6th of Eleint (The Fading) – Summer 1486
Location: Dessarin Valley & Westbridge
Pinko snapped out of his elven trace-state to an overcast dawn and the cheerful sound of panicked cries, in what he now easily identified as the giant language, accompanied by Smacky’s swearing. Moogs had the half-orc grasped in both hands and had raised him to her eye level, squeezing and yelling at him while Smacky beat on her hands with both elbows and tried to bite her fingers. “What in the nine hells is going on Smacky?!” cried the druid. “No ideas what she doing! Me waz keeping watch one second den next thing she wakes up, grabs me and go berko!” protested Smacks. Pinko’s boot instinctively shot out to kick Seeps awake but found only air, her bedroll vacant. Before he could call out a red-skinned flash darted from the nearby thicket, sans pants with her tail between her legs, and held aloft both hands (one grasping an elven hairclip) imploring Moogs to calm the smeg down. The giant’s attention drifted to greet the half-naked warlock. “Moogsy! What the hell girl?! We friends remember? Husband Recovery Team? Stealing Hruk back yes?!”Seepage yelled up.
A wave of confusion contorted the hill giants' features before the dim light of recognition began to smoulder behind her eyes and she calmed herself down. “Oooooos. Yah… me forgots. You help Moogs steal back Hruk. We go Grudd Haug.” She put Smacky down and patted him on the head hard enough to sink him six inches into the loamy ground then wandered over to pillage the saddlebags for the last of the edible supplies.
“This is going to be a problem.” mused Pinko. “The inability of her tiny brain to remember who we are or the fact that is the last of our food?” inquired Seepage as she watched Moogs start chewing on the leather sack that once contained their rations. “Both. We’ll need to restock and hunt during the trip to keep her moving. Except we can’t exactly walk a Hill Giant into a town now can we? Are there even any settlements nearby?” inquired Pinks. Seepage considered this. “Well we could walk her into town, but even I don’t want that sort of attention right now, funny as it would be. Westbridge is only a few miles south on the Long Road by my guess. We could restock there thanks to Mr Dardragon.” Seeps produced the coin pouch of the late halfling adventurer they liberated from the Old Tower. While he wasn’t keen on venturing into civilisation, with or without a sixteen-foot-tall distraction, Pinko couldn’t think of another way around their current predicament. “Okie dokie. I’ll walk slowly with Moogs and we’ll skirt Westbridge to the east then try to catch some game along the road. You and Smacky head into town with the horses and load them up with as much edible produce as you can without, and I can’t stress this enough Seeps, killing anyone. Just pay for the food OK?”. The feigned hurt look of disbelief on the tiefling's face would have made a priest of Ilmatar weep. “And for the sake of the Gods put some pants on first.” There was a moist popping sound as Cockseepage giggled and flicked her tail around brushing it against Pinko’s cheek as she wandered off to fetch her pants and get dressed. The druid couldn’t decide if he was grateful or grossed out about the fact the stickiness left on his skin from the exchange was not actually poop.
The village of Westbridge was a small collection of ramshackle buildings gathered around a dirt town square through which the Long Road divided the town in half. Another carriageway signposted ‘The Stone Trail’ shot off eastwards towards Belaird, and was the one Smacky and Seeps would need to make haste along to catch up to Pinko and Moogs once they’d stocked up on supplies. A few folks moved about their business in a relaxed manner, if a bit hurried to avoid the intermittent showers. Having been in the wilderness for a while and with a pocket full of gold burning a hole in their britches, Smacky and Seeps naturally gravitated directly to the Harvest Inn on the west side of the square, lured by the curious double door-within-a-door painted in red and green which faced the street. As they approached, the smaller red door swung open and a halfling backed out carrying a wash bucket, the contents of which he flung into the ditch which served as a crude gutter, before disappearing back inside. Smacky tied up his and Pinko’s horse which was serving as a beast of burden and grabbed the handle of the larger green door. He looked back and noticed that Seeps had paused, still mounted in her saddle. “Wazza matter Seepy? Youz look like you just seen a ghost.” he enquired. “Didn’t that fellow look familiar to you at all Smacky?” said Seeps as she jumped down and joined him at the pub door. Smacky was vaguely aware his initial thought that 'all halflings looked the same to him' was what Pinko called ‘kul-chore-ly in-sez-a-tiv’ so he kept his mouth shut, shrugged, and pulled on the handle.
Both halfling and human-sized doors swung open as one to reveal a very modest common room that was empty except for the proprietor mopping the floor with a fresh bucket of soapy water. “You’re a wee bit early folks, lunch won’t be on til noon.” he pointed to a string of pink chickens roasting over the low coals without looking up from his cleaning. Transfixed, Seepage walked up to him slowly, extended a finger and gently poked the innkeeper in the back of the head. Mildly startled, he dropped his mop and turned to face his guests for the first time. He smiled reflexively in the manner of those for whom hospitality is a calling but then choked on his follow-up greeting as he took in the red-skinned tiefling and green-skinned half-orc before him whose relative outlines coincidentally mirrored the large green and small red doors of his inn. He quickly recovered, but it was obvious to Seepage he was now ill at ease, fidgeting constantly. “Sorry to startle you friend, it is just that, well, have you ever been dead?” Seepage asked, remembering she’d promised Pinko to be on her best behaviour. “Well my dear ma, rest her soul, threatened to skin my hide many a time in my youth but no, can’t say I’ve had the displeasure,” he laughed nervously, “Herivin Tomathy Dardragon, what trouble have ye caused this time? She’d say when she found the pigs out of their pen again… errr, why you asking?” he gulped almost audibly, eyes darting from Seeps to Smacky and back again. “Dardragon!? Dats the little ghost thief fella we just met dat popped outta Pink’s magic ring ain’t it Seeps?” Smacky injected with a rare flash of insight.
Seeps ordered a few drinks and over the course of two ales learned that the Innkeeper was in fact the nephew of the rogue Keltar Dardragon whose spirit had recently led the party to his treasure secreted in the Old Tower where they’d met Moogs. Herivin knew of his uncle's fabled adventuring exploits but not of his end, only that he’d stopped returning to Westbridge many years ago. Though the innkeeper had relaxed slightly over time, which Seeps attributed to him realising his life was not in any form of immediate peril from these two strangers, she could tell he was relieved to give them directions to the local produce store and shuffle them on their way half an hour later.
Walking their mounts across the main drag, the odd couple passed the large village notice board on a small island in the middle of the road. Seeps was almost to the other side when she heard the sound of paper being torn and looked back to see Smacky giggling at the now damaged notice in his hands. Curious, as she knew among the barbarians many talents, literacy was not one, she waited for him to catch up and glanced down at the writ. “Dat kinda looks like you Seeps!” said the chuckling Smacky holding up a scarily accurate portrait of a mad-eyed tiefling woman. The poster read: “WANTED FOR MURDER” at the top. Below the image continued “5,000 Gold Reward for information leading to the capture of this dangerous magic user. She is extremely unstable and known to be in the company of a feral half-orc and filthy looking wood-elf. Do not approach, report directly to the guard”. The wax seal at the bottom had now half broken away, but it was clear to Seepage to be the mark of the Order of the Gauntlet.
“Well, shit.” said Seepage. “That’s what the little bugger was so twitchy about.” She passed a hand over her face and as it moved down her features changed before Smacky’s eyes to resemble an attractive middle-aged maid with tight curls and plump dark skin. “It is a picture of me, Smacky. The Gauntlet are becoming a real pain in the arse. We need to get out of here. You take the horses out back, I’ll get what we need sent out to you to load.” Smacky nodded and in the spirit of disguise took the purple flag of the Nander’s he wore as a cape and tied it over his face. “Dere! Dey neva know it me now!” he proclaimed happily. Seepage chose not to engage with the hulking green muscular form of her friend with a purple rag around his head and entered the store.
It had taken perhaps half an hour for the farmer’s husband who ran the market to sort out and help Smacky load up three horses worth of grain, rations and dried goods. It pained Seeps to exchange actual gold for the goods but she was too busy concentrating on her glamour to get too worked up over haggling. She climbed into her saddle beside overloaded panniers and let her image fade back to normal. “Weez need to ride pretty hard to catch up to Pinks by night times.” calculated Smacky who though illiterate had an uncanny grasp of distances and navigation most of the time. “Lead on Sir Smackster!” called the warlock as she fell in behind him and the pack horse and trotted towards the ‘Stone Trail’ junction out of town.
As they moved past the notice board again Smacky got an eerie feeling down his spine. Despite being late morning, every building had its shutters up and though traffic had been light when they arrived, the streets were now officially deserted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the small red door to the Harvest Inn pull shut a little too quickly as a shock of curly hair disappeared inside. Seeps sighed, closed her eyes and counted silently to herself as she rounded the board that blocked her view down the Stone Trail. “Three. Two. One and…“ <THUNK> A crossbow bolt whistled past her ear and slammed into the back of the sign. “HALT WITCH!” came the pious cry from just ahead as she summoned eldritch energy into each hand and opened her eyes. “It’s WARLO…ck. Umm.. argh okay then.” her cranky retort died in her throat accompanied by a simultaneous retraction of the purple and black mana from her palms. Barring the road ahead was not only the pompous and ornately armoured form of a Knight of the Order of the Gauntlet, Deakon she believed this one was called, but he was accompanied by what could best be described as a small army of pikemen and archers. Smacky had already pulled up his horses but had his meaty fist resting on the pommel of Blunt Rosethorn as Seeps clip-clopped to a stop beside him.
“Dismount and disarm!” Deakon commanded. “C’mon Seeps, wez can take em!” beamed Smacky excitedly with a confidence both admirable and a little worrying. Seeps loved a fight, especially against do-gooders, but without Pinks, in the open and weighed down with food her survival instincts were kicking in hard. “I think perhaps, just this once Smacks, you should break up the road North, and I’ll head south, then loop around east and try to meet up.” Seeps suggested. “Gots it! You’ll kill da south ones, me smash da north ones den we both squish dis nob?” Smacky clarified. “Yep, wait, what other ones?” said Seepage confused as she looked back over her shoulder up and down the Long Road. Strung across each carriageway was another formidable detachment of guards, and the mind-bending mirroring of an identical Knight with blazing red hair barring the way in each direction.
Usually, the prospect of playing with twins excited Cockseepage almost as much as the current odds of about thirty-to-one excited Smacky who was positively bouncing in his seat with the giddy joy of battle anticipation. However, if someone was going to get bound and gagged, she’d prefer they bought her a drink first, and didn't invite sixty of their friends.
Next Episode: Running the Gauntlet
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