Dreadlords The Vile Hunt

With tensions high between the trio of enlisted Dreadlords, the following days of preparation were bound to come with their fair share of stress. At the end of the allotted time, Roy would come knocking for each participant in turn, a rugged looking cart drawn by burly oxen at the ready. T'was a relatively simple means of transit, to be sure, but it would get the lot of them where they needed to go without drawing attention, and it could be transported overseas with a fair bit of ease.

And so it went. The journey was long and dull, but there is oft an appreciation to be had for transit across Arethil without complications. Taking the portal stone to the Allir reach would have been risky, so instead days would roll in and out as the group trekked across the Aberresai Savannah, along the border of the Falwood. Eventually they would arrive in a bustling port town south of Alliria, and from there Roy requisitioned a ship that would take them the remainder of the way.

At last the group would arrive in Crossroad Mire, perhaps the only thing resembling a proper "settlement" in all of Bayou Garramarisma. For those that had already been, it would be just as they remembered. For those who hadn't, it would be just as dreary, dank, and dour as any rumor or textbook could describe--and then some. But, at the very least, the group had finally arrived.

Henk stepped forward as if to help Salak as he suddenly began to struggle, but the Proctor was able to seat himself before he reached him. The Dreadlord looked down somewhat somberly at the man, his eye so briefly scanning over him for any sign of injury.

He saw nothing fresh, but his limbs were stiff with unmistakable pain.

If there were some way that Henk could help, he would have done so in an instant. It was not his nature to allow a comrade to suffer so, but he'd an inkling these aches that wracked Salak were older than the scars upon his own face. Pulling up a seat from elsewhere in the office, Henk opted not to exacerbate Salak's misery with nagging, instead sitting with him in silence, for a time.

Salak in his physical pain, and Henk in his mental.

"Sepia is no fool. She must know you suspect her. Why seek you out for this mission, Salak?"

"Hmm? Oh, Why else?"
He had snapped back to himself quickly enough. His eyes heavy as the looked at Henk as he sat.
"Arrogance."
Adjusting himself in his seat he felt the tired throw a blanket over him. Tempting him to sleep.
"It's the primary flaw of the Houses. They think they are better than everyone else. It makes them vulnerable."
His hand went from his head to his desk where it fiddled idly among the papers.
"Do you know how the revolutions agents were able to capture so many nobles for hostage?"

Henk

Perhaps Salak's words should have meant something to Henk. If he'd any inkling of the Nobles or their lives, perhaps it would have. Unfortunately, Henk only had one goal in being here, and the theater put on by the Houses and Nobles had little to do with it.

"Alas..." Henk felt his gaze drifting from the Proctor to the papers strewn across his desk. "You'll find I've not much sympathy for the Republic in and of itself. Their flaws run far deeper than arrogance and ego." Whether they had tried to rectify it or not, the Republic had allowed the events of his graduation to occur. "Perhaps someday, that can be rectified..." Their negligence and naivete had led to his family being shattered and blown to the wind. That he'd returned under their banner was simply a matter of necessity, in order to thwart he who held the most blame in the events.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

"You should rest Salak. You seem weary." Henk rose from his seat, and began to move to the door of his office, pulling it open before turning to face him once more. There was a chance Salak was wrong, but the conviction in the man's eyes... Henk believed him. "Should Sepia's treachery become clear to me, we will stop her." Henk nodded, turning to exit. His final sentence carried into the office just before his door clicked shut.

"And when we return, I will end her."


Salak

Sepia said:

Hope ya like the view, because it's all you'll be lookin' at for the foreseeable future.

Click to expand...

Perrine made her distaste for the locality apparent on her face; brows knitted in a furrow, lips scowling, and her bright periwinkle eyes began to dull in this awful lighting.

"How horrid." She commented, carefully making her way out from the cart behind Roy. Her fascination with the older gentleman came and went, only to return again a few days ago. "Remind me, how far are we to venture to find these snallygasters?" Eager to get this mission completed.

Perrine had to buy new boots she would not mind getting dirty, as for her outfits of dark colouring... but it was seeing how unremarkable Crossroad Mire was that made her scowl deepen.

Henk Sepia Salak

Henk found himself smiling at Perrine's obvious objection to the setting, mostly because it mirrored his own reaction the first time he'd come here. Oddly enough, he didn't share in her distaste. Despite the rather unpleasant environment, the people who lived here weren't very different from anywhere else, aside from cultural differences.

Stepping off of their vehicle and onto the soft earth beneath them, Henk gently patted a hand on Perrine's shoulder with a smirk. "Don't worry. Most of the small settlements dotted across the Bayou have walkways to cross over the bog." They were shoddy and often in disrepair, but they were far better than sinking waist-deep into the muck.

"I figure we have about a day's walk on foot before we have a chance of encountering a snallygaster. They don't hang around close to the shore, preferring the deep swamps in the heart of the Garramarisma" Henk didn't care about Sepia's lapdog, and he certainly didn't need his help. He'd been given the leadership role on this mission, just as he'd requested, and if he had anything to say about it, Roy would be involved as little as possible.

"Even then, we might be here for a while. They aren't exactly common." Henk sighs, turning to watch for Salak to emerge from the boat. "I know of a place we might be able to hire a tracker, but..."

The 'but' hanging in the air seemed to insinuate there was a catch to it.

Sepia Salak Perrine Urahil

Last to leave the boat Salak found the creaking dock soft under his boots.
It was muggy and smelly, already he was feeling better. His frustrations and paranoia less apparent in the days since they left.
"But what?"
He asked Henk, wary of complications.
Typically he liked to avoid them but he did not trust Rory as far as he could throw him and once or twice, while the man slept he had contemplated making it look like an accident or heart failure.

Perrine Urahil
Henk

Perrine rolled her periwinkle eyes and fixed both Henk and Salak with an unamused --- and tired --- expression. "Really?" She sighed, eyes fluttering closed for a moment as she mustered up the will not to throttle them both. Roy knew how to find them and that was good enough for her; no wasting time finding a new tracker when they could very well be on their way and return home as soon as possible.

"No more derailment, I beseech you, and if you both are adamant on not following the mission brief, then run along!" Her tone had been quite snippy in the past two weeks, far from home where she could deal with trouble within her House. Her extended absence became a discussion, and no one ever had a pleasant conversation with Felix Urahil, but Perrine could not help but feel the pressure of being away all because of the doubt and guilt her cousin placed upon her.

"I vote we stay with Roy. The best tracker could very well be Initiate Quinnick, but she is back in Vel Anir. Roy will do." She aimed her scowl at the other Dreadlords.

Henk Salak Sepia

Of course. Roy.

Henk had been doing his very best to pretend Roy hadn't actually come out all this way with them, but it seemed as if it was unavoidable. Perhaps he was being slightly harsh on the man; It wasn't as though he wanted to be here any more than they did. And, despite his misgivings, Roy did seem to have some knowledge about the area, knowledge they would need one way or the other.

So, with a shrug, he acquiesced to Perrine. "Very well. It's not worth the trouble of wading through waist-deep bog water to find a tracker. If you're keen on making yourself useful, I'll not obstruct you, Roy."

He turned back toward the boat and gave a knowing nod to Salak as he passed. The older Proctor trusted Roy even less than Henk, he was certain. They would just have to watch their tracker closely-- It was doubtful he'd be able to give them any real trouble so long as they were vigilant.

"I'll get the cart off the ship. The sooner we set off, the sooner we can leave. If there's any clothes you'd rather not ruin, I'd leave them behind once we leave the Crossroad"

Once the cart was free, the four of them were able to set off into the Crossroad Mire. It was by and large the most 'settled' part of the Bayou, and even then there was barely enough room on the wooden walkways for the cart. Henk could feel the eyes on them, peering through the windows of the huts that lined the pathways. Outsiders were infrequent here, and Dreadlords even rarer.

"There's an... 'inn' near the end of the Mire, where it opens up into the bayou proper." Calling it an 'Inn' was generous. It was a slightly larger, two-storied hut that hung precariously over the murky waters of the Bayou and would put you up for the night and ensure your belongings didn't sink into the bog for a nominal fee. "We'll stash the cart there, and Roy can take over navigation from that point on. Sound okay to you three?"

Sepia Perrine Urahil Salak

Salak nodded as Henk spoke.
His misgivings were not worth the effort to hide but he did manage to remain civil to Roy.
"Very well. We are in your care Master Roy."
As for his things, Salak, an accomplished traveler, never took more than he needed and made sure to never need more than he could carry. He was as ready as the day they left, he would refill his skins but that was about it. Already he could feel it, the toxins of the Marshland around them. Nasty things, bright frogs that paralysed with but a touch and flowers that drew their pray with scents so sweet it was like smelling a rotting corpse.
"Yes yes, that's all good let us be on our way."
His leg would not last long in this environment. Damp and cold brought the pain on faster than most conditions. He was already aware that he would become slower as the day went on and he doubted their guide would appreciate a delay in the schedule.

Though he did consider the potential opportunity that such a scenario may give.

Perrine Urahil
Henk
Sepia