To Con the Con-man

[HolyMan]

Wet Nose looks shocked (as does the other gnolls about) at the small human speaking(barking) in perfect gnoll.

He looks to the others and shrugs. Speaking to them he says, "I hear dae humies take leaders not based on strength sume times." He shakes his head and dripple from his nose flings out and in different directions (Alden knows to get out of the way quickly).

Turning back to Alex he thumps his chest and says, "Me great tracker," then he points to his nose (almost sticking it up and in on reflex). "Me sniff out anybody any ting."

 

[Axel]

Watching the interplay between the two creatures, Alden could only surmise that Alex has been put in his place by Wet-nose. Chest thumping was never a good thing... Wet-nose drawing attention to his nose wasn't either, but at least it was amusing. "Ready to go again Boss? Wet-nose is never that talkative."

 

[Zerith]

[sblock=OOC]Just a reminder, Alexander is actually big, if weedy, by human standards ^^; [/sblock]

Alexander looked at the Gnoll with a small grin. “Do thee” he began while briefly surveying the other Gnolls “think anything would be fool enough to replace Stonebreaker with anyone who is incompetent?” he then asked blankly, apparently uncaring of the Gnoll’s remarks and yet again just stating yet an other fact, his small grin then grew. “Also, as I understand it, there is a standing task to find a half elf, a half knife ear, surly this is no great task to accomplish for thou, thou who can sniff out anybody, or anything.” He then prodded the Gnoll, if he was going to be sent after the half elf in the morning having a tracker riled up and eager for the hunt would work for his advantage. And if not, he could deal with the riled up tracker latter. Before the Gnoll had time to respond however, Alexander interjected “I might put thy nose to the test in the morrow.” He spoke with a certain knowing smugness as if he turned about it, almost as if he planed entire event start to finish, almost.

He doubted the Gnoll would try anything: it may have tried to undermine him, but the only way it could avoid his counter ‘challenge’ would be by backing down from it immediately after said it said it was a great tracker. While Alexander likely did just wound it’s pride, it had more to gain from rubbing in just how great of a tracker it was into Alexander’s face, then just comforting him after he dared it to track something down after mosting it could sniff out any thing. “He is a braggart of a tracker, but likely useful.” Alexander commented as he departed wet nose's gathering

 

[Axel]

"Right boss. The last one of the big three, as I call 'em, freaks me out. Scar-face lives in the big tent over there. Some sort of holy man or healer I reckon. Try not to stare at his face too much."

Alden leads the duo towards the large tent he indicated. As they approached it became obvious this was no ordinary Gnoll tent. Surrounding it were half a dozen spears planted in the ground, with skulls of many sorts of creatures planted on them. Curiously, every skull had been rammed on with the spear through an eye socket. The tent flap was down as the two men stood before the tent. Large didn't begin to describe it, really. It was large enough even for Alex to stand up inside. Swallowing dryly, Alden lifts the flap and steps into the smokey interior.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor at the far side of the tent, Alden spies a tough looking old Gnoll wearing a bone necklace. A spear decorated with several small skulls and a censer of unpleasant smelling burning incense sits at his feet. At least the incense smells better than the collective odours of a Gnoll camp. Sensing the presence of something inside his tent, one of the Gnoll's eyes opens. It quickly becomes apparent why Alden has named him Scar-Face. The left eye is completely gone. A huge scar runs along the side of his face, catching where the eye would have been, when it existed.

Gulping, Alden whispers to Alex "Don't stare at the un-eye" before stepping forward a pace. "Hello Scar-Face. I bring you new boss. Old boss now gone."

 

[Zerith]

The Gnoll lived up to the name Alden gave it. Alexander was tempted to do as he had with the other Gnolls but felt walking more softly was warranted. Given Alden's reactions prodding the Gnoll would be most unwise. taking things slow, at lest at first, was what Alexander settled on, but at the same time, he was not going to take a submissive poster. He was there to take command of the Gnolls, but at the same time he knew he could not best one in a fight, and the one before him looked particularly fierce and seemed to have far more influence than any of the others he had seen thus far, or at lest it had enough wealth and luck at surviving to give an appearance of great influence.

Alexander leveled his gaze on the Gnoll's eyes, the one still there and the one that was not before speaking to it; he would have liked to be able to claim that he locked sight with it and one of his eyes locked onto it's eye-socket and his other eye to its remaining eye, but as soon as he set his gaze onto the Gnoll's eyes, he felt his gaze starting to waver.
But instead of letting himself look into, he instead forced himself to instead gaze fixedly into the Gnoll's remaining eye as he spoke.

"Stonbreaker has been relieved of the command." he started flatly while his eyes settled onto the Gnoll's eye, his voice was level throughout despite his attention being diverted mid sentence. "I shall be assuming the command in his stead, and so I have come to inform thou of this personally; and to request thy name.”

 

[HolyMan]

The gnoll remains seated as it looks at Alex with it's one unblinking eye. Then it takes a deep breath of the smoke before answering in plain common.

"I have seen your coming Protector of Mankind. It is as Sepritia has said.

The young hairless pups will come. And the people will march to war...
The Protector of Mankind will look for the half-man in a realm of scorn...
Those who help will reach the Jefron, those that impede will be casted into The Bore.
Go with them and chose your fate. Go with them or mourn."

Scar-face looks deep into Alex's eyes. "You must go to the human village in the mountains. What you seek is there. Go now and may Sepritia guide you."

The scarred gnoll closes his eye and looks to be starting a deep meditation as it breathes in and out in a steady rhythm.

 

[Zerith]

Alexander would wait for a time, shorter than longer, before simply turning about and leaving the Gnoll if it failed to do more than just meditate. If it was the first or second Gnoll he ran into he would have been impressed by the meeting, however their was time for Starfinder to get word to the scared Gnoll while he was meeting with wet nose, so it lost a lot of the impact it could have had, but the Gnoll knowing common so well was interesting. It was plain to see Alden did not know that this one as so adept at speaking common, else he would have talked to it with less bulk in his words.

Further, the Gnoll just came out and spoke in common after he made it perfectly clear he could understand Gnoll perfectly. Did Alden just avoid it that much or did it previously see a reason to hide this capability but now thought doing so was worthless?

 

[HolyMan]

After a respectful wait Alex and Alden exit the tent of Scar-face. Perhaps shock has Alden acting abnormally quiet, but the prophecy of the gnoll priest was a little... foreboding.

It didn't say anything about this being a pleasant trip.

 

[Axel]

Alden let out a slow sigh as he stepped outside, followed by a deep intake of breath. "Can't say I've ever heard him say stuff like that boss. Don't think I ever heard him say much more than Yes and No before. Now, I dunno if you count directions from a holy-dog or whatever Scar-face is as good or not but it sounded pretty impressive."

Glancing at Alex, he added "What's he mean about the saviour of mankind? Sounds like somwhere I don't want to be, or someone I don't want to meet. And who's Sepritita? Oh...it's all to hard." With a glance in the sky, and a wink at Alex Alden said "I could use a drink after that. Get the taste of incense out of my mouth. Besides which, it's a tradition that all humans joining the dog squad have to buy drinks for a night."

 

[Zerith]

Alexander gave a brief laugh before saying “Much too late for regret now, old wise one, and I do say, do you really not know the meaning of a name so common?” Alexander grinned smugly “I told you my given name once already, but the Gnoll’s tend to have name that have their meanings on display, and so I told them the literal translation of mine: ‘Protector of Mankind’.” Alexander commented grinningly as he glanced over to Alden to see the man’s reaction before continuing on.

“As for Sepritita, you said yourself that Gnoll is something of a holy man, so we can only assume it is scar face’s god or goddess. And as for being impressive, it could have been if there was not enough time for Starfinder to tell it my name while we met with wet nose. From there everything it spoke was either prophecy, or far more likely just information it had on hand about their present mission and assumptions on what I would want to hear from it.” He commented before rising his right hand to his chin and pondering for a moment. “However, that the Gholl put not only itself but its entire people in such a weak, submissive position is odd. Caution is warranted here… it knows something.” He added before lowering his hand and turning to face Alden with a final remark “Also, given that you’re the only human here that know of, I assume the dwarf told you this. So congratulations; you agreed to pay the tab for a dwarf based on the assumption that the Martomum was not creating the tradition on the spot because his purse was light and he felt like having a few kegs. That must have cost several gold coins.” Alexander then chuckled at Alden

[sblock=OoC] I wouldn’t expect Alex to hand out anything unless he has to or it benefits him to do so; also, he does not drink(he can’t hold it well, go figure). That said, he does not like feeling like he owns anyone anything, so you don’t have to worry about him being a mooch.
One of his favorite lines in most any establishment is “I will be paying for myself and myself only, so please keep my tab separate”
Yesh, sticking him with any kind of bill is not an easy thing to do, and giving him warning about the possibility is not going to make it easier ^^;[/sblock]