Kobal nods at the priestess' words.  As Angelika's eyes meet his, he focuses his spiritual energy a moment  before replying.  "I don't hate the Orlanthi, Wise One, though of course they don't follow our ways.  But I'll do as you suggest.  Though I'm sure you don't mean I'm to try to make friends with the moon worshippers at the feast." 




Kobal enjoys his food and drink, but takes care not to drink too much.  At his seat, he tries to scan the room from time to time, hopefully without making it seem too obvious.  Haaro, I can hardly hear myself think here.  Wander the feast if you can, looking for any signs of danger, but stay out of danger yourself.  The lunars would be the obvious source of danger.  But it would be too simple for the attackers to come from their table.



'My lands'?  Hah!  This is our land.  The land that our forefathers crossed and hunted on.  Even so, Kobal holds his tongue and toasts the chieftain (with the rest of the assembled guests) at the end of his speech.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:16, Wed 19 Apr 2017.

In reply to GM (msg # 289):

With a grin and a wink, Hoskar warms to the theme of the city and Ulerians between respectful listening for speeches made to the company from the dignitaries. He looks around from time to time, muttering ladies present - don't want to offend sensibilities - keeping an eye out  but burbling on as opportunity allows ...of course, it takes all sorts. Got to be careful up there - some of them are none too trustworthy and you can wake up with more than one...ah...empty pouch, if you catch my drift. Not like here - everyone seems to know everyone one way or another hereabouts, and I'd think that keeps everyone honest.

Still, I'll mention it around. There's always someone after a fresh furrow to plough...or is that a fresh plough for the furrow?

As drinks flow, he seems to become more mellow. Languid, even. Good to be here...wonderful hospitality and warmth. he focuses briefly on a moustachioed chap sitting opposite who's been quiet so far, but seems to be enjoying the food immensely. Not tried that dish yet, my friend - any good?

Melock nods his thanks, "I'll just go and ask Kobal." He walks round the head table and makes his way over to Kobal and leans over and quietly asks him, "Any chance you could take my place guarding Angelika whilst I tell a tale to entertain our hosts?" When he's talking, Melock takes the opportunity to look round the room from a different position to see if there is anything visible from where he is now that wasn't before.

"Fine," says Kobal quietly, getting up.  With matters on edge, he isn't feeling like making small talk with Orlanthi anyway.  "But remember I only have a dagger with me.  And don't do anything that will embarrass us Rangers in front of everyone."  He walks over to assume Melock's position of guard.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:23, Thu 20 Apr 2017.

Ohanzee's appearance in the kitchen causes many stares and work to stop, that is until a squat man starts haranguing them in sartarite. He shakes his fist at the Raven brave pointing at the door.

He's helped on his way by the servant girl from upstairs....


It's then that Ohanzee notices several figures further down the passage he's in, filing into a room. The lighting here is sparse and who or what they are is uncertain.

Haaro answers Kobal "I can't do anything there's too many of their damn big cats about...You want me to get killed?"

Melock sees nothing suspicious, noting the many Alynxs crowding the roof timbers above. He can at any time set up his show in the cleared space provided.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:48, Thu 20 Apr 2017.

"Ah, don't mind Barney here, don't speak much do you?" Says another Garhound clansman slapping Barney on the back "He just got back from Pavis two days ago. Visiting family and some of the Laaaaaaadiiiies...."

Barney gives a weak smile in reply. It looks like he doesn't understand Tradetalk nor Praxian.

All right.  But at least watch the rafters.  If they're strong enough to harbour damn big cats, then someone or something could drop down to attack.  Shouldn't be too hard for you.  I'm sure you're keeping an eye on the cats anyway, haha.

Kobal returns his focus to sentry duty.  While looking about, (including behind), he also tries to listen to what Angelika is discussing with those at the head table.

Angelika is speaking in Sartarite with the others at the top table. It's animated and involves plenty of laughing. To kobal it looks like they are recounting old stales of their youth. Maybe.

Everyone is drunk or getting there.

Every now and again one of the Humakti weaponthanes casts a detection spell at the gathering and the hall.

Ohanzee grabs a flask of wine from the girl's tray with another smile and a wink and then stands a moment in the passage to let the strangers file their way into the room.

Then he takes a mouthful and pours a little of the wine down his front before checking that there are no servers approaching and then making his way as stealthily as he can towards the door the others passed through.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:26, Thu 20 Apr 2017.

In reply to GM (msg # 301):

Still smiling, Hoskar thanks his companions for the hint but tries again, switching to speaking in Sartarite. Sorry. Wrong tongue. Get me now? They say you were in Pavis. How was the city, friend? Hear anything of my mum Becx?

Melock nods his head in thanks to Kobal and makes his way to the cleared space. He grabs a spare chair and proceeds to stand on it and claps his hands to get everyone's attention, then pauses, looks round for Asha and jumps down and runs over to her and whispers, "I'm about to entertain everyone with a story and I've just realised most of them won't understand a word I say, please can you tell them what I'm saying, I'll make it worth your while." Asha looks a bit shocked but nods, "Yes, you will." she puts her tray of drinks down, quickly downing a glass of wine, and follows Melock back to the chair. He stands just behind her, "I'll speak softly to you then you speak loudly to them." Asha giggles, "ok" Melock looks out over the crowd which now is looking at the duo with expressions ranging from amusement to annoyance, gulping loudly he starts, "Good evening, I am Melock," Asha repeats this, then stops and blushes and shakes her head, then points to Melock, "he's Melock."
"Tonight in way of thanks to our hosts for this lovely meal, I would like to tell the tale of Ongar the Unstung. Honoured hosts, respected guests and others," when he says the words others he glances at the lunars, "my tale takes place in the marches of Sartar," Melock puts his hand on Asha's shoulder and walking backwards leads her to the side, with his other hand pulls two Raven feathers from his hair and throws them towards the wall, where they make the air shimmer and a green valley appears with lush fields and bountiful numbers of sheep. "Sometimes, there is a hidden valley shaded by the Gold Lamb on Sartar's marches; lush like a garden where the grain nigh-on reaps itself and Berry Boy runs its track way verges throwing sweet fruits to weary travellers at day's end. Tellers claim that the moonrise there shows silver as if the light's blood has been taken from it and the husk dried clean, but tellers say many things that are hard to sift to truth. Untouched by Jaldon's raids, it is; for when his war-band was west faring he clapped his teeth together so mightily the warriors turned from thoughts of easy plunder to look at him. "It is like the garden that was once ours and which the wastes may be again", was his message; as they turned aside in joyful sorrow to find a new war road. The sheep of the dwellers there are thought to have luck if their curved and shapely horns grow through with silver strands upon them: such beasts are free from the stinging flies that mar hides and turn milk sour. The womenfolk thank the earth when such a one is found; yet Ernalda has revealed this is none of her doing. Like us, the people move their herds for grazing so none could say from whence the silver came" As he talks, Melock lights a lamp and shutters it so it only shines on the valley, "A fair place, you would think; and maybe you would be right; yet there was a time when its men found it ill, fair living coming to taste like the ashes of a fire burned low. The hunting was easy and with no foes to slay they grumbled at disuse. Grumbled and cast around for means to prove their manhood. As if they needed such proof – as their wives could have told them should the question have chanced to be asked, there is always another way to prove such things" As the image zooms in to the edge of the valley, shadow figures appear sitting talking in a group, but soon start pushing and shoving, then fighting, only to be broken up by their wives. The men head out to tend their flocks, "Yet, men being men the world across, they searched and found a fear. A dark hole like a wound in the earth with no tale to be told, hid in their storm season graze lands; fluttering with webs at its edge but lightless below, seeming to drink in the daylight to feed some arcane hunger. A suspect place, perhaps, for in many a year the season's count of the herd would tally imperfectly." The shadows twist and reform to show the men with spears pointing at a cave in desolate place. All but one of them ready their spears and walk in to the darkness, the other returns to his sheep. "This the so very brave herders and hunters resolved to assault. All save Ongar, a man in years but cleverer than his strength and one who saw many hidden joys. "It has its place and its beauty", he said. "The dew maid dances with those wisps after the rains, and once Elmal sent the Rainbow Girl to rejoice in the dance with her". For this telling, laughter was his lot: as the others  prepared their swords and their torches, he was sent to watch the sheep alone, finding comfort in their rich voices and the glint of starlit silver atop woolly brows." After a few moments the group reappears from the cave staggering and helping each other stand, clearly injured, but all still alive. "No tale was told of what befell by the men who entered that hole. Return they did from the unknown; but with open wounds that healed slowly and closed mouths that never spoke of below. As their hurts grew less they found other things to kill more fitting to their stature. Many of the honey-pawed knew the bite of bronze that year and found little protection in their hide of rich fur, becoming a memory of strength roasting on camp spits above the grateful flames. Food, but not for Ongar; who sat still at pasture watching strands fly on the storm and curvet in gusts by the dark maw of the hole like unconquered pennons snapping homage to the winds." The men make it home and the scene changes to one of dancing and celebration, "Sacred time followed storm to the renewing of the world once more; and as growing time came the woods seemed to hum with new life. And hum they did, with increasing pitch and anger" Melock pulls a third feather and flicks it in to the air where as it fades in to the darkness a low level buzzing noise starts, rising and fading as if many insects are flying around the stage. As the shadow men go about daily life, they are attacked by swarms of insects. "Soon, hunters told tales of the bite of the woods and stings like thorns; their truth shown clear in blotched faces. Then were troubled those who draw the plough, dancing crazily with flailing arms and hooted at by laughing children until they too saw yellow and black pain draw near. The brewer smiled at first, thinking of the death of bears and speaking of mead and Minlister, but not for long; taking to his bed with by no means the first pained and swollen body the white robes had needed to tend." As the valley fades from view so does the buzzing, "For now we leave the poor farmers and find out what became of the one who didn't enter the cave,"  A high hillside covered with grazing sheep becomes visible, "Up higher, at fertile sea season pasture, Ongar watched the flocks all unknowing, drinking the sweet water and eating fresh honeycomb among the silvered sheep, till a wandering trader passed him by. "It's good to see a normal person", he remarked, sharing bread and savoury cheese from his wallet in exchange for wild golden sweetness, "Down there it's nothing but stung faces and poultices. The white ladies have had near all my cloth. Not that I grudge them, for they cured my own ills on a promise when times were bad". As Ongar makes his nightly camp, "I am unstung", thought Ongar that night having waved on the wanderer, and he thought long under the stars among the sheep. What passed before him in the stars' reflection on the stranded horns, he never told, save that he saw a sight and inside him he thought a thing which took him down with the sheep to his village; for at daybreak he was there where people meet and speaking with a loud, clear voice" Ongar stands before the villagers who fidget as they are pestered by bugs, "I bring word from a grandmother. The truth of my word to you men is in that which you have not spoken, for it is from the spider that drove you back from her home – she against whom you set your faces and of whom you closed your mouths in defeat. Her word is this. "I take a sheep betimes, but I pay. Oh yes, I pay, you fools who have forgotten. Silver webs on the horns, strands on the winds to keep the fliers that sting from your sheds, my children in the forest to keep the flying stripes in their place. Yet you choose to come to my home like thieves with torches to burn and sow rapine? Well now you have paid, and now you have seen. Send me a sheep and be done, unless you like your new faces, for I am hungry and we all have our place on the web: pluck it, and maybe the thing it shakes off will be you.". As Ongar talks, some of the folk shake their heads, others nod at the wisdom of his words. By the time he's finished talking they are all nodding in agreement and a few of them help him to drive a few sheep to the dark cave. "It is curious to see how lax a tally the storm season shepherds keep in that valley now but there is no more call for the white robes' poultices thanks to Ongar the Unstung, long time spirit-talker of the She who dwells Beneath; and the smiles that play round the edges of the goodwives' lips seem to hint that their husbands are maybe learning to ask how to prove their worth with other, less fatal, weapons." The cave mouth pulses and darkness swallows the whole image before fading away to be replaced by a giant shadowy spider which, as Melock tilts the lantern, scurries up in to the eaves and disappears, "and so ends the tale of Ongar the Unstung." He takes Asha's hand and they both bow.

Listening from afar, aside from his own affairs, Hoskar falls silent as Melock's show begins. For a moment, his expression goes blank. Then his brow furrows. Then it relaxes again as he bites his lower lip hard. Hard enough to draw a short crescent of blood, swiftly healed.

A thin smile spreads. A head sinks into a man's hands; elbows braced upon the table. Tears spring to bright eyes unbidden and unnoticed. My tale. Told like that it can heal. Yes.

A brief bow to a friend. A shake to clear the head. Chatter and praise resumed.

"She the trader yes?" comes back the reply, interspaced with the eating of food. "Aye I see her with the boss' sister Brygga Scissortongue...The Mayor you know? They be talking business. She your mum eh? Well small world and all that. There's a caravan coming this way soon. Filled up with stores to see us through Dark season and all that. She had one of you fellows with her, Rhino brave like you, carting her stuff."

The story goes down a treat and Melock finds himself hiding from a veritable shower of small denomination coins and the occasional  vegetable.

One of the Chief's men hands over a purse "From the Boss. He says you are welcome to come and tell stories anytime."

In reply to GM (msg # 308):

Relieved to have found means to talk, Hoskar smiles amiably; waiting patiently for his interlocutor's words...between his feeding, which is clearly top priority.

That's good to know. Thank you. Good to know she's okay, and good to know she's getting on with the esteemed Brygga. Hope your business went well too: the world's small enough without disappointments.

Wonder who the Rhino man is, though. She always did like the tribe. She married one, of course.
You'll have guessed that he adds looking down at himself.

This is good stuff he adds, chewing meditatively on some sort of pie.

Blah blah blah.  Can't really tell what they're talking about - only a word or two here and there.
 This is Prax - speak Praxian!  Soon Kobal finds himself wishing he was back sitting at his table.  Still, he maintains his watch for any threat.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:00, Fri 21 Apr 2017.

Ohanzee finds a door closing sharply. From behind comes muffled sounds, several voices raised.

The feast is coming to an end, with those remaining those that wish to drink until the  early hours. Their host Darvenos gets up and retires, leaving his son behind.

On mass the Lunars stand and voicing their thanks also retire.

"I am ready to leave" announces Angelika to Amara and Kobal

All in all some twenty men have stayed behind, hard drinkers each and every one.

It's been mentally tiring trying to remain alert for the past few hours, but now Kobal feels the danger even more keenly.  Nothing happened during the feast, but now Angelika and the chieftain's son are more vulnerable than ever, with the crowd thinning.  He pats the blade at his side for reassurance, and has a charm ready on his lips as he nods and steps back for the Snowspear to leave.  Haaro, be ready.

Temush will tag along with Angelika's escorts when they leave

The sort to enjoy gossip or to hear others arguing about their own troubles Ohanzee leans against the door pressing his ear to it whilst trying to look like a drunk leaning there whilst the spinning world about him slows down.

Amara nodded, leaning close to Angelika, her alertness level rising as she became aware that this was the most dangerous time. "Be careful" she whispered her protection charm before stepping outside.

Henal stays back drinking sparingly and waits around at the end while things wind down to join Angelika's escorts.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:41, Fri 21 Apr 2017.

After coming out of hiding from the hard rain, Melock accepts the bag of coins with a smile and a small bow, "Thank you, I'm glad everyone liked it." He collects the thrown donations and walks over to Asha, "as a sign of my gratitude," Melock gives her all the clacks he picked up, "Unfortunately I have a job to do a the moment," he nods towards Angelika, "but once she safely back in the inn, maybe I can come and find you?"