G.A.N.G. Post #10 – A Thief’s Decision
To one side was an old man who cared little for Ash’s demands. On the other, a dwarf was slowly caressing his axes, as if he were silently enjoying whatever horrors he could wreak with them. Then there was this thief offering him some kind of “out”. And the others who didn’t know what to do and were probably banking on the thief’s offer. What was one to do? The only thing he could do without incurring the wrath of those wicked axes.
“Fine, pal. I’ll take up your offer. I’ll guide you down my road. No need for useless bloodspilling, what with the lot of ye looking a mite bit dangerous and all.” Ash cracked his knuckles, keeping an eye on those axes. “Ash here will take good care of ye.”
As you begin to walk down the road, you feel as though the surrounding area suddenly has fewer eyes than you entered it with.
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Here joined yet more company, more nuisances, and a thief at that. Something deep within Anhaga disliked the idea of thieves, but he never could put his finger on it. He couldn’t remember much period.
Consequently, he looked back, snorted, and simply said, “Let’s go.”
Though the itch was slow to fade, Talborenor knew that the whelp was probably the low man of a sad little highwayman crew. Killing him would inevitably bring the fight Tal longed for, but he knew it wouldn’t satisfy. “Simple robbers,” he mused. “Simple robbers: best dealt with simply.” “A gnome he may be, but damned if a dwarf would have ever come up with that long-winded speech. Perhaps we’ve been a bit too harsh on our short little couzins.” Tal’s musings carried him on the way, but he had a hard time dismissing the evil urge to plant one of his handaxes in the boy’s head, just for spiting the group. Tal made a mental note to be very conscious of the sentience of the strange but perfectly balanced marvel of dwarven warcrafting.
Noddle was pleased to get that little bit behind the party. Who knows what could develop from here. Anyway, it’s time to make the most of the situation.
“It’s a pleasure to have you join us, Ash. You can call me…” At this Noddle stopped. He had know way of knowing if Ash was in any way connected with who he was running from. It’s better not to take any chances right now. He tried to think of a clever sounding moniker, , like Shadowstriker, or Daggersnatch, but finding none that fit, he settled on one of his lesser known names. He realized the pause would make the name unbelievable, but what kind of name was Ash anyhow.
“You can call me Puck. I’d introduce you formally to the rest of our party, but I’ll leave that to them. Some may have secrets better left that way. What I can do is introduce you to the positions we have. That man leading us and commanding us to follow is clearly our leader. He seems a bit sullen and despondent, but he’s just occupied on our goals and lets us take care of the details. Details such as your payment which we can discuss along the way. I assure you that you will be paid in full at our safe arrival in that’s fine with you, unless this poses a problem. Oh, right, back to the introductions. I’m a skilled craftsman, The dwarf, as you can imagine, is a accomplished axeman. I’ll let your imagination decide against what. We have an resident expert in all things elven, a master of the lyre, and one from the Order of the Crimson Hat. A mysterious sort of folk be they. You are welcome to travel with us as far as our paths cross. You can continue talking with the rest of the group if you wish, but they seemed pretty quiet as of late. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to resume a earlier conversation about stoneworking.”
Noddle dropped back to keep pace with the dwarf. Recalling a few dwarven aphorisms, he hoped to mix these to convey his message clearly to Talborenor yet have it be veiled to the uninitiated.
“Oh, yes. Where were we earlier? I believe I was going to tell you about Therin Oremaster. He was one of his clans greatest sculptors. It was a wonder to watch him work. He would typically start off by staring at the stone, talking to it, caressing it. This could continue for days before ever picking up the chisel. He had a wonderful assortment of tools from different weights of hammers, lengths and shapes of chisels, down to various grades of files. He even knew how to harness water as a means to polish the stone with precise knowledge of where the harder and softer veins would lie. I asked him one day how he did it. I’ll never forget what he told me. ‘There is a time for the hammer and a time for the file. You will never get art if you use only one or the other. One tool need not be jealous of the other for all it needs to do is be ready for its proper time.’ I tried to remember this bit of wisdom in the timing and choosing of tools from there on. One is never at a loss with a good set of hammers or files on hand. Now if you’ll excuse me, I should talk to our elven associate about hunting.”
Noddle drifted over to Red. His long legs were hard to keep pace with for the little gnome. Noddles elven sayings were weaker than his dwarven ones. He hoped that the elf would be able to catch his hidden meanings without anyone else doing so.
“Greetings, my elven friend. Could you do me a favor and keep your sharp eyes on the surrounding forest? I want to know if there is any good game out there and what there is to choose from. We shouldn’t miss any good opportunities. I really don’t want any surprises for supper tonight.”
This concluded a most of Noddles immediate plans. He’d decide later if anything else needed discussing. He had now to get down to his last item of business.
“Master lyricist, if you would, play us a travel tune to ease our journey and to lighten our loads as well as our spirits!”