Stairway to Heaven

[Savas Tigh]

And another thing about the Call?

It doesn't give a rat's ass what you might have been doing when it comes pounding on your door.

In Savas Tigh's case, he was sitting in the middle of a library in Radasanth, just about to pore over an eldritch tome or six, when the Call grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and sent him careening through a blue and gold lightshow punctuated by flashes of dust devils in an endless black desert. Savas was a Wizard though, and a relatively advanced one at that. Where mere coincidence brought Rowan and where Aeraul saw only blurs, Savas got the whole picture in stark, vivid, utterly brutal detail. One moment, he was sitting at that big oak desk. The next, he was standing on charred black sand beneath a huge compound star, every one of its glows clashing black and white, the lines between them defined by arcane formulae that Savas recognized at an instinctive level. He had enough time to look back earthward as his feet began to lift from the sand. He saw a distant library of solid black stone, held together by numbers and words, by semantics writ large all over the laws of physics and logic. He saw a figure in a black cloak just standing there, mighty as a tower defined by empty blue sky at its back.

And finally came the flash of gold.

Savas found himself staring at an unopened letter where the tome had been. He had his arms laid across a great big counter -- a bar fashioned from metal plates and wood boards. Behind him, there were howls of battle and the obscenities of combat. In front of him, a severely cracked mirror. Guns were going off all over the place. Not a single bullet touched him. Savas looked around, then turned his attention back to the letter. In a numb sort of way, he opened it. Blood splattered all over his back and a severed arm tumbled past his shoulder. Savas took out the letter and unfolded it. An ork tackled a lesser orc onto the counter and bit his face off. Savas read the letter.

Live for the Tenth Empty Feast.
Have faith in your own workings.

Savas considered it all rather thoughtfully for a few seconds. Then he nodded to himself and said, very resignedly, "One of those, I see."

He stole someone else's beer, then had a severed finger as a snack. Orc tasted different from human, he noted. More like beef than pork, a bit saltier too. Savas looked himself over and took stock of the situation with a total detachment from what was actually going on. He was wearing Coronian gentlemanware under a mail-reinforced leather robe. Boots, good old salvic boots. His utility belt, stuffed to the limit with potions, chemical agents and reagents of all kinds. His axe in his robe, his daggers, some wands. Savas nodded and stood up just in time to avoid getting crushed as borcs brawled into the counter, assaulting each other with fists the size of bowling balls.

"Welp," Savas said to nobody in particular, "Time to go to ground."

Discretion is the better part of valor. As Wizardry goes, it was actually a sign of enlightenment and maturity that Savas thought best to try it.

It was a damn shame things didn't work out that way, but you can't fault the guy for trying.

[Caden Law]

"So," a Wizard said some hours later.

"So," said a fighter.

"This is all quite coincidental. I apologize."

"Eh," said the other fighter. "Could be worse."

"True," said the other Wizard. "We could be naked."

"...considering everything I've seen and done today, that really isn't very horrifying," one of the fighters commented.

"I just wish I could understand what the hell they're saying," the other said.

"You really don't wanna know," one of the Wizards answered.

"It's Hells, plural and capitalized, and it involves boiling oil," the other Wizard added.

"...hell is just a word," one of the fighters said with conviction. "You don't really understand until you've been there."

"Sounds like somebody's seen some shit since we last got together," the Wizard said.

"You have no idea."

Cue the inevitable pause, which was long and pregnant, punctuated by screams of WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!! from the street outside Fireside Company's improvised fortress. It had, until very recently, been a bar or a tavern or an inn or just a shithole where a craggedy old orc served watered-down beer and pretended to cook raw meat on a weak flame stove. The Company had reunited in a blur of blood and guts a few blocks over, then fought a running battle with Everyone And Their Mother before settling on this particular building as their shelter. Although it was less settling and more oh, hey, Aeraul just got tackled through a window, let's make sure he didn't die -- oh shit, the door's blocked -- oh shit, what do we do now?, but close enough.

Aeraul was fine, by the way. Winded but it could've been worse.

"So how've you guys been?" Savas finally asked, even as a cloud of lead pellets annihilated one of the already broken windows and punched an array of holes into a back wall. Of the Company, he was actually the best adjusted to what was going on. He had already greyhawked a gun and was currently poking at it, trying to figure out its inner mysteries. That it might be out of ammunition hadn't quite occurred to him yet, but it would sooner or later.

"Pretty good, actually," Aeraul said with a similar brevity. "Went on walkabout. Found my inner fire. Climbed some mountains, started refreshing myself on some languages from the mainland. Turns out I speak Salvic with an Alerian accent. Figure that one out."

"I got tricked into going into a mystery shop," Rowan said with a visible twitch. The rest of them had already noticed his Voice, his new scars, and the increased level of violence that seemed to have formed an aura about him, every bit as real and substantive as the teal glow that still enveloped him from head to toe. "Danny DeMon. Danny fucking DeMon."

"The DeMon didn't tip you off?" Caden asked.

"I was stupid," Rowan admitted.

"What happened?" Savas asked.

"I went to Haidia," Rowan said, holding up his big red katar o' doom. "Where I got this little gem. Then I killed my way back to reality. Then this happened."

"My ship was hijacked by orcs, then I was brought here. Broke free, spent some days rambling around, then...yeah," Caden said, tactfully omitting the whole I brought you all here thing. "Pretty sure we've been drafted by Khal'jaren."

"Would explain the desert," Savas said. "I was taking on a serial killer in Radasanth. Sit down to pore over a book or two, maybe find something to nail him with, then...poof. Gone. Kaputzky. Here I am, rocked about like a hurricane."

"...you were opposing a serial killer?" Caden asked. "I'm...I'm proud!"

"He was horning in on my territory," Savas shrugged.

"Nevermind!" Caden had to shout over the sound of a nearby building being crushed by a falling skyship. The Company was quiet for a little while, then Rowan cleared his throat.

"Any idea when the Voice cuts off?" he asked.

"Eventually. You have to relax some. I'm guessing you've been under some heavy stress to have manifested one at all, though...I did tell you about chi just being magic with a nameswap."

"It's more than that. Shut up," Rowan muttered.

"I think it's starting to quiet down some out there," Aeraul said. "I can still feel waves of violent intent all over, but...there's a sense of calm asserting itself, bit by bit."

"Now that you mention it, does sound like there are fewer guns going off," Savas agreed. "Helluva flash in the pan though."

"Any idea what triggered it?"

Caden cleared his throat and suggested, "Might be more prudent if we worked out a gameplan to get out of here in one collective piece. Along with a longer-term plan for surviving in Kebiras. How many of you speak the local common?" Savas and Aeraul both raised hands. Savas was clearly still learning, Aeraul had picked up Kebiran common somewhere during his travels. Caden nodded to them, then pointed at Rowan. "We'll work on you later."

"So what's the plan for now?" Rowan asked.

"We kill everything in front of us and murder our way out of the city's front gates," Caden said. "What could possibly go wrong?"

A lot, actually.

[Aeraul Smythe]

Say what you will of the orcs, but never call them fractious beyond hope and reason. All it takes is a big enough stick or a sharp enough knife or a loud enough gun.

Warlord Larkatz the Butcher had all three, along with the sworn loyalties of the surviving Council of Long Teeth -- some secured more readily than others. Ghastfire played the role of amplifier now, with Larkatz's personal mark carved painstakingly deep over his heart. Orcs being the highly sympathetic and empathetic creatures that they are, it was about as binding as an actual magic ritual. It obligated Ghastfire to stand at Larkatz's side atop one of the tallest buildings in Long Teeth, to conjure up a rainbow-colored halo of fire around his head, and to bow with a gun at his temple as the new Warlord of Long Teeth proclaimed himself to the masses.

"OY! THAT'S ENOUGH O' THAT NONSENSE!" Larkatz bellowed, his secondhand Voice echoing from one end of the city to the other. "FIGHTIN'S OVER, BOYS! YA GOT FIVE MINUTES TO SETTLE YER SCORES, THEN ANYONE STILL FIGHTIN' IS DEAD!"

Every syllable changed the color of the clouds. Every echo wobbled skyships off course. There was one last collision before the skies went quiet, accompanied not long after by the collapse of one of Long Teeth's biggest auction houses.

Out in the thick of it, Fireside Company butchered their way through the city streets. Positions in the group literally rotated as each man struck forward, then dodged out of the way of an attack and was subsequently replaced by one of his fellows. Aeraul lead for the breadth of five sword strokes and a blast of fire, then ducked off to the left. Rowan lunged through the space he previously occupied and took an ork's head off with an uppercut. He grabbed the head, kicked the body out of the way and smacked one of the ork's fellowed with it several times before backflipping to the left as well. Savas followed up with both barrels of a pillaged shotgun, then he ducked off to the right and left it to Caden to deal with a pair of orc mages down the street. They were good, as laymen go, but Blueraven was competing on a level they just couldn't reach. He flash-burnt once and impaled the other through the chest with ice, then counterspelled a third as she was coming out of a building. Savas followed up with a pistol shot through her head. Then both of them got out of Aeraul's way and the pattern started all over again.

The further they got from Long Teeth's square, the thinner fighting became, until they were just picking off stragglers on their way out the front gate.

"PLAYTIME'S OVER, YA RUDDY PRICKS!" Larkatz boomed, and resistance to their escape stopped so quickly that it was almost disturbing. None of the Company -- not even Aeraul -- had ever seen orcs obey an authority figure so quickly. "MY NAME IS LARKATZ AN' FROM TODAY, I'M THE WARLORD OF LONG TEETH!"

Cue a chorus of WAAAAAAAR!!!!!s from one end of the city to the other. Fireside was running now.

"THERE'LL BE TIME ENOUGH TO TALK ABOUT ALL I WANNA DO WITH THE UNDABOSSES LATER! F'NOW, ALL YOU NEED TA KNOW IS THAT I'M BANNIN' ANY MAGIC THAT AIN'T PRACTICED IN MY NAME! NOT ONE DAMN FINGOTTIN' BERK CASTS SO MUCH AS A MAGIC MISSILE WIFOUT MY PERMISSION!"

Cue the beginning, complete with the sudden sensation of a thousand eyes falling on every single one of the Company men.

"AND I AIN'T GONNA TOLERATE SO MUCH AS ONE DAMN BERK WHO AIN'T ORC CASTIN' SPELLS! THAT ENDS NOW!"

"Ah," Caden said at once. "That's gonna be a problem."

Cue the ending, complete with the sound of a few hundred guns being cocked and aimed, and the audible sharpness of at least as many blades.

"I'm not surprised," Aeraul sighed. "It's not like anything remotely beneficial happens to us when we're around you."

"Oh shut up."

You can be forgiven for thinking thunder struck in the Bay of Long Teeth. That many guns really did go off all at once.

[Leaf on the Wind]

For a fraction of a second, the world seemed to stand completely still.

Several hundred mouths hung open in shock, and Fireside Company's were counted among them. The four men stood inside of several increasingly large bubbles, ranging from thin layers of glowing red heat distortion to ice to raw arcane energies to warping gravity. Lead dust sprayed them from all sides, none of it even especially lethal in the short term. At Company's heart, the Sorcerer Blueraven stood with his hands outstretched, staff held tightly in the left, and all the leylines of his body lit up like a neon blue fireworks display. There were trickles of blood from his nostrils and the corners of his eyes. When he spoke, it was with a strained Voice that wavered between the man he was and the demigod he could potentially become: "It's not like I can keep this up for long!"

Savas started to speak. Aeraul began to act.

Rowan was already gone.

Spiritual energies burst through Blueraven's barrier array, enabling a swift passage followed by just six glowing footprints that went from ground to air to wall to rooftop. Red blade blurred, trailing multicolored bloods in its wake as Rowan met savagery with savagery. Whatever had happened to him, wherever he had been, the youngest of the Company men had completely changed. Everything about him screamed violent desperation and precision overkill. He did not attack the orc gunmen in the way that a Zirnden pit fighter might. He struck them down like a brutal warrior, moving from one opponent to the next before his most recent kill could even hit the ground. Obliterating stabs had replaced solid haymakers. Sweeping legs were merely the setup to murderous throat punches. Twice, he hit orcs with headbutts to the nose, utterly regardless of the tusks that could have gouged chunks from his own face. He jumped from roof to roof, a red-clad slaughterhound trailed by teal light, and the orcs of Long Teeth could do nothing but try to shoot him down.

It cost them.

Savas drew out a vial from his belt, uttered a short incantation, shook it thrice and threw it at a mass of orcs clustered inside of a nearby building. The glass could barely be heard breaking on the floor inside. The explosion that followed tore the building apart and sent bodies and parts of bodies and flaming gore flying in every direction. Aeraul went the other way, slicing into a nearby shopfront so violently that he ripped the windows and door wide open. He thrust two fingers forward with his free hand and unleashed a small, fast, bright jet of fire. The building went up like a tinderbox and the fire spread. All the fires spread.

And Rowan did not care at all.

He lunged through fire, ripped through flesh, broke bone and sundered metal. He made a full circle around the rest of the Company and by the time Blueraven had finished recovering, Rowan had cleared the way immediately ahead of them. He looked to the others without a word, just a nod, and then got a running start.

"What the hells happened to him?" Savas asked.

"I don't think I want to know," Aeraul answered.

With Rowan leading, the rest of the Company followed suit. Against all odds to the contrary, they actually got out of the Bay of Long Teeth and disappeared into the industrial wasteland to its southeast.

[Savas Tigh]

Fun Fact about the way that city-states develop over time: Those that achieve what could charitably be called hyperviolent arcano-steampunk levels of technology and magic tend to have very, very, very big garbage dumps to show for it. Where industrialization in Alerar was largely kept in check by natural elven inclinations towards not savagely raping the environment, Kebiras had no such unity the orcs weren't even close to giving a damn. Shamanistic warrior nobles did not exist on this continent. The closest trope you'd find to such a thing were the roving nomad tribes in Salvar and Berevar, relic populations that had crossed the north pole however long ago and set up shop there. Even so, the Bay of Long Teeth was more progressive than most.

It confined its industrial waste to one large dumpsite. Which had piled high enough to resemble a tiny mountain range consisting of nothing but junk. There were enough spare parts to build a small fleet of skyships, and Savas and Caden were both of the opinion that a complete ship was probably lying in the refuse somewhere. The air was foul and there was a visible brown tint all over the place. Fireside Company adapted almost instantly with Savas juryrigging gas masks out of cloth strips and alchemic reagents. They moved single-file through the junkheap, Rowan still out front and the Wizards in the middle. Aeraul brought up the rear. For a long while, none of them even dared to speak. A backwards glance could show them the city still smoking off in the distance as day gradually turned to night and the skyships began blasting the land with searchlights. Spells went off in the night, abrupt and often 'incomplete' in the eyes of seasoned magi like Blueraven and Wormaxe. Larkatz had been serious. He was purging Long Teeth of any magic that wasn't orc-based. Even at a distance where they could no longer directly see the slaughter's side effects, the Company could still hear distant echoes of the newly minted Warlord making his decrees.

"What'd you screw up this time anyway?" Savas finally dared to ask.

"What makes you think I screwed anything up?" Caden snapped.

"You're the Wizard That Did It," Rowan sighed, his Voice still going strong. "They know about you even Down Below."

"Down below?" Caden asked.

"Haidia," Savas answered. "Down Below, y'know? Underground."

Caden went awfully quiet at that. Savas figured it was one of those moments when the senior Wizard actually realized how far his name had spread. He gave it some time before asking, "So what did you screw up?"

"I was trying to destroy Long Teeth," Caden lamely admitted. "I was out of synch with the ley energies I was trying to tap into. I'm not familiar with the leylines of Kebiras."

"Probably a good thing," Aeraul noted. "You should learn to rely on inner strength anyway."

"Since when did you become a self-help guru?" Rowan asked, though not unkindly.

"Since I realized that I'll never be able to top killing an undead godling with the broken tooth of an Elder Thayne," Aeraul answered without emotion. "It's all a matter of perspective. What happened to you in Haidia?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Rowan Said with a shuddering look forward. He spoke no more, regardless of the others' attempts to prod some information out of him.

"We're going to need to set up camp at some point," Caden said.

"Once we get through here," Aeraul agreed. "We don't want to stop here."

"You feel it too?" Savas asked.

"That we've been watched by the locals since we got here, yes," Aeraul answered, clearly spelling it out for the benefit of Rowan and Caden. "I'm picking up on fear more than anything. We're four men walking through this place in good health and somewhat high spirits while Long Teeth falls apart behind us. I know I'd be afraid of us right now if I were in their position."

"...actually I was talking to the ambient energy of the place," Savas said.

"I was hoping I was imagining that," Caden groaned.

"Did you see the symbols?" Savas asked. "Reminds me of Sideways Diamonic, except...Sideways Kebiran, maybe? I don't know that language."

"You were right. It's Kebiran. And we're not quite surrounded by it."

"And you didn't tell us because...?" Aeraul asked.

"It's been harmless so far," Caden shrugged. "Whatever spells might've been contained, they've been degraded by pollution and weathering and whatever happened when all this stuff was junked. Nice to know our Kebiran cousins believe in product warranties."

"The hell's that?" Savas asked.

"Insurance if something fails or gets broken," Caden answered.

"...we're surrounded by discharged deathtraps?" Savas asked, stopping suddenly. Rowan and Aeraul stopped with him.

"Keyword: discharged. They're all harmless now," Caden shrugged. "Just fancy words, empty of power and meaning."

"That's reassuring," Aeraul mumbled.

"It is, actually," Savas agreed. "But it doesn't explain the tingle."

All eyes to Wormaxe.

"...what?"

"What tingle?" Caden asked.

"...you don't feel that?"

"Necromancy isn't my specialty," Caden answered.

Savas stared at him. Then he said, with perfect calm, "Someone on the other side is triggering a spell to come back from the dead. Someone powerful."

Caden stared at him for a long while. Aeraul looked to Rowan, who was still silent and distant. Savas shrugged, daring his mentor to tempt fate with the obvious words. Eventually, Blueraven closed his eyes and muttered some more obscenities under his breath.

Then he asked, "How powerful are we talking here?"

On cue, ghost fires lit through the night like tiny stars. Lightning struck the junkyard's peaks, reducing solid metal to molten slag and setting fire to tons of wood and garbage. From a direction that could neither be named nor pointed to, someone screamed in a rage that was as far beyond mortality as it was beyond sanity.

"That powerful," Savas answered.

[Caden Law]

The scream died down and a terrible silence took its place, but not for long. Chanting followed, endless repetition of a hundred words that Caden recognized as names, even if all their references were lost to him. Radabad, Kinslayer, Zomray, Seven Teeth, Corpsehauler, Orc sin Nombré, Black Nyral, Limper, Bodiless Jain, and the Orthanc. There were powers in those names. Caden, and perhaps Savas, was versed enough in the religious arcana to recognize them for what they were: epithets to folk-gods or heroic mortals who had ascended to the pantheon, if you could even call it that. He listened closely to the intonations of the names, so closely that it was a strain on arcane senses he didn't even have developed. Yet. Some, like Seven Teet and Radabad, were reverent; they matched up with how Caden thought of prayers of self-protection.

Most were old fashioned invocations. Gleeful calls. Uncertain. It was almost a guessing game.

"Go," Rowan snapped, shoving Caden and Savas forward as Aeraul took the lead. The Wizards both fumbled for a moment, then started running.

Red and orange firelights shined all over the junkyard, like inverted shadows from Hell. They pulsed along the ground, walls, junk piles, and across steaming pools of gods-know-what, all rushing by the Company en route to a single direction somewhere to their collective left, just out of sight. The scream slowly built back up with their passing, until at last someone looked up and said, "Oh crap."

"What? another asked.

"That."

As one, they all stopped and looked up. The clouds above had taken on the likeness of a colossal eye that was full of stars, outlined in faintly glowing gray. As if it had been waiting for them to look up, it began to rain. Winds picked up immediately. Lightning formed from empty sky and lanced out to points dozens of feet above the ground before exploding. The chants tapered off almost immediately, replaced by frantic shrieks as the natives -- lonely scavengers, all of them -- rushed for cover of some sort. Fireside Company wasn't much better. They all rushed from their improvised path, down a shallow incline that put them under a short overhang. Aeraul barely fit beneath it.

The wind picked up. Soon the rain wasn't even hitting the ground anymore. Lightning continued to strike, until the bolts started converging. Rain coalesced into waterspouts now, all of them twisting through the air against physical law as they snaked between the peaks of junk hills and along the ground without ever touching it. It was then that the Company realized their shelter had a front row seat: several hundred feet away, at the bottom of a shallow bowl-shaped depression in the junkyard, the lightning was forming a flickering halo. As more and more bolts struck and the thunder changed from constant cracks to a continuous, ear-splitting rumble, the halo stabilized into a more-or-less solid shape about thirty feet above the ground.

The water spouts collided above the halo and surged into the gap at its center. Water did not come pouring out from the other side.

The scream picked up yet again, so raw that no human or even orc vocal chords could have been responsible for it. Perhaps the idea of them, but not the physical things themselves.

The underside of the halo exploded down into the ground, sending a shockwave through the entire junkyard. Water broke down in gigantic bubbles before pulling back up in reverse, tearing chunks of the earth out with them. The world turned stark white for a fraction of a second, then it was all over.

Dead silence in the wastelands of Long Teeth.

The skies had already cleared.

At the epicenter of the working, there stood a clashing batch of elements and concepts, slowly resolving themselves into something that could be considered mortal. Fires burned into the shape of a long sleeveless robe until flickering out to reveal light brown leathers. Lightning flickered here and there in right angles gone fractal, only to realize itself as ink. Mud and water flowed in the likeness of a humanoid body before solidifying into a brown-skinned frame, roughly six and a half feet tall and defined by lean, tough muscle and scars that looked like frozen ripples. A thin column of wind spun at high speed, only to crash to a stop as it became an eldritch staff of power. Ghost serpents coiled about its end and materialized in a tangled ball with no head and no tail.

For several long seconds, the manifested orc stood still as if to finish putting himself together. He opened his eyes and they briefly glowed bright green. He worked his lower jaw, flexed his fingers, and went through some very basic gestures to reacquaint himself with his own body. Then he threw open his jaws and bellowed a war-cry that even the best human or elven Wizard couldn't imitate. His Voice was a dozen raw echoes slamming into each other, coming from a place so deep inside his soul -- wretched thing that it was -- that it sounded less like an actual sound and more like the frightful idea of one.

When at long last he was finished, the orc turned towards the path and locked eyes with Fireside Company's head Wizard.

"What's all this then?" the orc sneered, only now realizing that he had been surrounded. The Company did not muck about. Rowan crouched atop a nearby junk heap, katar drawn. Aeraul wasn't too far removed from striking distance. Savas had flanked the orc completely and had wands drawn.

"Precautionary measures," Blueraven replied. "What's your Name?"

The orc continued to sneer as he Said, "I could wipe you all from the face of this bloody plane."

"Don't be so sure of that, little mage," the Sorcerer replied, brandishing his staff as he spoke.

"...ah," the orc sounded. "You. I know you."

Caden pointedly did not blink.

"You're the Wizard That Did It," the orc Said before barking out a laugh. "Oh, you're so infamous ya don't even know it, do ya?"

"So I am. What's your name?" Blueraven insisted.

"In my last life, I went by the name of Eye-Berk to hide the Name of Hellhand."

"I'm assuming you changed your Name then," Blueraven said.

"Something like that," Hellhand admitted. "I'm guessing you're here to vy with whatever horrible things you think'll destroy the world next, eh?"

Blueraven said nothing.

"Boy, are you in for some rude awakenings," Hellhand told him with an awful grin. "Be seeing you. I got places to go, people to kill, plots to sew. You know how it is."

"No, no, and no," Blueraven snapped. "Sit."

Helland snapped his fingers and a ripple of power spread out from where he stood. Aeraul went for a death blow and slammed into what looked like a wave of metaphysical molasses. Savas managed to get three spells off by they all hit the same wave of power, slowed down and then petered out all together. Rowan jumped in for the kill and found out the hard way that the spell was a dome.

Caden was the most expedient on the attack: he sent a pillar of earth straight up at Hellhand's jaw.

He still hit nothing.

The orc mage was gone without a flash, disappearing as swiftly as the blink of an eye. His barrier spell faded out with him, leaving Aeraul and Rowan dodging each other's blades. Savas settled for whistling.

Caden just grimaced.

[Caden Law]

It bears mention that the following is actually written in Kebiran Common. Turned Sideways.

A word to the wise: Don't ever try to blow up a city. In hindsight, it would've been much easier to just assassinate a few people the old fashioned way, fight my way out, uncover some randomly contrived new ability that would allow me to escape by the skin of my teeth. Maybe I'd pick up a spiffy new item of power. Maybe I'd actually get laid. Odds are, I'd have my heart broken in a thousand tiny bits and pieces, the world would look a little grimmer, and hey, I'd be on my way home already. My adventures hardly ever go past the week-long mark, generally speaking.

I'll add that more people would've probably died too. More people always die when I do things the easy way. That's probably why it's so easy.

How that'd work as compared to trying to blow up a city, I don't know. Anyway. I've spent most of the past two days, give or take, rambling through the junkyard territories to the Bay of Long Teeth's southeast. We just got out of the last few heaps some hours ago and have made our way into what signs indicate to be Grinwald, the Green Bush, the Greenback, or the whatever-it-is*. Relatively few actual trees to speak of. Lots of gigantic bushes. Some thorns. Less than you might think compared to the woodlands of Raiaera. Temperature drops pretty badly at night. Humidity is less than you would expect too. Feels like the kind of place that doesn't get much snow or rainfall and both Savas and I think that there's a river or lake underground. The confluence of leylines here matches up to that sort of thing. We haven't really run into any wildlife yet. Conveniently enough, and thankfully at that, none of us seems to immediately need food** yet. We've made steady progress through the forest so far. I'd be willing to guess we'll be on the other side by tomorrow.

We have no idea where the hells we're going. And I'm worried, honestly, about us.

Aeraul seems to have imploded into some kind of self-deluded nihilist inner peace since Scara Brae. Seems to be going good so far, but...still. He had truly admirable control over himself when we were in the Bay, considering what kept happening to him in the Catacombs (that whole his-mind-was-constantly-being-shut-down-and-metaphysically-raped-to-shit-by-his-surroundings thing). On the one hand, great improvement on self-control and mental endurance. On the other, what the hells do you have to throw away, toughen up, or rearrange in order to go against your own nature like that? To my understanding, all tropes of orcs have a kind of mass empathy, the source of Aeraul's own ability to read emotions. What kind of terrible will or reason does it take to control a herd instinct capable of driving an entire city insane?

Savas is bloody Savas.

Rowan is...different. He keeps mentioning a familiar sounding demon store and a trip to Haidia but he won't go into detail about it. He's also sporting some new scars and some scars seem to have moved completely from where they should have been. The one on his chest? The big gaping scar o' doom that he was using to get into the pants of tavernmaids back in Scara Brae? Completely inverted to the other shoulder and hip. His Voice hasn't faded yet either. Most Voices take about an hour to fade out after they first manifest, then a mage has to learn the ins and outs of power control to use it at will. His has been going non-stop to the point that you can hear it in his breathing when he's asleep. His aura is also starting to change the color of his hair and eyes. It wouldn't surprise me if that spreads to bodily fluids either. Power incontinence can be a messy business.

We've set up camp for the night. Aeraul is taking first shift. I'm going second but I have trouble sleeping, so I'm writing this. Savas is not going at all. Ever. (Unanimous decision.)

* It seriously is called "the whatever-it-is" on one of the signs.
** For those who somehow don't know by now, any given mage is able to at least partially metabolize magical energies as a substitute for food and water, among other things. I can do it easily, Savas is...learning. Rowan seems to have started doing it during his time in Haidia, but he's clearly disturbed by not eating or drinking anything in a month or more. Aeraul is not running on magic yet, but he'll probably learn soon enough. His non-human heritage is giving him an edge so far.

[Aeraul Smythe]

There are eight-hundred pound gorillas and there are roving herds of pink elephants.

Aeraul Smythe was very clearly one with the elephants. Even if he was greener than anything. The intensity of the Kebiran sun had actually darkened his normally bright, nearly lime green complexion to a darker shade of pine, though it was not at all even. It was still a better deal than Savas or Rowan, who were both dealing with sunburn every so often. Caden lucked out by virtue of his Hat's wide brim.

"...how are you dealing with all this?"

Now about that herd of elephants...

"What do you mean?" Aeraul asked. He had posted himself by at the makeshift entrance to the Company's equally makeshift camp -- little more than a clearing surrounded by thorny patches and unnaturally jagged rock, all given a makeshift ward or two by the Wizards. He had taken up the dire cutlass from Caden near the start of this mess, though he now rested most of his weight on it like a podium of some sort. The jian was still securely fitted to his back.

"Exactly what I said. How are you dealing with all this?" Caden asked again. "Normally you're the odd one out, an orc-"

"Demihuman," Aeraul corrected him. "Although I prefer human."

"...still."

"I don't stick out any less here than I do back home," Aeraul said. "Where you see similarities between me and the orcs of Kebiras, the orcs and I see only differences stacked on top of each other. I don't even have tusks."

"Thought you kept them filed down?" Caden asked.

"Same difference," Aeraul shrugged. "All that matters is that these are not my people. Even if I was an orc, or ork, or whatever else, they still wouldn't be my people. My mother was from tribe out in Berevar, well north of the Salvic freeholds. And even there, I don't really blend in. I'm not Malgor the half-orc. I'm Aeraul the half-man."

"...your parents named you Malgor?" Caden snorted. "Bad blood. Seriously?"

"Mother's idea of a sick joke on father," Aeraul admitted. "These things happen. Especially if the tribe is able to vote for naming rights. I as actually named after an old chieftain, Malgor the Dragonkiller-"

"Irony."

"I know. Especially taking into account the orc family name -- Kildrake."

"Double irony," Caden added with a chuckle.

"I much prefer Aeraul Smythe. I don't even answer to the other name if I can help it," Aeraul said and meant it.

"What about the empathic resonance?" Caden asked, then simplified: "The crowd's emotions."

"I came to terms with that during and after that little jaunt through the Catacombs," Aeraul said. "They will no more affect my mind than a grain of dust ten thousand miles away. You can bank on that."

[Leaf on the Wind]

It was day six by the time anyone's stomach started growling. All eyes immediately went to Savas, just as a general reflex action.

"Hey, don't look at me," he told them with both hands placatingly raised. "I had finger-food before we left."

It was night seven by the time anyone's stomach growled again. Eyes followed ears this time, homing in on Rowan. His response was a dismissive, "I don't remember the last time I ate."

"Was it in Haidia?" Caden asked.

"...I don't remember," Rowan said again, then picked up the pace. Caden and Aeraul both exchanged a silent glance, but neither ever got the chance to call him on it. In hindsight, all things considered, that was probably a good thing. Probably. More likely than not. There was about an 80% chance, give or take. And anyway, what ended up happening really could have been worse. Seriously.

It's not like Fireside Company didn't have any collective experience with being ambushed or anything.

It would help to point out that said-ambush happened well after they had gotten out of Grinwald. They had, in fact, crossed a shallow and variably polluted river before finding themselves crossing a range of hills and arriving in a great savannah of nothing but grass and increasingly common patches of dirt. The ambush could not have come from above for too many reasons to count. It could not have come from around because there was no readily available cover; no easily established kill zone to work with. Instead of all that, the ambush came from below. Except it was kind of in reverse.

The ground collapsed beneath them, meaning they went below into an ambush that was suddenly coming from all sides. Screaming men and women with short spears and knives, speed and agility to spare, moving too quickly to believe in cramped quarters. Caden was actually the first one to go down, followed by Savas. Aeraul lasted longer, but only because they mistook him for a real orc right down to incorrectly gauging his tactics and way of thinking. He took two of them down with bare-handed strikes, got off one fireball, then went down as two burly men grabbed him around each thigh, lifted him up and then stabbed him right back down. The entire exchange lasted two, maybe three, seconds.

Alone in the dark, Rowan was still standing and fighting. At one point he Screamed, "MY TURN!" and smashed a short spear in half before stabbing most of his katar-wielding arm through the wielder's chest cavity. He wielded the dying man like a shield for several seconds, his blade, arm, torso, and a leg all soaking red under the teal glow of a battle aura as he moved from target to target. Someone shouted the soon-dead man's name and tackled him clear from Rowan's arm, costing him the katar in the process.

In some ways, that just made him more dangerous. Rowan caught knives at the wielder's arm, broke bones like twigs, and not a damn one of the ambushers could actually touch him. The handful who got within striking distance fell short or missed or were parried so hard that it obliterated their weapons of choice. Shooting feet and whipping fists all hit like sledgehammers. It was over in about a minute as Rowan dove beneath the last spear, came up and draped his arm across the man's chest. Rowan hauled the man back and slammed him back-first into his knee. The impact was sickeningly audible throughout the ambush chamber. When he was done, Rowan discarded the weeping man like garbage and spat on him for good measure. He collected his katar again, then deigned to look at the rest of the Company.

Savas and Caden were staring at him with a mix of what looked like gear and awe. Aeraul was ignoring him in favor of stemming the bleeding from a pair of chest wounds.

"What?" Rowan snapped.

"...pretty sure they were supposed to capture us first," Caden mumbled.

"I don't play that game," Rowan said, and meant it.

[Savas Tigh]

"So, uh...what the hells do we do now?" Caden eventually asked.

It was right about that moment that Fireside Company finally realized how much they were winging it.

"What?" Rowan asked after a long pause.

"I'm so used to being captured in the early stages of any given journey that I really don't have much of an idea for what to do when it doesn't happen," Caden lamely admitted. "Most times when that didn't happen, I was running for my life or charging into battle."

"Somehow," Aeraul sighed. "That does not surprise me in the slightest." He slapped the Wizard on the back, perhaps a bit harder than he should have, then immediately joined Savas in greyhawking the corpses of anything valuable.

It bears mention that the humans of Althanas and Kebiras are not exactly the same. Most races of men in Althanas tend to be pale or olive skinned, with the darkest being the humans of Fallien and, perhaps, the Durklanic tribes of old who were wiped out to the last by the Elves. The men of Kebiras are considerably darker, ranging from light brown to so black they're turning blue in the right light. There are exceptions on both continental clusters, particularly a few isolated Salvic relic populations in the far north of Kebiras, but that's the gist of it. Skin aside, even an ignorant bunch like the Fireside Company knew that the natives of Kebiras were an insanely varied lot. They'd seen enough bits and pieces and whole specimens of them and their myriad cultures on display in the Bay of Long Teeth to know that much.

The group that attacked the Company tonight were of medium tone for Kebiran humans, of comparable height to Coronian men, and almost all had bodies suited to marathon endurance. They all dressed in light brown leathers with green and white straps braided around their left arms, and some still wore matching collars that hadn't been torn apart in Rowan's rampage. Several sported ritual scars on the back of each hand, and one of them had an artificial eye that was clearly magical -- it sported Sideways writing all over the iris. Between them, Caden and Savas slapped enough braincells together to guess that it was an enchantment to provide sight. Another of the men sported an arm with what looked like wooden bones, which were exposed rather horrifically, again courtesy of Rowan.

Savas wanted to eat them just to see if there was a flavor difference between Althanians and Kebirans. Caden insisted on burying them.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Aeraul asked.

"Can't I at least take a finger or two? I'm starving here..."

"We don't know their funerary customs and I'd rather not risk leaving too much evidence behind," Caden answered.

"I'm training to be a funerist," Savas interjected.

"Do you actually know anything about their culture, enough to respectfully bury the dead?" Caden asked him.

"...no, but-"

"Exactly."

Cue geomancy and a lost meal. Savas cursed under his breath. Not that he hadn't come away with some minor trinkets in the process of all this; a jade-tipped silver ring, some other jewelry, and some blood as an alchemic reagent. It could've been a worse haul. After they had buried their would-be attackers and climbed back up to the top, the Company bowed their heads in silence and continued on into the night. Stomachs growled. Life went on. None of them had a clue what they were doing or what would happen next.

Thankfully, depending on your point of view, they didn't need to know. And it was probably a good thing, subjectively, because if they had known what was going to happen down the road, they'd have all run away. At least two of them would have been decent enough to scream their lungs out in the process.