1629, Fire Season, Truth Week
Context
The group is travelling from Tarsh to the Locaem, and have stopped at Duck Point on the way. Session S5.O-17.
Events
The ferry across to Duck Point has a couple of short, burly feathered folk who profess never to have heard of Berra, but tell Nayale that there is a big Humakti Temple in town if she is interested. The walls have spearducks on them, many with Death or Truth runes painted on their helmets, more with Air or Movement. Those with Movement tend to be fidgeting most.
The gates are huge, with a human-sized door, and a smaller door cut out within that, although for the day, they are open.
Scan: ||The ducks on the walls are mostly standing on a wooden construction placed on walls made for human-sized people.||
Crowds of ducks chatter and gabble and argue; it is, other than the species, a typical Orlanthi scene.
Scan: ||Here and there in the crowd are well-dressed, beautifully presented ducks, who are obviously aware they are on show. At the edges of the crowd are less well dressed, more pimped out, were-avians.||
Nayale is working not to gape. She’s seen Durulz before. Of course she has. She’s not that much of a hick. But never before so many in one place.
Her head turns this way and that as she tries to take it all in.
After a few paces, she slides off her horse and starts leading it by the reins, the better to avoid accidentally trampling anyone.
Berra is, at about the same point, getting off to do the same. Her casually alert expression says she has been here before. To her, it is just a city.
The crowds let them through, although Lofty and Followed require a little more care than usual, and so it happens that Berra drops back for a moment and a mostly-fledged duck approaches Nayale. “Need directions?”
“To the Humakti Temple? Or just in general?”
Suddenly, Nayale looks alarmed. “Berra! Maalira’s about to be attacked!”
There’s a small swarm of small ducks headed towards Lofty with purpose.
The young Humakti drops her reins and puts her hand to her hilt.
Berra looks over, and laughs. “Yeah. Teeny little demands.”
“Less of the teeny, tallstuff!” snaps someone in the crowd.
Berra turns to bow her head. “Sorry. But they love the White Lady.”
Nayale relaxes. Her mount stopped moving when the reins hit the ground, so she releases her hilt and gets the horse moving again.
“Children?” she asks Berra, staring at the small mob.
Nayale’s prospective guide says, “Careful. You don’t want to go starting trouble here.”
“Yeah. Ducklings.” Berra watches Maalira perform the minor miracle of getting all those ducks in a row.
Nayale looks back to the Durulz who addressed her then at her mentor. “Um. I think … maybe… Berra? Do you mind if I head to the Humakti Temple? Or am I on guard duty?” She glances at the White Lady and her horde1possibly hoard of ducklings with uncertainty. “Or do we all need a guide?” The poor Narri is lost.
There is a small quack from the prospective guide. “Not Berra the Dagger though right?” he says with something close to confidence.
“We’re going to be meeting at the Sign of Two Chairs,” Berra says. “You can ask anyone for it. I was gonna take you there and then you were on your own, but you could heave straight to Temple if you like. Um, be warned that… yeah, I might-could … yeah, I’m gonna want you to take my respects there.”
A couple of young ducklings seem to have fallen in as guards for Berra. They have adorable wooden swords. They are fluffy.
“My commander is no mere Dagger,” Nayale announces to the guard with something akin to pride. “She’s the Wyter Priest for the High Hero, Eril Linebreaker.”
The guide gives a polite whistle. “Well, I’ll be on my way then.”
“But…”
This person is backing away having decided talking was a bad idea. Just the name seems to have been enough2Nayale passes Insight Human at half normal value..
Berra has just noticed the ducklings, and is taking a moment to send them over to the White Lady.
The ducklings would rather guard Berra.
Berra notices Nayale is genuinely crestfallen, either at being left by a prospective guard, or at the ducklings preferring Berra, but the young Narri won’t impose.
“Don’t worry, I can show you the way,” says another young duck. He seems to have been nearby already.
Berra murmurs to one of the small guard ducklings, and points to Nayale. The teeny fluffball puffs itself up, ready to do its duty.
Nayale glances between Berra, the duckling, and the duck. The Wyter Priest finds herself on the receiving end of a pleading glance. Nayale is keen to explore.
The tiny duckling marches up to Nayale and peeps, “Do not be taken in by dithonestd people inna crowd!” Far too loudly.
“Get lost, pipsqueak,” the second potential guide tells the most fluffy and diminutive warrior present.
“This one volunteered to protect my commander,” Nayale points out. “But, as my commander is well protected by another, I should be offering them the job. I think.” She is trying to look confident.
The little duckling now looks back over at Berra, giving a tiny lost peep.
“You need showing around a city like this,” the older duck points out. “Someone who knows the whole place can help you.”
Berra is watching the crowd, and Oriana, and Nayale. Either she has forgotten Dormal exists, or she is unworried about him. Maalira is still giving out sweets to small fluffballs.
“Carry your luggage?” a new voice asks Nayale. It’s a sturdy-looking drake with a bald head.
“My horse can do that, thanks. So… no?” She turns to the little duckling and crouches down to face them. “Can you help me find the Humakti temple?” she asks softly. “It’s ok to say no. I just did.”
The tiny duckling nod-nod-nods. “Yeths but I am not allowed to go out of the thcity or get intoo misthchiff!”
Berra makes a surprisingly threatening dismissive gesture at the wannabe guide who is being thrown over for a child.
“Is the temple outside the city?”
Brimming with importance, the duckling points deeper into town. “I am eight!” It seems a little confused on that point.
Berra is drifting over, not towards the duckling, but towards the not-a-guide-now-apparently.
“So, we’ll be staying inside the city and keeping each other out of mischief. That seems good. Would bringing a friend along help protect you from mischief after you get me to the temple?” Nayale glances at the ducklings getting treats from Maalira, then back at her tiny would-be guide.
The duck stares back at her in confusion.
“You. We don’t need a guide, and we’re not paying,” Berra tells the older duck. “But if there’s trouble, actual real trouble, send me a message at the Temple. It better not be anything that Lord Geoffrey can deal with best, though. Just if people are after me or my companions. And I’ll know lies.”
“I ain’t afraid of you,” the duck points out, almost reasonably.
“Might be healthier if you were,” Nayale mutters under her breath.
(Ack. Why is the duckling confused!!!! Insight duck again? I mean… I might pass…)
(You used hypotheticals and suggestions, and she’s eight.)
Berra says, “I don’t actually care. But we ain’t here for guides.” She turns away, but not all the way. Again her eyes cast over her group. The duck she has just dismissed is fluffing up his feathers and hissing quietly.
“Duck charms! Lucky duck charms!” Someone is waving a couple of cast lead pieces at Nayale now.
“Go get one of your friends to keep us company,” Nayale says, trying a more direct approach.
The duckling looks up to Berra, who clicks her fingers to her second guard, and points to Nayale. “Go look after my friend, with your brother.”
“She’s my sister!”
“Sorry. Sister.”
The duck marches up to Nayale. “I am only here under duress. The Greatsword of Humakt sends me.”
“Move on,” Berra tells everyone else. “Crowded here. Maalira knows where we’re going, and people are… no, I don’t want another charm. I have a strict limit on those things, and I want the real thing, given to me by ducks who actually like me!” The lead charm seller backs off a little.
“Are they really lucky?” Nayale asks Berra after giving the second young duckling a polite salute, Humakti to Humakti.
“Let’s talk in a bit,” Berra says. “It’s loud here.” She gets everyone underway again. “Sign of Two Chairs!” she calls to Maalira one more time, just to be sure.
“Waterweedt? Dried waterweedt?” someone offers Nayale.
“Pop of Hazia? Only the best for the dreams you want!” A different voice.
“Hazia? Fuck no!” Nayale completely forgets her manners at that offer. Indeed, she sounds exactly like her brother, though only Berra would realise that.
“I can offer that too,” calls someone from the crowd. Berra just ignores them. Her attention is mostly on the way ahead, a little bit on whether they are being flanked.
There is an infestation of ducklings on Lofty, and even a few on Followed.
“Let’s go find Humakt’s Temple,” Nayale tells her ducklings, attempting to extract herself, her horse, and them from the crowd around them.
They bravely try to make a path. it goes about as well as can be imagined, but Nayale is large enough that the crowd does part before her, and so at least the ducklings can move ahead of her in that space.
Even at the edge of the big square, there are still crowds, and they do not thin out for some time. Berra takes people off to the Two Chairs, and lets the ducklings look after Nayale, and Nayale look after the ducklings.
- 1possibly hoard
- 2Nayale passes Insight Human at half normal value.
