CLOSED | Nug Quest

[nonvenomous]

WHO: Adrasteia, Holden, Jone, Joselyn, Sawbones, Val de Foncé, Wysteria, and Dick.
WHAT: Poachers run afoul of a Riftwatch research expedition.
WHEN: Cloudreachish. Time is a flat circle.
WHERE: Minranter River, Free Marches
NOTES: Animal cruelty, some gore.

JOURNEY:

Their trek north across the Free Marches to the Minranter is light and mild: Jone’s mule, Loghaine, hauls the bulk of any heavy gear. The wind stays brisk beneath steady cloud cover, only rarely committing to rain, and there’s an inn to curl up in once they reach the river. Have a drink, rent a bunk with a moth-eaten blanket, splurge on the “luxury” suite upstairs.

For those that aren’t willing to cough up the coin, there’s always the stable.

Further into the wilderness, the white noise roar of the river at night makes for restful sleep and long watches, where the crack and rustle of a bear through the underbrush or the sound of approaching horses might go unheard until it’s too late. At times flashing eyes reflect the watch fire from the treeline, only to melt away without incident. Pawprints pressed into the river sand and traces of bone-littered scat hint at the nature of their nightly visitors -- more fascinating to some than others.

DESTINATION:

Vultures spiral overhead -- an ill omen, easy to mark at a distance. Far below, hoof-beaten grass is streaked with gore where a herd of nugs was pursued out onto the river flats, blood still wet despite the wind, one little body left broken underfoot on the trail. They never had a chance.

Ravens squabble and hop between flayed corpses left to stiffen on the beach. Flies zip from haunch to haunch, spoiled for choice.

There are a dozen nugs here, most of them quite young. Their skulls are crushed, the sand churned with tracks where they struggled.

A few still have their hides. The leather is mundane, for anyone who has the heart to check.

Further west across the river, campfire smoke drifts skyward over the trees where the sunset fades orange to purple. A pained squeal carries across the distance, accompanied by the sound of cruel laughter on the wind. Eventually a few of their voices rise in song.

The killers are close, and night is falling.

AFTERMATH:

An earlier drizzle keeps the fire from spreading into the surrounding wood: by the time the battle is dying down and the nugs are freed, the flames have dwindled to a forlorn lick across blackened canvas and crates of supplies. And the corpses: some burnt, some on the beach, one bobbling slowly downriver.

Something should probably be done about those.

The two fade-touched nugs they’ve rescued need tending. They are wild and distrustful, but they are also exhausted, and injured, and desperately thirsty.

Near the remains of the campfire, a spit-roasted nug still has attracted a fly or two, but still has meat on the bone. There are fade-touched nug hides to be found on the wagon that survived.

A few dazed mounts linger where they were tied off at camp or tangled in the woods nearby -- at some point, a dracolisk had plunged past Jone into the battle-darkened water. Like the armor of their previous owners, they’re rugged and diverse -- beasts captured, won and stolen. A great, shaggy white Avvar horse has taken to Adrasteia, lipping at her sleeve.

Let them roam free or round the others up for an easier ride home.

Comments

on the road again

[poleaxed]

It's Jone's watch. Generally fond of company, while Jone enjoys waking early before anyone else, she isn't going to complain about a companion sneaking out of their tent. She's not going to mention his pallor or the circles under his eyes. That's his business.

The dawn grows, but dark lingers in the sky. The dying embers of last night's fire casts little light.

"Know any ghost stories?"

She's still disappointed she didn't get any in the Exalted Planes.

[acreage]

"Too many."

— is his immediate, instinctive answer. Hard to think otherwise after a year of Miller in his head, after a hundred thousand screaming souls, after watching the death of a civilization, after those days in the dark under the flood.

And then, of course, he recalibrates. None of those are the kind of story he's willing to tell, which is the kind of thing she's clearly asking for. He shrugs, apologetic, before going on.

"There are a lot of them out in space."

Has he mentioned the space thing to her? He's mentioning it now.

[poleaxed]

"In... space."

She has a recollection, however brief, of a tall and skinny woman explaining a land with no oceans, though her memory is foggy beyond that.

In the one hand, Jone has a stick, and she's been poking the fire with it. Now, she holds it up like an instructional wand. "Explain that, would you?"

[acreage]

He smiles, straightens slightly from his previous slouch.

"To start with, how much do you know about outer space?"

He's assuming nothing, like most Theodosians, but good to know what he's working with before he launches into an explanation.

[poleaxed]

"D'you have to tell me about it? With a name like that, reckon it sounds dead boring."

She pokes the fire with a long, crooked stick.

"I've had folk try'n explain their lands to me. Don't matter none, I reckon. We're all here now."

[acreage]

Unoffended,

"Then you're going to have to explain what you wanted an explanation for."

[poleaxed]

"I wanna know about the ghosts. It's just the right time for it."

The sun hasn't risen yet, but it's thinking about it.

[acreage]

The story that forms in his mind, actually, isn't one from space at all; it's one he remembers hearing around a campfire much like this, trees towering overhead and creatures chittering in the dark.

Not unlike tonight, really.

He starts, "Well, they used to bury people with coins over their eyes. The idea was so their ghosts would be able to pay the ferryman to take them to the underworld."

He manages, heroically, to restrain himself from going into any more detail about Charon, or Hades, or Cerberus. But the pages of those old books rise to mind now, dusted off by associations.

"So there was an old woman, buried in the woods; and there was a thief, who thought he had a good idea to get some quick cash."

[poleaxed]

Jone leans forward, easily pulled in. The thief, in her mind, takes the shape of her cousin Euane, who was put in the stocks for thievery a few times. The forest, verdant, takes the shape of Lydes.

"I've known some cunts that kind of bright," which is to say, stupid. But it's easy to see she's drawn in by the story, and waits patiently for him to continue.

[acreage]

"Well," he says, amusement coloring his tone, "he started digging. And for a while, all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing and the animals in the forest.

After a while, he started hearing a soft, hoo, hoo. Naturally, he figured it was an owl, and kept going. The sound got louder and louder, but it stopped once he got the coffin. He opened it up, and there she was, coins and all. He pocketed both of them, and then from right behind him, he heard —

Who's stealing my money?"

[poleaxed]

Jone lets out a braying laugh, excitement coloring her completely. She loves a good twist. "Strewth, I'd not heard that one! Had me dead surprised, you did. Good on you, mate."

[acreage]

It's easy to mirror her pleasure, if not her energy; nice to please her, in this simple way.

"What's your favorite ghost story?"

She must know some good ones, if she's such a fan.

[poleaxed]

Jone thinks for a moment, but the smile stays on her face. "Oh, the one about- well, me mum says it happened to her cousins, but-" a shrug, and she begins.

"This were near the Hinterlands? In the farmland, not so much the hills and dales. The peasant folk tilled the fields for his lordship and brought wheat to his door every second day of the month, but they never seen him. Their offerings disappeared over night. They heard him, though, calling out, good enough, good enough."

She makes her voice slightly deeper to intone the lord's call, a creaky, echoing thing.

"One night, a boy gets the bright idea, I'm gonna see him, I'm gonna find him, gonna know who all we work for, whose land we're tilling, right? Of course, he disappears. No one sees him again. But the next month after that, the lord's voice is younger, like. good enough, good enough."

[acreage]

He laughs.

"Okay, yeah, that's creepy. Did you ever go out there?"

[poleaxed]

"Wait, wait, I'm not done!" But she's laughing, too. This bloke is easy to get on with; another sign that Rifters are uncommonly good folk.

"The lad's sister sneaks in the next night. Gets all the way inside his hall, she does, and what does she find? Grain. Bags and bags of wheat and barley and grain, everything the villagers have donated for hundreds of years, some of it rotting, unused. And she finds a little pipe made of human skin, like. When she blows it, the wind echoes. Good enough, good enough."

[acreage]

Okay, now he raises his eyebrows.

"Is this going to end with her voice getting stolen?"

Or her skIN??

[poleaxed]

Jone waggles her fingers in the universal sign for spooky mystery. "And she were never heard from again. But the peasants still bring grain up to the manor, and hear their master's approval in the night."

[acreage]

"That seems like a waste of good grain."

Even if it is to appease a murderghost!!

[poleaxed]

Oh, right, he's a rifter.

"Well, that's the point, innit? Your peasant farmer works his whole day away, and most of that goes to the Chantry and his Lord. Where he gets his food... who cares, right?"

Jone knows how they just make it, but she doesn't feel like explaining peasant gardens and beer barrels, and, honestly... she wants to see if this Rifter cares. If all Rifters are as good as she keeps running into.

[acreage]

The Belt gives, Earth and Mars take.

The concept wouldn't be unfamiliar even if he were freshly dropped out of a rift, but that doesn't mean it still isn't fucking frustrating every time he runs into these kinds of similarities. The idea that humans are about the same everywhere can be pretty depressing, if he lets himself dwell on it.

(Will be hard not to, when they come on a field of dead animals.)

He sighs.

"Yeah, because God forbid anyone treat them like people."

[poleaxed]

Jone shrugs, because she does care, and caring is exhausting, so she cut that part out of herself years ago. She can't do anything about it. She can't save anyone.

"Worse in the cities," she says, "no land to farm. Never be born poor, that's me advice."

[acreage]

"Good thing that's something that people can help."

The sarcasm isn't directed at her, really; it's not her fault that things are like this.

[poleaxed]

She grins, decides she likes this man. He understands what she's trying to say, doesn't need too much help with it, doesn't reject it as something only some people need to worry about. She doesn't know if he's poor or landed, and it don't really matter, him being a rifter. Whatever he had before, it's naught now.

She extends a freckled hand in greeting. "Your name were Jame? Jem? Bollocks with names, I am."

[acreage]

"Close," he says, takes her hand for a shake, clearly unoffended. "It's Jim."