Trifecta: The Stones' Teeth

[Serpent Stare]

"Pity 'bout the stew," mumbles Ovurka to herself as she mounts her horse again and pats it reassuringly. "Sorry 'bout the wait," she whispers to it, and turns her orange eyes back to her companions to hear the decision.

[Toliudar]

Orwell

As they pull out of town, the cart picks up a more regular pace.

Well, could we head towards one of the towns that was, er, emptied? At the very least, we've got a good chance of finding some vestige of the creature - or creatures' - marks.

[Santanya]

Duantan

"Heading towards the closest of the emptied towns will most likely be the most fruitful," he says as they ride. "The temple there appeared to be the towns inn as well, so any travelers would be stopping by there, eager to spill any gossip they have. Other's probably spend more time working than traveling." He smiles slightly as they ride, happy to be making what felt like progress. "Someone with direct information would more likely be like the scouts that have gone missing."

[dauphinous]

Betsy

"It was kind of weird that they didn't even have a tavern. Wasn't it? I thought all small towns had some trollop who ran a bar and served herself on the side. The ones I've been to before always seemed to." Thank goodness for that.

[Serpent Stare]

Ovurka gives Betsy a surprised look, and says, a little awkwardly, "Really? Bar... troll-ops... are that much everywhere? Er..." she pauses, uncomfortable, and finally says, "How come this is sometin you know about so well, Betsy?"

[dauphinous]

Betsy

"Oh. Well, I've...um..." Mildly flustered by the question, Betsy takes a few moments to compose an actual answer, though she doesn't blush. "Several of the men in a mercenary group I once worked for had...I suppose you might say they were talented at detecting...er...women of negotiable virtue." She frowns a little bit, pushing away a specific memory that rises to the surface, like half-digested food on the way back out the way it came in. "We passed through a lot of small towns."

[dariathalon]

Corwin

Corwin figures that Ovurka won't understand Betsy's attempt to put things politely, so he decides to translate. "She means she used to hang around with a group of guys who could pick out an easy woman." He smirks a little as the thought crosses his mind, Wonder what that means about Betsy back in the day. He goes on, "They found a whore in nearly every town they passed through. The innkeepers sell a bed for the night and then sell their bodies as part of the package," he says bluntly.

[Toliudar]

Orwell

Never having understood the attraction of that kind of short-term contact, Orwell looks on, listening as to a natural history lecture.

So, some of your men, they pay extra for a bed because someone else is already in it? Fascinating. I suppose it would be warmer.

[Santanya]

Duantan

Duantan chuckles softly. "Well, it probably was after they enjoyed it together," he says with a shrug, giving Orwell a glance. "To each his or her own I suppose," he adds, shaking his head. "There's more enjoyable prizes in the world."

[dauphinous]

Betsy

Orwell's comment just makes Betsy confused, and it shows, clearly and plainly. She shrugs, though, not particularly curious about the habits of dwarves. Or maybe it was a particular sect thing on his part, in which case she is mildly curious, but not enough to be so impolite as to ask.

The brief thought process she spares on the improbability of a male not knowing anything about whoring is only enough to make her miss the first couple of words from Duantan. Nodding in agreement with him, she sits up a little more. "It's not really all that different from arranged marriage. Money for sex is not so different than money for a wife. Fewer entanglements with more risk. Actual cost is similar over the long term."

[Serpent Stare]

Ovurka stays quiet and reddens just a little, listening interestedly to all this and nodding vaguely. It isn't that she's unaware of humans' cultural tendencies when it comes to sex, per se, but it isn't her world, and she wasn't aware of the predominance of whoring in inns - she'd simply never bothered to think about it before. She shakes her head, a little, and says, "Seems like it'd be a lot of work, to me. Woman'd have her hands full enough with just running the place, wouldn' she?" She shrugs. How human women ran their businesses wasn't hers. "So. Er. Are we gonna go then?"

[dariathalon]

Corwin

Corwin pipes up again, sounding more than a little hostile as he speaks. (What else is new.) "Mommy dearest seemed to make it work just fine. Though she didn't run the place. She was just one of those barmaids that Betsy's so familiar with. She took a road-weary traveller or two into her bed in her day. Not usually for pay as far as I'm aware, but I wouldn't put it past her."

[Serpent Stare]

Ovurka stares, shocked, at Corwin. ...Oh. Oh, she thinks, and feels guilty about bringing it up. She drops her eyes to the ground to avoid Corwin's angry gaze and bites her lip. Hard. As a bit of blood starts to ooze around her teeth she glances around at the others and waits desperately for someone to change the subject, or at least distract Crowin's fury from her words.

[Santanya]

Duantan

Duantan rolls his eyes in response to Corwin's rantings as they ride. "You really should have been a bard, Corwin. You get enough passion over every little thing for it," he says, chuckling softly as he peers around the group. They were traveling through unknown lands, so it was worth taking a moment or two every bit for it.

"People make money the best way they can, no harm in that. Doesn't make them better or worse, just makes them people," he says, glancing to the others.

[dauphinous]

Betsy

Dropping her eyes down at first, Betsy lifts them and looks over at Ovurka, trying to make eye contact. Ovurka is always nice to her, and to everyone else, for that matter. She mouthes the words 'it's okay' and gives as encouraging a smile as she's capable of at the moment, which is rather small...but still there.

[Toliudar]

Orwell

Riffing on something Duantan had just said, Orwell makes another of his patented conversational left turns without signalling.

Perhaps I have a great deal to learn from you, Corwin. My investigations have suggested that, often, powerfully roused emotions can not only give a body brief bursts of great stamina, but can in a more controlled fashion lead to improved blood flow and overall health. In short, better living through managed anger. You may be on to something. We could write a book.

[dariathalon]

Corwin

Spoiler

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Just to make things clear, Corwin didn't sound particularly upset with any of the other PCs. His hostility was directed at his mother, though I suppose it could be misunderstood by some. Corwin does like most of the others in the party, he is just moody and a little overly dramatic about it.

Corwin ignores what Orwell has said for a moment and responds to Duantan first. "You're absolutely right. I don't judge her for how she chose to earn her money or even for who she took to bed. There are plenty of other reasons for me to despise her."

He then turns to Orwell to respond to him, actually eager to change the subject himself. "If that's true I think I'll live to be a very healthy, if not particularly happy, old man." He cracks a smile at this and lets out a small snort of what could almost be called laughter. "What do you think, my fair librarian? Do we have a book idea on our hands?"

[Serpent Stare]

Spoiler

Show

Ovurka is precisely the type to suspect she's angered someone when they show hostility, and Corwin's general impatience with her has likely caused her to feel that she is good at making him angry without meaning to in the past. All in all, even though I don't think Corwin's trying to take everything out on her, she probably does.

It takes a moment for her to notice Betsy's look, but once she does, Overka offers her a strained expression back. Not until Corwin answers Orwell's suggestion to write a book does she loosen up, opening her mouth to take a deep, long, breath of air... and winces a bit as her teeth are withdrawn from her lip. She sighs faintly of relief, not wanting to draw attention to herself, and smiles an awkward smile back to Betsy, one that has significantly more of an element of I-can't-believe-I-just-survived-that than she's ever shown with regards to any of the several heated and deadly combats she's taken part in.

Feeling that she's spoken too much already, Ovurka stays quiet and just waits for one of the more assertive characters in the party to get around to determining the actual plan of what to do next.

[McSherrie]

Evi's fingers twitch as if she's writing in an invisible book again as she listens to everyone around her, her eyes jumping between the speakers. "You know, traditionally the women of disrepute were the ones who were the best educated. Therefore, they were far more likely, historically speaking, to have written about themselves and their lives. In fact, much of what I have learned about life in the world beyond acadamia comes from the writings of these women of questionable morality..." She thinks about it for a moment, and blushes furiously when she realizes what this means about her. "Um, well, yes, so... We should, um, continue on then?" Still blushing, Evi refuses to meet anyone's eyes for a bit as she composes herself.

[Santanya]

Duantan

Duantan chuckles softly as they ride along. "And this is why I never get bored around you people," he comments.

[Serpent Stare]

After a long and inexplicable silence among her comrades, Ovurka begins to get tired and nods off to the soothing rhythm of her horse's hoofbeats. Until the horse moved suddenly to get around a rather big and protruding stone in the road, and jostles her. "Awgweth trrrengle..." grunts Ovurka, still mostly asleep, "Geroff mer. Getter offa my... Owch..." The grumbling orc does not seem to realize that the source of her discomfort is that she has got her ankle stuck in the stirrup.

[McSherrie]

Evi attempts to manuever her horse closer to Ovurka's, intending initially to untangle the stirrup and ankle. She thinks better of this, however, knowing that waking a sleeping orc with physical contact is not always the best idea - especially an orc trained to kill. Instead, she moves her horse a step or two away and says, "Ovurka, wake up. I think you're twisted up somehow. You know, I seem to remember reading about a hero in the dark days of history who cut off his stirrups after just such an incident. His first inclination was to have his horse butchered for such an insult, but his generals pointed out that well trained war horses were far harder to come by than new saddles..."

[Serpent Stare]

"Muh?" Ovurka grunts partly awake, grumbling something in orcish and opening one orange eye. "Sr'y? ...What? Kill the horse? I wouldn do that..." She looks down, groggily, and sees her ankle caught in the stirrup, then carefully leans over to untangle her foot, which takes a moment, and requires her to stop moving. Once she's got her foot back, she urges on the horse to catch up to the others again. "Mm. Thanks Evi. I was starting dremming a great big lizard snake thing had got me. Did I miss enthing?"

[Santanya]

Duantan

Duantan shakes his head as they ride. "Not too much, there was a squirrel a ways back, but it ran off without imparting its wisdom. Probably would have just demanded a toll of nut anyways," he says, keeping his voice perfectly serious as he looks towards Ovurka.

[dauphinous]

Betsy

Giving just a bare, light giggle, Betsy looks over at Ovurka. "That's really brave. I would have called something like that a nightmare, and probably done something embarrassing like scream in my sleep. I was actually kind of dozing off myself, sort of dreaming about-" Betsy blushes bright pink all the way to her ears as she cuts herself off abruptly. "Um, nothing, really. It was just, uh, silly...nothing."

After another few moments, she blushes even more, a deeper red.

[dariathalon]

Corwin

Corwin adjusts himself in the saddle. "Riding may be tiring, but I don't know how anyone can get comfortable enough on one of these things to fall asleep. Anybody know when we'll reach our destination?"

[Serpent Stare]

Ovurka continues along, shaking the remnants of sleep from her head. "Nuts to the squirler, hm?" she mutters, summoning up a bit of a tired smile. "An' we're no nuts to give him either. Too bad for him." She gives Corwin a tired look, and says, "I can't say I like falling sleepy on a horse... but I think I haven't been getting quite enough rest for the last cobble days." She yawns. "It's talkin' talls." She pauses for a moment, grumbling slightly, shakes her head again, and corrects herself. "Taking tolds, I mean."

[McSherrie]

Evi shifts uncomfortably in her saddle. "You know, there was an ancient civilization that I read about once who designed their saddles specifically so that they could be slept in. While this was brilliant for their ability to conduct trade with far off nations, it did tend to hamper them somewhat in terms of warfare. In fact, in the Brilliant Battle of Buskersville, the soldiers were all taken by surprise during their afternoon nap and advance, resulting in perhaps the greatest overkill of all time."

[Serpent Stare]

Ovurka, having nearly begun to nod off again, shakes herself awake once more to listen. "They all gotted killed? Mmm. Cruel enemies. But with stories like tha'... You right, I'd better stay awake then, hmm?" She straightens her back and rubs her eyes, grumbling minor complaints (in Orc) about feeling tired and not being able to sleep properly. After a while, she adds, "When we get to where we go, though, I am going to find summin and sleep fer a bit. Tha's first thin, fer me." She steels herself to awakeness, sitting up... well, mostly straight, and riding on, looking around alertly as though expecting trouble to come from around any corner.