Quest The Blighting of Wetzlar

[Vandor Colton]

Vandor could not help but chuckle at the canine creature. It narrowed its eyes, as if it detected every inch of speech that dripped from the human’s lips, if not really his playful teasing. Though the moment was not remiss.

“Sorry, buddy,” the mercenary dipped his head with his apology. “Trust me, in truth, you smell better than a number of domesticated dogs do in my latest encounters.” He suddenly remembered one hamlet, one home, whose owner hadn’t bathed for days and her collie smelled like her but worse.

Vandor blew smoke from his pipe, eyes to the sky, feeling his fabrics warm his skin, listening to the wind that gently surrounded them. “Pray tell, what do you smell?” He looked into the distance, to this thicket and that one, into a forest mysterious. “And in which direction?”

Gannis

 

[Asher Vanak-Duth]

Pulled by an inexorable force, Asher kept walking through the woods. They were the sort of forested land that had once, and fairly recently, been occupied by people. The underbrush was low and scraggly, deadwood had been regularly cleared off the ground for next year's fires. He and Basil had no trouble navigating the weave of footpaths that converged and strayed through the area.

Eventually the vague feeling of unease he was chasing turned to audible voice. He heard the Knight Osuin from before, and another man who Asher did not recognize.

No, he did not recognize the scruffy madman, but when Asher stepped back out onto the main road and saw the hacked-up tree with its gaunt face and curling horns taking form, he recoiled. Disgust crawled through him, locking his joints together and setting his teeth to scowl. He was not afraid of the effigy. He wanted it gone.

"Such gods don't belong here," he growled out. A smaller part of himself was confused by his own words, and the fearsome tilt to them. "Show me who is responsible for this, so I might cut them down."

The man with his hands covered in sap, and axe and chisel tucked under his arm, that must be the one. Asher's hand reached for the broadsword at his side. His feet shifted in the earth, ready to strike as soon as the sword was free from its sheath.

It was Basil that brought Asher back to himself. Startled by the change it its rider's tempo, the horse huffed and side-stepped away from him. His eyes looked to the beast, and his face fell, guilty. He seemed to be the young, bashful boy again.

"Right, sorry," he apologized to the horse, or perhaps Osuin and the man. With some effort, fingers uncurled themselves from hilt. "I just mean to say, that thing in the tree is evil looking. Let's be careful, Syr Osuin."

Vandor Colton Osuin Larka Gannis