1629, Dark Season, Fertility Week, Godday
Context
There are some lessons in manners and people skills delivered. Text-based rp, picks up right after: Too close to the Sun-dome.
Events
Kolyey carefully sits down in the common room of Geo’s.
Geo’s emptied out to watch the duel, except for those lucky enough to have a window seat. There are people coming back in now, and one of them is Berra. She bounced out of the crowd like an apple pip squeezed from finger and thumb, and brings herself to a halt by slamming her hands down on the table. “How fucking dare you?”
It’s a strong starting question.
Kolyey gives the question a moment’s thought. “What am I supposed to think about a bunch of Sun Dome people in battle gear?”
Varanis strides in after, giving the room a hard warning stare. Or at least she tries to. The problem is that she’s just not intimidating when she’s also trying not to smirk.1Oops. Fumbled intimidate.
“NOT WHAT I ASKED!” Berra has a good shout on her. Right now, the Sun Dome Templars on their way home will be able to hear her. “I did not ask why you started a fight, I asked you how you dared do it! You said I would kill them!”
The innkeeper hands Varanis a bowl of seasoned nuts, then distributes a few others to nearby tables.
Kolyey decides that silence is the best tactic.
The Vingan watches the scene unfold. She pops a nut into her mouth and chews thoughtfully.
Berra leans forward a bit. “You spoke for my behaviour in a matter of honour,” she says clearly. “What that guy did was right, and it saved me the effort.”
Kolyey almost says something. Almost.
People who are coming in are hushing each other, the better to listen.
“When someone comes to pay ransom, they are bloody well sacrosanct.” Berra takes a deep breath. “You do not insult them if you have a good name. You do not threaten them unless you have thought about it and decided to cause a feud.”
Varanis makes a sound like she’s thinking of interjecting, but doesn’t end up saying anything.
“They didn’t mention a ransom. They just asked for you.”
“And did you ask why?” Berra is building in volume again.
“No.”
“Yeah. I thought not. You said that I would offer them violence. So I’d have had to apologise for that, or fight them. Maybe both. Ever considered a vow of shutting the hell up and not putting your foot in it?”
The audience listens with consideration, and in several cases snacks.
X11 notes, “This would have resulted in inefficient communication. Perhaps some sort of hand gesture language?”
Varanis shushes the dwarf.
Kolyey gives X1138 a thoughtful look.
Berra winces. “Not the time, Eks,” she mutters. It takes her a moment to get her thoughts back together, but it is a short moment. “You fucked up,” she tells Kolyey. “And enmeshed my honour in it.”
Kolyey doesn’t answer.
“So, I’m going to go to their Temple now, and apologise. You? I want you to understand just how angry I am. You don’t assume. You find out. Then you strike, if you have to.” Berra is still glaring at Kolyey.
Kolyey is apparently thinking of something.
Berra continues glaring as she waits.
Kolyey finally says, “Yes, Commander. I have only one thing left to do here. I will go do it now.”
“Which is?” Berra looks suddenly distrustful.
Ecks appears to be taking mental notes.
“I need to talk to the High Llama ghost about how to give the whirlvish a proper funeral, then do it.”
Varanis winces.
“Alright. What after that?” Berra still seems suspicious.
There is a general nodding from the crowd, like this sort of entertainment was worth the effort of staying quiet while Orlanthi.
“I believe I am still welcome at Tourney Altar. I might wait out the snow there before I return to Boldhome.”
Varanis shakes her head. “Running away from this won’t fix it, Kolyey. Nor will it see your duties through. You stay with us until your commander sends you away.” She’s gone completely serious now.
Berra shuts up to let Varanis speak.
“We all make mistakes,” the Vingan continues. “And we have to learn from them.” It’s a lesson Orlanthi know well.
There is still some glaring, but Berra’s look at Kolyey is not one of argument.
“My duties might be better served by my absence,” Kolyey points out.
The dwarf mutters something about “overtempering iron”
“So you hearin’ me telling you to go? Are you guessing again, or are you asking? Waiting to find out, or just acting?”
Varanis shakes her head again and sighs.
“Just acting,” admits Kolyey.
“Right. So, what’re you going to do about that?”
“Permission to return my borrowed gear to the Regiment?”
The Dwarf notes conversationally, “Bronze also, overworked with the hammer becomes hard and brittle. A crafted weapon can snap.”
“Why?” Berra asks. “Are you not going to need it?”
Varanis offers Eks her bowl of nuts.
There is a buzz of conversation now, with people telling each other what they would do if they were Kolyey, if they were Berra.
A strip of red… stuff is offered to the Vingan
“I seem to be more trouble than I am worth. I love the Regiment, but it might be best for it if I resign.”
Varanis accepts, but winces at Kolyey’s words and Berra’s inevitable reply.
“You a coward?” Berra asks sharply.
“I have never fled from battle.” Kolyey says after a moment, “I need to think.”
Ecks carefully scrutinises a nut, then draws a knife and bisects it before inspecting each half. “What arrangement do you have to harvest Aldryami potential cables?”
Berra waits.
Kolyey looks confused. “None,” she tells the dwarf.
“Ignore him. Think.” Berra keeps up the eyeball-related pressure on Kolyey. Keeps glaring.
Ecks looks to Varanis expectantly
Someone in the audience throws a nut at the dwarf. It misses.
Varanis just looks at him. “The same you have to eat whatever this is?” she suggests, turning her attention to the crowd. She’s looking for the thrower of nuts.
“Oh, processing rights agreed in the before time?”
Varanis glowers at Eks in disbelief before scanning their audience again.
There are several people with nuts, for the innkeeper here knows his stuff. Only one lot has the right mixture of young men elbowing each other to be brave, and laughter about what they are doing.2Varanis specials Scan They look like locals, of the lightweight troublemaker sort.
Varanis stalks over to their table and invites herself to sit down. If there isn’t space, she will make it.
There is a sudden hush. People who were watching Berra watching Kolyey now turn their attention to Varanis.
“This is our table,” one of the young men says. He does not seem to have caught up fully, but his mouth still works.
“Uh huh,” she replies. “But then you threw something at my friend over there. So we’re going to talk about that.”
There is some immediate glancing at the guilty party, who postures innocence.
The dwarf idly turns to watch, the nut now impaled on the iron knife.
“No I didn’t,” the young man lies.
“It’s been a day and I don’t feel like having any more duels or deaths in my general vicinity. How about a quick apology and we share a round of drinks?” The stare she levels at him is one of cool arrogance and a degree of boredom. She knows who and what she is and just in case he doesn’t, she’s giving him time to work it out. Dezar’s hilt rests at her waist.
(POUNCE HIM! says Dezar inside her mind.)
He gives a cocky grin. “I’ll have a drink, but I ain’t sorry.”3Passed Intimidate, but so did the other guy.
The Wind Lord glances around at the rest of the guy’s companions.
Berra is giving Kolyey time to think, but not giving her any chance to get away.
The companions are amused. This is how trouble goes, and then they laugh and then they win.
Kolyey silently looks over the nut thrower.
“Right. Why don’t we take this outside so that we don’t upset the innkeeper or my friends any further?” Varanis suggests.
“Is that someone you want to protect, over there, or are you just looking at Varanis?” Berra asks.
“Nah, we’re comfy here thanks,” the young man says. “Your Flintnail friend din’t get hurt.”
“It’s the insult I’m not impressed with,” she tells him.
“I am trying to determine if the Thane will need help,” Kolyey says to Berra.
Berra grins. “So you wanna stay. You just don’t want to face up to failing.”
“What? Feeding him?” Another round of smirks goes around the group.
Ecks gets up carefully and wanders over. “This unit would be happy if the friendly and unthreatening humans would take find and drink with me.”
The young man points to Ecks. “See? He gets it.”
Varanis growls, low in her throat.
A strip of the red “stuff” is put before the young man. Carefully cut with iron, in front of him.4Fails Intimidate.
The young man smiles. “The best way to get a drink around here, mate, is to flag down someone who’s carrying them out, and give them enough for you and one for them.”
The dwarf nods, idly picking up a nut still in its shell and cracking it in his hand. “Very well. Distilled alcohol?”
“You’re rewarding them for bad behaviour, Eks.”
“Yeah, you can ask for that. This side of the wall we call that licquor.”
The man ignores Varanis, giving Ecks his attention.
“This unit is engaging in pleasant pass times with this human. After we have eaten and drunk distilled alcohol, we shall engage in human games such as arm wrestling.”
“Yeah. We’ll show you a good time!”
Varanis turns to look Eks up and down. “This is your preferred outcome?”
The dwarf picks up the nut, from amidst the broken shell and eats it, and gestures to the red “stuff”. Then he picks up the beer goblet from in front of one of the men, drains it, and gestures to the wait staff, “Please refill this persons goblet with liquor, so he can drain it, and we can arm wrestle.”5This is dried chilli.
The man picks up the red stuff, and takes a bite. He holds up the goblet while he does so.
There is a lot of wincing from him suddenly, and a few red-faced expressions.
And the goblet is now filled up. “Drink up.”
The man waves the red stuff at one of his friends, and reaches for the goblet. “An’ you,” he tells Ecks.
The friend gives him a dubious look, but takes the chilly jerky strip.
By way of reassurance the dwarf also cuts a bit of the red stuff, and chews it appreciatively, before filling his goblet and draining it. He looks expectantly at the humans, then glances to Varanis, and very slowly there is a slight twitch of a grin amidst the beard.
None of the others handle the red stuff as well as Man #1, but they all pretend to.
Varanis rolls her eyes and leaves him to it. She extracts herself from the table to return to Berra and Kolyey, but keeps an eye on Eks.
Nobody tries to stop her.
Berra is still waiting for Kolyey to answer her.
And yes, the dwarf is seating himself down, and getting into an armwrestling type position.
“Alright, I’m not gonna wrestle a dwarf unless he gets me proper drunk first,” the young man says. Perhaps he knows about the strength that stone carries.
Kolyey tells Berra,”Yes. I also think X1138 has matters well in hand.”
The dwarf nods sagely, “Ah, yes, dissolving cowardice in alcohol. It is a common solution.” Was… was that just a pun?
Nobody here is capable of punning, but the young man is certainly not deaf. “What did you call me?”
“So, you do NOT need alcohol to armwrestle me?”
“Yeah. So, you ain’t asked ME what I think yet. You’ve arksed permission to go off and not have to be here any more, but you haven’t actually asked ME for advice. Or what’s going on.” Berra looks irritated about that.
“Not if you’re calling me a coward. If you’re calling me that, you can sod right off!”
Kolyey politely asks Berra, “Do you have advice, Priestess?”
Berra smiles slightly. “Yeah. Stick it out. You only get better at things if you stay in the tough situations and learn to do better.”
The dwarf stands, in so far as anyone can tell. “Then you should not start throwing objects, lie about it, and then back out of a friendly contest simply because you have not had a chance to get drunk. “
The young man looks at him. “You’re marked. So you know.”
Upon hearing the dwarf, Kolyey muses, “And then again….”
Berra sighs. “Yeah, not them. You. You be better. Everyone else, you can learn to kick into line.”
“That is unimportant. The personal safety of this unit is a third level objective. Is it the same for you?”
The man just smiles, and sips at his drink, and looks at X11 and the rest of the crew.
Kolyey nods , but keeps half of her attention on the dwarf.
Varanis sighs and walks over to the innkeeper. She hands over a wheel. “Hold this in trust. I’ll try to minimize the damage by moving this outside, but if there’s any destruction in here, I want you to know I’ll take care of it.”
“Unless your statement is misunderstood, and you offer a friendly warning. In which case, please clarify.”
The innkeeper says, “I’ll add it to your chalk,” and keeps on keeping an eye on people.
Berra looks to Kolyey. “Anyhow, trust me to tell you if I want rid of you. And don’t ask for trouble unless you’ve given it a chance to not be happening. There’s enough fights for all of us.”
X11’s young non-companion looks at him with confusion. “No, we’re done.”
Ecks also looks confused, “If this unit is marked , and you intend that as a threat, then we are clearly not done. If this unit is marked, and you intend that as a warning, you clearly have more to say. If this unit is not marked, and you wished to make an ominous statement to inflate your ego, then your breath is wasted air. Please clarify.”6OK, new rule, if Tom starts a bar fight, he has to run it. – Berra/GM
“You ever been told to fuck off?”
This might be a philosophical question.
“No. It is biologically implausible.”
Varanis strides back over to the table. “I am also looking forward to your explanation, young man?” There’s a storm brewing in her expression for anyone smart enough to recognize it.
“Then fuck off and learn how to,” the young bravo tells X11. Varanis is getting ignored for the moment.
The Dwarf tilts his head. “No. But you may leave. That would ensure you were separated from me.”
Whatever sign the man makes, lifting his middle digit like he is volunteering to be the third dwarf into a collapsing tunnel, it seems to mean something to his friends.
Berra sighs a little. “We might have to drag our friends away. Turns out dwarfs have an ego,” she says quietly to Kolyey.
The dwarf waits, impassively.
The man starts ignoring the dwarf.
“I think Varanis might be difficult to drag,” Kolyey says to Berra.
“Yeah, you get her. I get the dwarf. That one’s made of Stasis.” The little Humakti does not move, however.
There is a slight shift in the Dwarf’s position. A steadying, as if he’s settling into a resting position, braced into the stone floor. An idle mode.
Kolyey nods to Berra.
Berra does not bother moving.
Varanis looms over the man. “Explain what you mean by marked?”
He roundly ignores Varanis.
She steps behind him and leans down to whisper in his ear. “I will remember your face and your attitude, friend.” It’s more threat than promise.
More people are listening in now, but that is because there are more people in the room.
Someone in the crowd offers a drink to Varanis.
The Vingan steps back and goes to thank the person who offered her the drink. “Another day,” she promises. “I need to talk to my friends. But I appreciate your generosity.”
The young man who threw the nut that made such a noise gives Varanis a smirk, but makes no move.
She returns to Berra. “If you’re going to Sun Town, I want to go with you.”
Berra turns to Varanis to nod. “Let’s.”
Xenofos strokes his beard. “I should probably have a chat with people in Sun Town too. I have now some idea of what was that was about, but we might need to discuss that amongst ourselves first.”
Berra rolls out her shoulders, like she is considering piling into a fight. “If I’m going to make an apology I don’t want it to be in a meeting where people go chat. No offence.”
“None taken.” Xenofos shrugs. “Do you think you need information of why they probably attacked in the first place or do you just want to get the apology and possible fight out of the way?”
“Uh, probably not a fight. But in this case I don’t think it matters.” Thoughts drift slowly over Berra’s face, changing her expression. “I think it would probably be useful to know, just in case. That way if it comes up, I can know what they mean.”
Xenofos looks at the crowd not at all interested or listening to some more entertainment.
He nods towards the private rooms and looks at rest of the group “A thing to discuss somewhere more private, I think.”
Berra gets into motion, not bothering to pick up a drink or a snack as she goes.
Xenofos looks at others invitingly and nods at Varanis before following Berra
Berra gives everyone who wants to the chance to get in before starting to close the door with her on the outside, remembering she is not the guard, and coming inside instead. She does lean back against the wall by the door so that she can hear people outside as well as listening to Xenofos.
“So… She, the templar file leader talked something about powergrabbing Ulerians.” Xenofos looks at everyone in the room “I had no clear idea what she was talking of but suspected vaguely it might have something to do with a marriage thing between Ulerian priestess and Yelmalian lord I heard about,”
“Uhuh.” Berra fills in the silence. “And they went for you because…?”
“I had a vision at my initiation. Showing the true, eternal nature of Uleria already before time. I have spoken of this freely at temple and written of it at the library.” Xenofos fiddles his sharpening stone. “My guide, priestess Arader, seems to have taken this to her heart and has had visions confirming these things, too. And has taken this as guideline for her actions.”
“Oh. So did she do something, I mean did Uleria do something to piss off Yelmalio?” Berra’s puzzled look appears.
“Priestess Arader aims to marry Yelmalian contender. Except it is not really a contest as far as I understand.” Xenofos explains. “And that marriage will give more legitimacy to her chosen spouse and end this round of Sun County strife. Why the Yelmalians would seek this is politics, I don’t quite fathom, but there seems to be enough mythical ramifications for them to take it seriously.”
“Riiiight.” Berra obviously does not see either. “But you revealed stuff so they blame you?”
“So it seems. ” Xenofos looks at Varanis “Not something I would have come up with I must say. Her purpose seems good and there is certain mythical logic to it but people are not always entirely logical when politics is happening.”
Berra sighs, meaning she inflates a little and then deflates back down to looking ready for action. Poised. Thoughtful. “Gotcha. Right. In that case I’m gonna say maybe-definitely don’t come with us.”
“You think it might increase the chance of violence?” Xenofos taps hilt of his sword.
“I think I don’t want do get into any other discussions about it,” Berra replies. “I shouldn’t be walking a threat into a place where I’m apologising.”
“I am no threat. But I am irritated about their attack. And not in mood for apologizing for something I have not done. And not prepared to say she is in the wrong either.” Xenofos says. “And if there is a risk of another impolite and unprovoked attack towards Varanis I am not keen on not being there.”
“No, I’d be the threat, but I wasn’t thinking straight. An’ yeah, let’s not complicate this. You sit tight, I’m going to go say what I gotta, and please try to stop Kolyey from doing anything really interesting.”
Varanis has been deeply lost in thought. “I’ll stay with Berra. We’ll have Lord Raven and Dezar to watch our backs,” she says finally. “The Storm Voice also implied that some of this tension is focused directly at you, so having you at my side in Sun Town might bring more aggression our way. Keep Kolyey out of trouble, please.”
Berra nods to Varanis, and makes to open the door.
“I don’t like it, Varanis, but it makes sense. I will try. ” The scribe unties the cords on his sword hilt. “You two stay as safe as honor allows, please.”
“S’fine. All good.” Berra opens the door, and pushes herself upright away from where she leans. Doing things in that order lets her eyeball the outside room as the door opens.
- 1Oops. Fumbled intimidate.
- 2Varanis specials Scan
- 3Passed Intimidate, but so did the other guy.
- 4Fails Intimidate.
- 5This is dried chilli.
- 6OK, new rule, if Tom starts a bar fight, he has to run it. – Berra/GM
