2 v 2 Argentum Astrum vs. The Bandit Brotherhood

[Papa Dagon]

Dagon took a careful while to consider Jared’s proposition, and that was a few more seconds than he’d liked. As a principle, he wanted his days to be leisure walks on the winding roads of life, yet today was anything but. “Ruts and grooves everywhere I stand, slopes and forks everywhere I go! Looks like today’s crossroad is under the watch of samfi mon Kalfu.” The shaman sighed, wondering what he’d done to get his name in the spirit’s bad books, though it quickly came to him that this wasn’t really the most important of things to figure out. Not in these singular circumstances of his.

“Baron take all, I give up,” Dagon finally said, letting himself fall back onto the toppled wreck of a limestone pillar. He swatted away the faint puff of dust that rose when he sat with his old top hat, his lax gestures and aloof behaviour all showing some sort of temperate surrender. Only, the green lights in his eyes were still dancing with the same mischief as a pair of will’-o- wisps. He set his topper down onto the stone, open-end facing up, and deftly produced a handful of seeds from the stitched pouch at his side. With a whisk of the hand, he sowed them on the barren soil, drawing a grainy arc a few feet away from his feet. “Best we all give up on thinking – too much of a hassle, eh?”

“I’ll dance on my cushions, boyo. It’s what I do best, and you’d do well to remember it, yeah?” This was it. No more inner conflict, no more assessing repercussions, no more second guessing: he’d come to help Chroma, and there was no question that he’d do just that. None of them had known about the match-up, none of them could legitimately hold anything against anyone after this. “But you feel free to put your hands on my hips and shimmy this out, if you can!”

“No point in worrying,” he said to Molotov, though nothing of his demeanour showed that he was addressing the man in particular. On that note, Dagon buried his hands in the depths of his coat, taking them out only when he’d curled his finger around bark and stone. In his left was a shrunken, fat tree with hollows that shaped eyes and a toothy mouth; in his right was a cross-shaped rock, filed down and polished by his own hand.

“Brothers fight each other first, and for each other second. We’ve already killed monsters, what’s unnatural about a bit of infighting? That’s what brothers do.”

Something, perhaps a soundless wind, had made the seeds at his feet sway ever so slightly, and as it blew by, it also brought upon the battlefield an unnatural air of misfortune. The sparkle of jade in his eyes was now set in a gimlet stare, harsh yet radiant with the strange magic of his land. “Here do spirits creep, gather round and ride the wind.”