very little indeed. As it turns out, the knight has about as much Tilean. He squints between you and Bella, and tries to make it work.

"Ah... Small, small. Ah..." He holds his thumb and forefinger in the air an inch apart, indicating the measurable quantity of Tilean he knows. He resorts to pantomime; gesturing to your firearm, and back and the mountain and then, after a moment, pulling his cheeks down with his palms and grimacing.

Bella giggles quite involuntarilly.

"An orc, maybe..? The orcs in the mountain."

This catches the knight by surprise; he hadn't expected the word for 'orc' to be recognizable. But then, who thinks about such things before they come up.

"Yes, yes; orc, yes?"

And so you establish identities. You are those who flew by and fired on the orcs he fought in the mountain. As a gesture of goodwill, he moves to one of his saddlebags and produces a wheel of cheese in a festively red wax covering. He breaks it in half with his hands, then breaks off a smaller part from the larger of the two halves, keeping the smaller bite for himself and offering, somewhat insistently, the larger parts to you and Bella.

"Briant Dubois, chevalier du Parravon. Je suis à votre service." He bows, having given you what you gather is his name - and you catch Parravon in there, too. Bella curtsies and introduces herself. He does not kiss her hand like a young man of Tilea might do, especially one meeting Bella; and neither does he kiss yours. But you measure in him a genuine wealth of good will and a sense of indebtedness, for your deed in the mountains. After some pantomime establishment that you are going some way down the road, he looks to hitch your cart to his destrier - but being a ramshackle thing it is, without a purpose built hitching apparatus or a knowing human hauler consciously and tiringly correcting for the bent wheels, the proposition is a failing one."

"Ah... Put, ah... Here? Sur here?" He pats the Destrier's saddlebags and saddle, and ferrets around in them to come up with some leather straps and rope. "Sur Clémence?"

Bella, who you note immediately is blushing with this bombardment of attentive helpfulness, draws close to you.

"I think Clémence is his horse. She's huge - but if we load her up with our things, he will have no room to ride. Knights are bound to do good deeds and serve ladies, isn't it so? If we do not intend to go through this whole nation trusting no one, perhaps we should start with ...Sir Briant, here."

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


A couple of minutes of broken-Tilean/Bretonnian conversation, and Taalia's troubles were momentarily forgotten. She found this amusing in its entirety, and her smile returned as she admittedly had a bit of fun trying to figure out what the unorthodox knight was trying to say.

Years ago when she had emerged as a skinny, escaped, frightened girl in the woods, the language barrier was a dread specter that separated her off from those around her. Perhaps, though, at the time it was terrifying because of how it cut her off from her means of survival: the Tileans. Now, however, Taalia was far more confident and capable. Perhaps this man and her would fail to properly communicate, wish each other well in their languages and then part ways...and that would be it. Taalia still had her fit body, her skillful mind, can-do attitude and, as witnessed by her rickety human-pulled sled, her tools. She'd be fine. Back then, fitting in was literally life or death.

Would it be as such here? Well, hopefully not. But as the saying went, hope springs eternal.

"Orcs, SÌ, SÌ!" Taalia would smile happily at the over-lapping word for those disgusting greenskins: orc. A universal menace, it seemed, and one whose brutish name was despised in all the realms of man.

But, when Bella giggled, that's when Taalia gave a 0.5 second sideways look, the tiniest of knowing smiles tugging at the corner of Taalia's lips before focusing back on the knight.

"Si, orc?" Taalia established, unslinging her firearm and bringing it up to aim off in a harmless direction, offering a smile as she pretened to receive recoil that pushed her shoulder back.

"Kaboom-a!"

Then the identities were shared.

"Briant Dubois, chevalier du Parravon. Je suis à votre service."

There were those familial-language words again.

Chevalier. Chivalry. Who were chivalrous? Knights.

Service. Servizio.

His name was Briant Dubois, a knight of Parravon, whatever that was, and he was at their service.

Maybe she'd get the hang of this language after all?

Or maybe...was it familiar to her, because it was her true mother tongue, back in her formative years before being stolen away?

It was a nice theory. But until the years unfolded it would remain that, a theory.

When it was her turn, Taalia gestured to herself, "Io, Taalia Giovanni," she spoke slowly, but wearing her friendly smile.

The cheese was delicious also! Receiving the bit of yellowed, tasty diary, Taalia held it up for him to see while saying "Grazie mille signore!"

The next few minutes were spent attempting to straddle the cart onto the destrier, Clemence apparently. She was a beautiful animal, Taalia took a few moments to go towards the animals long face and affectionately rub her cheek. Cunningly, it also gave the girl a few moments to watch the exchange between Briant and Bella, with her friend blushing and giggling gently, opening up in a way she hadn't to anyone before. Well, not in a long time anyway. To this, Taalia smirked knowingly, but her little smile was sheathed immediately when Bella approached.

"I think Clémence is his horse. She's huge - but if we load her up with our things, he will have no room to ride. Knights are bound to do good deeds and serve ladies, isn't it so? If we do not intend to go through this whole nation trusting no one, perhaps we should start with ...Sir Briant, here."

Yes, I'm sure you'd like that, Taalia thought to herself silently with an internal snicker.

"I'll see..." Taalia said in good humor, as she looked over Bella's shoulder - which was fairly easy, given she was over a foot taller - and caught Dubois attention.

"Singore," she said, her sonorous voice easily reaching him.

Taalia then patted her hand against her chest, "Io..." she started, then drew her hand up and her fingers down, her index and middle finger wiggling back and forth as she moved her hand forward; a universal sign for 'walking'.

She then pointed to Dubois and repeated the gesture.

Then, Taalia motioned towards Bella and drew her hand up to the top of the horse, onto its saddle.

Taalia and Dubois would walk alongside the horse, while Bella, the fair, sweet lady that she was, would ride upon the horse, her smaller frame avoiding any obstruction that the harness would impart upon the beast.

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

How dare you demand rolls from moi! From Moi! (1d100)[5].

And so you walk. Sir Briant seems content enough to walk as Bella rides. He is pleasant company; affable; chatty, if mostly incomprehensible. Possibly funny - or atleast, Bella seems easily led to giggle when he produces a sequence of words with the cadence of a joke. All in all, there are two things about him that hitch an otherwise very fine first impression.

The first are his eyes; which are pleasant to look at, but, after the surprise of the initial encounter, seem to avoid direct contact with yours or Bellas. He conducts his negotiation with a lot of glancing away, a lot of looking at the left or right shoulder of whomever he is trying to speak to. Typically, a Tilean would associate this reticence to lock eyes as a sign of shiftiness. Is it a cultural quirk? Or something else?

Spoiler: Successful Perception Test (Intuition - Not Hearing or Vision)

Show

At first you think he might be partly blind, or concussed or something; but then you begin to put together that it comes off as a more social disinclination than a physiological one. When you confer with Bella, she whispers to you after a gasp.

"Oh - do you think it's our hair? Bretonnian women cover their hair in public - those who are marriagable, or married. They only show it on their wedding day, or indoors to their family. Except for little girls, and their holy Maidens, and - oh no! Taalia, does he think we are prostitutes?!"

That would explain his immediate goodwill - but observing the knight as you have travelled, you don't think that's the case. More likely, having grasped that you are foreign, he is simply not heaping upon you the expectations that he would someone local - but he averts his eyes with almost desperately dutiful regularity just as if you were walking around without a shirt. Can uncovered hair really be so... intimate to these people? How scandalized they must be, when they go to other countries and women shake their hair around with such rampant godlessness!

The second is that, in the silences between attempts to communicate, he progresses from walking alongside you with silent confidence and contentment that grades slowly but surely down to quiet, deep sadness. It blows away like scattered fog when you or Bella try to ask/pantomime a question or he thinks of something he would like to communicate otherwise; but it's there.

Spoiler: Successful Visual Perception Test +10%

Show

With all your belongings strapped up on Cleménce's back, you are inclined to keep an eye out to make sure they are not overweighted to one side or the other to cause irritation to the steed, or to fall off. During one such glance, you see the corner of bright silvery links of fine chain and black leather poking out the corner of one saddlebag. You recognise it as a very fine horse's bridle - the kind of thing that one does not normally carry as spare. The pegasus, you fear, did not make out of the mountain conflict alive - mortally wounded by the orcs before you arrived, after all. Sir Briant must have brought both his destrier and his pegasus to the battlefront, using the pegasus to run messages across the gap and make opportunistic strikes at the orcs high in the mountains - and now, with that critical casualty, he is making his way home.

Another strange country; another stranger to whose defence you were compelled to leap, against the perfidious greenskin; another equine casualty, and its human master in mourning. The young knight's distress at this loss is less raucous than Gaulfredo's. Your more-or-less adoptive father was very emotive, even by Tilean standards, especially when it came to the horse Bartolemi slain by the goblins, or Rocco felled by age. But restrained as it is, you intuit that Sir Briant's greif is just as deep; even if his way is to bind it within himself, instead of release it.

As evening comes on, the cold comes again - and with it comes a very faint dusting of snow. You haven't seen snow up close since Norsca - and there, it was a brutal, everpresent monster of a phenomenon that locked you in your service in that village as surely as did the skaven's cage later. You remember your abortive effort to flee before returning, blue-lipped and shivering, to the Mistress and Master's home for a hiding and a return to thralldom, if only to sit by a fire again and sleep under a roof.

But here, it's quite beautiful. It settles on the road ahead and the grassy hills beside it; not enough to cover the surface, buy enough to add its frosty glow to the palette of the land. Bella is mystified - she has never seen the stuff at all, and from her perch on Cleménce's back, she is compelled to look at the flakes as they settle on her hands and on the horse's mane before they melt away.

This would be the time one would make camp - find shelter or make it before it's too dark, get a fire going, hunker down. But Sir Briant seems keen to push on - if anything, he pulls on the horse's reins a touch faster as if eager to get somewhere. Or else, he intends to make you walk through the night!

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

You may, if you like, insist on camping and eating now; or you may trust your guide knows what he is doing. Decide!

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


Taalia took the walk in stride, for one who had just lost someone so close to her. She moved along, her eyes focusing on the beautiful environment about her, while her excellent hearing regularly picked up words here and there from Briant's speech - and Bella's giggling.

It was the latter that caused the shepardess to smirk gently. It was nice to see her friend...interested in someone, or at least receptive to them. Though Taalia doubted she was the first pretty Tilean girl to have large eyes for a dashing knight from Bretonnia. And who could blame her? He was a handsome and brave fellow...though that moustache...Taalia didn't care for it. And where had he acquired that tattoo? It wasn't something they usually wore, was it? But who was she kidding, it's not like Taalia possessed some vast and deep knowledge of the chivalric code of conduct of the famed knights of Bretonnia.

Upon seeing the excellent quality bit and bridle, however, Taalia felt her heart drop just a little bit. She pursed her lips and exhaled, offering a silent prayer to the gods she had come to venerate and thanked whatever spirits existed for the loyal services of the beautiful beast. For such a lovely creature to meet a violent end like that...it was awful. Though the deja vu of her emergence into a new land was not lost on her. Ragabash and Cestie. The goblins and the orcs. Bart and the pegasus. Gaulfredo and Briant.

By the time the snow arrived, Taalia's spirits had lifted as her mind had drifted away from the morose topic of loss. There was time to mourn later, she told herself, and that time was not now. Besides, Bella's reaction to the gentle, frozen water was too precious. The shepardess smiled at her friends response, reaching out with a glove to catch a snowflake or two as the gentle fall lay soft blanket of sparkling white across the greenery around them, each flake catching a hint of the dusk-borne sunset. It was quite a welcome sight!

"It's snow," Taalia spoke up to Bella.

"I saw it all the time back in Norsca, but in that blasted hell it was an oppressive menace. This...this is beautiful..." she remarked, the words she spoke doubtless registering in Briant's mind for what the brave knight could understand with the family resemblance within their languages.

Trusting their new companion to know the lay of the land better than they, Taalia pressed on.

[MrAbdiel]

Briant allows your group's pace to slow as both you and your good friend revel in the novelty of the gentle snowfall. The knight gestures to the falling flakes and chats on comfortably for fifteen minutes or so, occasionally gesturing in different directions. He must certainly know that you both do not quite understand him; but it is easier to talk and not understand each other than to march on in silence. It becomes quite dark indeed, but eventually the road gives way to something up ahead; at first a dark shape blotting out some of the low stars - a coaching hell perhaps, waystation, or fair sized home. When you get near to it, Briant fiddles with a lantern from his pack and a few matches; but even before it is lit, you and Bella are able to make it out with your night-eyes. It's a shrine, or something like it; standing alone here by the roadside, built from fair even granite stones. Above the doorway is a small steeple and statue of a feminine form clasping a cup in her hands. Briant goes inside, and lights a couple of disused lanterns within. Inside is a single hall with a soaring ceiling; narrow shuttered windows along the sides and, at the wall opposite the entrance, a tall window with stained glass pane. In the night time, it is robbed of some of its aspect; the dark renders the glass in its riot of colors to be much more washed out and subtle; but you can see the likeness of the lady within - the Lady, of course - holding out a chalice in her hands. A very modest wooden annex has been constructed along the building's left side; a couple of stalls, suitable for visiting steeds to rest without putting the open sky to their backs.

The interior of the chapel is almost bare; there are a few dozen old wooden chairs stacked to the walls, but mostly the stone hall is empty. The exception is at the end, beneath the stained glass window; a jutting element of stone rises up about six feet in its natural, uneven shape like a blunt tooth of earth around which the chapel must have been built. From a crack near the top of the stone, a trickle of clear water bubbles quietly down a groove worn smooth and drains away into another cavity in the stone. Briant fills a waterskin by pressing the mouth of it flush to the stone; then empties the skin into a bucket, and takes the bucket out for his horse to drink from. He seems amenable to a pantomine indicating that you, also, might drink your fill herefrom. You share a little of the food you have left with each other, and sit around a fire outside the chapel in the evening.

Spoiler: OOC: Charades

Show

If you want to try to ask Briant anything in particular, you may attempt to get an answer for up to three specific questions, each one requiring a Speak Language: Tilean roll. Naturally, more complex questions ("Who is the present patriarch of the Church of Ursun, in Kislev?") will require a more impressive roll; where simpler questions assisted by body language ("Who dat?") will require easier rolls.

Also... you may give a Perform roll of your choice, with a +20 for assistance from Bella, because...

As you all tire of pantomine for the evening, Briant produces something from his saddlebags - a battered little violin, which he tunes and plucks at playfully. He starts cycling through the early bars of songs, trying to gage your reactions and therefore find ones you might know. "Oh - that one is almost Say Farewell Tomorrow, but not quite. Do you think he knows Delighted Mistress? Is that too... racy, for Bretonnia? Sir Briant, do you know -... Erm..." Unable to bring herself to pantomime that question, Bella gives up that one with a snicker.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

If you succeed on this Perform roll, you're able to connect with Briant through the language of music! And you spend an evening singing with Bella while he plays the violin; perhaps learning a song from him in Bretonnian whose lyrics you do not understand, but are able to parrot for now. You may also, now that it's been a day of not knowing, take another swing at that intuition test you failed. If you succeed, you can read that spoiler.





ALSO... Give me a Hearing Perception test. +0%. For nothing.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


Taalia enjoyed, as best as she could given the circumstances, the simple walk alongside the enormous destrier and with Briant's company. And Bella's too, naturally. To be honest, it was rather cute watching her friend react to snow, and it was relieving for the shepadress herself, whose last experience with the stuff was far less wholesome and whimsical. Instead, this was pleasant. The gentle blanket of snow, Briant's soft talking in his both foreign but oddly familiar language and the quiet excitement and wonder of her friend behind her. It made walking off into the cold night almost magical.

It didn't take long for them to discover where Briant was leading them. Or rather, had assured them would exist, in his own language. The road would have taken them there eventually, with or without his gentle insistence. The chapel was a a beautiful, but sad little place. During the day the shepardess could envision the light being caught in those beautifully stained windows and mesmerising all who came to sit and partake in reverence to the Lady. Who this Lady was, her decree's and requirements, Taalia could not say. But she quickly gathered that she was a big deal in these lands, and if she wanted to fit in, or at least be respectful, she would treat her image with the same respect she would treat that of Myrmidia or Verena. Besides, her own patrons would be take note of the hospitality she would show when she was a guest in the land of foreigners. It did not pay to be rude.

Assisting Briant with establishing a little camp, Taalia put up the tents she had bought for just this occassion, thanking her foresight back in Tilea. She brought out the pot and cooking utensils, and it wasn't long until a simple non-meat based ragu was cooking in the pot, enough for a hearty serving for each. There was some dried beef jerky, but it went to Milo, the small kitten running about the little camp near the fire/cooking pot, rolling onto its back and patting at any fingers that came close to pet it, before springing up and darting around once more.

When the Bretonnian withdrew his violin, however, Taalia smiled, her eyes moving over to Bella. At her friends suggestion, the shepardess blushed and giggled gently, hiding her mouth behind her hand as she did so. She lightly slapped her friend on the shoulder with her spare hand as she giggled, shaking her head.

"No, never! What if he could understand it?" she snickered along with her friend.

"No no, something pleasant at first! We'll do Finiculi Finicula, you lead, I'll back you up!"

[MrAbdiel]

The psychology of it isn't entirely clear; but perhaps because of the horrible tragic burden of the day before, it feels especially good to sing and laugh tonight. And there is plenty of both - you have to teach Briant the tune of Finaculi Finicula, and when he spirals off into some other tune he knows it is funnier every time, for some reason. By the end of it, he knows the song, and most of how to sing it. He has a decent singing voice, though not like yours, and certainly not like Bella who taught you. Still, it's a fun tonal compliment. In payment, he teaches you a song in Breton, and it takes a bit of learning on your end has he puts aside the bow of the violin and strums away at it like a little lute.

J’ai Vu Le Loup, you gather after fireside pantomime, is a song about a wolf that meets with a variety of other animals - foxes, hares, and so forth - to dance and drink and engage in other fancifully human acts. It's quite fast, and between the dancy pace and the content you take it to be a folk song rather than something for the consumption of rarefied courts. When you are good and tired of laughing at the game of trying to understand each other, you mete out an approximation of understanding of shifts and the evening passes without incident. He takes first watch, you and Bella take second; though you let her doze off leaning on your shoulder murmuring about foxes and wolves dancing.

The next day brings two encounters. The first is benign; the second is not. You awake to the sound of Briant's Breton lilting away with another pair of conversants. A narrow peasant man, who might be mistaken for entirely chinless except for a short cropped beard, is standing before Briant and speaking haltingly. You can understand only fragments - knight, we, road, thank, sheep, think - and so forth, but you can tell by the cadence of the conversation that the man is nursing a sense of intimidation in the face of Briant, who for his part seems to be offering no reason to be intimidated. The knight is winning him over slowly, and you watch as the expectation of some negative outcome drains out of the man's hunching shoulders and he is actually able to laugh a little at something Briant says. With the peasant his a little girl, six or so years old, in a very plain child's dress but a somewhat fetching pale blue bonnet over her blonde curls. She sits in the small cart behind an ox who has taken this break to graze at the side of the road. You think briefly of Tomasso. That ox will be enjoying winter in the warm barn, waiting for spring when Gaulfredo's fields will be plowed for another round of corn, or spring wheat.

The girl, whose Breton is constantly curling up at the ends with questions, is much more comfortable asking the knight things than her father. After a while, the man waves her over and she slides down from the seat of the cart. In the bunched fabric at the front of her dress, she carries some precious treasure very carefully which she shuffles over to Briant to deliver. It turns out to be three eggs, which Briant takes as offered but then, crouching down and with the sporting well-you-know-what tone of voice that seems to be the same in all languages, concocts some logic that permits him to offer one of the eggs back to the girl. She seems not to have expected this, and is very excited to have an egg back; almost dancing back to her father's side to show him as if he hadn't witnessed the whole exchange. Then they are on their way, turning the cart around and heading back up the road the way they came. The peasant gives you a brief blushing look before looking away; the little girl waves and gives you a wide, gap-toothed grin as they go. Bella turns the two eggs into an omelette that you split between you. It tastes unlike the eggs in Tilea - but before you can marvel that even the chickens are different up here somehow, Briant informs you, with a fluttering sentence terminating in quack quack, that these are duck eggs, and the mystery is solved.

Packed up and back on the road, you wander north and 'chat', and begin feeling more and more confident with your fragmentary Breton even over these short couple of days. You can make out, and produce, simple sentiments if not sentences now; which partially assists you understand what is going on when, passing by cheerful little wooded patch of land on the west, you are stopped by a man in a ragged hooded cloak who wanders slowly out onto the street and holds up a hand to halt Cleménce.

"Tenez-vous, bon chevalier! Avec tout le respect que je vous dois, je dois vous demander de payer des frais pour utiliser cette route." The hooded man says, cordially, and bows.

"Cette route?", Briant says with cold firmness coming into his voice as he signals back to you and Bella to stay behind him with the palm of his hand. "Cette route appartient au Seigneur Donallo, qui m'a accordé la voie. Pour qui pensez-vous percevoir un péage?"

In the wood by the road, a dozen cloaked fingers lean out from behind trees with arrows knocked in their bows, ready to draw and fire. You remember the ambush of the mutants on the Silo road - but these men do not bear visible mutations, at least.

"Hélas, la route appartient au peuple, étant donné que Lord Donallo ne se sent pas important de défendre son peuple. Il n'y a pas de honte à cela, monsieur le chevalier; Abandonnez votre sac à main et partez et personne ne sera plus sage pour vous. Vous et vos femmes n'avez pas besoin d'aller en danger ici." The hooded man gestures open handedly, magnanimously. Briant pauses to consider his options.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

I permit you the right to google translate these things and decide Taalia's fragmentary understanding and respond accordingly!

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

It was an enjoyable night for the shepardess and, judging by Bella's musical inclinations and attempt to stave off sleep to stay away that little bit longer, her companion thought so to. Twenty four hours earlier if she had been told that she would be camping out in the ruins of a beautiful old chapel with a Bretonnian knight and sharing nothing but the universal language of music, Taalia would have laughed at such a ridiculous prospect. But, here she was.

Smiling as she watched Bella slowly sink into sleep while drowsily mumbling about alcohol drinking foxes and dancing wolves, Taalia snickered gently and leaned over to kiss her friend on the forehead, before gently reclining her back to rest. Getting a pillow underneath her head and a blanket over her, the shepardess then took her turn on watch and sat by the fire and stared up at the wintery, star-filled night sky. The sizzled crackling of the flames, the gentle choir of the crickets in the gentle dark while the fields of lightly snow-dusted fields stretched out in every direction from her while high above, that opal-black star-studded canopy, the moon drifting in all its pale, shimmering magnificence. The air was chilled and cool to the touch, but at the moment it didn't bother the shepardess. She sat there and pondered, the amusing, festive lyrics of their last song speaking to a culture that at least enjoyed the happier times in life. But as she looked up at that earthly cover, her mind wandered back to Cestie, doubtless in the belief that he had now joined that innumerable host of diamonds high above. Quietly, the girl pivoted her torso and dug through one of her bags until she found one of her good bottles of spirits. Pouring herself a small little drink, she held it up to the heavens, muttered "'till next we meet, Singore Cestie," and in a quiet toast and took the shot down.

The next morning Taalia helped to pack things, though she watched the interaction between Briant and the two locals with great, hidden interest. Seated in the shade, her work complete, the shepardess silently watched the knight and the likely farmer converse and it wasn't so much what was said, but how it was said. You see, for the first couple of years she existed as a slave, Taalia didn't know Queekish. Not fluently. So, she relied on reading body language to survive, and the hidden fear in the peasants stature, his reluctance to laugh or look at he knight in the face and his awkward chuckling once prompted, all sent a clear message to the former slave that there was very much a social hierarchy in this land, and this man was at the bottom of it - and he instinctively feared those above him. In Tilea such interactions existed, of course. The land had its nobles, both decent and petty, but even the wealthiest of nobles could not inflict such instant and consequence-free punishment that merely standing in their presence and receiving their address was cause for concern. After all, Taalia had already picked up on Briant's reluctance to look herself or Bella directly in the face, likely due to the presence of their scandalously uncovered locks of hair. T'was a normal thing in Tilea, but here in this beautiful land with its different customs and outlooks, such a thing was only performed by women indoors or harlots in the street. That they were audibly foreigners was the only saving grace that would buy them a pass. For now.

Taalia gave the adorable little girl a wave, offering her a gesticulated blown kiss and a bright, smiling laugh in her direction. Were they related to that first girl they saw in the fields? Maybe. But it was a handful of days later when they encountered an all-too-familiar situation: an ambush.

As soon as Taalia saw the lone man waiting upon the path, flanked to one side by tree's as they were and the other a rolling bank of green hills, the shepardess' guard was up. Her prior instincts as a slave and experience with the mutants told her what to expect, as she said up to Bella hurriedly, "Bella, quickly, off the horse, and get on this side - put the horse between you and the trees."

It turned out to be a prudent move, as the man was every bit the ambush predator the shepardess was expecting; his amicable nature and confident mien masking the cold-borne fact that he was a highway thief.

Taking a quick assessment of the situation, Taalia knew that she couldn't tell Bella to run.

"Tenez-vous, bon chevalier! Avec tout le respect que je vous dois, je dois vous demander de payer des frais pour utiliser cette route." The hooded man says, cordially, and bows.

She quickly scanned the treeline, spotting the dozen or so men with bows. Bella couldn't get far even if she tried. Serruptitiously, Taalia shoulder-nudged her towards the blunderbuss holstered on the side of the horse.

"Cette route?", Briant says with cold firmness coming into his voice as he signals back to you and Bella to stay behind him with the palm of his hand. "Cette route appartient au Seigneur Donallo, qui m'a accordé la voie. Pour qui pensez-vous percevoir un péage?"

Taalia's keen hearing was helping her considerably to discern individual words within the Breton language. Surprisingly, Tilean and Bretonnian had remarkable similarity. Oro was the Tilean word for 'gold', while in Bretonnian it was "or', for example. Just small details and similarities were helpful, but once again, it was the body language and situation that allowed Taalia to discern what was going on: they were being robbed on the highway, and the man was demanding payment. If they were truly cutthroat brigands they would've just attacked them and ransacked them entirely, perhaps even take Bella away as a slave. But, from the relatively...average appearance of the man before her, his swagger and amicability aside, Taalia was guessing that they were not so ruthlessly inclined.

"Hélas, la route appartient au peuple, étant donné que Lord Donallo ne se sent pas important de défendre son peuple. Il n'y a pas de honte à cela, monsieur le chevalier; Abandonnez votre sac à main et partez et personne ne sera plus sage pour vous. Vous et vos femmes n'avez pas besoin d'aller en danger ici." The hooded man gestures open handedly, magnanimously. Briant pauses to consider his options.

With the distraction away from her, Taalia reached towards her bag and surreptitiously withdrew a small, rough, green stone from a purse before securing it away again.

Click!

The hammer drew back on one of Taalia's pistols as she withdrew the firearm and stepped forward next to Briant, the muzzle of her weapon aimed directly at the man before them whom was close enough to be in conversational range. On her other hip was another pistol. Slung over her shoulder was her longer firearm/rifle. In Bella's hands, though she was using the horse as cover against the woods - as was Taalia - was their blunderbuss.

Bringing her right hand about, Taalia used her thumb to flick the uncut, green gem into the chest of the man.

"Malachite," she said, visible contempt in her eyes beneath her steel helmet.

It was the same word in Tilean or Bretonnian.

"Vale un oro," she continued, using her pistol to gesture towards the man to clear off the road.

"Vale un mese di stipendio per un uomo. Prendilo e togli il tuo brutto guscio dalla strada prima che lo faccia saltare in aria!"

[MrAbdiel]

The hooded man has impressive enough reflexes that he catches the malachite as you toss it. You hear the tensing bowstrings as you introduce yourself into the exchange, but they loosen when it is clear you aren't presenting with hostility. Briant looks back at you, a little undercut by your grandious offer, but not fool enough to foul it up, or violent enough to want a fight anyway. You can't know how much of what you said made it through, but gems are a universal language, assisted by the brandished barrels of firearms. The robber bows, and takes a few steps off the road, waving for you to pass. Bella is relieved; Briant is mostly pleased to not have to expose you and Bella to combat, and you ease by. You past, with no arrows in your back, when Briant halts the horse.

"What? What is it? We should go!" Bella urges quietly; her previous few experiences with the blunderbuss in hand not filling her with confidence. Briant gives you, battle ready as you are, a look that begs your indulgence, and holds up a hand that you might wait with Bella, rather than follow him. Then he heads back twenty paces toward the woods, and calls out; and from the line of the trees, the recently enriched bandit responds.

"Est-il vrai que le seigneur Donallo vous a laissés à vous-mêmes? Vérité maintenant ou les dieux vous connaissent un menteur." Briant asks, and then sternly appends some kind of additional charge.

"Je ne te dis pas de mensonges, jeune chevalier." The reply is short, almost amused.

"Est-ce une question d'orcs?", questions Briant; orcs in there again.

"Non, jeune chevalier. Une bande d'ogres sur la terre, prenant du bétail qu'ils veulent. Peut-être des gens, bientôt. Nous devons les payer pour qu'ils partent; ou bien payer quelqu'un pour chasser le dehors."

Before long, the exchange has turned somewhat conversational, and the knight and the bandit parley a moment longer, the bandit pointing and explaining in detail about directions.

"Did he say ogres? Do they have ogres in Bretonnia? I thought they came from-" Bella begins, then frowns, and looks at you. "I guess I don't know. I don't think I've met one outside of a story."

When the hooded men retreat into the wood, and the young knight returns to your group, he makes what sounds like an apology. He rambles a little with a sigh; pats Cleménce's nose, and then looks to you. You, the obvious protector in your group.

"You go, uh?" He tries, in his fragmented Tilean; and gestures on down the road. "You go, uh? Village -..Uh... Villagio, you go. This road."

And tries to press Cleménce's reins into your hands.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia watched, her visible contempt slowly rescinding as the man before them stepped off the road and let them pass - the easing of drawstrings sighing from the trees.

Taalia hated thieves. Everything she had she had either worked for, traded for, bargained for or earned in some capacity, whether by luck or circumstsances. She had never stolen anything directly from someone. Indeed, she had displayed unusual honesty when returning the Hunters daughter's share of the bounty on that pistol - it had been completely within Taalia's power to deprive her of that one hundred duro, keep it and smash the girl in the face if she had come around seeking restitutions or to make a complaint. But she hadn't. She'd paid her as promised. But depriving someone else of their belongings against their will? That was something she despised.

And so it was with narrowed eyes that she kept an eye on the highway bandits when they were permitted to pass, and surprised orbs when Briant halted and ventured back towards the brigands. Was he going back to challenge one to a duel in order to satisfy some unknowable decree of knightly honor? No, as it turned out - he was just going to talk to them.

Orcs. That's something she picked up, as well as a few smatterings of words here and there.

Then ogres.

Taalia knew of ogres.

"They exist," she answered Bella, a dour tone in her voice and her eyes remaining on Briant.

She had seen several in the slave pits. Big, tough, stupid, dim-witted, but monstrously strong and capable of enduring unbearable hardship. The ratmen had even used them in their experiments to created the disgusting Ratogres, creatures that were even more foul and savage than they were but far more powerful and threatening.

"I saw some back in the slave pits," she said softly to her friend, "not creatures you want running around on their own initiative."

Then Briant returned, his gloomy disposition already raising Taalia's alertness level.

"You go, uh? You go, uh? Village -..Uh... Villagio, you go. This road."

Taalia exhaled. She knew what the lad was planning: he was going to help the group fight the ogres. It was his knightly duty.

Pursing her lips, Taalia shook her head gently.

"Non..." she started, shaking her head, having to once again consciously think about the words she wanted to say, much like she had when first learning Tilean.

"Je...aide..." she tapped her chest, her gloved fingers against the mail she wore. With her other hand she gestured to her own weapons, particularly her firearms. You wanted to keep a good distance from ogres.


If....


Briant is open to hearing as all able-bodies are needed against the ogres, and those guns could be useful:

Spoiler

Show

"Je...aide..." she'd say again, unslinging her rifle and holding it up, pretending to receive recoil, "...d'ogres."

She wanted to help fight the ogres.

"Bella, you will have to take Cleménce ahead to the next village; store our things, show his tabard and colors. He cannot go and fight the ogres like this - look at his conditions, he is not properly equipped to do so, I must be there to ensure he doesn't do anything stupid!"

If he is not, no woman no matter how well armed and physically capable, the Lady decrees as such:

Spoiler

Show

Taalia could see that she was not going to sway the man. There was a pained look on her face. She'd purse her lips and try again, but it was no good, his stubborn inclinations of 'honor' ran deeper than anything Taalia had encountered before, crossing between understandable self-respect to an almost suicidal ideal.

Exhaling, before her eyes widened a little, Taalia moved to her bags and started to rummage through them. "Ah!" announced that she had found what she was looking for, as she soon returned to Briant and held up a...root? A bit of a tree root?

It had been with Taalia for years. It had been the first item of any real value that had been hers upon the surface: the lucky charm from the river-bank all those years ago.

She held it up and tucked it into a pocket or somewhere affixed on Briant's person, her look solumn and regretful. Doubtless Bella had her own thoughts to add, given the way she'd blushed and giggled over the handsome knight since first meeting him.

The next stop would be the village...

[MrAbdiel]

Briant seems less than delighted at the prospect of putting women in harm's way - but he has had a practical demonstration of your capacity to help in similar moments, and he appears possessed of a particularly rare noble virtue which is the capacity to see past one's own opinion of their own capacities.

"Aide. But, uh..." He places a hand over his own chest and pats it, and then a palm towards you as if pushing back a little - he will take your help, but you must follow his lead. He is surprisingly agreeable.

Bella, unsurprisingly, is not.

"What? No! No, I'm not going on alone. I'm coming with you. I'll stay back, with the crossbow."

Briant misses the content, but seems to understand the context; and approaching he raises his hand with that pushing gesture, insisting on that protective distance.

"Mademoiselle, j'ai besoin-"

"NO!" Bella cuts him off with a refusal that is as much scream of fright as it is petulant defiance; so forceful it shocks the knight back a step, sending him wondering that he might have said something offensive by accident. But you know Bella; now, as before, she refuses to abandon you even to better sense; and refuses to be sent off alone or isolated even for her own protection. Her pretty features are hard with wild alarm and defiance and her slim hands have their calloused fingertips, firm from the lonely domestic industry of her seamstress trade, curled into their palms to make shaking fists at her side.

Previously she has agreed to such conditions and then been overwhelmed by secondary thoughts to follow you, going back on her word by erring in her profusion of love for you and fear of being alone. This time, no amount of reasoning or insistence will divide her from you. Briant wants peace and seems pliable to you both coming, as long as obvious risks aren't taken and he is permitted to act at the front of matters; and by this compromise - you to the knight, Bella to you - you find yourselves following Briant, in the wake of this gang of a dozen hooded bandits off the road and into the hills nearby. Observing the brigands then, you perceive they are not professionals, it seems. All have long bows; but the weapons on their hips are wooden mallets, sickles, cloth-wrapped kitchen knives and other tools repurposed to war. A couple have gambesons, but most are dressed in simple tunics cinched with short lengths of rope; feet shot in sandals of goat skin with wooden soles. If they are robbing travellers regularly, they are not being greatly enriched by it. Their most conspicuous item of clothing is the mantle they all wear; a flop of roughspun wool over the shoulders with a hood they use to, quite conciously, try to conceal their features from the knight.

It's only an hour or so of walk through the green hills in the cool air of the day before the brigands hold up, and their leader points to the hill up ahead. You can already hear them from here; three heavy, basso voices from jowly throats complaining to one another in a gutteral language you have never heard before; neither in fragments, nor in lexical nearness.

Briant signals the brigands to move back, and they are happy to do so - they remain behind the curve of the hill two hills back from the sounds. Taking a moment to unfasten the load from Cleménce's back and stashing them on a heap on the ground - he seems confident the bandits will not steal from him, which is a great amount of faith to place in such people - he pulls himself into the saddle. This hazardous situation seems to be an exception to his normal refusal to ride while ladies walk.

Together, you and Bella with guns in hand and Briant in the saddle of his warhorse, approach the hill, until Briant signals you to halt.

"Salut à vous, ogres! Je viens de l'autre côté de la colline, maintenant. Voulez-vous traiter avec moi?"

The chatter over the hill silences, and you hear a rustle of movement as those beyond prepare themselves. If surprise was an option, Briant has spiked it early.

A voice calls back.

"Peut-être que nous le ferons - qui y va? Si vous êtes le chevalier de Donallo, venez faire une trahison, je vous mangerai et je vous chevalerai tous les deux." The ogre, clearly, speaks surprisingly verbose Breton.

The knight replies. "Pas le chevalier de Donallo; mais un chevalier quand même. Je m'appelle Sir Briant - et mes compagnons sont deux dames de Tilea sous ma protection. Voulez-vous me donner votre parole de sécurité?"

"Vous l'avez, Sir Briant. Allez maintenant, où nous pouvons voir."

That seems to be enough, and Briant mounts the hill on his black steed.

Standing on the other side, in a gully between a trio of hills spared some of the sharper breezes, are three massive ogres. They are as physically imposing as you remember: brutes of eight feet tall in smallest case, and closer to ten for the leader. Two have huge clubs with metal spikes jutting out of them; the leader has a greatsword in each hand that were clearly made for smaller hands. Their hilts have been bulked out with rugged wraps of leather, but the brutes arms hold them loosely at his sides as easily as a human might hold a pair of fencing swords.

Most remarkably is their garb. For armor, they have iron shod boots, leather bracers around their thick forearms. And each wears a kind of thick hide girdle that suspends a plate of iron over their protrusive guts, each plate larger than a man's shield. But beyond those elements, the clothing beneath - oversized as it is - is familiar to you. Puffy sleeves, high collars, fur trimmed tabards of velvet cloth. And each with an armin style wool cap; stained with greasy and bloody fingerprints but worn with obvious pride, each with a feather in varying states of crumple and disrepair.

And each of them wears a great, big, pronouncedly green sash from shoulder to hip, in the style you are familiar with indeed.

Beyond these familiar trimmings, their condition seems rather ragged. Each might have had a confined beard and moustache but they have grown out to ambiguous chin-mops now. Each of them is fat and well fed, but a crumpled, fly-swarmed pile of woolen skins nearby suggest that numerous sheep have been eaten, blood and bones and all except their wool - but you detect no trace of a campfire. Each of the ogres is grubby and bloody especially from the chin down - a condition that might disgust someone who did not grow up to become accustomed to much, much worse.

The leader of the ogres swings the dark but obviously intelligent beady eyes over you and Bella. He squints at you, as if trying to... guess, or determine, or recognize something about you. Not a lascivious look - however tall you are, you can't possibly register on his spectrum of amorous pursuit if ogres do such things. He is more likely to regard you as food - but you don't think that's it, either.

And then his big fat face splits into an ugly, if not completely unwholesome grin - and he sticks one sword in the dirt at his feet to free a hand. He snaps his fingers, and points his huge index finger at you.

"You..." he begins, in perfect Tilean, "are Taalia Trollslayer!"

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia watched as both frustration and weary love as Bella injected her typical passion into her resistance to Briant and her own attempts to send her forward the the village. In many ways, Taalia knew this would be the result: Bella was too stubborn by half. She'd already shown it with the troll some years ago. And if words were to be believed, she had expressed it when she had learned that Taalia had sneakily went away to fight the pirates in her absence. It was a beatuiful loyalty, a truly content companionship she felt with the other orphan of the world, and her heart ached that she had to try and ask this of her each time - but Taalia was, by far, the more 'seasoned' of the two of them. Bella was no stranger to violence. Not now. But fate had always preserved her each time, while the shepardess knew how ugly it could get if things did not go their way. The idea of putting her beloved friend into harms way like that drew a knot in her stomach each time, but Taalia knew she couldn't convince the slightly older girl of any other option. The last time she had attempted and 'agreed' to do so was back in the swamps when she had set out to rescue Cestie's grandson...Bella had come along any way, following along behind by ten minutes or so.

And so, with regular, weary resignation, Taalia put one arm around the smaller womans shoulders and kissed her on the forehead before letting her go.

"Stay near the back; you don't know ogres, these aren't cowardly rat-men or animalistic trolls. They're not brilliant, but they can be cunning. And they can move a lot quicker that you might think; you won't be able to out-run them if things go poorly."

With that, the troupe set off through the forest, Taalia with her rifle over her shoulder, among other weapons. She took the time to visually inspect the men about her, noting their lack of standard-issue items, instead haphazardly carrying about whatever melee weapons they could. Cudgels were easy enough. A solid, sturdy stick would do. That so few had weapons of iron or steel spoke of their poor situations, though those bows could be nasty if they were massed upon a target and the men had any practice at accuracy at all. Given how well they seemed to know the woods, as Taalia sometimes peered across as the towering tree's about her, stretching up to blot out most of the sun with a green leaf canopy, it was likely they were hunters, part time at least. Maybe if they mass-focused on one ogre at a time they could bring them down in due order. But...that would likely depend on the terrain. Finally, they brokered upon a hill and Taalia's excellent hearing could detect the throaty, guttural voices of the ogres. Even just the baritone gravel of their sounds gave hint to the size of the brutes, as the shepardess turned her eyes to look at Bella, almost with a 'I told you so...' look on her face.

When they neared the top of the hill, Taalia's inner slave instinct was already wondering how they could best use this situation. Assumedly, the ogres, however many there were, were down in a gully: they could open fire and then retreat back down their own hill, drawing the ogres up to the top where they would be open sitting ducks for the thirteen bowmen waiting in the trees.

That was about the best tactical planning they had at the moment! But what Taalia had not planned on was being recognized.

Moving up to the crest of the hill, crouching, rifle in hand, Taalia felt her muscles clench and a shiver run down her back when she spotted the beasts in humanoid form. They were every bit as hulking and imposing as she remembered; big, muscular arms as thick as a mans waist with deep, broad chests and ugly heads that were too thick and tough by half. But what immediately stood out to the shepardess was the way in which the beasts wore their clothing. Or at least, the apparent leader. He had a green cloak that ran diagonally from one thick shoulder down to the other side of its waist, a style that was distinctly in her memory as being the fashion of the politically outspoken back in Verezzo. She had given her loyalty and vote to the Yellow faction, naturally, out of gratitude for their rescue of her from the pyre. But she remembered the greens as being some type of forward-minded lot...they even encouraged women to serve openly as elected politicians. Or was that the blue faction? had the greens been the religious ones?

"You...are Taalia Trollslayer!"

Right now she was a deer in the lantern-light, because Taalia's hetereochromia eyes widened in shock, her mouth gaping a little as her rifle rested in her hands.

"Yo...you recognise me?!" she balked, her voice carrying in the wind from the top of that hill, the surprise rescinding from her body as she straightened herself up, eyes narrowing.

"You know me? Who the hell are you?"

[MrAbdiel]

"'Ard to mistake, I think, based on the gossip. Tall for a human, white hair, all scarred up. I heard you blew the top off the tower in Verezzo, and all and sundry were making a song and dance about it." The ogre gestures loosely with one hand toward your head. "I see you've kept your neck in place, after all that. Good for you, I say."

Bella is amazed to hear this, and lets the muzzle of the blunderbuss point a little further away from the chatty ogres. The idea that the saga, with you in the tower and she and Gaulfredo dancing for awareness of the injustice while Emio fiddles and Nogrom badgered the local peacekeepers, had echoed in some legendary form this far north... Well, it's more impact that she'd ever imagine she would have in the world. But the ogres do seem to be in some fashion Tilean, and even Verezzan; and less like bare-chested hooligans pouring down over the eastern mountains into the lands of men and dwarves.

"Est-ce que vous, euh... Connaissez-vous?" Briant asks, clueless at this baffling turn. The ogre shifts back to Breton; the trilingual behemoth cordially replying.

"Seulement par réputation. Vous voyez les cheveux blancs et quelle est sa taille? c'est la fille tueuse de trolls de Bella Collina."

This doesn't clear things up much more.

Spoiler: OOC: Perception +20; Insight based

Show

The other two ogres watch on and listen in, but they seem less canny at understanding the Breton being spoken, and immediately understanding of the Tilean.

"Giorno Boddok," the ogre introduces himself; the first name distinctively Tilean and the second perhaps more true to his older origins. He even gives you a little bow, which prompts the other two to bow also. He thumbs toward them, as they do. "Bruk, and Tiny."

Confusingly, Tiny is the one who is neither the shortest nor tallest of the three.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

This would be a good time for a charm roll, if you're interested in giving peace a chance; with a +20 bonus for your reputation and common 'origins'. If you'd prefer to try to leverage yourself as a threatening presense, you could try Intimidate instead.

Briant seems to be banking on a peaceful solution; but he doesn't speak Tilean, so he can't keep track of what you're doing!

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia couldn't help but smile at the mention of the Tower of Verezzo, her expression turning into a grin and spreading across her face as a flushed, almost bashful look. That had been almost two years ago - what a spitfire she had been! Then her 'scene' in the court room...the shepardess bit her bottom lip as if remembering a fond but slightly embarrassing memory.

For now, the idea that she had a 'reputation' that not only moved through parts of the country but across boarders, and this far up, was not settling into her mind. She'll allow that mixture of ego-boosting and humility to arrive later in her attention.

For now, the girl looked bashful as she seemed to relax a little, her rifle muzzle moving down to face the ground as she held the weapon over her forearm, its butt against her shoulder/chest connection.

"Yeah...that was me..." she finally spoke. Reaching to her neck, the shepardess probed her fingers to her collar and withdrew from beneath her mail the tooth of the troll that was affixed about a necklace. She held it up to display the trophy, the finger-length fang smoothed out around the tip by now so that it was relatively safe to wear, and not prone to self-stabbing accidents.

"Taalia Giovanni..." she gave a little bow, her free hand doing a little curl by her side for a touch of flourish.

"This is Bella de Pescari, the beauty of Bella Collina!" she gestured to her companion cradling the blunderbuss, a playful smile on her face.

"And you've met my new companion here," Taalia motioned to Briant.

"What brings you this far out? You originate from Tilea?"

[MrAbdiel]

Giorno laughs; a sound that reminds you for some reason of a great bullfrog croaking away in a swamp somewhere. "Much further east than that; but you're right more or less."

When no violence manifests - neither from your guns, nor Briant on his horse, nor the ogres with their great clubs, an level and peaceful accord settles over the gathering; and the ogres (especially the subordinate two) are happy to divulge their story to you and Bella - with Giorno generously looping Briant in with his apparently polylingual mastery.

Tilea is a popular destination for ogres looking for distant mercenary work, and Giorno's gang did just that for several years after working their way through the Border Princes and looking for somewhere "a little more civilized, innit". And after kicking about in Luccini swatting Sartosan pirates, they drifted north to Verezzo to seek new fortunes. But they arrived too late to take place in the war against Pavona (just as well, since that was an embarrassment for Verezzo!), and after a number of smaller contracts sorting out property disputes for senators, they were sponsored by the Green faction as a Verezzan contribution to the effort against the orcs up north - a token offer from the southern Republic for the Principality of Miragliano guarding the mountain pass. This must have been around the time of your incarceration, considering their knowledge of your adventures; and ever since they had worn their sponsor's colors and worked with the Miragleanan cordon to keep the greenskins contained. Their particular duty involved roaming into the mountains and busting up pockets of greenskins hiding in abandoned mountain towns; a situation that would be a costly ambush for human soldiers but, for the mountain-savvy and arrow-resistant ogres, was steady and rewarding work.

But the greenskin infestation in the mountains comes in ebbs and flows; and during their mountain operations a few months ago, they found their way back to the Tilean border blocked by too great numbers of opposition, and were forced to retreat to the Bretonnian side.

"Lord Donallo and his knights were serving at the cordon at the time, 'an he seemed trustworthy enough. Carcassonne is the place one goes in Bretonnia for mercenary work. But two weeks on the job on this side of the mountains and he choofed off, and never bloody paid us. And when we knocked on the castle door, they shot at us. Tiny took an arrow in the head, he did."

The medium sized ogres nods, in placid agreement. You can see the broken shaft of an arrow, now that you're looking for it, poking from a tuft of hair on his scalp. How deep it goes is unclear; but he seems to be used to it.

"And we've been camped out here ever since, eating his sheep until he settles accounts. I used to like sheep, too; but it's hard to go back to raw and bloody meat when you've lived in Tilea for years."

Lord Donallo seems to be neglecting his promises both to his peasants and his mercenaries, and this has brought them into conflict. Briant looks to be worried - he seems to know the name of this Lord, and is less than pleased to accept charges of his failures; but you detect a relief that this interaction with the ogres at least didn't come to violence.

Bella whispers to you. "I thought they didn't accept mercenaries at all, north of the mountains - all knights and peasants, and no one who doesn't belong to a parcel of land somewhere. It seems hardly fair to accept their work without paying them... But they're ogres..." The tone of her voice betrays a lack of commitment to the sentiment that their ogrishness should override the integrity men owe each other in contracts. "This... Donallo has a great deal to answer for. What do you think?"

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


Taalia listened with a curious eye as Giorno told them the story of the traveling ogres, and the curious way that fate had intersected their movements along with that of Taalia's. To think that the green-cloth wearing ogres had heard of her! And at that time! They had carried the story of her exploits, rash and reckless as they had been, through the mountain-breach of Tilean's eastern regions all the way up to here. Imagine if she had not come upon them today? Would they have spread words of the tall, fiesty human girl who used gunpowder to solve the problem of impenetrable walls, and then had taken the time to blow the people kisses rather than affect an escape? The girl would be lying if she would have had to answered whether it fed her ego a little, the idea that she would be the talk of the town and so far away! Her spectacle at the tower and her ensuing court case having captured the publics imagination. But, in another way it was humbling, to think that even after she was gone in the years to come, there would always be the legend of Taalia Giovanni - the one who detonated the walls of the 'inescapable tower'.

Thankfully, Bella was on hand to give the girl a gentle nudge in her ribs when she noticed her taller friend starting to get carried off on the flights of her own image. "Ow!" the shepardess would utter, pursing her lips and blushing gently in an admittance and silent gratitude for the course correction.

But then matters changed to those more proximal and, arguably, important.

"Lord Donallo and his knights were serving at the cordon at the time, 'an he seemed trustworthy enough. Carcassonne is the place one goes in Bretonnia for mercenary work. But two weeks on the job on this side of the mountains and he choofed off, and never bloody paid us. And when we knocked on the castle door, they shot at us. Tiny took an arrow in the head, he did."

Taalia furrowed a brow as she looked over at Briant. She was glad that the knight seemed relieved that a fight was not necessary, as the ogres seemed more hospitable than their brutish appearance would suggest. (though perhaps such a result would have been more likely had the surprisingly intelligent Giorno not been with them) However, he seemed conflicted about the news on this Lord Donallo, as if he was acting out of character. Taalia knew very little of the customs of this land, but she doubted stiffing ones workers and retracting on ones deals was seen as a particularly noble thing to do. Was there more at play?

Bella whispers to you. "I thought they didn't accept mercenaries at all, north of the mountains - all knights and peasants, and no one who doesn't belong to a parcel of land somewhere. It seems hardly fair to accept their work without paying them... But they're ogres..." The tone of her voice betrays a lack of commitment to the sentiment that their ogrishness should override the integrity men owe each other in contracts. "This... Donallo has a great deal to answer for. What do you think?"

"Still..." Taalia replied in a soft whisper, holding both hands up flat, "a deal is a deal; you keep it or find acceptable settlement,"

The girl pursed her lips, looking over at the hulking ogre.

"How much does Lord Donaldo owe you?" she asked.

After receiving an answer, she would look at Briant, try or think of how to speak to him, before pursing her lips, and asking Giorno to translate.

"You seem like you know Lord Donallo to be a respectable man as his normal self. Should we investigate his condition?"

[MrAbdiel]

The account, it seems, is not a small one. Ogre mercenaries are juggernauts in combat, and their services tend to come at a premium. Giorno's Brawny Three is strictly speaking a recognized Tilean mercenary company with a hiring fee of 200 gold crowns, and then 50 crowns a week for weeks spend in active engagement; food and lodging only for those weeks spend on march (though that doesn't seem likely to be much cheaper.) Lord Donallo would owe them 300 crowns, plus whatever damages might be reasonable to smooth over this kerfuffle - an amount that gives even your malachite-slinging digits pause on the way to your purse.

It's odd using the ogre as a translator, but he seems conversational enough and it beats pantomime. Briant agrees - Donallo must be questioned, and the questions of a peer might demand an answer more than those of peasants and foreigners.

"Mighty decent, signorina Troll-Slayer. These froggy nobles aim high, but I prefer a paymaster who is honest in his greed." He says this to you with a wink, as if Tilean to Tilean, at the expense of the clueless Briant who, beside you, is engaged in a part-charades exchange with Bella.

"Taalia," she reports when she has decoded the knight's will and the ogres aren't listening closely, "Briant wants to send us up the road with the horse to bring back some beasts to cook - a feast for the outlaws and the ogres and outlanders, so we can head off tomorrow on full stomachs to see about Donallo. I think he's trying to smooth the displeasure for his friend, but I suppose that's his right. Look!" She flashes you the glittering interior of a purse she has been given - there may be forty Bretonnian ecu within.

"You were making deals in Bella Collina before you could cleanly speak the language, right? We can do it - come back with a few sheep or an ox. Maybe - maybe even some spices and vegetables to make sauces. We don't have a full kitchen, but I think we could make it work!"

Briant, who seems to intend to remain here as a peacekeeper and a form of human collateral, looks to you, and mimes eating with a spoon.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


Taalia felt unusual, but slowly reassured the more that she spoke and chatted with the ogres, particularly Giorno. The other two weren't bad but...well they were dumb. They were pretty dumb. The way they spoke, the way they viewed concepts and their perspective, Taalia was by no means some elite snob from her ivory tower, but it was most definitely a test of her patience to smile, nod and laugh a little whenever one of the other ogres said something that the two of them thought was hilarious, but for which Taalia was just left to feign a smile. It didn't feel nice to do. Giorno, on the other hand, was interesting to the shepardess, as he was clearly gifted with expanded mental faculties compared to his brethren, which allowed him to appreciate the world in more ways than one. He spoke of Tilea, Bretonnia and beyond. He was a traveller and had lived a fascinating, if violent, life.

At the mention of what was owed, the girl rose her eyebrows. That is how much ogre mercenaries could make?! That was an incredible sum! The shepardess knew that she had the gems to cover such a bill hidden away in her belongings, but she did not see any point in paying the ogres the full guarantee...because that wouldn't solve the underlying problem of the oddly behaving local lord.

Then came the suggestion...

"Taalia," she reports when she has decoded the knight's will and the ogres aren't listening closely, "Briant wants to send us up the road with the horse to bring back some beasts to cook - a feast for the outlaws and the ogres and outlanders, so we can head off tomorrow on full stomachs to see about Donallo. I think he's trying to smooth the displeasure for his friend, but I suppose that's his right. Look!" She flashes you the glittering interior of a purse she has been given - there may be forty Bretonnian ecu within.

"You were making deals in Bella Collina before you could cleanly speak the language, right? We can do it - come back with a few sheep or an ox. Maybe - maybe even some spices and vegetables to make sauces. We don't have a full kitchen, but I think we could make it work!"

Briant, who seems to intend to remain here as a peacekeeper and a form of human collateral, looks to you, and mimes eating with a spoon.

Taalia was...suspicious. None of the Bretonnian men, none, were going to accomplish Taalia and Bella to the next town? None at all? The girls slave instincts were ringing in the back of her head: they were trying to get rid of the two girls so they could try to sort the problem out themselves. The lords castle was fortified, so best send the two ladies away lest violence unfold. She couldn't be mad at Briant, if that's what he was planning, as it's probably a ploy she would do to get Bella out of danger. Besides, she didn't have any real proof...just her suspicions.

Pursing her lips, thinking about Bella first...she didn't want to bring the girl near a potentially hostile lord armed with a castle, bowmen and knights, even with a few ogres and Briant by their side. She hoped that what Briant was offering was the truth, as he seemed quite the ideal image of Bretonnian chivalry so far, but who knew - maybe deception was acceptable if it meant 'vulnerable ladies' could be placed out of harms way?

Receiving the purse and opening it, Taalia could see how her single gold coin-worth Malachite had saved Briant a considerable sum...but, if this was his pocket change, he surely had a particularly wealthy family waiting for him somewhere. Again, the shepardess looked over at her Tilean beauty friend with an idea lingering in the back of her own mind. Would that be the happy ending Bella deserved? After a life of abandonment and neglect, she was whisked away by a handsome knight to live a wealthy life?

Nodding, looking over at Briant with a look of I-suspect-you-have-an-ulterior-plan-please-do-not-go-through-with-it on her face, Taalia smiled and nodded, "Si," she said, standing up and brushing herself down.

"Singore Giorno," she addressed the ogre politely.

"My friend and I will go to the nearest Bretonnian town. We will try and gather the materials for everyone to enjoy a hearty meal! I...don't know how much ogres consume, I am assuming it is more than we?" she gestured between Giorno and his two companions, "we will try and make it a sheeps worth each - would that be satisfactory?"

If it were, then Taalia would provide the necessary and polite departure protocols to the ogres, Briant and the bowmen, before taking her friend Bella by the hand and leading her back towards the road and on to the next town...