Lost in Translation (closed)

[Erirag the Poet]

"And this place..." Erirag said as she leaned over the table, her amber eyes dancing with the glee of a shared joke, "will be like seeds in the wind!" She brought up her hand as if she were holding a dandelion puff and blew. She felt spittle fly from her lips but the dwarf across from her didn't seem to have noticed. Instead, he was redder than she was, almost the color of the untouched pickled beets in front of them, and laughing uproariously. A few elven eyes around them were glancing, lips pursed. They were making the other patrons uncomfortable, but Erirag was too drunk to really care. She'd come to Raiaera because there was money and adventure in helping the elves to gain back their homeland. Well, money enough if the right heads were collected. She was pleased that there was at least a sympathetic ear to bitch about the fair folk to.

"Right lass, growing gardens!" The dwarf rubbed his hands, smoothed down his impossibly long black beard and took a swig of ale. "Gardens of gold and iron and gems!"

At this Erirag sniffed. "Your words are - they are." she agreed. The elves were more interested in things that looked pretty than had any actual use. At least with a true garden, herbs for food and medicine could be grown. "Elf kin not know magic. Rock of Alerar hides all old magic. Once found ruby size of fist," At this Erirag lifted her hand and made a fist to show him, "redder than elf Red Forest. More power than all of this place. Power of... of.." she struggled to find the right word. How could she convey that the gems found in Alerar adorned all the nobles of the world, and how could she declare that this gave Alerar great power? Social power seemed to do greater things than a single spell these days. Finally she found the words she was looking for, one she'd learned recently so it was heavy and uncomfortable on the tongue. "Power of influence." She sat back, proud of herself. The dwarf seemed to light up immediately. Perhaps he had understood what she was trying to say.

"Ah lass, don't be saying that too loud now. Come, come, I have something to show you."

The two stood up, and stumbled back behind the bar. The dwarf mainly held a straight line but Erirag had much more difficulty, bumping tables and sending flagons and chalices flying. They made a wake of complaints and a busy hoard of servers armed with cloths and water buckets to clean up behind them, though Erirag didn't notice it until she turned around to pull closed the curtain they pushed through. He led her through the kitchen to the back corner where a stairwell down had been hidden by counters and the movement of the staff. It was dark when they descended, but not so dark that the orc couldn't see the bend and wind of the hallway. If she had to guess, she thought that where they were going wasn't directly under the pub, but rather somewhere behind it. She hadn't remembered seeing much in the back when she found this place. There'd been an old well, but that was it. Almost as if she'd summoned it with her thoughts, the sound of water splashing ahead grew from a whisper to a roar as they went ever downward and around. They emerged in a small cavern the size of a ballroom. In the back there was an underwater spring, fed by water from a duct in the back wall. A shaft of light illuminated it and sent ripples of white light dancing on the walls around. The shaft must have been the well, and sure enough she could see the shadow from where the rope and bucket hung just up at it's entrance.

Around here there were a few tables set up and countertops that were carved from the rocky sides of the cavern. Men and women worked with the natural light, candles, and magic orbs to see better. In their hands, things both gilded and gemmed flashed and sparkled. The air was thick with heat and magic. Erirag was a touch more sober now, and felt as if she definitely didn't belong here.

"Ay!" the dwarf shouted. "I've got a supplier for focusin' rubies!"

Silence greeted them until a stern looking human broke apart from a group and shushed them. The dwarf looked embarrassed for a moment and then repeated what he'd said in hushed tones.

[Zook Murnig]

"Ayipeh hua ha'ampdach, Thomasson?" demanded the umber-skinned witch in her native Sinai tongue, that the elves all around could not eavesdrop. The silver-haired man shrank at her biting question. The merchant, Thomasson, had once been a friend to Alma's compatriot, Cohen. Now, he had fled the unrest of Corone's civil war and the resulting confusion, seeking his fortune in the budding market of post-war Raiaera. Cohen had thought to use his newfound position in Raiaera's growing black market as a point of contact for locating rarities and trading for information. The slight-framed old man didn't seem to have the stomach for it, however. "Lami ish adah tzi? Ha'ahm adheh ma'bed ad tzih, ayish tziqun?"

Thomasson rubbed absently at the salt-and-pepper stubble marring his leathery bronze cheek. "Mitsahdi ahde abin akheth'es, abel..." His Sinai was proficient, but halted, like one who had learned the language as a boy, but rarely, if ever, spoke it again after coming of age. Many Coronian Sinai, Alma had found, were like this, forsaking their heritage in favor of better assimilating with their neighbours. It was a sore spot for the witch, seeing how the Old Ways, and the ancestral gods, were so easily forgotten, in favor of Thayne worship.

"Abel...?" Her voice took on an edge the elderly merchant hadn't yet heard. Her fiery russet gaze almost bored into him, as his brown eyes shifted uneasily away from her. He stalled for several long moments, taking a too-large draught from his mug. The merchant buried his face even deeper into the cup, his eyes disappearing behind the rim as he drank. Alma hooked her fingers over the rim, and slammed the swill-filled vessel against the table with a soft crack. In the dull roar of the cave, few noticed the violent outburst, and none paid more than a moment's mind. Cheap booze leaked from the new crack at the cup's base as she leaned in close to the man, speaking softly in simple Tradespeak. "Do you understand what's at stake? Your own inadequacies are nothing - nothing - next to the return of the Aurochs Queen, or another like her." Taking a deep breath, she unfurrowed her brow and sat back on her stool. Closing her eyes, she counted silently to three before reopening them to regard the merchant more calmly.

"Dhagiyd li meh qurah, Thomasson," she said, trying hard to keep her tone even.

Still shaken, but visibly relieved by the witch's obvious restraint, Thomasson explained, "Heiyeh quoneh achar, a'am yoder khasep mameh shani ikhul lahtsia'a." He closed his eyes for a moment before answering the question unasked. "Gworeth Penestel, a half-elven mercenary. She gained some renown, and quite a following, late in the war with Xem'zund."

"And for her to be interested in the stone..." Alma's mind reeled as she stared at the growing puddle on the table. "She knows."

Gworeth sought the Tomb of the Aurochs Queen, and the Queen's power. And Alma had to stop her. Alone.

Translation Key:

"Where is the key, Thomasson?" "Who has it? Did you lose it, old man?"
"I have found the agate, but..."
"But...?"
"Tell me what happened, Thomasson."
"There was another buyer, with more money than I could offer."

[Erirag the Poet]

Erirag mopped the puddle of booze from the table. Not on purpose, and she was still halfway across the room. The unfortunate part of drunkenly stumbling on an illegal exporting ring by mistake is that they catch on quickly to the fact that you don't belong there. Illegal exporting rings tend to employ intelligent, intuitive people, and on occasion a drunken dwarf. When someone had muttered, "take her down," Erirag had sent the first assailant flying. It was the dwarf, still redfaced and sputtering. He landed on the table, taking the cup and the puddle with him. The dwarf also took Thomasson as well, the man with salt and pepper hair disappearing behind the table he'd been standing at.

"Erirag not be some small child in murder house!" The orc bellowed. Her words echoed through the cavern with such force that soil shook free from the vaulted ceiling around the well entrance.

"Lle heden! Re buaruva vakhar." Quiet her! She will draw the guards.

At this, Erirag's face turned purple. She didn't need to know what the elves were saying. She didn't need to know which of the spindle eared thieves had said it. She knew it was worth getting angry over. Her muscles bulged as she ripped her arms away from the grabbing hands of the fair folk. Swinging wide, she threw one to the side while she kicked a knife out of the hands of one in front of her. She was screaming now, the screech made more awful by the pool of spit that was dribbling around her tusks. Her amber eyes were wild, searching for a target. She found one in the elf that stood before her, reaching out and grabbing him by the face. Her hands easily encompassed his skull, and she stretched so that she was her full height. The screams of her willowy assailant were muffled by her palm and she used his body to clear the path before her. She was too drunk to remember if she'd been turned around, and too angry to find the door. Instead, she charged.

"Lul gijak-ishi!" she howled as she came to a counter filled with precious jewels. This is what had led her here, some brag of the gems Alerar cradled in her belly. Surely this is the only thing that could reach these pitiful slips of pond scum. Her great fist swept the jewels to the ground, while gasps erupted from those who followed her.

"The enchantments!" someone managed to squeak.

"Laga?" she asked. "Dobat kurvi." Magical? Weak whores.

She knew elves had no merit of their own, and she laughed hard as she continued to destroy the work being done on the counter. Runes inscribed on marble boards were shattered, gems scattered to the dirt, and papers filled with careful inscriptions that described years of work were ripped to shreds within moments. Unbeknownst to the orc, behind her one of the elves unsheathed a longsword. The fluttering runes of Bladesingers were inscribed down the blade, flashing with light that didn't come from candles or the well opening above. His face twisted into a sneer as he crept up on the monstrous bard, and moved his blade into a position to pierce her heart right through the cloth wrapped around her chest and the tangle of auburn hair that fell down her back.

[Zook Murnig]

A stout dwarf hurtled across the table, and time seemed to slow for an instant as his bearded jaw destroyed the already cracked mug, whiskers whisking away the weak beer beneath it. Alma could only watch in horror as the stoneson's legs wrapped around Thomasson's neck, carrying him to a harsh meeting with the cavern floor. She ducked under the table, as much to protect herself from more bantam missiles as to tend her fallen contact.

Through the shrieks and roaring, and the gruff and drunken protestation of the bearded gnome, Alma prised the pair apart. She found the aging merchant breathing, but definitely concussed and unconscious, a warm lump rising at the back of his head. Satisfied that he was neither dead nor dying, the witch grasped around amongst the confusion for her staff. Rising, she saw the source of the trouble. An orc, tusks frothing with rage and alcohol, stood among a throng of elven black marketeers. The wispy wardmongers were piled on the beast's every limb, and it had ahold of an enforcer by the face, swinging him around broadly like a guardsman brandishing his badge. As the barbarian reached a counter full of enchanted tablets, she hurled her shield of office at them, and whispering magic touched at the edge of her senses as the spells were shattered with the stone.

The brawl was nearing its end, however, and she felt as much as saw an ensorcelled blade glisten in the werelight. Its bearer drew ever closer to the orc in her enraged revelry, and with staff in hand Alma dashed into the crowd. Pushing past jewel-fences and enchanters alike, she charged through the mass of bodies at the orc, arriving only steps ahead of the swordsman. With an over-handed swing, and a sharp crack, the lead-filled knob of her staff connected with thick orcish skull.

The beast slumped against the counter, frothy drool tinged with vomit spreading over broken stone and clay. With another shout of impotent indignation, she turned on the witch, swiping dazedly at her adversary before a sharp knock to the chin silenced the orc and carried her bodily into her assailant. Alma winced with the weight, and her knees shook as she shifted the orc's unconscious form to lean against her staff. She willed it to rise into the air, and to the challenge of supporting such heft.

The swordsman glared at her as she hunched under the seven foot orc, and as if to answer his unvoiced demand, she said "Amin now nomin tankuva orqurashwe ette." I think it wiser to deal with the troublesome orc outside.* She noted the looks of confusion washing over the furious elves, but decided to ignore it as she dragged the orc out of the thieves' den, saliva and blood mixing to trail behind the green-skinned brute.

Upon emerging into the tavern above, she was greeted with still more questioning stares, and merely muttered "wine cellar," by way of explanation, trailing blood and spit across the clean oaken floor and into the night.

*Translation note: "Amin now nomin tankuva orqurashwe ette." I to think wisdom will fix trouble orc outside.

[Erirag the Poet]

When Erirag opened her eyes, blinking muddily at the starry night sky, she wondered how long she’d been out. The morning’s events came to her slowly, stopping suddenly at ale. She thought she might have remembered more, but it was washed away like a scrawling message in the sand. The tide was the fog that flooded her memories and the throbbing headache that flashed just under her skull. She took a level breath. The bard figured if she could just calm the storm in her brain and belly she would be alright. She caught a scent, the subtle herbs that were used to wash bodies and cloth. It was barely present and almost completely covered by hours-old vomit. While not remembering exactly what happened, Eri knew she’d been attacked. As she suddenly rose to sit, the world span and her stomach heaved again. She could do little more than lay on her side and let froth pour onto the grass, gagging at the acid in her throat.

When she was finally done, she groaned and held her head, laying back. Her eyes were shut tightly against the light of the moon. Had it ever been this bright before? “Dahaut….” She swore. It took a moment for everything to settle again and when it did, she didn’t even try and sit back up again. A sound of movement let her know that she was correct. Her attacker was nearby.

“What you want?” she whined gruffly, internally swearing by all the blades in Alerar that she would murder the one who had done this. She opened her eyes against her better judgment and thought she caught the silhouette of a tiny slip of a thing. Had such a slight human really brought her down like this. Somewhere nearby she heard a chittering laugh. She could only assume it was Rrosh, her rat companion. Where had he been when she needed him? Probably raiding the grain silo of a nearby farm, she knew. She also knew what little help the demonic rodent would be.

“Mabaj nar armauk,” she lamented weakly even though it appeared she was at the mercy of one such enemy now. “Erirag have no gold. Erirag have no nothing! No honor now. Oh Erirag!”

“If you had anything I wanted, I could have taken it while you were unconscious.” A voice spoke from the darkness, a voice that matched Erirag’s idea of a human woman, but with an accent that was like warm spices in the Coronian sun. “You interrupted my meeting.”

The silence between them stretched a few minutes while Erirag processed what she said. Finally the orc bared her blood and vomit stained tusks and growled. “So. You elf. Never see elf so short. Gonna squish you more short.” Rolling to her side, she tried to heave herself up once more but paused, her face a pale mask of rage. “Two minutes, then squish.”

[Zook Murnig]

"No," the witch said, standing a short distance from the vomiting and concussed orc. "No 'squish.' You owe me, orc, for saving your life. And that, after cutting short an important meeting with my contact." Alma took a deep breath, pushing down the storm of frustration that had been building since her encounter with the creature earlier that day. Carrying the she-beast from the village had been no small task, even with her staff to aid her. The periodic eruptions of bile hadn't helped, either.

Taking some small mercy on the suffering orc, Alma pulled a gnarled root of ginger from a pocket of her satchel, broke off a piece, and tossed it at her charge. "Chew that," she instructed. "It's ginger. It will help with the sickness."

The orc held the bulbous root to her nose, smelling it briefly before snorting derisively. "Erirag no luljigak," she grunted. "What want eat plant? What think Erirag? Erirag no elf!"

"True," Alma conceded. "But elf or not, I need your help, Erirag, and I need you strong." The orc's name rolled oddly on her tongue as she spoke it. She crept toward Erirag, careful not to startle the orc as she knelt by her head. In the nightglow, she could see how her matted hair had clumped against the clotting wound above her left ear. As she reached to inspect the wound with delicate fingers, Erirag growled bestially and pulled away. "Stop that," the witch chided, drawing a small stone from a belt pouch. "I'm just washing your head where I hit it, so you don't catch a fever." Focusing a small amount of tejas into the stone as she pinched it with one hand over the wound, she brushed out the hair and grime through the warm water trickling from the stone. She tore a small corner from her cloak, doused it in warm water from the waterstone, and pressed it firmly into the lesion against Erirag's snarled protest, before layering the thickly tangled hair back over the makeshift dressing.

Through all of this, she explained, in simple terms, the situation. That the Aurochs Queen once ruled this region of Raiaera as a Durklan warlord, and how she and her lieutenants rode mighty overgrown oxen into battle, according to the myths. That she had been defeated finally, and entombed by her devoted followers at the foot of the Twilight Mountains, and her scepter of power sealed within for her return. And how the half-elf Gworeth Penestel had obtained the key to the crypt, and would likely seek the Aurochs Queen's scepter for her own purposes.

[Erirag the Poet]

“Elfkin always trouble.” Erirag remarked after the girl had cleaned her forehead. It wasn’t the orc’s first concussion and it wasn’t likely to be her last. The story was somewhat interesting to her, though. A good legend was the bard’s bread and butter after all. After shoving the garlic root in her mouth and crunching on it unhappily, she eventually lumbered to her feet, swaying slightly as she scanned the road. They’d been passed by several travelers already, all whom had so far minded their own business. After a moment the bard looked back at Alma. Her staff may have gotten them out of the pub but it wouldn’t likely get them much further. If they intended on meeting or beating this Gworeth figure to the crypt, they would need something faster than their own feet.

Erirag turned her attention back to the road, and the travelers she could see. The bard wasn’t so happy or so sure about what Alma had to say about her owing her anything. All that had gone wrong hadn’t really been Erirag’s fault. But in the end, there might be something to gain for all of this and Eri could at least appreciate the girl didn’t just leave her for dead. Just as she’d made her mind up that she’d go along and help the witch out, a wagon ambled up the path. The squeak and turn of wheels on uneven road turned into a rumble and clatter. As it went to roll past, the driver pulled the two heavy workhorses to a stop and leaned over the side of the cart. He spat, a mass of phlegm and drool shooting out into the grass.

“You okay miss?” he asked Alma, his beard twitching as he glanced at Erirag. “This beast ain’t giving you any trouble, now?”

As he turned back to Alma, no doubt to offer the pretty young thing a ride away from such a monster, a big green fist shot out and grabbed him around the neck. Erirag had moved to the side of the wagon, far more quickly than her head would have liked her to. Despite her sudden feeling of weightless pain, she managed to look the man in the eye.

“Trouble, yeah. Now.” She threw him to the side and climbed into the cart. It leaned at first, threatening to spill over and buck her out. When she moved to the center of the wagon and started throwing out bags of grain, the wood under her continued to creak and groan but the wheels seemed less likely to collapse. When the cart was empty, Erirag slipped down and laid in the back of it, her angry watch keeping the farmer from complaining too much about the theft.

[Zook Murnig]

"Nwalkamin," the witch said, offering her apologies, and a pair of worn gold coins, to the stunned farmer. Leaving the bearded man where he lay, she climbed onto the seat of the wagon. She grasped the fraying reins, and having a vague idea of how to drive horses, whipped them about. After a few seconds of dubiously flailing around, the animals obliged. Cantering steadily down the well-beaten dirt road, the horses barely seemed to need a driver. Their path curved with the trail, avoiding rocks and fallen branches in the broadly spaced woods.

The trees thinned into fields, the road forked, and Alma jerked on the reins, to which the burdened beasts grudgingly complied and steered to the right. The rising sun began a slow sweep behind them as they turned west, away from the towering wall of crimson. This region of Raiaera, in the shadow of the dread Lindequalmë, had not faced the brunt of the necromancer's army in the Corpse War, only a few years past. Even the dead shied from the red trees and the terrors within, and in Xem'zund's sudden and indefinite absence, the ghouls and zombies shambled away to the north. Villages like the one they had left behind were rare on this southern frontier, but their proximity to the wild and ancient menace of the Red Forest had spared them in many ways. Even the plagues spread by the risen dead had lifted from the land, and it was fertile and green, as it had been before the war.

Their objective, however, lay in the Twilight Mountains, half a day's ride away at their pace. Their shadows cast long ahead, the guttural snores of the orc behind her, and the mountainous border with Alerar looming overhead, Alma's thoughts turned to the crypt of the Aurochs Queen. Once and future Queen, the legends foretold.

Translator's note: "Nwalkamin" translates to "My cruelty" or "Be cruel to me" depending on context. "Nwalmamin," however, translates roughly to "My sorrows" a vague, but servicable apology.

[Erirag the Poet]

The mountainous roads had been rock cut to be somewhat flat. The line of grey rock that they followed wound behind green hills, mossy stone broken only by the darker washes of black pine that towered to the blue grey of a cloudy sky. The morning stretched long into afternoon when the road began to break into a handful of little trails and eventually the wagon was too wide to follow them. Together they watered the horses and left them with the wagon at the base trail. If they were still there when the deed was done, they could return them. If not, so be it. Erirag didn’t particularly care one way or another.

They climbed for what seemed like forever on a trail that at one point had been quite wide. While the brush and pinelings had begun to take over the path, they could see where it used to be wide enough to fit horses or wagons. Or aurochs, Alma had pointed out. Finally, they came to the tomb. It was cut into the side of the mountain, great statues of huge cattle carved into the limestone, deposits of dolomite creating shimmering patches as the sun shined over the ancient surface. The doors, however, were made of something else. They looked as if they had been wood at one point, inscribed with words not read since the Durklan had lived here. They were tall enough to dwarf Erirag, as if they were meant to welcome an army, or perhaps spill one out upon Raeiera.

And the door was ajar.