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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverName" data-source="post: 1360685" data-attributes="member: 2591">Adventure 23A Beard's ErrandBy Dario (Keith Martin)Dario looked down at the crumpled form of Andreas, his employer for the last three years. Blood was flowing freely from the axe wound in the mage’s neck onto the deck of the White Dragon. “No” he thought “Cesar. The ship’s real name is Cesar. Have to remember that.”“Well, druid. Is he dead?” he asked.Gudlaug made to answer, but was interrupted. “Not dead, not dead, not yet at least.” The dwarven cleric Dain replied as he stooped over the mage’s pale form. “Not going to be, either, not with me handy. Give me a little room.” Dain Ivansson made a short prayer to his patron god Tyr, the Dekkalfar god of battle and war, and place one hand on the mage’s brow. The flow of blood stopped, and Dario watched with interest as the color crept back into Andreas face.“He’ll live then?” the human soldier asked. “Good. Kept him alive all this time, hate to lose him like that.” He turned away from the dwarf to regard the corpses of the slain merrow scattered across the deck.“You don’t ssseem too concerned, human.” Copoc said. “Isss he not your friend?”“I’ve buried other friends, shaman. Goes along with soldiering. Never buried one at sea, though. Looked to me like you took a worse blow than him, anyway.”“I will . . . recover.” Copoc replied. “Our new companion is most adept at healing, and Kanul Yat Balam tells me that my spirit .”“Good. Glad you won’t be dying either.” Dario interrupted. “Gudlaug, give me a hand, let’s heave these bodies overboard.”“Save one, I would question the dead.” Dain said. Dario looked at him uneasily, remembering his encounter with Gudlaug and Andreas’ necromantic enemy many months earlier. “Hrrmph. Fine, we’ll leave that big one for you, I suppose. He looked to be the leader at any rate.” Dario smiled grimly, remembering the combat only scant minutes earlier, and how the huge aquatic ogres had clambered suddenly aboard the ship in the middle of the night to catch most of the group unprepared or even sleeping.Dario himself had been merely dozing, sleeping the light sleep of the seasoned campaigner. He never slept well aboard ship at any rate, and the recent attack on the group by undead agents of the Three Mothers had left him a bit uneasy. Nighean, the Vacomagi queen, had been glad to learn of the group’s departure from her city, presumably drawing the dread wraith after them and away form the populace. Andreas had somehow charmed a favor out of her without the queen’s realization, and she’d given them a letter of introduction to the court of some dwarven Eorl that Andreas and Gudlaug hoped would get them access to the King. They’d shipped out that very day and had been at sea no more than six hours by sunset. Dain, the newcomer, was keeping watch along with Copoc when the merrow attacked. They did their best to raise the alarm and defend themselves as the rest of the group came to their senses, but things had gone badly at first.Copoc was the first to go down, leveled by a single blow from the apparent leader’s huge axe. At the time, Dario thought the lizard man was certainly dead. He remembered thinking, absurdly, how very red Copoc’s blood was as it splashed across his tunic. Almost at once he had drawn his sword and attempted to reach Andreas, who was threatened by two of the things.One of the ogres vaulted across the gunwale between Dario and the leader, but two quick thrusts just under the thing’s ribcage quickly put and end to it. Dario remembered hearing the braying of Gertrude, Gudlaug’s pet mule coming from the stern of the ship, followed by a heavy splash. He could only assume that the beast had kicked her assailant overboard. He had no time, though, to worry about the druid’s animal and needed to look after his own responsibilities. Gudlaug and Dain were engaged with foes of their own, but Andreas was undefended.Before he could reach a position from which he could guard his charge or engage his enemy, however, Dario heard the familiar phrases of some spell coming from Andreas. The wizard had been speaking in one of the faerie tongues, and not in High Illerian, and Dario knew from past experience that usually meant he was under some duress. There was a flash of fire, the great ogre leader stumbled back, angry red burns crisscrossing his body – but it was not slain, merely enraged.Before Dario could move, the huge merrow leapt forward, yelling something in a language Dario could not understand, and drove the wizard to the deck of the ship with a pair of brutal blows. Andreas flailed about horribly, clearly having taken a mortal wound. Dario sprang forward at last, wary of the ogre’s reach. Relying only on its size and strength, the merrow was a clumsy fighter, and Dario easily slipped under a great, two-handed swipe of the thing’s axe. With his first thrust he had driven his short sword into the ogre’s leg, inside the thigh, where he knew from experience much blood would flow. The ogre staggered forward, bellowing something in its alien tongue, but slipped as it did so and fell to one knee, blood already pouring from the wound in its leg. Dario stepped easily to one side, reversing his grip as he did so, and brought his blade down with both hands into the ogre’s neck. It crashed to the deck and did not move again.“Dario?” Gulaug asked. The warrior brought himself back to present concerns. “Deep in thought, there, mate? Let’s tend to these corpses, right?” Dario and Gudlaug proceeded to roll the heavy bodies off the deck and back into the sea. Gudlaug watched the last of them sink below. “Let that be a warning to you, bastards!” Dario was more interested in what Dain was doing than in yelling threats at any unseen enemies still lurking beneath the waves.The dwarf Dain had been an unexpected arrival, materializing on the group’s doorstep in Vacomagus without warning. He claimed, as best Dario could piece together, to have been sent by someone named Prince Vahana, who Copoc and Malcom were apparently familiar with – more familiar with Brone, the name Vahana was traveling under whilst spying against the Three Mothers when the two first met the erstwhile prince.  After extensive recitations of his family history and pedigree, and a brief explanation of the tenets of his faith, Dain had more or less placed himself at the group’s disposal. From what Dario could gather, this Brone fellow owed Copoc and Malcom some sort of favor, and Dain owed Brone some sort of favor, so Dain was here to repay his debt to Brone and Brone’s debt to Copoc at the same time. Or something like that, it was rather complicated and Dario assumed at once that there was much the dwarf was not telling them, but he didn’t trouble himself with that – Andreas could worry about such matters. Malcom was leaving the group at that point, to “take up his commission in the irregular Vacomagi Navy” – which Dario assumed meant he would become a pirate like the rest of the godless half-elves. So another hand was welcome at that point, and a healer not least of all.Dario watched now as the dwarf seemingly made a prayer to his heathen gods. He heard the word “Tyr” more than once, which he remembered was the dwarf war-god that Dain served. Eventually, the lips of the dead ogre began to move, and Dain questioned the thing’s corpse for some time, though the answers were in some faerie tongue and Dario could not make out any of them.“So” Gudlaug said at last. “The Three Mothers were expecting us to leave by sea, it seems. Ophia's set this whole tribe of merrow to be on the lookout for us – five warbands at least.”“Sssurely they cannot guesss our errand?” Copoc hissed. He glanced at the ship’s figurehead as he did so. Dario watched Dain closely while this was going on, but if the dwarf had any suspicions about the true nature of the ship he was standing on he did not betray them. The choice to let Cesar reveal himself to Dain in his own time and manner instead of taking another stranger into their confidence was a welcome one to Dario. “Never trust a dwarf” was about to become his personal motto after Kuldar had nearly betrayed the secret of the living ship.“Hrmmph.” Dario grunted. He looked at Gudlaug. “Think it’s possible? Think they know where we are heading, and why?”“Doubtful” Gudlaug said. “They likely expect us to be looking for Ophia at this point, hunting for the Shadow Barge. Or even trying to track down the dread wraith for a re-match.  I expect those things they would be prepared for us to undertake. But not this, not us suddenly heading to Jormunstein. I expect this attack has nothing to do with that. But who knows.”“Our dead friend there indicated that many hunters were sent out, trying to cover all the likely trade routes out of Vacomagu.” Dain said. “I think they expected us to leave by ship, but didn’t know which way we would be heading.”“Where . . what . . “ Andreas stirred, finally. Dario looked down at the mage. “Took a bad wound.” He said. “You nearly didn’t survive.” Andreas looked around, clearly confused. “Still at sea?” he asked.“Yes.” Dain replied. “Still off on this mad errand to snatch hairs from the beard of a dwarven king. This friend of yours must have made a powerful enemy if it takes something like that to lift his curse.”Andreas grimaced, still clearly in pain. “Ahh . . . yes. Powerful enemies are not in short supply around us, it seems. Thank you, Dario, you r service has been exceptional as always.”“Wasn’t me.” Dario replied. “Couldn’t reach you in time. I did do for him, though.” He pointed at the dead form of the merrow leader. “Dain, here, saved your skin. A useful healer, just as promised.” If he felt any shame at his failure to protect his charge, Dario didn’t betray it.Without comment, Andreas turned to the dwarf. “Then you have my thanks, master dwarf. Should my bodyguard be . . . unavailable again, I hope you will be as quick with your magics. I’d surely have perished otherwise.”“Think nothing of it.” Dain said. “Dario there had his hands full as it was. He’s quite capable a fighter for all that he’s not a dwarf. More to him than meets the eye.”“Yes, well.” Andreas eased himself to a seat on the gunwale near the prow of the ship. He place one hand easily on the White Dragon figurehead and looked up into the glassy black orb of the dragon’s eye. “I think you’ll find there is more than meets the eye to most of us.”</blockquote>

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