Private Tales What Does Not Kill Us

[Pern]

Blight orcs. Gnolls. Elves.

Pern blinked, pausing at the door to her home in consideration of these things. What was a blight orc? Had she ever seen a gnoll? Those weren't very common beyond the savannah and grasslands to the south, or so she thought she heard Ignatius say at one point.

A smile then and she opened the door to the wafting smell of sausage and eggs, "Perfect. I told him to make extra."

Given the fair weather of the day, Pern set them up in the back yard. Hath might remember it from before: all manner of flowers and vegetable gardens just beyond the green of a grassy area. Fences not quite tall enough to keep even Pern seeing next door lined the three sides. Towards the back a henhouse sat overlooking it all. Clucking hens bobbled in and out of the gardens.

They set Hath up with a wooden platter, eggs, sausage, water, and fruit.

"Plenty more, eat up," Ignatius smiled, "those girls churn out eggs faster than we can use them."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Thank you."

Hath remembered this. He remembered that they kept small animals. He cast his gaze around looking for the small feline. Soon enough he saw a pair of eyes watching the table intently from the flowers.

The orcs of the savanna were not generally farmers. It was not their way. His own tribe would keep some livestock for the hard times. They migrated south for the dry season and remained in one place. As soon as they could they would be back on the move again, hunting as they went.

"The orcs of the spine...keep bigger cats..." Hath chuckled.

Sausages were strange things. Not unpleasant, but overprocessed and cooked. Nicely spiced though. The food started to dissappear at an alarming rate.

 

[Pern]

"Like Shcy's?" Pern asked with a smile as she sat down to her own plate to eat. Measured, small bites and slow chewing. The actions of someone who'd never had to hunt down her meal and then eat it before someone or something bigger and hungrier than her took it away.

Ignatius chuckled, watching as Hath cleaned his own plate, and served him up seconds without even asking.

By the time they were finishing up Mim the grey tabby cat had joined them, sitting just across the table from Hath and patiently waiting for scraps. Pern stood to clear the plates, telling Hath to take his time and eat more as she moved to step around him. But just as she leaned to pick up Iggy's plate she paused, eyes immediately honing in on a rather nasty looking...wound? on Hath's shoulder.

"Hath - your shoulder, are you OK? It looksh awful."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Not knowing the right words for all the different kinds felines he simply said: "Lots of types of big cats."

Hath threw a few little bits of meat for the cat, clearly amused by it chasing after them. He thought back to his time running with the Ashlanders. He frowned. "Spent a lot of time running to keep up."

Hath looked down at his shoulder. To him there was an angry, pale scar down his shoulder. It had healed quite well after being stitched. No infection. This was a difficult one to explain, but he knew the language of arrows. He frequently had to try and sell them in human towns.

"A piece of a demon...like an arrowhead...hit bone."

It was as well as he could explain that a giant creature had flung feathers made of some hard obsidian at him and the other orcs. Not something that was particularly easy to translate.

 

[Pern]

"Are...are you shure you got it all out?" Pern frowned, "Your shkin ... it'sh turning black."

Well, blacker than it already was.

"Mmm," Ignatius adjusted his spectacles and pushed up from his seat, "does it smell?"

Pern leaned down to sniff at Hath, nose wrinkling just slightly. The male had a strong musk and he'd been on the road for some time, so he didn't exactly smell too appealing but - "not infected."

"Are you in any pain, Hath?" Ignatius asked him.

 

[Hath Charosh]

This is pointless. Cover the wound.

Hath felt a spark of annoyance at their sudden interest. Of course it wasn't infected. He was not so stupid that he would carry an infection for weeks without noticing.

It did still hurt. It ached as if the shoulder had been dislocated from time to time. They were his hosts and they had arranged for him to leave that dank cell. The voice fell silent.

"Sometimes," he replied. His fingers lightly brushed over the fresh skin. It looked as if it had healed well to his eyes.

"They had to..." Hath mimed yanking outwards from the wound. "...stuck in bone."

 

[Pern]

Pern took a step back and fell silent, the slightest frown curving around her tusks.

"Mmm," Ignatius intoned, gravely, "to my knowledge, blackened flesh can be a sign of two things," the man pushed up from his seat with a grunt to approach the orc, "do you mind?"

"One is the presence of poison, but poisoned wounds don't heal and scar. They fester and become infected. The poison eats the skin, the wound spreads when untreated." It was clear to the man, as he peered through his spectacles at the scarred-over skin, that this was not the case.

"The second is corruption by dark magic." The old man's brow raised, hands lightly clasping at his back. He took care not to get too close.

"My friend, I have seen many things in my life, including dark magic corruption. I am afraid the signs are are all here," Ignatius tipped his head towards the shoulder, "whatever wounded you lingers still. If you are not treated, the corruption will take you."

 

[Hath Charosh]

The voice fell silent. Hath could almost sense its contemplation just beneath the surface. He took the news stoically, looking down at his arm and then back up at the scholar. There was no sign of darkness spreading from the wound that he could see.

Hath could not think of any reason why they would both lie. He turned towards Pern whose expression was also showing concern.

Because humans also lie.

They did, and often. Yet Hath could not imagine what the pair would have to gain from this. Humans always lied for their own gain. Hath felt a glimmer of frustration deep down. The voice fell silent again.

"How would you treat magic?" he asked. If an orc shaman could carve runes into skin and leave a magical effect than it did stand to reason that a demon could sink its corruption into his flesh.

 

[Pern]

"With magic, of course," replied Ignatius, an aged hand lifting to press at his chin, "but not just any magic. It must cleanse you of the corruption. Something of this nature will require a powerful and skilled Healer of divine magics."

"Shurely there ish shuch a Maeshter within the college?" Pern said.

Ignatius slowly shook his head, "Divine magic cannot be learned and harnessed by just anyone, Nilli. One must be blessed with it. We have no such Maester here. Not for many decades."

Pern's expression fell, concern deepening as she looked back to Hath, "Ish there...nothing that can be done?"

Ignatius looked ponderous for a moment before slowly making his way inside, "There is someone that may be able to help."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath felt a swell of relief that they weren't going to try and ue some magic to draw this from him now. He looked down his shoulder - which still looked well healed to him - and remembered the shamans drawing the feather out. It had been like a leaf of shining obsidian. Thrown with such velocity that it had lodged into the bone like an arrow head.

Two strong warriors had held him down as the shaman worked just to keep him still. He wished it had hurt as little coming out as it had going in. Now it seemed to trouble that little sliver of obsidian had caused was not over.

Hath frowned in concern. He did not look as shocked as Pern might have been expected. Out in the wilds death could arrive at almost any time for any one of them.

"Would they help?" Hath asked. He did not know the common tongue well, but he knew enough to know the difference between being able and being willing.

 

[Pern]

Pern's frown persisted. Hath had voiced a thought niggling at the back of her own mind, and one she would not have voiced herself.

"Would you like any more to eat, Hath?" she asked as she cleared off the rest of the empty plates, leaving his for last.

"If I am not mistaken," Ignatius could be heard from inside the house, voice muffled the further in he went, "and I rarely am," sounds of wood drawing across wood, a knock, a thump, a grunt.

"Father?" Pern called after him quizzically, glancing after Hath with a shrug and stepping back into the kitchen.

"The Shire of Oak Valley sits just east of Falwood. There is a halfling there," more grunting, Ignatius ducked under Pern's arms as she carried the dishes in with a large book in his own. With a noise of effort he hauled it out to the table where it dropped with a hefty weight. He opened the book and paged through, folding it open to a hand-drawn map of a small town, "Nyeh-" he said, tapping a finger at a row of halfling holes, "Gilabree Gandy. Best Apothecary I've ever met and a darn good Healer. Turns no patient in need away, if she can't help you she like as know who can."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"I am fine," he said of more food. After the night in the cells he could easily have put away for more good. Now he found that his appetite had left him. He followed them inside, nearly tripping over their domestic feline on the way.

Hath nodded slowly at the information about a halfling healer. He looked down at the book, not able to recognise a single word scratched onto the paper.

Fal'addas was a long way. Penteth Charosh was North of those woods but they stretched very far indeed. It was one thing to point to a map and say 'Here is where you go,' and it was a very different thing to talk the path.

"Not west at least," he said. If the cure had involved a forray into Vel'anir then he probably would have decided to go and spend his last days with his tribe instead.

"A long journey. I have never met a halfling."

He knew a song about them. Given that it was mostly about different ways to cook them as travel snacks it probably wasn't going to form any common ground between them.

 

[Pern]

Ignatius gave the orc an easy smile and a nod, "Indeed it is. Miss Gandy is a treasure to this world, even the elves of Fal'addas agree."

"Now, I understand your journey could use a little help. No sense going if you can't get there in time..." the Maester turned back to his study, taking a skeleton key from his robes to unlock a glass case towards the back. From within he pulled out a silver chain upon which what appeared to be an amulet with carved runes hung, "a Portal Stone key."

Pern had just walked into the room and found her jaw dropped at the words, "Ignashush ... where did you get that?"

He chuckled, gently turning the amulet over in his hands, "From a very dear friend during my journeys long ago. I've been to many a great distant lands - I was saving this for one last adventure but I think perhaps I'm past due."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"I can cross the savanna," Hath said firmly. There was a stone on the north of the plains. He knew the dangers of those lands. He would have to skirt the elven lands. His people were not destructive to the land in the way of men. They were mostly tolerated on the edges of elven lands. However, if they strayed to deep into the woods to hunt then they were turned away - or would not return.

He did not know of the newly discovered stone south of Vel Anir. Even if he did the annirians had erected a watch tower already and would probably not permit him passage.

"I can return with two keys," he promised, eyeing the amulet. Even without a magical sacrifice for passage it would be worth a great deal.

His own people were not such learned scholars but they had long ago perfected the art of making single use keys for the stones. Even if their method usually involved a simple chant to imbue a basic bone talisman.

The plan revolved around the guard letting him back in to repay. The plan unravelled before his eyes. It was still a journey. Now he focused on it he found that he could feel a pain spreading down his arm.

Pain is power. It sharpens the mind.

Since leaving Pandemonium he had been quick to anger. Hath assumed that voice of his own was something of a defence mechanism at being exposed to the horrors of that land. It had fallen quite silent in the face of such generosity. His face was not as expressive as a humans. Perhaps that was why his people used so many hand and arm gestures. Yet now as he kept his eyes low it was easy to see how deep the gratitude was that he felt.

 

[Pern]

"That sounds a plan," Ignatius nodded.

Pern smiled, relief on her own face now that it seemed Hath would get the help he needed.

"Pern will accompany you."

"Thank you father, I am shertain th- what?"

 

[Hath Charosh]

"What?" went Hath in time but just a few octaves lower. They almost harmonised their bewilderment.

"She should not go," Hath stated plainly. "If this...if I do not make it then she would die. There are lions and trolls and..."

 

[Pern]

"Details, details," Ignatius waved it off and returned to his study, searching for something else, "it is so rare that anyone gets to make the company of Miss Gandy. I will be sending Pern with a list of supplies the College will need from her. Potions, ingredients, many things not easy to find."

Pern's tusked lips parted, a clawed hand going to her forehead in disbelief, "Father-"

"Many things not easy to make. Requires a skilled Apothecary and a touch of divine magic. Yes, this is quite the perfect opportunity!"

Her mouth wagged, open and closed, several times. Words lost. Pern shook her head and gestured apologetically to Hath before striding into the room after the old man, "I cannot jusht leave the Shmithy. I have ordersh to fill. Mashter Gibbshon-"

"Has a new Apprentice that needs to learn and an old Apprentice that needs to travel and learn things he cannot teach her. You let me handle Gibbson, Nilli, reach up there and hand me that feather."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath looked down at his shoulder. He could not fathom why he could not see what they saw. Perhaps it was not as bad as they said. Perhaps crossing the savanna would be easy.

Perhaps she would keep your bed warm

Finally the voice seemed to be trying to find a way to make edgeroads back into his psyche. Hath frowned, itching at his shoulder. He didn't like the thought of some of that midnight black demonic matter still working into his bone and his blood.

"You will have to listen," Hath said. "Better if I spoke better human. Or you orcish."

 

[Pern]

Pern slapped what was likely the first negative look Hath's way since he met her. Accusation. Mild accusation.

Who's side was he on anyway? Surely he knew this was a terrible idea!

"Thish ish inshane," the Smithess gesticulated, "I do not know the firsht thing about traveling beyond the realm of Elbion. I can't even shpeak orcish!"

"Well I've found you a highly experienced traveler who can," Ignatius continued to smile, "the feather, if you please."

Pern reached up and grabbed the feather in it's glass case, handing it to the man without a second thought.

"That is my charge for you, Hath, for paying your bail and giving you the key," Ignatius set the display down on his desk and began to carefully open the small case, "take Pern on this journey with you, keep her safe, and return her to me whole and well with the necessary items."

Pern's hands were balled into fists, but her expression was less mad and more helpless.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath had been frowning so much his face was at risk of setting that way. If Pern thought that being able to speak orcish was the worst of her problems from travelling the wilds then they genuinely were in trouble.

He opened his mouth to protest and then closed it. The old man had, perhaps deliberately, worded it in such a way that it was difficult to work his way out of. Hath had even been about to try and express that he needed to find away to repay the kindness.

Humans. Smiles and words and kindness to hide an agenda. Why do you think you cannot see the corruption he sees?

Hath sighed. "I can not even..." he paused and tried to find the right words. "Could not even say I would make the trip. Not each time. Are you sure?"

 

[Pern]

Ignatius gave Hath an understanding smile, "The road will be dangerous, of this I am certain. Many roads I have traveled myself as well - I know their troubles and they would remember me." At this his smile turned into something of mischief as he nodded. The man carefully withdrew the feather from its display case, one about a foot long and gleaming golden like the morning sun.

"To help you on this journey I give to you, Pernillia Osric, the feather of the great golden gryphon: Dawnbringer. Freely and of my own will."

"I ..." Pern blinked at this gesture, not even having noticed the feather she'd taken down for him had been that feather, "Ignashush ... I cannot take thish."

"You can and you must. For what darkness you face on the road she will raise the sun again. Her feather gives the gift of lightness, and in times when hope seems lost she will answer the call of a feather to the sky," the mage held the feather out by the quill, carefully placing it into the open hands of his daughter.

Pern released a deep sigh, frowning as she looked at the beautiful feather in her hands.

"Now, while Nilli packs," Ignatius left his study and made his way back over to his guest, "let me look at those other wounds. Get you cleaned up, fill some of your supplies, hm?"

 

[Hath Charosh]

The meaning of the feather was entirely lost on Hath. The feather of the gryphon was quite beautiful, but it did not look as if it would help a great deal. His attention had been fixed more firmly on the old man intently. Ignatious had spoken of past adventures and now Hath was starting to believe it.

There were not many old orcs. Those that reached a venerable age were respected greatly, just for having survived so long. There was a strength in this man's voice and a confidence in his gaze.

Hath's inner voice was silent. As was he as he simply nodded and let Ignatious inspect his wounds. Pernillia. At least he knew why Ignatious called her Nilli. The old man returned quickly to his shoulder which made Hath feel another flicker of annoyance.

"Supplies. There is place selling boots. Would like to visit."

---

Hath sat on the doorstep as the dawn light crept across the street towards him. There was a new bundle of arrows across his lap. He was lifting them one by one and spinning them on his palm. One didn't spin right. Its balance was off. He discarded it.

He nudged the shaft aside with his foot. A foot clad in fresh leather. Hath had always thought of the dwarves as a miserly people. However the cobbler had remembered his face, remembered being paid for boots that had not been collected and had cut and stitched him a fresh pair.

Fresh leather smelled nice. Waterproof boots would be useful. It would be the wet season when they crossed the savanna. The arid landscape would be transformed for a few short weeks. There was no rain like it. It could cover the plains in a few inches of water in scant hours.

The goop that had been smeared across the gash on his forehead did not smell nice. It had sealed off the cut after a few stitches had pulled it closed. Another scar. He could not write, but his history was laid out in little reminders all across his body.

The door creaked behind him.

"You are ready?" he asked over his shoulder. Another arrow disappointed him and made a pleasant sound as it was dropped to the ground.

 

[Pern]

Pern was looking all the world like she'd been volunteered to go to war. Ignatius had stocked her up with appropriate levels of travelers needs and necessities: a pack at her shoulders, a bedroll, Pern's traveling cloak she always wore when crossing the boarders beyond Elbion, and a few various other items. All in all, she didn't look like she was overpacked or going very far. Ignatius was a man of means when the times called for it and his own experience of far-off adventures gave him a good sense of what the needs were.

"Yesh," she replied quietly to Hath with a nod, eyeing the discarded arrows with a pinched brow, "I musht shtop at the shmithy to collect my toolsh and shpeak to Sham."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath looked up at Pern and gave a nod and a grunt. At least she had brought some supplies. Whilst he travelled light, it gave him more confidence to see that she had given it some thought. Or at least the old man had on her behalf.

"Will keep you safe," he affirmed. "It's not so bad out there."

Whilst he had spoken of the dangers of the savanna to her and her master to try and dissuade them from the notion, now he was more concerned with keeping Pern from panicking.

"Need tools?" he asked. "And...farthest from city before?"

 

[Pern]

Pern wasn't sure if she was reassured by those words from Hath. While formidable in appearance and, she was certain, well experienced in travels, Pern's imagination for what lay beyond the realm of Elbion was running rampant. Iggy had told her as much in his own travels, stories of ogres and giants, dragons and dwarven kingdoms, noble elves and the desolate sands of the south. It was magical and awe-inspiring from the comfort of one's home.

Feet to the ground - it was terrifying.

She nodded, "Sheems a good idea to have them ... jusht incashe." She could mend items, make them in a pinch, and work for coin if need be. Ignatius had given her a hearty traveling stipend of coin, but she hadn't a clue how far it would take her. Especially not if they got robbed on the road.

Highwaymen.

"Uh-" leading off the front stoop of their home, she lead the way south from the residential district to the merchant district and the Smithy, "A shmall kingdom called Acholt, to the easht, a week'sh journey."

She gave an impish smile, lifting a clawed hand to itch at her scalp, "Not very far I'm afraid."