Recent content by Ruka Kargatal

"I am liking your spirit, Ispir!" said Ruka, and off they went. Gild, by and large, had a unified look to it, the work of many skilled masons—humans, dwarves, and, yes, even ogres too—over the course of its long history. Tall buildings with tall doors, colors of white and beige and stonegray...

"Oops!" said Ruka, truly noticing Ispir's plight after mentioning that she was wearing socks. "I was not meaning to do that!" She stood up. "But you are okay, and that is being good! Let me fixing the mess I have making!" Ruka squatted down and clutched his sides and with an excess of ease...

Ruka would have stood at Ispir's prompting, but instead she gasped, and she reflexively wrenched her hands (even as Ispir was holding and tugging at one of them) to her chest, clapping them to the brass torque she wore in a grand gesture of wonder. "You can playing me out of my socks!?" A...

Poke, poke, poke, Ispir was a funny drunk, so Ruka's thoughts went. Thinking it all adorable, she watched as he rubbed his nose and fixed his cap and poked her arm and half-hugged himself. The raki was already warming his belly very well! Good for him! Ruka knew well it took a lot of raki (and a...

Ah, he had the hiccups! A sign of much good drink! But Ruka stayed on topic when she spoke, and great was her smile, great and eager. "A wyvern would be a very great beast to soothing! But I do not think I could protecting you from wyvern alone! But a bear? I could fighting a bear, if I needing...

"I am hoping so," Ruka said. "But that is something waiting for another day. You are the impressing one today, Ispir! Maybe even Big Man Regel and Big Man Threshkuul watching you, if they are having curious like me!" She leaned forward and set her big elbows on the table, holding up her hands...

Ruka listened to Ispir's story, and her expression was a clear map to all she felt during the story's various parts: wonder at the mention of Alliria, indignation on Ispir's behalf when he spoke of his would-be kidnappers, warm and grinning regard when he said he would have felt safer if she was...

Ruka laughed along with Ispir, his pratfall not an occasion for embarrassment, but one for genial humility, and for rising again. There was not one person on Arethil who did not ever fall, but there were some who stayed down—but Ispir was not one! "You are being both of the gentle and of the...

"A drink, ye say?" said the dwarf, more heavily accented than other Gildan dwarves. Threads of gray went through his beard and hair here and there, and he had one eye, his left one, that was mostly closed due to some rough weathering of his face, this asymmetry giving him a mildly deranged look...

"Ohhhhh," said Ruka, pausing for a moment afterward, and then saying further, "That is being opposite problem to what I having! Sometimes I am going places, and not all places are big like me, and I am trying to get in the door, or I am hitting my head on the ceiling, or I am sitting in chair...

Confused, Ruka cocked her head and leaned slightly on the table, asking, "Why so shy now, Ispir? Is The Thunder and the Lightning not to your liking?" Very bright he had been, back on the street, wandering as he was. Now he looked almost afraid. Sometimes size was intimidating, this Ruka knew...

The Thunder and the Lightning was a tavern that simply could not be mistaken for another. The sign itself could be recognized even by the illiterate, and murals all speaking to the tavern's name adorned the facade of the building, making it quite the colorful neighbor to the adjacent shops. The...

Ruka had little awareness of Ispir's gradual falling behind. She kept on with her giant steps, sweeping her arm (not the one with the flowers!) toward this place or that, giving off loud descriptions of who lived here or what was sold here. Every now and again she'd have the opportunity to meet...

"I know many places where we can be drinking," said Ruka proudly, patting herself on the chest for extra emphasis. "A good place is near. It is being called, The Thunder and the Lightning! Mighty name for a mighty tavern! It is run by a Gildan ogre, and I am having friends with him, and I lose...

Ruka quite nearly forgot what it was that she wanted to ask him, and why she was here, such was the distraction now presented to her. "Ohhh, I like flowers!" she said, and very carefully accepted them. Flowers were very delicate things! And small! They needed great taking care of, and such was...