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Post by moralhazard on May 14, 2019 12:39:20 GMT
The half-elf listened as Arioch explained something about a - chicken? Kara wasn’t sure she understood, but he ended by saying something about how Kara wouldn’t be held captive like that. The half-elf turned and looked at her, nodding vigorously back at Arioch, wide-eyed still.
Kara took another drink of water. She felt well enough now; she took a deep and careful breath, concluding Arioch didn’t seem to have actually broken any ribs. Just bruised. She adjusted her glaive in her hand, pulling out a cloth to wipe Arioch’s blood from the metal, carefully and evenly.
Kara looked at Arioch as he spoke again, then back at her glaive, still cleaning. She wasn’t terribly impressed by his words; they were only words, and those from a gladiator. No wonder he had to think of such things. To Kara, there was no question of what her skills should be used for. It was her mission, her purpose; these fights were only practice for the chance to do something about it.
Pip - a funny name for a half-elf - nodded vigorously. “Right away!” She took off across the arena, although her run turned into a walk about halfway up the stairs.
Kara stopped cleaning at the word ‘war.’ She put the cloth away, meeting Arioch’s eyes again, jaw clenched fight, a vein jumping in it. Ogres and orcs and other things; the silver marches under attack again. Longsaddle; it wasn’t far from Yartar, and not at all from Waterdeep. Last time the orcs has struck at the Silver Marches they had been turned back, never reaching Waterdeep. But the alliance was fractured now -
Kara resisted the urge to spit on the ground again. The coppery taste in her mouth was fear, not blood. She kept her gaze fixed on Arioch, waiting for him to come to the point, gripping her glaive with one white-knuckled hand.
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Arioch
Approved
Level 6 — Barbarian
Posts: 333
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Post by Arioch on May 15, 2019 1:59:04 GMT
"Faerel's contacts in Silverymoon have reason to believe that vhatever is happening is not just about an orc varlord, but that there is something else at play. They've found ritualistic evidence of... Extraplanar influence on the gatherings, whatever that means. See, they usually vorship... Some god of theirs called Cruush, but the symbols and the leftovers don't match."
He paused for a bit trying to relay the information as it had been given to him, but to be fair he wasn't really one for remembering names very good and it had been a lot of information a about a lot of things he didn't know so instead he made a cause about remembering the essential information, the bullet points. But maybe Kara deserved to know the whole truth as he had, if she was going to be involved in what Faerel was planning. A risky strategy, to be sure, but it was a strategy nonetheless.
"There are gathering scouts to try and find out more, but the ones that were sent before never did come back. It's getting harder to find volunteers. But that's not what I'm proposing. Appearently the mage she serves under considers soldier's lives expendable enough to keep trying. Faerel has another plan; since it's possible that the monsters are being led or influenced by another being... Cut the head and the body vill follow, strike at their leadership. Problem is ve have no idea vhat that leadership is or really vhat is going on. So she is going to lay a trap and... Summon a demon, and force him to answer her questions so ve can keep ahead of vhat's happening and not vaste fighters."
He ended up relaying to her, in truth he didn't know how more than half of that worked but he had seen enough of magic to know that it could do things that were hard to even conceive. Thea wasn't a wizard by her own admission but she could do amazing things as well, and he had never seen her even require half of the complicated mathematics Faeren seemed to be fretting all over all the time. Wouldn't that make her then something like the superior wizard? Nonetheless, he continued focusing on the subject at hand
"Thus she needs guards. Someone to be around her and protect her in case something goes wrong vith the ritual she is going to do. I've asked her and she told me that demons die all the same if you chop them into pieces, so ve really vouldn't need any prior knowledge about their kind, other than the fact that they are appearently really big, and also powerful. You're one of the best warriors I've seen in the city, so I figured maybe you'd want to help. Faeren isn't exactly the most vealthy of individuals, but I'm sure she can accomodate some payment for you. As for me... Vell, I've alvays wanted to see if I could kill a demon. Specially after the elaborate description she gave me."
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Post by moralhazard on May 15, 2019 2:21:10 GMT
Kara’s hand tightened further on the glaive’s handle at the word ‘Cruush,’ and her other hand clenched into a tight, gauntleted fist, the metal almost straining with the force of it; it had to be digging painfully into her hand, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Gruumsh,” she corrected – softly, but it would be, for Arioch, quite possibly the first word she’d said that wasn’t in direct response to a question.
Kara’s face tightened further the most Arioch spoke. She was scowling, but – if he had thought her eyes dead before, he would learn now that he was wrong. Yes, they were flat and hard on the surface, but beneath – it was like he could almost see something peeking out of her, as if maybe if she blinked, at just the right moment, some monstrous emotion inside of her would be revealed.
It was a crazy plan. Kara knew very little about magic, but she knew that this sounded insane. Summon a demon and force him to answer questions. She thought of the creature she’d faced in the alleys of Waterdeep, the enormous vulture thing that had nearly killed her and Gigi both – that would have killed her if not for the healer’s spells.
“I’ll do it,” Kara said, without even a split second of hesitation. “I don’t need payment.”
If there was the slightest chance that this could prevent another war – if there was a slightest chance that she could strike at the orcs, to stop whatever it was they had planned – Kara wouldn’t hesitate to put her life on the line. The chance was enough. This choice had a sense of rightness to it, a feeling of satisfaction and calm that stopped the trembling of her hands, and loosened her grasp on the gauntlet and glaive. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes they were back to what Arioch had seen before, calm settling back over her.
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Arioch
Approved
Level 6 — Barbarian
Posts: 333
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Post by Arioch on May 15, 2019 2:48:12 GMT
Arioch noticed the way she had been tensing up lately, he could not however know what was causing it. She had a military air about her, the way she carried herself. But not military in the same sense that one could think about guards. Guards were unorganized, without formal training, without requirements for the job, they were akin to militia in the sense that most times they could perform the job you were expecting them to do, which was to be fair, not much, but other than that they weren't really a cut above the usual bandit. No real training, no real hardened experiences. Consolidated armies were different, just a groups of warriors had been. He'd seen one, once, while traveling. Though it was he was sure, more likely a mercenary company they possessed a kind of trained discipline that was hard to ignore, something that guards couldn't quite match. So what could possibly be unsettling her that much? His gaze trailed to the way she was pressing the glaive, and made no comment on her correcting him. It was curious that she would know the correct way of spelling that, it was supposed to be an orc deity, after all.
His gaze finally reached her eyes where there was definitely something going on there. A story, perhaps. Normally she seemed indifferent to anything that was going on around there as if she was being taxed by showing too much emotion or simply she was mostly numb to it, but now for the first time he was beginning to see something genuine from her, stronger than her, perhaps, simmer within her eyes. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, for he had mentioned a lot of things through his rather long speech. Was it the orcs? Was it the ogres? The mention of war? The waste of lives by mages not wanting to commit their resources instead? The possibility that it could reach them? The fact that longsaddle had been raided? The caravans? Was it the demons? Or maybe it just was all of that put together.
He let out a small smirk of satisfaction when she agreed to it, and nodded. And no payment, she had said. Now, that was curious. He knew why he was doing it but why would someone like her too want to do it without the promise of payment? Most people wanted coin for dangerous jobs, it was the kind of job that paid the best. But here she was rejecting it.
"Vhy?"
He asked then, why would she not want payment when it was freely offered and it was already the kind of plan for which most people would need motivation in order to find it within themselves to risk their lives for an uncertain goal against a foe that was fabled to be able to be so powerful that sometimes they had entire cults dedicated to them.
"I'll gladly velcome your help, but it's strange that you wvuld refuse payment for it, considering vhat it entails"
What was she after then, after all, if not money? Surely she was getting something out of it and he wasn't sure yet what it was. Perhaps she would be satisfied with knowing she was helping the city at large and perhaps other cities as well? Surely, there had to be at least a handful of people with that mindset on Waterdeep. And yet, he remembered what her reaction was as he was talking earlier. That was most definitely not the kind of reaction someone would have at the thought of the possibility of doing good. It was not an expression of joy at the chance of helping Faeren and preventing the useless waste of life. It had been a visceral reaction at something, instinctual maybe, something pulling with great gravity at her.
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Post by moralhazard on May 15, 2019 3:02:29 GMT
Kara looked at Arioch, thinking. After their last fight, she had told him where she was from – had told him that she had learned to use a glaive from Branmin Ironfirst, in Sundabar before the war. She was sure of that. So, if he didn’t understand… she knew there were those, like Dhaunmyr, who were ignorant of much of the world’s history. He had been raised in the Underdark; Kara understood why he might not know.
But Arioch? A gladiator of Waterdeep? Kara couldn’t fathom it. Perhaps those he knew who were veterans of the War of Silver Marches were done fighting. There were many of those; Kara knew them. Few had survived Sundabar, let alone made it all the way here. Perhaps it was one thing to know in the abstract and another to see it.
Kara still thought. What right did he have to know? She didn’t like to speak of it. She knew she couldn’t, not personally. Not now, and maybe not ever. If she cut the wound open, too much would come spilling out, and she would be lost for good. Even to speak of it in the abstract – it might be too much. But they would be fighting side-by-side, and that gave Arioch certain – rights. More importantly, it gave Kara certain responsibilities. If this was as dangerous as he said…
It had been a long silence, but Kara had made her decision. Her hand tightened on her glaive again, and she looked at Arioch, meeting his eyes once more. “When orcs take a city,” she said, slowly and calmly, “they kill as many as they need to until they can capture the rest. The captured aren’t safe; they work until they can be executed, one by one – sacrificed to Gruumsh. They like best to take the sacrifice’s eyes first, then burn them alive.”
Kara’s voice was calm – too calm, with a brittle control that sounded on the edge of cracking. She stopped, closing her eyes for a moment, and centering herself until she could continue. “I won’t let it happen to Waterdeep.” Her voice was strong again, with a hard promise at the center.
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Arioch
Approved
Level 6 — Barbarian
Posts: 333
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Post by Arioch on May 15, 2019 3:22:32 GMT
He didn't interrupt her once she began talking and instead listened intently. Orcs he knew, Orcs were not really strangers to him and that was why he loathed them so much, though he couldn't even begin to imagine how much that loathing paled in comparison to what Kara was feeling. The scope of Arioch's abilities with people was mostly limited to the things he had experienced with them, the things he could observe, and thus far Kara had been doing an impressive job of keeping to herself. He was wondering why was she telling him that, as brutal as it sounded. It took him a few seconds to connect the dots and began to formulate a few theories on why. Because she would like to avoid that kind of fate from falling into Waterdeep, on the first place, that made sense. But why wouldn't she also want to get paid for it? Was she simply satisfied by doing the right thing? Her body language did not seem to relay that kind of relaxed goodwill, she was tense, and tensing up further as she spoke about it.
It was clearly something that was hard for her; his eyes focused on the lines alongside her jaw and then her throat, gazing over her lips before finally setting on her eyes. There was definitely something happening within her. And when she had to take a small break, closing her eyes to finally let out the final comment it clicked on him. Maybe she had seen those kind of things happen before? But how? Or rather, but why? She certainly did seem strong enough to take care of herself and others, and Waterdeep had not fallen. Perhaps the place she had been in before had befallen that kind of fate. The dots connected, there was a small pause as he thought over that. His experience with Orcs rarely had outnumbered the hundreds, and that was the largest figure his memory could conjure. A war against the orcs though? He could only imagine what that could be like. Kara it seemed, would not have to imagine it.
He felt inclined to ask her more questions, but then considered how hard it had seemed for her just to answer his single question, and reassessed the image she had of her, because right then he could see how broken she was. The way it touched her, and then for the very first time began to have the faintest idea of the driving force beneath her relentless pursuit of martial might. It did not seem like a race that had an end in sight. He made no comment on it, because he could feel something similar around the edges of the feeling. Instead, he simply nodded.
"That's good enough for me."
A small pause
"Is there any place I should reach you at? Or vould you like me to still contact you at the gatherings?"
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Post by moralhazard on May 15, 2019 3:33:13 GMT
The strain in Kara could be seen in every place Arioch looked. Her jaw was tight; when she closed it a muscle jumped along the hard edge of it. Covered in half-plate, as she was, it was hard to see how tense her body was, but it showed along the line of her throat, the tension in her jaw echoed throughout her body. When she pressed her lips together, with her eyes closed, they were hard, forming a small thin line that seemed to disappear into her face. A little of that tension faded when Arioch accepted her answers. She had spoken; she had survived. There was no need to say anything more about Sundabar, about her own experience. Let him understand what he would, draw those conclusions as made sense to him. if it was enough, it was enough. She had fulfilled her obligation. To Kara, really, the thinking was simple. She had fought Arioch; she knew him. He was cunning but not back-handed; he had tried to beat her with cleverness, but it was cleverness to her face. Here, today, he had faced her head-on, with no flinching or fear. Those weren’t the actions of a liar. Therefore – she believed him. And she believed him that it might be hard for this wizard to pay her. Then: if there was the slightest chance that needing payment would mean she couldn’t help, Kara wouldn’t take the risk. Money wasn’t important, and what she had left over from her orc hunt winnings would carry her for some time. If she was hurt, badly, there were healers she knew, and she thought they would help her and let her pay them back. Caim would, and she doubted he would ever ask for money. Gigi didn’t owe Kara any favors – they had been clear about that – but she thought the cleric would be willing to be owed one. So: there. The only reasonable option was to accept, and to make sure she would be there. Kara frowned, thinking. Both yes and no seemed like – incorrect answers, somehow. Instead, she named a place – a ward, a street, and a house number. “There.” She said, quietly. There was still a faint sense of tension to her, but it was easing, slowly, the further she got from the topic of orcs and their occupations.
"Arioch!" Pip came flying into the arena, and raced down the stairs. "I found it!" She beamed at him. "You said it was by the entrance, but it wasn't, but I searched all around and I found it with your other things!" She looked to be on the verge of tripping at any moment and was breathing hard at the end of her little speech, but what she lacked in strength and stamina she made up for in enthusiasm and determination; Pip fairly flew up onto the ring and thrust the important pouch into Arioch's hands, beaming.
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Arioch
Approved
Level 6 — Barbarian
Posts: 333
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Post by Arioch on May 15, 2019 13:35:44 GMT
He nodded at the mention of the place, he would probably have to ask around. Maybe ask Thea, she seemed to know her way around the city much better than he did, or maybe even Pip. For all her fidgetting around surely she would be able to find the place in the blink of an eye if she didn't know it already. Arioch didn't know many healers, sure Gigi counted but he didn't trust her farther than he could toss her, and even if that distance was probably a hundred feet he still didn't trust her beyond his ability to keep an eye on her. Healing magic and everything partaining to it was more like a myth than everything else, not a commonplace thing for him to behold daily or be aware of it. The healing potions themselves were like a legendary object, fabled and amazing, even though he had been aware of their existance and seen them a handful of times already. It was a strange think the way these people could even get to think of those kinds of objects as something normal when in fact it was beyond fantastical.
In truth he was looking forward to facing one of the so called demons, he had heard a lot of tales and questioned Faerel a bit on their nature. He would need a better weapon in order to face him and he had in mind just the right one, with his earnings in the arena perhaps he would be able to get enough money to afford one. If not, maybe he could come to some accommodation with Faerel. Maybe she could get him a weapon that was more useful against the demon? She had warned him after all that they were resilient to regular weapons whether they were made of steel or iron. Some of them were weak to silver for some reason she had not explained but at the time of his questioning she had been doing further research onto the entity she was supposed to summon in order to find more about it's weaknesses, though by her own admission that was easier said than done.
When Pip came back he didn't spare the smile, then feigned surprise, not that feigned really.
"Did you? Huh, I vas sure I had left it by the entrance. Great job Pip! You vere really fast"
He congratulated her before finally turning on Kara once again, though the smile remained on his face his eyes were talking about a different subject altogether.
"Ve'll be in touch then"
Said, the next time they met would probably be to guard the wizard herself.
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Post by moralhazard on May 15, 2019 13:55:15 GMT
Kara had a little time to think of Arioch’s reasoning now. She didn’t care as much as he seemed to; from the fight they had just had, she knew he wouldn’t back down. There had been no flinching or hesitation in him, even to the final blow which could have killed him. Perhaps he trusted her, or perhaps he was unafraid. A gladiator had to be, she supposed. As long as he used those skills elsewhere as well, she wouldn’t begrudge where they were from.
Pip beamed at Arioch. “No problem!”
Kara realized, now, that he had sent the little half-elf away, apparently to the wrong place, to spare her their conversation. Her estimation of Arioch rose another notch. There was a time when children needed to know about a coming war - but it wasn’t yet. Let her be a child a little longer.
Arioch said he - they - would be in touch, and Kara nodded. She stepped back, turning to go; it was early still, and a full day of work awaited her.
“Bye Kara!” Pip grinned at her. “It was really fun to watch you fight!”
Kara paused, looking at Pip. “Goodbye,” she said, after a slightly uncomfortable pause.
Pip ignored the awkward pause as fully as she did everything else, and just cheerfully gave Kara a wave.
Kara turned and kept walking, making her way up the steps and out of the arena.
Pip turned back to Arioch, bouncing in place. “That was such a cool fight! Kara’s so strong! How come you missed so much? Did you know she was gonna beat you?” Pip grinned impishly up at him.
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Arioch
Approved
Level 6 — Barbarian
Posts: 333
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Post by Arioch on May 15, 2019 14:01:23 GMT
"I was hoping she would"
He found himself admitting, and finding that the words were not untrue.
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