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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GodOfCheese" data-source="post: 4881846" data-attributes="member: 19170">What the Hells it WasThere they lingered, upon the weed-flecked cobblestone street, surrounded by the warm night winds, the creaking of the windsails, and the logs stirring in the T’yers.  And the deafening sound of their hearts beating.“What the hells was that?” asked Jo again.Wik took a deep breath.  “A powerful presence,” she said ambiguously, her brows crinkled.Candlelight kindled in a window nearby, catching Dorin’s eye.  “Let’s get out of here before the real...” he took a breath.  “…before the other guards show up.”Jo, visibly shaken, took care to put her axe away as she stood.  She turned to help Dorin up, but he waved her off.  Wik rolled lightly to her feet.“Where to, Jo?” asked Dorin with controlled excitement.  His eyes were on the window.She followed his eyes and said simply, “Away.”  A hazy silhouette appeared briefly in the window.  “Now,” she added.---“I don’t understand,” Jo asked calmly, once they were further down the main road.  “What happened to you, exactly?”Wik sighed.  “Whatever that was in the room with us, its presence was overwhelmingly strong.  I was… lost for a moment.”  She shrugged.  “You know how sometimes you look up at the sky and the sun dazzles you?  Same thing.  I was dazzled.”Jo looked away with a scowl.  “So the ghost of this dead dwarf is… what?  The king of all dead dwarves?”“I seriously doubt that ghost was anyone we’ve ever met,” Dorin replied, rubbing his hand against his jaw.  His eyes were distant.  “Really, if that ghost’s presence was enough to overwhelm you, we’re not dealing with anyone normal.  We’re talking about a seriously destructive being.”Wik seemed to consider this, saying nothing.  They walked in silence for a time before she piped up.  “This might rule out any run-of-the-mill exorcism.  Even if I could perform one.”Dorin grinned for a moment.  “Run of the mill?”Wik smiled broadly.  “…even if I could perform one, yes.”Jo seemed unaffected by Wik’s levity.  “So what does that mean?  That the mill is unsalvageable?  The J’Tegh clan is going to be pretty ticked off.”Dorin sighed and nodded as they rounded a corner.  It was late, but not so late that they were the only ones on the street.  There were still plenty of dwarves staggering about in search of their homes.  Many of them didn’t look like they’d make it, even with help.“We should probably think about where we’re sleeping tonight,” he said, looking around at the others on the road.  “I’m told the inns in this town never close, but they might yet fill up.”“I’d rather sleep under the stars,” said Wik just ahead of a deep breath.  “It’s not going to rain, after all.”Jo watched this exchange, adding nothing.Wik smiled brilliantly.  “Seriously though, I can think of plenty of places I could just sack out.  We’ve got our travelling gear, Dorin, why pay for an inn?”Dorin’s face was that of someone who was looking for a polite way out.  “Aren’t you worried about being robbed?”She looked at Jo.  “Should I be?”Jo shrugged.“Then I won’t.”  She looked somewhat intense.  “Come on, Dorin.  I know you’ve slept on the roadside… what’s the difference?”  “Hey, after so many days on the road, I…”Wik’s voice dropped to a low whisper, just loud enough for the two of them to hear.  “We’re being followed.  Don’t freak out.”Dorin blinked.  Jo caught herself reaching for her axe, then scratched her shoulder with that hand instead.“Uhh, seriously though, maybe we should hit an inn?”  He was clearly thinking his options through.  Jo made an elaborate show of stretching her arms.  She stopped, turned around, and seemed ready to do a full callisthenic routine on the street before they beckoned her on.Dorin’s eyes fastened on Wik’s as he whispered, “Nicholas’s grove!”“Yeah.”“Let’s go.”---Their followers were a pair of dwarves who staggered around from alleyway to alleyway, but hustled to catch up in the street when Wik and the two humans rushed ahead.  The dwarves wore stiff, tough-looking kilts and were not masters of surveillance.  Each wore a heavy hammer on his belt, a common enough tool around Millington that seemed likely intended as a weapon, possibly with Wik, Dorin, and Jo in mind.  None of them wanted to find out and risk the town guard’s involvement to boot.Nicholas’s Grove appeared much more beautiful in moonlight than it was in the daytime.  It looked strangely cleaner, and more of the flowers were noticeably in bloom.  The druid was not there… either he wasn’t back yet from his mad errand, or he had already been and gone again on some other unfathomable business.“Think we lost them?” asked Dorin, breathing heavily.  The trio had dodged down several alleyways on the noisy pretense of being lost or, at times, drunk, before coming here.  They learned in the process that Jo, for all her unsubtle appearances, was quite capable of helping them carry out that ruse.“I doubt it,” replied the gnome.  She was winded—her little legs had to sprint sometimes to keep up with the two humans.  Wik bent over, her scarlet face puffing, and put her palms on her knees for support.  “Why are they following us?” asked Jo, seemingly unaffected by all the running.  “Are you sure they were following us?”“Must be the J’Tegh clan,” muttered Dorin between breaths.  “Spotted us in the mill and want… wanted to keep their secret.”  Jo shook her head.  “No… different clan.”Dorin’s brows raised.  “Whose clan?”“I don’t know.  The kilts just looked different from Heegan’s.”A noise outside the grove sent all three of them onto the ground, low as could be, for cover.  The sound of branches bending and underbrush being slowly crushed drifted over them.  It seemed distant, but from their vantage it was hard to tell.“Dorin,” Wik whispered breathily, “I must… amend… my previous statement.”  She managed a deep breath.  “I’m certain we haven’t lost them.”The flicker of a smile crossed the man’s face.  He looked to Jo.Her axe was out, if not exactly at the ready given her prone posture.  The woman’s face looked serious, almost businesslike.  Her eyes did not meet his when she spoke.  “If we have to fight them, we should do it here,” she said calmly.She has her game face on, Dorin realized.  She might as well be wearing war-paint.  But a fight here will still draw the guard.  Wik whispered, “I don’t know that we… have to fight.  If they’re not of the J’Tegh clan, they may be here to talk.”“No way their business with us is unrelated to the mill,” Dorin said flatly.  “And they’re not friendly or they’d have called out to us.  That is, unless their contact with us should be kept secret from the locals.  I don’t know why that would be, but I doubt it’s honorable.”“Jo,” Wik asked, “is there another way out of here?”  Her breathing was under control again, but she did not look eager to get on the move just yet.Jo just shook her head.  “We’d have to climb Nicholas’s tree-fence.”Dorin shook his head too.  “They’d see us.  They’re staying out of the grove, at least for now, but they aren’t going anywhere and I think they can see both paths out.”Wik cocked a curious eye at Dorin.  “That makes sense—they don’t know if we’re invited guests, or if Nicholas is home.  They would hesitate to enter his grove without at least warning him, and they probably view this as a magical place, best avoided anyway.  But how did you know they’re staying out?”He rose to a crouch.  Jo did the same.  Wik remained on the ground.  “I’ll tell you later,” the man said.  “Even if we can get out of here, we have to assume they’ll tail us once we leave.”  His eyes scanned the dark, branchy perimeter as he backed slowly toward Nicholas’s shack.It was in this way that he inadvertently found the way out.</blockquote>

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