MrAbdiel
   The Power of One 
  Part 1 - "In Sterquiliniis Invenitur" 
 
 Prologue - 13 Scars   

You remember an apple tree.

Your mother and father were very proud of it.  They had planted more than one, but only one had grown.  The apples were red; you're quite sure.  Red, and sweet.  You can remember those better than either of their faces.  You were very young, then; back when someone marked the passage of years.  Five or six years old, perhaps.  You remember a house; one big room you shared with your parents, with hanging cloth to divide some corners for privacy.  You remember a brick stove and chimney that your father had built before you were born; and hot food being cooked on that fire.  You remember your mother used to boil the apples, and render them down into... something.  Something tastier even than apple.  You remember other children, when visiting, would ask for them, and sometimes steal them.

You remember, once, the three of you rode in a borrowed wagon for two days for a wedding of some relative.  They married well, and the food there was the best you had ever tasted - equal to what your mother made, with the apples.  You would never taste its like again.  You remember being dressed in a special dress and commissioned not to get it dirty, under pain of great disappointment - a feeling you didn't understand, but associated with a certain softening of your father's usually strong, reassuring gaze.  You remember, after the wedding was over, getting to see the water for the first time.  Not just a creek or river, but  water ; an ocean, where the land ran out and became grey-green surf vanishing into the cloudy distance.  You remember the magic of its vastness; the first time you ever thought to wonder that if the world had an end here, at the water's edge, what would you find beyond it?
 Some time after returning home to your village, fate provided an unwelcome answer.

 Savages.   Savages lie beyond the water's edge.

They came from beyond the water, and they came to ruin everything; all the things in the world that you knew were good, and even those you suspected might be good in time.  These savages were not people; not like you knew them.  Taller; stronger; bedecked in braids, and blood-daubed skin, and horrific talismans made from skin and bone.  They came with axes, and torches; and what they did not put to axe or torch, they carried off with them.  They took the world from you; and they took you from the world.  You remember the town bell ringing wildly, and your father locking the door as he left; and then flames sweeping across the roof, forcing you and your mother out into a street of panic, and carnage.  A horse slammed into someone so hard it separated a bone from a socket - you remember the audible  puk  sound, and the wail that followed.  Within moments, you were separated from her.  This is the last thing you remember of that world; fire, and isolation, before they took you.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Your First and Oldest Scar 
Tell me how little  nameless , at the age of about six, was hurt in this memory in such a way that it left a physical scar on her body.  She might have gotten it trying to hide somewhere, and hurting herself; she might have been struck in the chaos by rampaging Northmen, or a fleeing villager.  Try to include one or two more details about the village as touchstones about it that you remember.  Doesn't need to be an exhaustive account - you're never under obligation to match my length of description, even one-on-one as we are here.  I have more details to describe; but you get all the interior experience that is worth describing.  But a short paragraph of her attempt to flee, or hide, or find her parents went, and how she got hurt in such a way that her body will bear the mark forever.
 
 
 
 Spoiler: OOC Thread Hyperlink 
The OOC thread is  here. 
 
BananaPhone
 

An apple tree. That was something she remembered. The green, lustrous fruit was perfectly suited for the swampy marshland of their home that ran into the Sea of Chaos to create beautiful turquoise estuaries and lagoons. Fishing was a way of life. So was agriculture in the drained swamps that had been transformed into wetlands by the ingenuity of her family and others that had come before them. Ship building too, she could remember that.

Bretonnian nobles, minor ones anyway, travelled from the south to visit her town, with gold in their coins and need for ships upon which to build their dreams of trading enterprises. To the West, sometimes one may spot an elusive, elegant ship of the  Sea Elves , supposed unspoken allies...no...not the correct word,  associates .  Inhabitants , perhaps? A community owned a segment of the nearby metropolis, their crafts in high demand and their autonomy guaranteed by the authorities of the...where had it been?

That was until the Norsca arrived. Seaborn threats were always a menace, but this time was different. This time they had slipped down the coast, underneath the cover of darkness on a starless night to hide their arrival. They discharged from their longships, bellowing their ferocious warcries and stormed the unprepared town. The locals were not defenseless. The screams and shouts of battle woke many, and a thunderous town bell stirred the rest to action. The militia rallied. Aid was lent by a visiting Bretonnian knight and his retinue. The violence was terrible as steel struck shield on shield and ferocity against discipline. Her father...tall...very tall, broad, axe in hand...he departed, left. That's all she could remember, as flames licked at buildings, and she, her mother and siblings fled with the other civilians, but part of their house collapsed, with jagged wood catching her in the side of her face...
MrAbdiel
 The pain you felt upon waking was barely equal to the fear.  The splintering, burning beam had struck your face, and even - so it seemed - knocked you clear of the collapse by a foot, or so.  You haven't seen the scars, but you can feel them: three loosely parallel streaks from the centre of your forehead down over your eye socket and terminating just above the jawbone on the left cheek.  The blood from it had drizzled down and caked both eyes shut, and waking to pain, you had the fear of the blind in addition to the abandoned and suffering.  It would turn out the eye was not damaged, by the smallest mercy; though with the heel of your little hand rubbing fiercely at the other eye, you managed to peer our through the bleary haze at... a much quieter scene than the one that had preceded it.  Quieter; but no better.

The village - the only home you'd ever known - was utterly ruined.  Your house, behind you, was burned to slumping charcoal bowing in mockery to the proud and standing stone and chimney your father's strong hands built.  But where was he?  Or your mother, or your siblings?  Would they have just left you there where you fell?

You never knew the answer.   This was a place of the dead, now; the bodies of honest, normal people strewn around the warzone streets.  Bloodied, fur-clad warriors stalked looking for survivors to hack down or alternatively to drag wailing by the hair to some worse fate.

You remember the one who found you as you lay there, with no where to go and no one to call to.  He was more armoured than the rest; a panoply of black iron festooned with spikes.  With one huge hand he gripped your wrist and hoisted you up to eye level, where not one but two pairs of fascinated amber eyes peered our from a stacked doubling of slits in the helmet's face.  He seemed to take interest in the wound on your face.  Strangely, that horrible blow likely saved your life.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The First Scar - The Burning House - Three 'claw' marks, Over the Left Eye.

 You gain the first +1 Wound Advance from your Advance Profile. 
 

 Hundrbrýtæ  was the word your captor used to describe you, in his foul language you never mastered; but you did not hear it used again, and so never understood it.  Not a name for you, certainly.   Meyla  was what they called you; but they used the same name for all the young girl slaves.  There was another like you, in the longship gliding back across the sea to the land of the savages. But when the cold set in on the way, and you and the handful of survivors from your village were shivering in silent desperation on the deck, she fell asleep, and never woke; her lips blue as the water out here.  The sailors threw her body overboard, and that was the last you saw of her.

You remember being given - no, definately  sold  - to a couple in the village where you arrived.  It was much worse than yours: no apple trees, no stone chimneys; just round, round wooden huts and fire pits dug into the ground.  They might have been what passes for nobility, in that place; and they treated you with unusual tenderness when you were first handled into their care.  The man grumbled indecipherably at you once in a while, and the woman seemed to want to shield you and dote on you.  But once the wound on your face had scabbed over, the woman seemed to lose her patience and care; and then you were put to work.  Carrying things.  Cleaning things.  Light, repetitive chores no so different from your home - except the people here did not speak your language, and you could not know what was needed of you.
 When they wanted you, they called  Meyla ; and with gesturing, repetition, and instructive beating were all the communication you were ultimately called upon to understand.

 
 Spoiler: Your Second Scar 
Tell me how the little  Meyla  suffered a scarring injury in the course of such an instructive procedure - a deliberate thing, a light blow gone wrong, or something else.  Who gave it to you?  The lord or lady of this house, or someone else?  Feel free, as before, to embellish the scene with some memorable detail your character would retain; either about the people who owned you, or this Norscan village itself.
 
 
BananaPhone
 

One always remembered the cold. The frigid, freezing cold of the Norscan north cut to the bone, and those caught out in its piercing sheets at night had no hope of being seen again. For large swathes of the year the rivers were iced over and the fields were inhospitable to any attempt at agricultural assertions, while the animals, normally great sources of protein and materials, migrated elsewhere to warmer climates. This harsh climate produced harsh men that had to endure long stretches of austerity, so it was little wonder that they turned to plunder to alleviate the worst depredations that their geography afforded them.

Not that she remembered being particularly sympathetic. The noblewomans initial kindness only delayed the childs resentment, though she was not old enough to recognise she was only fulfilling some maternal urge that than evoking genuine concern.

Meyla was a word that would leave her memory anytime soon.  Mey -la. It sounded sweet it ones mind, but it was harsh in reality.  Mey -la come here.  Mey -la do this.  Mey -la fetch the water.  Mey -la scrub the floors.  Mey -la wash all of these dishes.  Mey -la.  Mey -la.  Mey -la.

To  Mey -la's credit, she picked up on things remarkably quickly. She only had to be shown something once and she got the hang of it immediately, much to the surprise of some others. Even the language they spoke seemed to slowly be coming to her, despite no one making an actual effort to teach her. During her free time when other children would play or wrestle,  Mey -la would move to where she could see the boats being built, the way their lower profile and flatter bottoms and particular shapes and angles created a different type of seaborn beast, but one whose versatility in the waters it could traverse gave the Norscan their ability to raid so deep into hostile territory. They would never win a toe-to-toe engagement with the frigates of the Imperial Navy, but they were never meant to.

Curiously, swordplay came easily to the youth also, as she would sometimes use a broom to mimic the movements she saw being taught by the veterans to the younger generation coming up. A swing. A thrust. A parry. A pommel-strike. A natural talent was emerging, as did the confidence that came along with it, as  Mey -la would sometimes sheath a stick she found within her belt and carry it around as if she had a little sword herself. One of the boys spotted it one day and, thinking it amusing, challenged her to try and 'run him through'. She tried. And failed. He had the skill and the training, if even that of a boy. She had mimicked actions from watching, but she did manage to crack him on the knuckles before a flat wooden sword to the stomach sent her to the ground. But instead of mockery and gloating, the boy felt something else, and instead tossed her a cold, wet cloth, telling her to apply it to the bruised area and he would tell her wards that he had told her to get him something from in the woods, thus excusing her absence.

It wasn't much, but in the freezing, harsh North, even a tiny kindness felt warm.
MrAbdiel
 The mistress of the house was not so pleased by this bruise - she discovered the blotch growing on your stomach after a poorly concealed wince, while bundling rags for washing.  It was easy enough to conceal its source from her, the language gap being a fair defence as much as it was typically an obstacle.  She could not force you to rat out  the Boy .

But she did manhandle you; tutting as one does when a new pair of boots is first properly scuffed and becomes, now, just a pair of boots like the others.  She laid you down on a low table, and took to your bruised skin a knife that was little more than a sharpened shard of a broken sword, its handle bound in rawhide.  It was not blunt, but it was no surgeon's razor; and when she cut along the bruise to let it bleed in accordance to the medical consensus of her people (there are no leeches in Norsca), she traded your deep bruise for what would in time be a short, straight, unsown scar; its rightmost edge curling up where a notch in the haphazard tool caught the skin.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Second Scar - The Boy's Gift - Bloodletting scar over Upper Abdominal.

 You gain the +5 WS Advance from your Advance Profile. 
 


Your tenure in the freezing north lasted, perhaps, a couple of years; you think you can remember the sounds of what seemed to be the same festival occurring twice; once soon after you arrived, and again many months later.  But on that second occasion, marking a little over a year since you had been taken from your mother and father and siblings and condemned to drudgery and ever-cold in this colorless, awful place.  Your owners made a mistake: they assumed you could understand, or perhaps would accept, that there was nowhere for you to go, and therefore no escape.  They did not bind you or confine you; they simply beat you back into line when you strayed from their will.  But on the second pass of that festival, you made your bid for freedom.

The hundred or so villagers, and their hundred or so slaves, were mostly busy that night; cavorting around huge bonfire in the town centre.  The fire was the remains of what was once an effigy of a dog, or horse, or some four legged abstract; its body a grim cage for a small number of bound and wailing prisoners, and animals.

But on that festival night, you made a mistake as well.  Because there really was nowhere to go; and in retrospect, a little girl - no matter how desperate and full of juvenile cunning - could outrun such a damnable circumstance.

 
 Spoiler: The Third Scar 
Tell me about  Mey -la's failed escape from captivity, in Norsca.
 Did she make a mad dash for the dock and try to steal a boat?  A cunning plan hiding in an empty barrel, hoping to be carried away?  And importantly, how was she caught, and how did this result in another memorable scar?  Was she sniffed out and run down by huge hounds?  Struck through the leg with a javelin?  Bashed with an oar?  The possibilities for specific suffering are limitless.
 
 
BananaPhone
 

The two yeas had been informative. They had not been any fun, occasional pockets of isolation on her own notwithstanding, but they had been informative. Going from six years old, to seven and then eight, Meyla learned more about the Norscan society she was in and beheld its surprising sophistication and ability that operated underneath the brutish and harsh exterior. That they would put so much effort towards raids and plunder when they had the means to devise alternative methods of generating wealth and calories...well that was a question too big even for a brainy little kid like her, but the essence of the inquiry was not lost on her. Perhaps traditions were hard things to shake.

The language had come to her, slowly. No one taught her directly, but she picked it up, and would sometimes throw out small words and phrases, barely enough to get by. By doing this she was being deceptive, but cunning. It allowed her to be considered ignorant of their spoken words, so that adults would have conversations in front of her or with her present and believe that their communication was hidden behind the language barrier. They weren't.

She learned about raiding schedules. That was the key. She was able to tell the difference between 'this land', which would be raiding other Norscan regions, and 'outlands', which was anywhere across the sea.

A boat due for 'outlands' was a target. Anywhere but here. Anywhere would be Imperial lands, yes? They had to be. Where else was there?

Meyla used the distraction of the festival to sneak away to one of the longboats scheduled to leave for raiding the following day after receiving the blessings. In her way she dropped a few small little items of clothing.

And then she gathered a little pack of food she had gathered over months and fled into the woods.

There were paths one could take to other towns. Maybe there were better places to be?

It worked initially. The dogs scent were drawn to the little bits of clothing that led to the now empty docks, which prompted the belief that she had stowed away on one of the ships that had gone out raiding. Believing their charge had left, and that she would doubtless be discovered and returned, her 'owners', as they were, waited patiently. What surprised them was how little they had to wait.

Only a few days later, Meyla appeared back on their door step, her skin blue-cold, her body shivering, her "plan" clever in conception but incredibly short-sighted. Such was her exposure to the elements that she barely felt the cane.
MrAbdiel
 The master of the home - your owner, in the clearest sense - was a tall, broad shouldered man with a crop of blond braids and a beard that never quite came in.  You had been a gift for his wife.  You filled a role, vaguely, that she had not been able to find fulfilment for, in the traditional way.  Her maternal instincts, and her resentment for her condition, were alternately vented upon you.  And when you returned after your abortive flight into the freezing wilderness, she visited upon your back a fury transmuted from the sum of both.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Third Scar - Spite of the Barren - Intersecting Stripes on the Back

 You gain the +5 Willpower Advance from your Advanced Profile. 
 


There was a falling out, not long after.  Something between the master and the mistress that wounded their affection for each other.   Clarity on it was never given to you; but you've never been able to pin the reason they sold you.  It couldn't have been the escape attempt earlier that year - the stripes on your back had scabbed up, and they had not levied further punishments.  But one evening, while the mistress was asleep, the master roused you and bid you to follow.  As you made your way past the palisade walls of the village, you were joined by similar pairs - other men of the village and their slaves; girls and boys;    mey -las and  sveinns .  At first, the unspoken fear was that you were being led out here to die; the very frozen end you had rejected when you returned to your owners.

If only that had been the case.

Instead, your master and two of his fellows broke from the group to walk ahead, and met with some strange confederate you'd never seen: three figures that hunched in robes; two with spears, one rubbing furred, clawed hands together with oily fascination.  Not quite mutants, for the village had its share of those and all that was consistent among them was their variety.  These people, these  things , were something else entirely

The master struck hands with the leader of the trio.  And from the shadows of the hardy northern pines came more of them: ten like the others, another dozen smaller, mangy furless kinds.  And now you could see them - rats that walked like men, with beady red eyes and manic, furtive movements.  The northmen withdrew without so much as a look back.  From then on, you belonged to the rats.

 
 Spoiler: The Fourth Scar 
At the tender age of nine(ish), young  nameless , never again to be called  mey -la, is sold to the skaven for some unknown reason and price.  The next leg of this journey is going to be travelling to the Hellpit - a short journey to the coast, then a ride on a stinking cramped skaven vessel full of rats and ratmen to the coast of Troll Country ... and then into a hole in the ground, never to see the sun again for ten years.  At some point on that last march under the sky, on the soil or the sea, you earn another scar - probably as part of a lesson about the especially cruel and inhuman nature of her new captors.  Is it a punitive beating by a rat-man?  A good hearted effort to restrain a panicked fellow slave gone wrong?  A subduing blow as they place a collar on her for the first time?  Tell me about your first hard lesson under the cruel ministrations of the ratmen.
 
 
BananaPhone
 

There was a natural revulsion that brewed within the child when she laid eyes upon those cowled figures, the furred, clawed hands in particular eliciting a penetrating disgust.

She could hear what was being said. She understood enough to know what was going on, if not by word than by at least body language.

Her initial struggles were useless, as the hooded rat-men had little trouble dragging a girl along by her shackles around her wrist. But that instinctual repulsion only grew in fervor the further they went into the cold, dark pines of the Norscan forest. Her eyes darting about to the others as they were siphoned away into the night, she could see that the blanket of fear and panic had set across their whole little group of kids, and when the first attempt to fit a collar arrived, that fear snapped.

Perhaps the ratmen were over-confident, seeing no threat in manling infants. But when terror seeped into the nervous system the adrenaline received its spike as the first boy drew up a sharp stick and dashed it against a ratmans ugly snout.

The high-pitched squeal of the walking rodent pierced through the serene forest of their apprehension as the hooded thing tumbled backwards, body spasming and clawing at the stick lodged through its bloodied left eye. It's movements were violent and convulsing before a final few shakes diminished to the stillness of death.

Spears were thrusted, swords were thrashed and slaves died. For Meyla, time seemed to slow down as her eyes were drawn to the crude sword-looking thing hanging from the hip of the nearest ratman. She remembered her lesson with The Boy. She could still feel the muscle memory of self-practice she had put herself through in replication of what she saw in the weapon drills of the raiders and their sons.

It was right there. The handle unbuckled.

Meyla stayed her hand. She played stupid before and it had almost allowed her escape. The world returned to normal and the first defiant boy lay dead in the snow. She had to play the long game.

That collar came to her neck. She offered token resistance, but after the recent incident the ratmen were having none of it, and the shaft of one of their spears was brought heavily against her shoulder and her hair grabbed by those disgusting little clawed hands to force that metal around her neck.

The last thing Meyla saw of the surface were the corpses of the defiant, and the collaring of the compliant. Would her gamble pay off?
MrAbdiel
 Slavery was a pervasive institution in every dark corner of the Old World, and beyond.  The brute fact of it, the enduring nature of that institution, was built on the cold, blunt reality that the hands that held the whip was in a position of strength.  Occasionally, a slave somewhere would snap, kill their master, and escape.  Much more often, the slave would be killed instead.  And slave revolts almost never, ever succeeded.

The leader of the rats, the one who had struck hands with your master, stalked furiously through the aftermath of the scuffle.  Several of the child slaves were superficially cut, all were subdued.  The boy who started it was dead; another girl, another  Meyla , who had shown less restrain and tried to help him knelt beside him, crying piteously.

 "No more this!"   The brown-furred leader hissed in a distinctly inhuman timbre; eyeballing the subdued slaves with wrath.  Apparently, the silence was not sufficient evidence of capitulation.  He snatched a fallen sword from the slain ratman, marched to the corpse of the dead boy, and struck down at his neck; not strong enough to sever it in a blow, but easilly strong enough to do damage enough to make a point.  Then, after a beat and after the captives had recovered from their flinch, he brought the weapon down again - this time, on the neck of the other  Meyla.   She yelped and fell; dead an bled in seconds.  Then, with his minions restraining you, he put the point of the sword to the side of  your  neck.  You felt it bite your skin; you felt the blood; you felt the burning, vermin intensity of his gaze on the side of your head.  But he makes some judgement based on your generally reserved behaviour, and seems to conclude two examples is enough.  The point is made - these new masters are much worse than the old ones.  The first scourged you with whips; these would scourge you with scorpions.

You survived this day because of your cunning that told you not to take the first opportunity; but to wait for the right one, however long that took.  It is a conviction that would carry you through interminable darkness... and perhaps, one day, out the other side.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Fourth Scar - The Rat-Merchant's Lesson - Half-Inch Wide Line On the Right Side of the Neck.

 You gain the +2 Wounds Advance from your Advanced Career. 
 


The tunnels beneath the earth were warmer than the surface; but dark, and cramped, and awful. The rats used limited lighting, but seemed to have excellent vision in the dark.  Still, here below the floor of the world, even vermin needed  some  source of light, even if they needed much less of it than you.  There was much stumbling, on this first journey; and being all collared and shackled, with those collars and shackles chained together, one stumble led easily to the stumble of others.  You walked until your feet blistered.  You tripped and skinned your knees and elbows.  You walked until your stomach howled and you were ready to fall asleep on your feet.  You were herded into a cluster to pass out in a pile, then whipped awake to march again.  And never at any time did the tunnel seem to be going  up.   Always down; down to the guts of the world; down into hell.

 
 Spoiler: The Fifth Scar 
Now we're to a point in nine-ish year old nameless/Meyla/slave-slave's story that there is no demarcation of the passing of days and seasons, so the next bunch of scars are going to be a little more montage and a little less flashback.

The Fifth Scar is accumulated on the march underground to the Hellpit, before you arrive.  How does it happen?  Do you stumble and cut yourself on a rock you can't see?  Does one of the other slaves make a doomed bid for freedom, dragging you by your linked shackles?  Does a spiteful rat take a bite out of you because you dared to speak with the man-tongue here, underground, where only Queekish - the bizarre language of skaven you would not master for years and years to come - is tolerated?
 
 
BananaPhone
 

(I'm interpreting from your words that the posts will be a bit shorter.)


The path down into the bowels of the world pushed the children to their limits. Stumbling about in the dimly lit passage ways that seemed to grow ever more humid and warm while robed rat-things poked and prodded them impatiently was not a...delicate experience.

They had not travelled far but their endurance had already been tested. After what seemed like two hours, Meyla heard a yelp and the scramble of rubble behind her - then the tug of shackles at her wrist. It was another of the kids; they'd not only slipped, before had their leg caught. Having ones limbs trapped in the dark like this was liable to make one panic, which is what the child did. Meyla was not made of stone, though she was tugged backwards in the commotion, the rear of her head striking a sharp outcropping of carved stone as she did so, sending her dim world into a blur, the sounds of rat-mean squeak-yelling and a crying child melding together into a single drone that throbbed in her skull.

Gritting her teeth, gasping and whining as she slowly stood to her feet, unable to even rub her sore head as the shackles around her wrists restrained any attempt at movement. Grimmacing as that dull ache spread down her neck and shoulders, she turned and saw the ratmen roughly dislodging the girls foot from the small sinkhole she had been caught within.

"Watch where go! Yes-yes?!" one hissed.

"No stumble clumsy manling pup!" snarled another, emphasising its point by roughly prodding the girl forward with his 'shepherds' rod.

That the rat-men would show so little concern for  children  and seemingly be offended at having their time stalled...what type of creatures were these? They had not even begun their bondage and already their natural limitations were provoking irritation in their seemingly cruel and selfish owners...
MrAbdiel
 Cruel and selfish they were indeed, on a scale difficult for human imaginations to describe.  The cut where you had struck the stone bled, freely.  It would be days before the final arrival at the destination, and the isolation of this batch of slaves into what  would be their 'home'.  There, you encountered a handful of existing human slaves; decrepit young men mostly, and a handful of women.  An older man among them, his body riddled with scars and filth, looked at the wound; and at least cleared your hair from it.  You never learned his name; like the other slaves who you found here, he either did not know, or refused to speak, whatever language he spoke on the surface, and the language of the ratpeople was all he would use.  Your jailors punished any other language (in which slaves might share conspiratorial secrets) with immediate brutality, yet were reluctant to teach much of their own speech; much of which profited from a less human skullshape, and vocal arrangement.  Thus, the old man who checked on your head wound would forever be just that - the old man, who showed you a small kindness on your first night in the cell.  He seemed to you like he had been a slave there a very long time, which offered both horror and comfort: that one might suffer like this for such a long time... and also that it was possible, in some form, to endure indignities beyond imagination.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Fifth Scar - The Old Man's Gesture - L shaped tear hidden in hair at the crown of the head.

 You gain the +3 Wounds Advance from your Advanced Career. 

And you intuit correctly, I intend these to get a little quicker now.  The scenery isn't going to vary as much as it has - you're in Rat Country now.  It's all dark, all bad, all gross, all the time.
 


Over the next period of time you might guess was a year, you survived.  That is the best that can be said of the experience.  The Old Man died - in his sleep in the cell, much as he had lived; desperate and alone.  You hoped he died in a dream of a better place.  Perhaps, if someone dies while dreaming, their soul stays there, in the dream place.  It made sense, as a theory.  Your duties were varied in nature, but invariably hard and unpleasant.  You drew water from dirty steams for you and the other slaves. You cleared filth from the corners of the tunnels and cells, sometimes with your bare hands as needed.  Most of the work involved moving stones and earth as the scrawny little rat slaves dug and scrabbled and expanded this network of tunnels.  The language of the rats slowly came to you - but less quickly to your desperate cell mates, who often looked to you for help understanding what was expected of them to avoid the suffering that would befall them otherwise.  You learned the hard way that the rats did not appreciate an attitude of charity.

 
 Spoiler: The Sixth Scar 
In your first ~year as a slave to the skaven, you retain enough enough innocence to consider helping those less fortunate than you; it's up to you if that attitude lasts, and how long.  But how was  nameless once more  scarred, learning this lesson?  Was she directly clawed, cut, or whipped for conversing with another slave in Norscan, or Wastelander?  Did she step into a blow meant for a less prodigiously gifted captive?  How did you receive a lingering mark that will remind you forever of the dangers of careless kindness?
 
 
BananaPhone
 

Though the Old Man had shown her kindness, by now the Nameless had come to distrust older figures in general. Among the Norscans the they had been nothing but a source of discomfort, at best. So when this lone one showed her some kindness she accept it, gave a cautious thank you and felt a knot of sadness when she finally believed she'd never see him again. It was a slight and transitory mourning, but it was better than none.

The first year under the rat-man was a predictably awful experience. The labour was awful and required the strongest of fortitudes to endure, while the beratement of the guards, regular beatings took a further toll. BUt for Nameless, the worst was slowly coming to understand the Ratmens language, while those around her were noticeably slower in such decipherment. This produced several occasions where a fellow slave was staring dumbfounded and confused at orders barked by one of the Skaven, before their eyes would turn to Nameless in a silent plea for help.

She learned the first time that simply translating the ratmans orders incurred the wrath of the Skaven. The task taking longer to perform was less important than then slaves talking to each other in their own language, or exhibiting a positive form of cooperation.

On the second attempt, however, Nameless learned that if she...barked the orders, snapped them in the Skavens language and sprinkled in single Norscan or Reikspiel words here and there, it had the effect of sounding like dumb, broken Rat-talk to the Skaven, but also gave her target a hint of what it was that was wanted of them, thus allowing them to quickly figure it out and perform a task.

This worked for several months until a more cluey task-master among the Skaven arrived and quickly deduced what was happening. Thinking that Nameless might be a future insurgent leader, he made a thorough example out of the 9 year old, though not severe enough that she didn't live to see another marvelous year.
MrAbdiel
  This task-master's name in Queekish meant something like  Snitch-Biter.   It's ambiguous, in that strange argot, whether this implies he is a  snitch  who  bites , or that he  bites snitches , or both.  But he is black furred, and taller, and better postured than most of the rats... and apparently more cunning.  He carried a short spear of sharpened wood with no affixed head, and used encouraging jabs to motivate his charges.  But when he picked up on your subtle collaboration, it turned out to be more than a motivating-jab occasion.

 "No!  No this! Tricky-trick girl, hey?  Think she smart?  No help them!  Learn hard, like you!  You retard them!" 

His reasoning is punctuated with a thrust of the spear, whose tip, unheaded as it is, manages to bite two inches into the meat of your thigh muscle.  Untended, it would become infected; but your body fought it off.  And all things considered, a little more physical pain wasn't that troubling.  You were growing used to the abuse - and growing cunning enough to know that such a fact was best concealed, lest it be deliberately tested.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Sixth Scar - Snitch-Biter's Mark - puncture wound on the left thigh.

 You gain the +5 Toughness advance from your Advance Profile. 
 


Time flows on.  Some of the slaves in your cage die while working, or while sleeping on the rag bundle that serves as pillow at night, and clothes by day.  Some never make it back to the cell from some special task they are picked off for.  This happens more often for the older, tired slaves.  Remarkably, the slaves taken as adult endure this life much worse than the children do.  They are conformed to a free life, and an expectation of sunlight and comforts.  They do very badly here.  It kills them; or drives them insane.

You remember the first time you saw someone  turn .  Long have the slaves held the rumor that over time, human slaves turn  into  skaven.  That is how the rats are made;  it is why they are so needlessly cruel.  You've never seen such a transformation; but you saw a man escape into madness, thinking it happened to him.  Not quite middle aged and possessed of big, sorrowful blue eyes, the man had endured far less than you had of this captivity.  But he went to bed in the cell, and woke everyone else with his hoarse screeching, and flinching, and broken-minded chattering.  All at once, he had adopted all the mannerisms of the rat-men; fingers curled and wrists bent at rest like idle paws, lip drawn back over teeth, once sad blue eyes full of desperate, insistent madness and the idiot conviction that he had  become  one of the things and now that he had become one of them, he would not be subjected to so much suffering, surely.

The first slave to reach to touch his shoulder he bit hard enough to draw blood.  Your regular warden, a rat named  Yishvak , will not hurry to the sound of distress; more likely, he will turn up in time to declare someone a trouble maker, and not necessarily the right target.  Blue Eyes might kill one of you, before that time comes.

 
 Spoiler: The Seventh Scar 
How does Nameless react the first time she sees one of the slaves go completely insane and  turn ?  How does she gain a scarring injury in that incident - either trying to restrain him, or killing him, or fending him off until the warden arrives to dispose of him?
 
 
BananaPhone
 

Nameless' eyes widened with a hint of fear.  This  was new. This was something she had never seen before. As a mere 9 year old, being before a grown adult man who had gone mad was...frightening. She had no means to reason with him, no means to appease him, nor even to fight him.

When the man went mad, Nameless sought cover - she looked for anywhere to hide.

Scurrying to where she believed she could fit herself into, Nameless tried to pry her body into a small space, if one where available, avoiding the insane one completely and hoping others would be able to handle him. She had no means nor desire to physically fight and insane grown man.
MrAbdiel
 The cell was carved into rock by some nameless, cursed generation of slaves before you; and the work they had done is uneven enough to have profited you in that desperate moment.  You recoiled even as your swift moments seem to cause the madman - the  werething , if the Norscan rhymes have any truth - to take offense.  He scrambled after you as you wedged yourself into a crevice in the cell's corner that may once have been the dream of escape for a predecessor; now, a hope of safety for you.  And all this happened in the pitiful gloom of the cell, made discernible only by the murky gloaming of lanterns down the end of the hall where another shift of slaves did their part of the toil that waited for you.  Screeching and snuffling, the man crowded against the crack in the stone and blocked what little light remained for you.  Plunged into black, you felt cracked nails and fingertips pawing furiously to seize you, giving you no option by to kick wildly back to spurn and delay.  Then his grip, iron-tight with insanity, cinched around your ankle and began hauling you out of safety.  Your cunning and quickness, and mental fortitude had seen you through trials that had broken so many others; but locked in a cage with a madman, all these virtues felt insufficient.  The brute reality of  strength  asserted itself on you like it had when you were first hoisted from the devastation of your village by the warrior with four eyes.

Then the smallest glimmer of fortune broke your way; or perhaps, fortune isn't the right actor to ascribe.  Your aggressor was hauled back from you with such force that his grip on you slipped; his awful nails carving grooves in the skin of your ankle as he went.  A coalition of four of the other slaves - grown ones, not quite so desperately helpless - dragged him back into the centre of the cell that had been so rapidly vacated by your frightened cohort.  Three boys old enough to almost be men, and one man young enough to almost be a boy.  Pitiless, they kicked and stomped the howling lunatic until he was still and silent.  When your jailer Yishvak arrived and squinted at the scene, he did not deliver the lambasting or abuse you expected.  This kind of thing must happen often enough to be considered inevitable, by the rats' standards; he merely opened the door, picked two of your saviours to help haul the  werething's  form out into the corridor, and locked the door again.  They carted the beaten man away; forty minutes later, the two were returned to the cell, and you never saw the madman again.

The three younger lads in this assembly of violent delivers are each cases whom you had stuck your neck out for before, slyly feigning abuse while actually directing them to avoid punishment before  Snitch-Biter  put a stop to it.  Perhaps, even here in this place, some shade of noble things still existed.  No one had meaningfully defended you since your father stepped out into the night of horrors.  While almost every moment of this hell had been a grinding reminder that you were exposed to the awful world alone, it is fortifying to have at least one example of the alternative: it's people, against monsters.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Seventh Scar - Claws of the Wererat - Deep scratchmarks on the left ankle.

 You gain the +5 Agility advance from your Advance Profile. 
 


Slaves continued to die.  Soon there were children who were younger than you; which means, perhaps, you were getting older.  Somehow, in defiance of pressures, you were surviving; on a lightless existence, and a diet of castoff scraps rejected by literal rats.  More of the rat language unraveled to your ears.   Nee  is a particle that seems to indicate a female slave; the counterpart of the male  Kee .  And  Ruh  seems to indicate some level of veterancy, as a slave.  Those who have survived, perhaps; something like  proven.   They called you  Nee-Ruh-Kaha  from time to time; with  Kaha  indicating the method of acquisition, your handle seems to be  female-proven-purchased .  This, in contradistinction to  Kee-Ruh-Siss , male-proven-captured; an epithet used for the other veteran in your crew - the older of the four who had beaten the madman.

The two of you were often pulled from the crew and given somewhat more demanding jobs.  This was where you met  Rashabang ; a russet furred skaven distinctively armored in brass plates over a tattery brown-red robe.  The two of you, in addition to a gaggle of six or more rat-slaves, are loaned to Rashabang from time to time assisting him in his alarming brand of intellectual inquiry.  Lifting and assembling metal parts and mechanisms, shoveling coal into sputtering furnaces whose smoke has nowhere to go but ambiently into the tunnels... even sometimes using and preparing tools.  Rashabang seems so fixated on his strange experiments he has no time for cruelty, at least the deliberate kind.  But this doesn't make his labors especially safe.

 
 Spoiler: The Eighth Scar 
On one occasion, as a forced assistant to this skaven engineer, you suffer a marking injury.  How?  Does something backfire, or explode?  Does one of the rat-slaves strike you, out of jealousy?  Do you quite simply cut yourself, while sharpening a blade intended for a doomwheel?
 
 
BananaPhone
 


Working with the engineer was a reprieve from the usual state of fetid labour throughout the dank tunnels. Gone was cleaning a mixture of mud, dirt and excrement from squalid cages with her bare hands. Now she worked among machines and gizmos, a workshop where a host of unusual devices sat in various states of construction and the scent of ozone permanently lingered in the air. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Nameless felt...at peace, almost. Is this what happiness felt like? Those machines, the product of intellect and planning, made sense to her. She could see the transition from imagination, to mathematics, to schematics, to construction and finally, to use. It was a beautiful process and one that Nameless found herself possessed of a natural affinity. She understood Rashabang's numerical scratching's, though she did not yet have the training or experience to know how to improve or unfold them. Instead she was able to make broad and general deductions using patterns that she recognized in the various formulas and their association with particular materials and effects.

But that was only the beginning.

After conceptualization and planning came  building . And that? That was fun. Nameless actually had fun. She even managed to smile a few times.

Putting something together and feeling the trepidation of turning it on, only to watch it hum and whir to life was an experience unlike anything Nameless had known. The flush of joy and the dopamine hit to the brain left her intoxicated on the sensation and wanting more.

This fascination did not go unnoticed. Rashabang was not deliberately cruel, most likely because he was too focused on his work. But neither was he thankful. Unusual for the ratman, he seemed solely dedicated to getting his work done. Ge even addressed Nameless once or twice. Just simple little things: fetch this, clean that. But the fact such orders came directly from him...the implications were many.

This was observed by one ratling slave in particular that did not take kindly to some human breeder infant not knowing her place. A scrawny, ruddy-brown furred little beast, its beady eyes and crooked rictus grin watched her through the vaporized oil, smoke and fumes of the workshop, plotting when to 'neutralise' her and remind her of where pompous little manling-things belonged. He chose that moment when Nameless was one of several slaves working on a Doomwheel - affixing blades, adjusting chains and gauging the motor.

Ratling approached from behind. Knowing straight violence would not be tolerated, it swiftly reached over Nameless's shoulder and yanked free a support rung that was holding the Doomwheel off the floor. Half a second of protest shouts were all the gathered slaves could get out, including Nameless, before the large creation hit the ground with its wheel running and internals exposed, and a load roar of an engine and ripping dirt announced the catastrophic blasting of the machine's propellant as it surged forward, struck a wall and brought down half the ceiling in a thunderous choir of rubble, smoke and green flame.
MrAbdiel
 The collision of war-machine, scaffolding and wall was tremendous, fiery, and terrible.  A half-dozen of the rat-slaves were badly mangled, or burned to death.   Kee-Ruh-Sis  was the most fortunate - throwing himself to one side, shrapnel flew over his head and burning fuel alighted breifly on his rags, but not long enough to burn him.

You were less fortunate.  A splinter of steel you yourself had sharpened as one of the wheel's scythes was smashed from its parent blade and spiked into your chest, through your skin and biting into your highest floating rib on the right side.  The pain was terrible, and your instinct to pull it out after  Kee-Ruh-Sis  drags you clear of the rubble was foiled by your blood-slick hands.

As the alarm settled, there was a secondary  bang  - this, from the ornate brass and wood pistol  Rashabang  keeps at his hip.  The bullet emptied the braincase of the craven rat-slave who could not help but stand in admiration of his handiwork; it died with its hideous, verminous grin on its terrible features.

In what was more lightly an economically sensible decision than a compassionate one, Rashabang saw to your medical complication.  With a pair of tongs, he pulled the metal shard from your side; and after a brief warning...

 "Will be hot-hot..." 

...Cauterized the wound, transforming the oozing blood and screaming pain of the cut into a hideous burn and a different, but less medically threatening screaming pain.  Then you were sent back to your cell, Kee-Ruh-Sis helping you make your way with one of the guard rats watching you go.  You rested while a fresh crew of rat slaves were set to clear the ruin of the workshop.

You slept for six hours.  It was the closest thing to a holiday in your entire tenure.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Eighth Scar - Rashabang's Reward - Burn scar over the floating ribs on the right.

 You gain the +4 Wounds Advance from your Advance Profile. 
 


From time to time, you did work in Rashabang's workshop.  You could never be considered an apprentice or partner in any way - he taught you nothing - but you learned what was expected in a technical environment and intuited his demands well.  Often, there were extended periods of standing aside and doing nothing while he did something fine and particular to an instrument.  Almost like not working at all, for your part.

But most of your work was still thankless toil; moving rocks split from the wall by the rat slaves who were trusted with tools.  It remained that way for years.  You grew in stature, and strength; you passed milestones of womanhood that would have required celebration and marked a new era of your life, in almost any other place.  The roof just seemed lower; the stones a little lighter; the new slaves a little younger.

You do remember a moment when your age seemed most distinct to you - when you, with another mixed slave crew, were clearing a new tunnel deep into the bowels of the earth.  The rats didn't use supports to reinforce their tunnels; they simply used their intuitions to know which convoluted, twisting way to dig in order as not to promote collapse.  And this instinct was often wrong.

With a rippling crunch of stone and a wave of shocked cries, the tunnel in which you were working buckled and fell in; and for a moment, you were sure you were dead.  It was pitch dark, and that seemed like what hell might well be like.  But it wasn't to be - the slave adjacent to you was dead, for sure.  The chains on your ankles that lead to theirs terminated in a clinch of stone, and something wet and coppery.  And to the other side of you, the four slaves at the extreme end of the chain began crying and wailing in fear, in the dark.  All of them smaller, and younger than you.  Like... like the siblings you think you had.  Or were they older?  It seemed so far away, now; a while different life, lost under a whole different collapsed ceiling.  But here, in this dark pocket formed by an oppressive tomb of stone, you were the closest thing to an adult presence; and these slaves - these kids - had not yet developed the fortitude against misery they would need if any would become proven, like you.  If any of you would survive, that is.

 
 Spoiler: The Ninth Scar 
How does the now not-so-young Nee-Ruh-Kaha handle being caught in a cave in, with her chains pinned under rock and locked into a tight dark space with four scared children?  Does this endear her to children, or make her resent them?  Does she rise to the challenge with hidden maternal spirit, or spurn it with increased hardness of heart?
 
 
BananaPhone
 

Time went on and the years melded together. How long had it been now? Nameless couldn't remember. She had no point of reference for the passage of time, only general states of being that she observed in the new slaves that arrived and the old, or used ones, that left. Likewise, her mentality changed, though not as drastically as some. Developing in the workshop of Rashabang was a boon few slaves could hope for. The work was no less dangerous, but it was less  arduous , and the girls cluey nature with machines saw that she was usually given better food than other slaves of her station. This had the added effect fortifying her growing body against the deleterious effects of malnutrition, whose diminishing results were seen in the thinner bodies of other slaves, even young males several years older than her. Though she was not the image of health, every bit counted, and by her mid-teens she had formed out into a height that would be considered impressive for a man, let alone a girl.

However, there were pro's and con's to everything in life. Tall and with a clear intelligence in her eyes and now mastery over the Skaven language, Nameless was oddly intimidating, particularly to the smaller, scrawny ratling slaves. But it made navigating caves less than comfortable. In fact, Nameless hated traveling outside of the main tunnels as she always had to crouch, and she could count more than a few lumps on her head every couple of months as a reminder why. Likewise, things like doors and rooms were carved with the Skaven in mind, not unusually tall humans, and so though some aspects of her life became easier, others became more difficult.

Such was with the cave-in. The Skaven, for all their genius, had a propensity for carelessness that the maturing human found mind-boggling. They had it within their means, she saw, clearly had it within their means to take just a few safety steps, some simple little processions of validation and security that would have saved them countless hours of labour, materials, resources and lives. But, Skaven did as Skaven do, and the ceiling of the dirt-line tunnel collapsed, burying Nameless and other slaves beneath it.

Panic was the mind-killer here. To lose control over ones actions when buried beneath that soil would have been a death sentence. Already, Nameless could hear the younger slaves doing just that, the chain around her ankle twitching and yanking in response to their useless and spasmodic movements. Nameless couldn't blame them, she felt it too. The world around her becoming even darker, pitch black, her body covered in too much soil to wrest off, to even free her arms to make some attempt at digging herself free. The fear crawled up her spine and threatened to burrow into the back of her head, but Nameless knew something that would temporarily stave off the terror: the skaven  had  to use this tunnel. Her knowledge of the language and association with Rashabang had enabled her to eavesdrop on the Skaven foremen and planners. She  knew  this tunnel was essential to their short-term plans. Something as minor as a cave in would not deter their mad visions, and if they came across the corpses of some unlucky slaves while they were re-digging their way through a tunnel, so be it. Well, Nameless knew that all they had to do was survive until then, and that wasn't going to happen with the kids screaming, yelling and using up all the air.

"Quiet!" she barked downwards through the dirt towards them.

"Stop talking or you'll suffocate!"

It was then that Nameless felt the slightest of breezes against her face, like a little puff of wind emitted by someone drawing their face close to another and puffing softly as an annoyance.

Where could that have come from? Nameless' minds raced to think and then she was reminded of the weight around her ankle. Her shackles! The end of the chain was still in the clear and open part of the cave, where the work crews and foremen were stationed. That chain was literally their life-line, as Nameless managed to struggle against the weight of dirt against her body to reach up and grip the closest part of the chain. And then she twisted it. Just slightly, as much as she could, gyrating it in a circular motion, as if she were stirring a tiny little cauldron and then she felt it - the little puff of air again.

It wasn't enough to burrow their way out or see anything, but the rotational movement of the chain loosened enough dirt and pebbles around it to create small, thin little vents from which air could enter Nameless' position, allowing her to continue breathing. She would be here for hours until they were dug out, but at least this way, the Skaven would be retrieving slaves and not corpses.

Maintaining her breathing, Nameless passed the knowledge down to the kids, telling them what to do: stay calm, don't panic, breathing slowly, turn the chains just slightly, creating those thin little air passages and be patient.
MrAbdiel
 The experience was hellish, even in competition to the many hellish experiences you'd had to this point.  The younger slaves needed constant cajoling and chastisement not to sink into sobbing and panic.  The dark and claustrophobia of the confines remained cloying and tombish, even if you weren't doomed to suffocate due to your cunning chain-trick.  But the physical  strain  of it was intense; pressing up with your back against the buckling dome of rocks and earth around you, knowing that to relax too much would invite it to compact against your prone form and immobilize you entirely - cutting off your ability to make the narrow vent, and perhaps simply drowning you in earth.  You endured it till your muscles burned and spasmed, your body aching and wracked and fighting the argument within your head that perhaps death would be  better  than this.

The rats did not value your life, or those of the other slaves.  Compassion from them would never save you.  But they needed the tunnel they were digging; and the collapse being an obstacle to that goal, eventually, you heard the skitters and mumbling beyond your buried position - your ugly saviours coming, finally, to free you.  But not without further cost.  The band of rat slaves tasked with clearing the cave in, having unearthed the other end of the chain, had the enterprising thought that they might more easily clear the obstacle by pulling the chain and its occupants out.  This was folly, and a painful one for you; at once, the chain around your right ankle became taught and smashed your heel against the burying stone.  And then they began to heave, with the coordinated efforts one expects of slave teams; agonizing you as the shackle grooved and cut into your skin and, you would later suspect, began to crack the bones beneath.  The horrifying possibility that they might pull hard enough to fold your ankle back against the calf only to shear it free entirely felt starkly real and threateningly present; and all you could do was fight to awkwardly grasp the chain again with your hands and pull back against those pulling at you.  The children with you tried to help - timing their heaving with yours turning the rescue effort into a tug-of-war with your body's integrity at stake.  It's hard to save if they helped much, even if they tried.  But after a sustained effort for minutes that felt like hours, the rats on the outside seemed to decide this wouldn't work, and resorted to manual clearance again.

Hiding the pain of the fracture was the chaser to the whole experience - if your captors thought you were too injured to be useful for labor, they might find simpler uses for you; as they had for so, so many before.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Ninth Scar - Shacklebite - Two curved lines on the interior of the right ankle.

 You gain the +5 Strength Advance from your Advance Profile. 
 


Your captivity was not simple cruel drudgery, however.  Sometimes, it was punctuated by moments of intense terror and lethality.  For all the things the Skaven were, they were no monolith; and bickering and brawling between them was common.  Once, it was much worse than that - an attempted coup, in which slaves like yourself stopped for a moment being chattel, and started being collateral damage.

This was one of the occasions where you were doing specialized work for Rashabang; you and three other human slaves, along with a customary throng of the filthy slave rats.  You were beating a piece of brass into shape over a log to make a bracket for a tank of some toxic fluid, when one of the messily armored guard rats who served shifts as slave tenders burst through the tunnel doorway, and brayed a barely articulate warning before he was slain.  The killer was a black blur of trailing cloth and vermin muscle; a slender cannonball with a black metal knife in each forepaw, and one in a tight curl of tail.  The assassin slammed in back of the rat-guard,  two knives biting into its chest and delivering their oily black venom in redundant excess of their mortal steel, before using the trailing momentum of his spring and the guard's dying collapse to leap again, sailing across the room over the heads of the slaves towards Rashabang.  The engineer rat's reflexes were good; and the delay it had taken to kill the sentinel saw one of the long pistols slip from its holster, rise and fire with a flash of green fire and smoke.  The would-be killer  twisted in the air with the impact, colliding with the wall where Rashabang had stood before scuttling aside; but scrambled to his feet wounds and all.  Then without another moment's passage came another intruder - one of the monsterous rat hulks you had been required to feed from time to time; those that dined on the bodies of other rats, and slaves as well as chemical slurry splashed into their troughs by their deranged makers.  The rat-ogre frothed and roared, claws and bulk shredding through slaves and furniture in the workshop alike - an opponent too powerful and terrible to even imagine opposing.  Rashabang certainly didn't imagine it - snapping off the round from his second pistol to force the assassin to dodge into cover, the engineer juked under a bench and around a small furnace, through the press of terrified slaves delaying the gigantic killer in their confusion, and off into the tunnels of the warrens proper - a nightmare of rat-on-rat combat where there were no clear sides or objectives.  But anywhere was preferable to here.  The assassin rat was wounded, but still armed and operable, and more than capable of killing you.  And regardless of who's side the rat ogre was supposed to be on, there was not a man or woman alive who could survive being trapped in a room with one in such conditions.  There was only death here, or the  chance  of death in the tunnels beyond - hardly a choice at all.

 
 Spoiler: The Tenth Scar 
How does Nameless respond when plunged into such chaos?  She's unshackled when working under these particular conditions, and so free to flee - but what kind of risks will she take for the greener, less adapted slaves at risk to herself?  Is her instinct to flee and hide, or to try to take up a weapon to fight... for, or against the invaders?  She has been waiting her whole life for a chance to escape - does she know that this isn't it by some instinct, or does she learn it via a scarring lesson?
 
 
BananaPhone
 

It was just another day in the hole, as Nameless worked on her assigned duty. Her lips pursed, her wonder sometimes stretching beyond her current situation, the human did not focus much on the ratman politicking and intrigue. She understood their language perfectly now, better than most Skaven possibly, and this worked to her advantage as she often 'played dumb' what what she  could  decypher. This led to numerous Skaven feeling it was safe to speak within earshot of her, believing her some ignorant manling breeder that was unaware of their schemes.

But she knew.

And could do little about them.

Responsibility without power was a terrible position to be in, as slaves often were. But when the fighting broke out in the workshop, Nameless was snapped back to attention as her eyes widened at the abrupt and fat nature of the carnage unfolding around her. The ratling ninja was troubling, but as a cut-above-average slave, she knew she was low on the list of priorities for its blade, not that it wouldn't take up the opportunity if it presented itself. But much like the Skavens underestimation of her ability to understand their language causing them to disregard her, so too did she have a few seconds to think and act that it was doubtful she would have received were she a free Skaven.

However, the arrival of the rat-ogre complicated things.

Her eyes widening at the sight of the rampaging monster, Nameless was better equipped than most to stave off that paralysing fear that would freeze others to the spot. Having watched them feed and fight among themselves in the pits, she  knew  how lethal they were, how quickly and easily one could hoist her off her feet and tear her in twain.

She also knew how  tough  they were. And  strong .

But if she had learned something from the cave in, it's that everything needed to breathe. It didn't matter how big and strong you were, a minute without oxygen and you were done.

Stepping back from the chaos, Nameless snapped her head to either side, looking for a pair of items she  knew  were around. One of them she spotted immediately - a spherical, glass globe whose contents were a swirling, emerald mist that would make one ill just to look at it. The other - there!

Spotting the mask several meters away, Nameless took her chance. She reached out, grabbed two of the globes in her hands and ducked as she hurried over to the benches. All around her the hissing, screeching ratmen stabbed and clawed at each other, their attentions focused on the blade-brandishing traitors or loyalists before them rather than the seemingly unarmed, towering human breeder running for cover. Nameless had barely covered two meters when she grimaced at the hot spray of black-red blood splattering across her face from some unfortunate skaven, the hideous squealing of rats filling the air alongside the unholy sound of flesh and bone being torn from sockets. The rat-ogre was at work.

Reaching the bench, Nameless grabbed the mask and shoved it onto her face. The thing was designed for a rats face, and so she had to shove it against her features, as she quickly hooked one arm under the strap that carried the oxygen tank that would be the difference between life and death. Inhaling that less-than-lovely, but better than death air once to ensure it was working, Nameless turned to the fur-and-steel riot of death, drew her right hand back and -

 "Look-look! Stop manling!"  the ninja hissed out, the more perceptive creature having spotted Nameless' unusual action. Time seemed to slow down as he reached towards a knife upon his hip, but his eyes widened and the long rictus of his mouth drew back in horror as he watched those two globes hurl from Nameless' hands, both green-spheres arching through the air and breaking within the melee.

Nameless dived down behind the benches, holding that mask to her face and crawling hurriedly towards a storage spot she could fit into and hide.
MrAbdiel
 Some of the combatants - many of the rat-slaves, and the three remaining humans - had cleared  the threshold into the nightmare beyond already.  But the assassin was injured, and recovering, having worked his way even in his rounded state through three of the engineer's dedicated apprentices before your gambit was made plain to him.  Too late to flee-flee - not without cost.  The one globe smashed on the floor, the other cracked and began spinning wildly on a jet of its escaping, pressurized toxins.  Through the foggy glass of the gas mask, you saw the outcome - the rat-slaves caught in the immediate range of the burst couldn't help but breath it in, and almost instantly perish in hacking mounds of fur and puked up blood and pus.  The assassin made his best skitterleap for the door, but in doing so he passed through a tendril of the cloud and he vanishes from view with coughing and spluttering in his wake.  The rats would later discuss how they had caught him and tortured him before feeding him to the beasts alive - even the quickest and slickest rats, it seems, could endure only so much punishment.  The rat-ogre could not help but heave in great lungfuls of the gas, and ignorant of where the suffering inflicted upon it was coming from, it thrashed wildly about the room, splashing regurgitated, liquifying rat parts about while its eyes burned from its head.

You had the mask, thankfully, and so when the cloud thinned enough to reach your hiding spot, it did not find its way into your chest - but it  did  sting and burn your bare skin in a way you hadn't anticipated.  Why did the rats employ these masks if even skin proximity to the poison was harmful?  Perhaps they were masochists, and the ones truly devoted to the poisons were willing to sacrifice their skin for the profane joy of witnessing the effects up close.  You were not willing to sacrifice your skin, however;  with the sensation of blisters racing up your bare arms and neck, you bolted for the door and out and away from the spreading gas, and the blind monster, and the bodies of the first creatures you had ever killed - even if it was with such a strange and indirect weapon.  Your cunning had bought your chance; your feet paid the difference, carrying you at speed through the tunnels around the vermin duels and goresplashes of the monsters slain to the relative safety of your cell, where other slaves opened the unlocked gate for you, then pulled it shut behind you; hoping no sadistic invader would test the lock.

Eventually, the invaders were repelled; and your duties for the next few days included joining teams to clear the mangled and warped bodies of the dead. Most of the blisters from the gas went away without issue, over time; but one particular streak, apparently from a particularly dense wisp of the green poison, fared a little worse; and a discoloured strip beginning on your inner wrist, spiralling up and around your forearm to the elbow forever reminds you of how careless and reckless the strange technology of the rats tends to be - and how preferable it is to suffer a little, rather than to be torn limb from limb.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Tenth Scar - Kiss of the Poison Wind - Chemical burn on left forearm.

 You gain the Flee! Talent from your Advance Profile. 
 


These were the first lives you'd taken - the slaves liquified by the chemicals, and the rat-assassin whom you crippled and doomed to a worse death still.  You didn't feel bad for them - why would you?  What feeling had they for you?  In fact, it might have even been  empowering  to cause  them  to suffer for a change.  But you wouldn't take a life with your own hands for some time yet.  And before you would kill in, you would fight him - and lose badly.

The rats kept many slaves, and in your years here you had seen humans, and halflings, and elves and dwarves.  The elves and dwarves and halflings did not last so long; they tended to be too obstreperous to train and so got killed, or fared so poorly in the conditions that they died of other causes very soon.  Humans, unfortunately or not, possessed some rugged spark of survival that made them better slaves than most; better in some ways than the cringing rat slaves who were the decrepit runts bred for the purpose.  But there was another slave -  Skee-Ruh-Kris , Skaven-Proven-Punishment - who took offense to you for no discernible reason.  Perhaps it was your stature; perhaps the scraps of favor poured on you by Rashabang.  You never knew.  But Skee-Ruh-Kris was a brown furred, skaven who had once been a free rat, but had performed some misdeed worthy of the stripping of his name and demotion to slave.  He towered over the malnourished and weak born-slaves - but not over you.  And more than once, at an opportune moment when you were momentarily unsupervised, he relished to make you suffer.  It started as petty instigation - shoving, spooking, spitting.  You'd seen fights before, between slaves - usually the belligerents were killed on principle, so it did not behove you to draw attention to his attacks.  But then his opportunity came - clearing another tunnel in a chain-gang with the survivors of the children who had been trapped with you once before, your skaven foreman poorly judged your group stable enough that he might slip off and indulge in some vice you cared not to learn for a minute or two.

Skee-Ruh-Kris, his irrational hated having waited this long, saw his opening.

 
 Spoiler: The Eleventh Scar 
Ambushed by a petty but not incapable enemy, you are forced to defend yourself against a cowardly attack that fails to kill you, but certainly leaves you second best off.  Revenge comes later - but how does Skee-Ruh-Kris assault you, and how do you survive?  Does he pounce on you from behind and try to dash your brains out on the rock, or conceal a shiv of bone for your side?  Do you hear him coming at the last second and turn aside, or just cover up until the guard returns to break the brawl up?  How do you survive when most others would have died, to avail yourself of a chance for revenge on a later day?
 
 
BananaPhone
 

As her back had been turned, Nameless had not seen the blow coming. One moment she was inspecting a pile of quarry before her, the residue of their tunnel clearing activities, the next a hot pain shot through her body as a Clunk! resounded out against the rough drilled walls. For Nameless, her world spun as the dull, aching pain throbbed in her head, a groan escaping her lips as she tumbled forward, barely able to perceive anything in the dimly lit cave-way, her back hitting the ground as she rolled over, hand up and cradling at her head.

Skee-Ruh-Kris stood above her, a jagged rock clasped in one of his clawed little hands, its rough edge smeared with some blood. Her blood. The injured human was barely able to comprehend her surroundings, her vision a blurred miasma, but she could spot those two beady little red eyes staring down menacing at her, the curl of the long lip of the rat-man as it raised its improvised weapon to bring it down on her skull.

A sharp whistle was the only warning either of them had. Not even half a second until Thwack! a hurled rock impacted against the side of Skee-Ruh-Kris's skull. The skaevn hissed in pain, dropping his own weapon as his little clawed hand shot up to cradle the red-dash on the side of his elongated head, turning and glaring at the few younger human slaves - some of whom had been the ones Nameless had gotten through the first cave-in - had armed themselves with small rocks. Another whistle - Thwack! this one caught Skee-Ruh-Kris in the eye.

"Aargh pest-pests!" the Skaven squealed, drawing himself back from the hail of rocks. The children only stopped when it was clear that Skee-Ruh-Kris had abandoned his current plan, as they darted over to Nameless's still groggy form.

"What going on?!" the deeper voice of the returning Skaven foreman bellowed, his hefty figure suddenly lurching forward in locomotion as he returned from his mini-break and put himself among the group.

"Tell me now-now!" he demanded, brandishing that cat-o-nine tails around like an item of accusation.

None of the slaves would speak the truth, neither the humans nor Skee-Ruh-Kris. To do so would get them all punished, and so one of the kids lied.

"She tripped," he points to rubble across the floor, "hit her head against the rock!" he pointed to the piece of masonry that Skee-Ruh-Kris had dropped in his flight.

The foreman narrowed his eyes into suspicious slits, his gaze wondering over each of the present slaves one after another. Could he tell the truth? Did it even matter in post-evaluation?

"Clumsy manling breeder!" he beat Nameless once with his whip, eliciting a grunt of pain through gritted teeth. If she had been a lesser slave he probably wouldn't have cared, but Nameless was known as an emerging 'foreman among the human slaves' of sort: someone who helped motivate, got things done and didn't cause trouble. Such a slave was handy and time-saving for the foreman, and others, her continued existence made his life easier.

"Go rest-rest one hour, then come back!"
MrAbdiel
 The blow dealt to the side of your head was concussive, and deep; the edge of the rock grooved a line on the left side from your temple and above your ear.  An hour of rest had not been enough; the rest of the day's work had been unusually difficult, with your balance skewing and your mind fogging.  Skee-Ruh-Kris dared not try again so soon, lest he be discovered - but his baleful eyes, one squinting from a thrown rock, commit the faces of your diminutive accomplices to his bitter memory.

He tried several times over the next months to accomplish the same trick; but never succeeded.  Your small drops of fortune in this desert of misery might have briefly dulled some instincts; but the presence of this mortal threat reignited them, straining and training your ears to the oblique approach of an attacker.  Twice, you heard him coming and turned to earn only a scowl and his giving up for the day.  Twice, you heard him just in time to duck the rock swing back.  Rats had teeth and claws, but humans were not without weapons.  Fists made better clubs than paws; and your teeth, while not sharp, were threatening enough if they could just catch a finger, or an ear, or a tail.  Fights like these were uncommon but not rare, among the slaves; murmured conversation of how best to defend oneself against the bitter, opportunistic rat slaves, who knew human slaves as their only lower rung on the ladder of life, were part of the night-time surrussus of Queekish that preceded your patchwork people's passing out from exhaustion in the evening.

You remember thinking of how you would kill him; the opportunity you'd need, the moment to strike, the way you'd survive the aftermath.

That moment, fate would hold, would indeed find its way to you eventually.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Eleventh Scar - Skee-Ruh-Kris's Blow - Groove over the left temple.

 You gain the Acute Hearing advance from your Advance Profile. 
 


Another impenetrable passage of time later found you favoured again.  There is some manner of gathering - its nature not offered to you - which requires the attendance of a great host of the vermin who seem exalted above the others.  Rashabang chooses you, and the man-slave who has survived against all odds as long as you have, Kee-Ruh-Sis, to pull a cart of  supply  for him.  The supply seems to be the hideous green stone the skaven are so fond of - the cart you haul is heavy, and the filthy cloth thrown over only mostly hides the beryl radiance.  You are part of a column of such carts of skaven 'dignitaries' and offerings.  Some of the skaven carry clockwork oddities like Rashabang; some are swathed in grey mantles and brandish warpstone-pierced staves; most are completely indistinguishable from one another, for the major part.  Some of the carts glow like yours; some contain putrid smelling meat, and body parts; others contain the still but breathing bodies of slaves from some part of the warrens you don't know: drugged silent, and stupid. You are made to haul for hours and hours, until you come to a place you have never seen - a massive, open cavern that is glutted with thousands of the rats.   Tens  of thousands of them.  And your cart is one of hundreds streaming in from various openings, before the cart entire is roughly seized off you by skaven orderlies of this profane sanctuary who take great delight in shoving you and the over slaves back before you come past the second of thirteen descending concentric circles that make up this hellish stadium.  After this, you are herded back to the first level of thirteen; the largest circle, occupied exclusively by slaves and a profusion of slave handlers with their spears, and their barbed man-catchers, and whips.  You catch on to the nature of the matter and the location from the chatter of rats all around you -  give-give , and  strike-time , and  god-place .

This is a skaven god-place.  This is where they call upon their whispered patron, for his dark favor.

The majority of the human slaves who have come here (those who aren't in the carts, being dragged groggy and helpless to a stained and smoking pit in the middle of the lowest circle to die) cannot bear to witness what transpires next.  They crowd against the walls of the chamber on the upper level, hands clapped over their ears, crying and shaking and wetting themselves.  For once, such behaviour does not incur the lash; the skaven packmasters are too eager to watch as the rats at the lowest level - robed and faux-regal, and ostentatiously barking ceremonious claims about the  strike-time  and the  glory-joy  as shards of glowing stone are laid about the pit in semi-meaningful patterns, and the delerious slaves are throat-cut and hurled less carefully into its nadir.

You watch, hardened by hate and time; Kee-Ruh-Sis watches too, but as the ceremony rises to its crescendo, he can stand it no more.   "Men also have gods,"  he whispers to you in fearful defiance of what you are witnessing,  "and they will not permit their children to suffer like this forever."   Then he turns and leans his forehead on the wall; covering his ears against the sounds that fill the chamber.  The whisper of rats to each other; the roar of them as they move through responsorial cadences; the reedy, hysterical pitch of the rat-priest in charge, whose invocations stir the crowd into a spasmodic heartbeat of thrill, and tension; thrill, and tension.

Terror creeps into your heart as you feel something in the room  peaking ; something coming to a head that was not before.  Yet you watch, out of curiousity and bald defiance of fear.  And so your eyes are the only human ones in the room that witness the huge, slender, blood-soaked limbs that reach out of the pit of corpses and magical detritus, and pull the massive monstrous body through.  Tall as three men on each other's shoulder, ratlike in aspect but upright and regal in bearing; with a rack of horns on its head and its black fur slicked with the blood of sacrifices.  With its emergence comes howling rapture of the ratmen, and a redoubling of your fear, and then something  worse  than the fear - a kind of alien pride worming its way into the battery of your feeling as an external imposition.  A feeling that it is  good  to be a slave here; that by doing so you have played a part on making this beautiful moment possible; an assurance that you can share in the  scraps  of the glory to come.  A warm feeling; a hungry feeling; a feeling not from you, but forced upon you to feel against your nature.  A violation of the soul that, at last, forces you to look away, to cease the creep of it... lest it continue its alien work in your head.

But when you look away, your eyes find something else - a familiar shape amidst the slaves, well at the back of the mob.  Your aggressor, Skee-Ruh-Kris, hopping and spectating and drinking in the particulated glory that has managed to make its way all the distance to this top row where even the rat slaves are cavorting and braying.

The humans are turned away in spiritual horror.  The rats are focused on the act below in rapturous delight.  You know if you were to run for it, you would not get past the guards at other places in the warren tunnels that brought you here; and you would likely become lost in this unfamiliar spaces.  But Skee-Ruh-Kris, finally, is vulnerable.

Moving quickly, you plan, and strike.

 
 Spoiler: The Twelfth Scar 
Now is your chance.  In this delicate window of opportunity, how do you enact your revenge?
 How do you conceal your culpability?  And importantly, how do you end up scarred as a result - a parting shot from a fallen enemy, or something else?
 
 
BananaPhone
 

The initial labour had been arduous, but no less unpleasant than usual. The carts they pushed contained that green, glowing rock with which Nameless had become passingly familiar while toiling within Rashabangs workshop.  Warpstone  they rat-men called it, and it was everywhere. Or at least, the  desire  and need for it was everywhere. From currency to fuel for their machines, the Skaven utilized the unstable material with prodigious and insane fervor, forever testing the limits of their knowledge and application of the material at the cost of inconsequential lives. What little Nameless knew of it was enough. She knew not to touch it with her bare hands, she had observed as such when greedy little slaves had grown ambitious enough to snatch a piece, so that they might trade it for freedom or some other trinket, only to realise their error only too late, their hands blistering out into tumors and their bodies rotting away within a matter of days. Rashabang, meanwhile, had always used gloves to handle the material, his example being taken on board by anyone with two brain-cells to rub together. She also knew it was valuable, incredibly valuable, and volatile. The instability of its nature was caused by the power locked within its dimensions, and machines that were able to harness that energy could perform quite spectacular feats.

So that begged the question: what did the ratmen need with so much of this material in this pit?

It didn't take long for Nameless' question to receive some clues as to the answer. Wheeled into an enormous cavern, her and other slaves stood aside and into positions of diminished importance, the tall girl instinctively found a dark corner within which to skulk and watch. She beheld the teeming masses of chittering rats, the relish and wild adulation sweeping across the ocean of fangs and claws as something bleak and profane stirred within the centre of the pit. Nameless was not religious. She had no means to be. This was really the only life she knew, but even she felt her skin crawl as the black festivity begun and the first slaves were offered, tossed into that brewing miasma of dirt, warpstone and sacrifices with cut throats and bound hands. The sights and sounds were offensive to the senses and the soul, but the  smell . The smell! That man rats in one place. The dirt under their feet. The ever growing pile of bodies festooned across that central pit that was taking on a shifting life of its own...even if Nameless had turned her head to the side her attempt to escape that smothering stench would have been an effort in futility, for there was nowhere to go flee that fetid mélange of bodily humors, filth, dirty fur and putrefying cadavers that smothered her face and sinuses like a wet blanket over her face.

"Men also have gods..." Kee-Ruh-Sis whispered from Nameless' side, yanking her attention back to the present and pushing away the suffocating stench, if only for a moment.

"and they will not permit their children to suffer like this forever."

Nameless stood, mouth slightly agape, wanting to respond with some quick or clever retort, but she had none. She could only watch as Kee-Ruh-Sis locked his own mind away inside a trance, turning and placing his forehead against the dirt wall and chanting softly, whispering into the black hell around them in the hope that a ray of light from his patron would somehow find him in the depths of this hole.

And then,  it  rose.

The fervor of the ratmen increased. Nameless didn't notice it at first as her attention was still glaring at Kee-Ruh-Sis, but the pitch of the frenzy reached beyond the ceiling of her focus and and tore her back to the gathering: the squealing, the chittering, the choir of gnashing fangs and wailing for that  thing  that crawled out from the stew of frothing blood, melting bodies and warpstone. The long, terrible limbs ending with claws, the ghastly, monstrous head like some horrifying amalgamation of a rat and a deer-bucks antlers and that towering, body that came to stand upon two bent-backwards legs and so that it could bellow with raised fists to a crowd. Nameless  wanted  to step back, she wanted to turn, assess a viable route of escape and then flee down its corridors to freedom, but there was no such path to salvation. Not here. Not in the presence of that  thing  that glared upon its assembled worshipers with cold, dead eyes. The menace that radiated from its gaze penetrated dirt, flesh and soul, as Nameless could feel her spiritual reaction as part of her soul blistered beneath the lifeless stare of that thing as it swept past the assembled slaves and up onto its chosen, beastly children. Paralysed with terror, her joints unable to move, Namless closed her eyes and drew upon Kee-Ruh-Sis' suggestion that something  else  might be at work in this world, something else outside of the fetid, disgusting world of the ratmen and their vile creations. Whatever it was that returned control of her body for a second, be it a god, a motivating imagination or her own willpower, Nameless yanked herself back and away in the pit of slaves, her head turning as she looked back down the tunnel way from which she had came, her chest heaving up and down and her breath burning within her lungs. Clamoring down that that hallway, Nameless turned and double-took as she picked out Skee-Ruh-Kris from the crowd of braying ratmen. He was only a slave, like her, but he was also a Skaven. Slave or not, in this euphoric concert, he was well above her in the food chain.

Narrowing her eyes, gritting her teeth as she felt that cut on her head throb, she determined quietly to herself: but not for long.

Nameless had barely taken a step when something  else  seized her attention, something glimmering in the dirt below, its telltale green image hidden beneath the ruddy brown of the compacted tunnel mud...warpstone!

Some must have fallen free from the cart they had been pushing. Even some shards such as this, invaluable though they were, would have easily been overlooked when compared to the huge quantities shoveled into the pit for this black ritual. Eyes open, mouth wide, Nameless knelt down and drew her sleeve around her hand, gathered some mud upon it as a second barrier, and scooped the warpstone up.

It was heavier than it looked. It wasn't even that large, about the size of a marble. But it was enough.

Skee-Ruh-Kris was linked with his fellows in thunderous applause and squealing rapture when something hard-soft struck him from behind. Snapped from his ecstasy and whirling around on the spot with claws brandished, he was greeted with...no one. No one but the empty tunnel, and some dirt crumbling away. Narrowing his eyes, he dropped to all fours and scurried forth, filled with the vigor of the rat-lord before halting at deeper into the cavern, turning about and -

Two long, hairless arms grabbed him from behind. They wrapped around him with surprising strength, his body hoisted from its padded feet and kicking wildly in the air. Hissing and squealing, his voice was not even audible beyond 5 feet, as those in the grip of the raucous assembly heard nothing.

"Meet your maker, scum!"

Skee-Ruh-Kris's eyes flew open as he recognised who it was. "Yo - " was all he got out as he went to speak, to offer some dire warning or desperate sneering, but the moment he opened his snout, that manlings hand slapped over the front, a small ball of mud shoved into his mouth. Skee-Ruh-Kris coughed and spluttered, eyes wincing shut as he thrashed his head back and forth, but the apes hand gripped his snout with surprising strength - his claws lashing away at her arm that was locked in place through sheer hatred and adrenaline.

But then he tasted it.

The mud had washed away in his saliva, spluttered out the sides of his mouth. But...oh no...

Skee-Ruh-Kris thrashed wildly as it felt it go down his throat, his squealing reaching a pitch as those arms let go and he tumbled forward onto the floor before him, grasping uselessly at his throat and then at his chest. Hurried footsteps were heard overhead as that tall, slender manlings figure darted off into the darkness, leaving Skee-Ruh-Kris to his fate.

He had swallowed raw warpstone down into his gullet, and it was already reacting with his stomach acids...
MrAbdiel
 So ends Skee-Ruh-Kris.  He struggled and gagged, his forepaws left crisscrossed bleeding scratches all up and down your arm; but then he could not help but autonomically swallow, and that was the end of it.  The last you saw of him was the rat ramming his paw into his mouth, trying to undo what had been done; as the wall of his abdomen flopped open with liquifying flesh, and the muck of his innards poured out into a dissolving pool around him.

You ripped off the sleeves of your ragged shirt, and bound up your arm.  The smell of blood and death was so high in the air that surely they would not pick up on the oddity of your acquired injury.  Indeed, Rashabang did not; when some hours later the dark event was over, he merely found you and his other slaves, and sat in euphoric bliss in the now vacated cart for the long walk home.

No one asked about Skee-Ruh-Kris.  You never heard about anyone finding him, or looking for him.  Another slave; dead and gone, like so many that had gone before.

But  you  sent this one to whatever gnashing pit there ought to be for such things.  It is the first time you were able to make something wrong  right  with your own strength.

It felt good.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Twelfth Scar - Skee-Ruh-Kris's Eulogy - Criss-crosses scratches over the right arm, wrist to elbow.

 You gain the +10 Agility Advance from your Advance Profile. 
 


You hadn't known home since the Northmen had you; and that was only 'home' by a stretch of definition. Here, in this pit of horrors, you have a  cage .  But even that had grown familiar; a cage you had returned to over and over for... what feels now to be most of your life.  A cage in a rat-hole, near to a greater hive of rat-holes.

 "Nee-Ruh-Kaha.  You come-come now."   Snitchbiter's summons drew you to conciousness one last time; once again to Rashabang's service.  But this time, it was not to assist in his strange and lethal designs.  You helped him pack; loading tools and devices onto a trio of carts to be hauled by rat-slaves.  No hauling for you; you walked along side, the only human with a train of rats.  He talked to you, as he sometimes did; jabbering about is barely decipherable plans.  He didn't  listen  to you, of course; none of the rats would think to recognize you as something close to a conversation partner.  But the engineer had too many thoughts for his head, and needed to get them out; and he seemed to value you more than the rat-slaves, disposable as they were.

You were going somewhere else.  To a different hive of rats; a thing that seemed to be an opportunity for Rashabang.  He had made some kind of good impression at the demonic bacchanal where you had killed Skee-Ruh-Kris; and someone in the hierarchy of rats elsewhere in this lightless empire had made him an offer.  So off you went; the longest journey you have ever taken.  Longer, you think, than the soul-crushing walk from your Norscan keepers to the rat-den where you had for so long dwelled.  Long enough that you began to encounter human slaves who spoke a language you didn't understand at all; even if you were in a position to aid them as you once aided some others, they could not understand you either in the rat-tongue or the broken remnants of the human tongues rattling around in your brain.  Meeting these poor souls at hubs and waystation warrens along the way, there was nothing you could do for them except exchange the look human slaves had for each other; desperate, helpless pity from a million miles inside one's own head.

The rats here, in this new place, were different in some ways; subtle coloration differences, and a different... what?  Posture?  Attitude?  More pride in cunning, than raw sadism?  Hard to grasp; hard to ignore.  Rashabang and his slaves had meetings with these foreign rats; they seemed to disagree a lot, even bitterly at times; and the engineer's enthusiasm, growing in fervour as your great pilgrimmage had gone on, began to sour.  Finally, his luck began to break - an invitation, it seemed.  Somewhere to work.  Someone to host him.  Not in a great metropolis of rats like you had been led to imagine, but in just another dingy warren not much different to the one you had back ... Well, back there.  Except here, the humans mumbled pitiably in gibberish you had not begun to learn.   Was this is?  Would you end up in another cage, like the last one?  Would you live another interminable lifetime as you had lived the last, just without even the baseline familiarity with location you had come to know?

As it turned out, the answer was no.  When Rashabang lead his weary and travelled slaves and wagons to a meeting spot, he had intended to arrive late - but he had been first, and his sponsor no where to be seen.  And then they were on you: knife-weilding skaven vaulting from the dark, hissing and cursing their hatred with red-eyed malice.  A half dozen of them, wrapped in strips of black cloth to mute their fur against the dark of the tunnels... and a leader, the left of whose face was a molten ruin of scar tissue; and whose right was hideously familiar.  You knew him well enough; you had been the one to cause that ruination, in Rashabang's lair when he attacked once before.  And when the assassin's good eye spotted you, it flashed with poison hate and recognition; knuckles whitening on the grips of neon-green blades.

It was unlikely that it was Rashabang's intention to save your life.  Not in such a sentimental way, for sure.  He was saving his own - and 'saving' you was more an act of securing an asset than a value of life.  But the now aging engineer had suspected foul play, and made his best move: he drew the whip from his tatty robe, cracked it across the back of one of his rat-slaves, and screamed:   "Kill-kill!"  

As the two dozen remaining slaves  jerked into suicidal obedience rather than suicidal disobedience, they fed themselves into the blades of the enemy... And Rashabang ran.  He shoved you, as he went - not out of the way, but in the direction he was running; up a particular tunnel, winding and narrow; leaving you no choice but to stoop, and run.  You heard the crack of one of his pistols behind you, and a skaven shriek; the crack of the whip a few times before it was torn away from him.  The slaves had bought seconds, before they had likely broken.  Those seconds put you seconds ahead of the blades of the gutter runners; and you fled with Rashabang's bullying directions through, and around, and up, and up - up, to a world that might have ceased to exist for all you know.  Up to a place you no longer had much capacity to imagine at all.




And then there is light; and air carrying smells you cannot process; and all at once the cavern opens up; and you stumble with your Skaven handler into a world so bright you can make out nothing but white all around you, stinging your eyes and making them water; and Rashabang a few feet away.  His right paw, furthest from you rests on his belt, near one of his holstered pistols.

And the other pistol, on the hip closest to you...  Is just there.  With its holster unclipped, in a sudden moment of Rashabang's inattention, and disorientation; sunblind, like you.

That's what it is - it's the sun.

You're standing in the light of the sun.

 
 Spoiler: The Thirteen Scar 
A deadly killer you had thought died has returned - and your last encounter has put you in his crosshairs.  In desperation, Rashabang is guiding you to flee up - a tunnel you may dare to hope leads to the surface.

It's not possible to fight such an enemy; just barely possible to escape.  How does Mey-la, Nameless, Nee-Ruh-Kaha gain a thirteenth and final scar as she is fleeing for an exhausting hour through narrow, awful tunnels towards the surface?  Does she strike herself on the rocks?  Does she catch a gutter-runner's shuriken to the shoulderblade?  Does Rashabang inflict it, as he drives you before him?

This is it - time to break free, and get away. But before that, you need to decide how to escape.  You can run blind; you can go for the gun; you can try something else, if you think of it.
 But I've deliberately chosen to give you very little surrounding detail, while you're sunblind.  If you could end your as you make your break, or pull a trigger, or otherwise try to incite your escape, I'll cap it off with your 13th scar and we'll be rocking and rolling.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 



The initial walk had been the first thing that had aroused Nameless' suspicion - you did not last as long as a skaven slave as she had without being either a favoured pet, or developing a strong Sixth Sense. Nameless, apparently, had both, as even when Rashabang had directed their little enoutrage forward the human peered around at her situation with a sceptical eye.

Where were the other non-skaven slaves? They were always around. Since arriving in their clutches, Nameless could not recall a single day when she had not been around others, be they man, goblin or some type of creature dragged in from the surface by the rat-men and, sadly, not long for this world. But now, here on this exercusion, she was the  only  one.

That was the first red flag.

However, Rashabang's talking did at least partially set her at ease. She knew the Skaven didn't  love  her, or anything as silly as that. But she believed, or maybe hoped, that he at least  liked  her. Not on a personal level, but the way one might have a favoured dog among the bloodhounds, a special pet, if you will. She had the mind to understand things spoken to her on the first attempt, she never needed supervision in the workshop and she didn't cause any problems. Indeed, she had often been entrusted as a type of 'foreman', so to speak, over the other human slaves that came and went, her ability to communicate to them via body language, vocal tones and facial cues that the Skaven could not detect, had proven invaluable. And perhaps it was for this reason that she was the lone human pet brought along to Rashabang's new venture.

If she understood it correctly, he had drawn a favourable eye while at the black ritual they had attended months prior, and through that patron the aging Skaven was going to be setting up a new, larger and better workshop from which to ply his obsessive trade.

However, as time went on, it became more apparent to Nameless that this would not be the case. Once again, that Sixth Sense of hers tingled at the back of her head when she observed the arguments between Rashabang and his new liaisons. She  knew  how to read between the lines of the Skaven verbiage, she knew what little cues to look for on their facial mask and movements, the gesticulations the rat-men exhibited under duress and when plying deception. She knew something wasn't right.

That was why when the first shuriken hissed through the air and slammed into the rat-slave beside her, Nameless was already movement.

 "Kill-kill!"  Rashabang's voice hissed over the chaos, the rat-man seemingly  allowing  Nameless to escape with him. He could have tripped her at any point, stabbed her in the leg or sent her off in a different direction, anything to buy himself a couple of seconds by placing her between himself and the murderous enemy rats.

But he didn't.

He let her escape with him.

As the tunnel air shot into Nameless's lugs and she took flight with Rashabang, her long legs enabling her to keep pace with the usually spry and swift-moving skaven while staying far enough ahead from those in pursuit, Nameless  felt it . A sharp, slicing pain bit into the trap to the left side of her neck, the bite of steel into flesh as her eyes widened in both surprise, but then panic, as she continued to flee.

Grasping at her left shoulder, the human whined as she tore something out of her hair - a knife! A slender, surprisingly well made knife, no doubt built for aerodynamics and best employed by hurling it at a target. But - her hair! Nameless would have laughed right there had all her energy not been focused on flight, but her hair! The assassin must have been quite some distance away already when he had first taken aim and hurled the weapon at him, for by the time it passed through the air it had lost most of its kinetic energy, so that when he had impacted against her from behind, it had become entangled in her clumped hair and only  inflicted minor cuts to the left side of her neck, where the tissue met the trap of her shoulder.

Further inspection of the blade while she ran confirmed her second biggest fear: it was  not  poisoned. Nameless knew the scent by now, and the visual hints. That meant this was a secondary weapon, a back-up.

Nameless grinned as she ran, staring at that knife and tucking it away. She wanted to laugh right there on the spot, to double over, catch her breath and praise whatever force in this world that had looked out for her a third time. But such celebrations would have to come later, as Rashabang hefted along before her and the tunnel expanded as the humans long legs carried her as fast as they could move.

 oOo 

Down in the tunnels, the rat-men had the advantage in senses. They needed less light to see clearly, and it took a considerable time for their human slaves to adapt, if they ever did at all. Nameless had done so, her eyes becoming quite keen and used to the dim interior as she had been forced to adapt during her physical development. But the basal level of human toleration for light had never gone away. Nothing made that more clear than when Rashabang and Nameless emerged up onto the surface world and the sun blasted both of their eyesight with pitiless, purifying light. IT were as if the filfth of the fetid pits from whence they came needed to be seared from their eyeballs and scortched from their flesh, for the brightness that smothered them caused master and pet to keel over, grasping at their eyes in a useless attempt to rub the sun away.

But as considered, the basal level of human toleration had never gone away. It had just remained dormant, waiting for the time when it was needed. And that time, most certainly, was now.

Nameless' eyes adapted before Rashabang. The human blinked, squinting against that blasted sun as she cast her vision across the boreal valley that swept out before them, her nervous system seized for a moment by the green and blue beauty that was before her. The air was clean. Birds could be heard among the trees. A gentle breeze kissed her skin that had not seen the blessed surface for almost a decade.

But where Nameless found rebirth into beauty, Rashabang hissed in frustration as he still rubbed at his eyes.

And that's when Nameless spotted his pistol, the strap on the holster unclipped.

Time seemed to slow down once more for the human, her adapted eyes looking at what might be her sole opportunity for escape. But she couldn't...could she? Rashabang...if there was any thing  in this world that filled the role of a father, it was him. As depressing and perverse as that sounded. He had not been kind to her. Not directly anyway. He had been kind in what he had  not done . He hadn't beat her, he'd never raised his fists at her, nor directed others to do so. He had even given her jobs of responsibility, which meant less lethality, and had shown her favour at times. Though the cruelty of the Skaven had been a fixture of her life thusfar, Rashabang had been also, and he had almost been like a talisman for the human girl, before which the expected sadism and violence of the Skaven had dispersed around her and flowed onto other slaves instead.

Even now, they stood upon the surface, safe from assassins, her being there the result of that indirect kindness. She knew he didn't  love  her or any such silly thing, but as she had reminisced upon before, he did favour her. She was a favourite pet.

She couldn't kill him in his moment of paralysis, could she? Reward his preservation of her life with murderous treachery?

Nameless drew her furthest hand to her hip, where she had stored the knife from before. Silently, she withdrew it, her eyes always on Rashabang. The aging rat was spluttering, rubbign his little clawed hands at his eyes, his whiskers twitching as he glared at the scene before them through grainy slitted eyelids.

Time was running short. She only had a couple of seconds. The ear! Right through the ear and into the brain. Death would be instant. One moment he would be viewing the surface and its beauty, the next would be the blackness of death and the peace of the grave.

 That  was the mercy she could return to him, a gratitude she could show him. Even as they stood there on the surface, Nameless knew that this was the end of the line for Rashabang. His flight had only prolonged his enemies desired fate for him, as it was clear he had been betrayed by the patrons who oversaw the part of the Under Empire that was far beneath their feet. They would send agents after him. He, an aging, mechanically-inclined rat who had not been on the surface for decades, fleeing through these forests? How far would he get before those assassins caught up with him? Or something else? Where would he go? He was alone. No slaves, no support, no help, and wanted in this region. It was only a matter of time before the murderous rats caught up with him and either brutally killed him or hauled him away for torture. Alternatively, he would succumb to the elements, starve to death or something else within the forest would bring about his end.

It was only really just dawning on Nameless, like a weight in her chest, that this really was as far as Rashabang would go. Beyond the next few seconds was only delaying the inevitable.

Right now. That knife through his ear. End it swiftly. Thank his indirect kindness with another indirect kindness.

Nameless gripped the hilt of the knife, her lips pursed, a tear in her eye, as Rashabang nodded once,  "let's go-go  and stepped forward.

 "Ugh!" 

Nameless' eyes widened.

Rashabang reached into his coat, underneath his armor. He felt around, exhaled, withdrew his little clawed hand.

Blood!

And not just blood, but Nameless could see the tiny green droplets suspended within the humors. One of the assassins poisoned knives had found him.

Rashabang stumbled forward, as Nameless quickly threw her knife behind her and rushed to the Skavens side, her hands on his shoulders, trying to steady him. Mere seconds ago she was preparing to knife him in the brain, but now she didn't want him to go. The physical exercion of their flight had only expediated the venoms passage through the circulatory system, its final result possibly only held at bay by the adrenaline that had initially carried it through.

The Skaven tumbled forward, rolling clumsily and landing heavily on his back. His left leg kicked, his right arm and had spasmed and in his final look he beheld his favoured pet looking down at him with tears in her eyes before stillness set in. He was gone.

Nameless had become desensitised to death even at her early age, but she still stared at that image. The aged, closest thing to a father she had now lay before her, his spirit off to whatever fate awaited his kind in the afterlife, if there was such a thing. Her vision blurred, her nose sniffled and she choked a single sob as both hands came to cover her mouth.

He was gone. She was free.

 oOo 
Nameless had no taken too long to linger at the mouth of the cave. She did not think the assassins would given flight too far, as long as they didn't have reason to.

Her stature came in hand as Nameless dragged-carried Rashabang's body away from the cave entrance and deeper into the forest. She walked for what felt like several miles while she rubber-necked at her surroundings, sometimes even taking the time to run her hand along the bark and soft leaves of the beautiful vegetation. Even her feet, used to the soft-hard tunnels of the Skaven Under Empire, found traversing the forest floor a new and cathartic experience.

When she found a proper spot, Nameless stopped. Using her hands she dug a little ditch into the soft earth, several feet down. Into that pit she pushed Rashabang's body, and quickly covered it up. Naturally, she had taken everything off of him first, as it sat in a pile off to the side. Standing above his impromptu grave, still unable to believe he was gone and she was here. She had never attended a death ritual before, nor had any real concept of them to begin with, but standing there above that grave, she felt compelled to utter their last words together.

 "Thank you." 
 oOo 
Nameless had taken everything from Rashabang's body, even most of his clothes. As a slave, she had rags that barely covered her, rotting bits of cloth that were damp and sticky even to the touch. Rashabang's, as a Skaven of wealth and some position and influence, had  far  nicer materials. She took his guns. She took his whip. She took his armor. She even searched for any scrolls and wallet-pouches of warptokens he was carrying on him, particularly as he had been dressed and stock for an entire move.

Once she had gathered these things, she changed clothes. Rashabang's were not a perfect fit, indeed they were a bit awkward, but they were nicer linen and would do for now.

Having changed in the forest, the human girl continued on her way, drawn to the sounds of water where she rushed to meet the aqua liquid. Grinning at the first sight of a running stream, Nameless first put her hand into it, its cool, gentle texture across her hand causing her to softly sigh at the touch. Wasting no time, she stripped and bathed, washing her hair, her teeth and her mouth and for the first time seeing  herself  in a reflective pool: her image, her face,  who  she was. The face that looked back at her when she stared into that reflective water was...nice. She grinned. A genuine, warm grin. A thin scar over one eye. Three smaller ones on a cheek. But the teenager looked nice.

For the first time in a decade she laughed, swimming in that water. Washing her tall figure and running her hands through her hair, she laughed.
MrAbdiel
 You could not  remember  tasting water so clean.  Your instincts demanded you gorge yourself on it until you threw some of it up on the bank, then rinsed with it to clear away the taste.  Your eyes were finally adjusted, now; but so many years in the dark had taught you to expect danger from deeper shadows.  In a sunlit world, everything was suspicious - but also beautiful.  The forest floor was a bed of golden brown foliage.  The trees - the first trees you'd seen since the snow-dusted pines in Norsca - were short, thick, and... somehow  happy  looking.  And the sky was so clear and blue you could scarcely believe such a color was real.  No wonder the other slaves died while you survived - had you grown up in a world like this, you might have died rather than endure, too.

You wash the better part of the filth from your skin, and some from your tangled and now bloodied hair.  The wound on behind you is hardly accessible; and moving your arm too much stresses and opens it, causing it to bleed more; so you try to be delicate.  You've come so far, now - you cannot die from something so small.

But when you turn back to the bank to dress again... the pile of possessions you had laid in a careful bundle by a stubby green shrub is gone.  All that remains is the crumpled heap of your bloody and cut rags; and the  winking, crooked steel of the throwing knife that had not managed to find your heart.  Dribbles of blood lead from the spot back between the trees; back... to the hand dug grave for the strange sponsor who had brought you here; the least-evil rat you had known.  The earth is rumpled and shifted; and sifting it you, find no body within at all.

Was the old bastard faking?  Had he taking a wound less lethal than he acted, fearing you would have shown him less mercy if he were more hale?  Had he received a second wind of desperation and claws his way out of his own grave?  Had something else snuck through while you were washing, and taken your prizes and the body in its wake?  No answers presented themselves; and the blood-drop track dies quickly up as it crosses the stream.

Well.  If Rashabang did beat the odds - ...Good.  So had you.  The gutter-runners would be swarming around the cave mouth, now; and if you had left him there, he would be taken.  Perhaps you had saved each other.  Perhaps that's enough.  With nothing but the rags on your back and a single, awkward knife in your grip, you look up at the shafts of light piercing through the canopy above.

You are hungry, and alone, and cut, and lost.

But you are free.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Thirteenth Scar - The Price of Freedom - Shallow Cut over the left trapezius muscle.

 You gain the Nightvision Talent.  This one's a freebie. 

You have  15 out of 17 wounds remaining. 
You gain 1 Rags (Poor Quality).
You gain 1 Throwing Knife (Poor Quality).

Press X to repeat this tutorial.  You can access it later in the game through the  Memories Portal. 
 
 
MrAbdiel
   The Power of One 
  Part 1 - "In Sterquiliniis Invenitur" 
 
 Chapter 1 - Free   

You stand in a light forest - the first of its kind you have ever been in.  A stream of apparently fresh water runs nearby, and you have had your fill of it - sweet, fresh, clear water.  You regret not having a way to carry it with you.  The cut on your back has stopped bleeding, for now; but the dull ache of it vanishes in the adrenal thrill of being able, for the first time ever, to choose which way you should go, and what you should do - however dangerous those things are, or unprepared for them you may be.  You have the rags on your back, and a small knife in your hand designed for throwing - but it's sharp, atleast.  You know if you strike back through the trees away from the stream, you'll soon come to the rat-hole from which you and Rashabang had emerged.  That seems like a bad idea - the gutter runners may be there.

You could follow the water downstream, or head upstream towards its source; or else try to cross it, and see what is on the other side.  But without knowing how deep the water is, or what lurks in it ... that contains a risk of its own.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Game on!  It's strictly speaking about midday, but Nameless doesn't have a solid grasp of day/night cycles, and even the fear of cold that comes in the evening. You've been living on slave-time - nature's time is something you'll have to get used to.  But you can certainly decide whether you want to go upstream, downstream, or try to cross the stream - or something else, as you prefer.  You're hungry, but not starving; the grisly, root-and-cartilage based slave rations in your stomach will last a little longer before your gut begins to ache.

Where shall you go?
 

 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

The loss of the guns and whip and the nice linen was a great loss, but Nameless could not sit on her laurels. Now somewhat paranoid about who might be watching her, the human took the time to quickly wash the rags she had before donning them, as she gripped her knife and looked at the various directions available to her.

Back to the cave was the path of madness. She wasn't going back there any time soon.

Up stream would...she squinted into the yonder, lead to mountains, she believed they were called. Enormous jags that spired up into the sky and wore coats of snow and dotted forests. No, she didn't want to go there for now.

That left one option: down-stream.

Skaven settlements had their own little rivers and creeks too, as the Skaven did need sustenance. Though their water was foul, putrid and poorly maintained, it should follow the same principle that settlements were dotted along rivers and lakes, with access to beautiful water like this.

Her eyes all about her, inhaling that fresh pine scent, Nameless moved up onto the bank of the river and followed the path in wonderment of where it would take her...
MrAbdiel
 As you proceed, your paranoia peaks and drops.  You have never been in a place  less  dangerous than this seems to be.  Not so much as a large animal crosses your path; and the dark feathered songbirds in the trees seem to have little fear of you.  They perch, and watch you, and whistle their opinions to each other.  Perhaps they, like almost everyone else you have met in your life, have conspiracies of their own.

The stream winds, and widens a little, then narrows and continues narrowing; still definitely wide enough that it seems a bad idea to  wade into the water as it runs.  Fish with shining silver scales and slim rose-hued fins zip downstream past you, in threes and fours. You walk, keeping your wits about you; resting when  you  want to, keeping your own schedule.  But soon the sun in the sky has made its move, progressing across the sky away from the length of the stream; and the sky begins to change colors.  You have not seen a sunset in a long time; and you are reminded that one of the small virtues of the underempire is the all pervading warmth of the deep places of the earth.  It will be  night , soon; and with night, you know, comes cold; and likely a need for shelter.

 
 Spoiler: OOC! 
Time for the first rolls of the game!

Give me three rolls:

A hearing based Perception check.
A sight based Perception check.
And an Outdoor Survival check - naturally at half int, on account of lacking the skill.
 
 
MrAbdiel
 Your night eyes are good, but daylight is better - just the ability to see if long distances and not encounter gloom or tunnel corners is refreshing and new, and these hours, you decide, ought to be spent in an effort at foraging both for something to eat and a place to rest.

Your first effort is to follow the birds.  Birds have nests, and perhaps eggs; but there are too many of them, too scattered, for your eats to track any to nests.  The ones you're able to follow are the peering, conversational voyeurs who reveal nothing; and are beyond your equipped ability to catch.  You make an effort to try to nab a fish, too; leaning over the edge of the stream, even calf deep in it; trying to snatch with your hands and stab with your knife; but the effort is for nought.

Pacing the immediate area looking for a place to rest in relative safety, your eyes do come across something unusual.  First it seems to be a small rock, barely worth noticing - but it rests in the elbow of a curled tree root, and the contrast of the loose object to the bark draws you closer.  It's not much, once you pluck it into your palm and look over it; apparently, a snarl of dried plant roots no bigger than your smallest finger.  But the natural knotting of the roots have formed an odd shape - a clear semblance of a closed first, with index and middle fingers up, crossed.  It strikes you as significant, somehow; and you have no trouble binding it up in one of the tattered flaps of your rags.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You're going to be hungry, tonight - we'll roll that soon.  But you do gain  1 Lucky Charm. 
 


As the sky shifts from blue to dark blue to black-blue above you, your search for shelter seems to pay off - the earth beside the stream here rises up into a tree-capped hillock, and in its side beneath an arch of roots is an entrance to an earthen cave that certainly would avoid much of the night's chilling wind.  A mucky, cloying odor wafts from within - perhaps something has died, within - but it might be worth chancing for the shelter alone.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Want to investigate the cave, or take your chances spending your first night above ground more exposed?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

Though the hunger stirred within her belly, Nameless found it impossible to be angry. She walked along that bank, the blue river flowing beside her, the sweet chorus of nature her sole companion as she wandered in the cradle of surface beauty. To think such a place was even possible after dwelling within the bowels of the earth for so long, a verdant paradise of trees, birds and water and that she might walk among it for even a moment, let alone the rest of her life.

Pursing her lips, nodding and drawing in that clean, pine-scented air, Nameless determined that should the gutter runners come for her, she'd go down swinging. There was no chance she would return to that pit in the ground, no second longer she would endure the custody and bondage of the ratmen. She was born on the surface and she would die on the surface.

It was during this rumination that Nameless' attention was drawn up to the branches above her, the offshoots of the tree trunks that swayed gently like fans with bodies of green leaves catching the wind. It was a beautiful image in and of itself, but dotted through the foliage were black birds, their feathers catching the light of the sun as their heads jerked about in sharp and sudden movements. One cawed. Another returned. Those black eyes peering and beholding, before dark wings spread and the animals took flight as a murder.

Grinning at what she saw, Nameless held up her right hand and scooped it through the air, index finer an thumb outstretched to mimic the image of a bird soaring through the wind. To be up there, with wings, choosing where to go and when to leave, the ultimate freedom.

When nightfall crept across the pinetops of the forest, Nameless was peering curiously at the fist-shaped root she had retrieved, her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed in contemplation.

Bah! She would figure it out later. Perhaps it would bring her luck. Or maybe someone would trade her something for it. Or maybe the ability exchange it for food and clothes  was  the luck?

Seeing that cave buried into the roots of the tree, Nameless smiled and entered, having no qualms about the scent. It wasn't any worse than where she came from. And this was  her  cave.
MrAbdiel
 You wander in; the earth soft and mossy beneath your feet.  It's not a deep cave - maybe thirty feet in, before it hooks left for a slow curve of another thirty to a final corner.  There are small bones, littered about; but no large ones, which is comforting.  If whatever lived here dined on small creatures, it could not be so dangerous.

Or so one might think.  The stench grows more ripe as you venture in - but then you hear the rhythmic breathing as you reach the last corner.  Cautiously, you poke your head around the earthen corner.

Reclining in a dried mudpit, sleeping with inapproachable peace of mind, is a monster.  It's as big - perhaps bigger - than the rat ogres you once had to feed; covered head to toe in grey-blue rubbery skin, with webbing between its fingers and toes.  Warm, reeking air rolls off it as it snoozes; and seeing it, with its huge tusks and teeth, you conclude that the reason there are small bones scattered about is because such a creature must  eat  the big bones; and the small ones are merely those that slip from its clumsy hands.

The little knife in your hand feels pitifully small, against such a monstrosity - you feel supremely unconfident on delivering a killing blow against such a thing, even as it sleeps.

But there is detritus, scattered nearby it.  Perhaps... it has left more than tiny bones.  Perhaps, something that could be of use.

 
 Spoiler: OOC 
Wuh-oh.

Your choice.  If you want to retreat from this place right away, give me a Silent Movement roll at +20%.

If you want to search around the den on your tiptoes before you sneak out, give me a Silent Movement roll at +0%.

Heads up - fate points refresh after an IC night's rest.  Don't be afraid to use 'em.

EDIT:  You may, of course, attempt to solo the troll.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 


Nameless stood there, feet compressing against the soft mud, her eyes as wide as nickels as she beheld that...thing.

She backed up immediately and left the cave. She then walked quite quickly along the river bank, her body given wings and any sense of duress from the elements oddly supressed.
MrAbdiel
 It's probably best you spotted the cave and investigated it - you dare not imagine what might have happened if you hadn't, and had instead just camped nearby, within its hunting ground.

With careful steps, you extricate yourself from the cave without waking the beast - and then once outside, make haste away from the den.

When the adrenaline wears off, you find the next best shelter you can - a hollow log, easilly enough swept of bugs - and curl up inside. It's not much less comfortable than the stony floor of your old cell, and the cold night wind still reaches out to chill your skin; but after the flight from the assassins, and the travel through the woods, and the brush with the monster back there, you are so, so tired.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
It's not the safest option, but it might have to do.  If you want to stay awake through the night so not to become vulnerable, you can do so - You'll take an accruable -10% to all tests that might be impacted by fatigue, and you'll be able to roll me a  Perception test (+0%) .

If you'd like to take your chances and sleep, you take no penalty; and need make no perception test.

Either way, give me a  Toughness Test (+20%)  to avoid infection on your wound.  Your resistance to disease does apply.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

With the night chewing at her skin, Nameless could not help but drift off to sleep. She had been awake for longer than 24 hours, survived a deadly encountered with gutter runners, watched her surrogate father die, buried him, barely avoided an encounter with a troll and won her freedom. It had been a long day.

To sleep...perchance to  dream !
MrAbdiel
  
 Spoiler: You Dream. 
 The rats, in their grand throng; in their unholy place.  They dance, they caper; you at the fringes, try to get away up through a tunnel in the ceiling... but it's too slippery, and you slide back down.  Furry clawed hands grab your ankles, and your wrists, and pass you over the top of their mob down the pit, down the layers of the assembled creatures, down to the pit of blood and slit throat corpses.  One of them grips your hair; you feel a flash of heat on your throat... 
 


You wake.  The world melts back into your senses.  You are above ground.  You ran.  You escaped.  Rashabang died - or atleast, fell, and fled, perhaps to curl up and die somewhere else.  But you're here.  You're alive.  You're free.  A shard of sunlight is cutting through a crack in the log, warming your neck; providing the phantom sensation from your dream.  You brush some curious ants and beetles off your skin and pull yourself free of the log, stretching and taking in the breeze of another mild, and quiet day under the sun.  You drink from the stream.  You feel your stomach growl.

Your first day free taught you that preferable as it is to be up here, you are not yet safe.  Perhaps, today, you will get a little closer to leveraging freedom towards safety.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
It was a chilly night, but you warm as the morning comes; and your wound doesn't seem to be getting infected.  Recover one wound from the night's rest.

What now?  Upstream from you is the troll cave; downstream a mystery.  Away from the stream, away from the  mountains and the rising sun, deeper woods - but woods without a stream of water, your one precious discovery so far.

Do you want to keep travelling, or try your luck spending a chunk of the day foraging?  You aren't particularly skilled in it - but there's no way to succeed at it without rolling!
 

 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

Nameless woke up and dragged herself from the wooden confines of the log, her little protective cylinder having been her first bed as a free woman. Or girl. She didn't know the difference.

Nor did care! Her stomach growled, but she had been hungry before. She had awoken when she wanted to. She stood and looked out upon the beautiful morning of light and sunshine cresting the pine-tops and filling the valley, reflecting off the stream and warmly kissing her skin.

She smiled.

Setting herself to the task of continued travel, Nameless returned to the riverbank and once more continued down its length. To venture into the unknown woods was perilous. The water was her source of life and cleanliness. If she wandered off and got lost in the pines, then she would be dead within days. Best stick to the river.
MrAbdiel
 Pine might very well be the only tree whose name you know - but as you observe while travelling, the trees here are very different to those in the far north.  There are some with that familiar  scent , but not the steepling shape; they weave narrow trunks into the air and then a haphazard balloon of branches and needles near the top.  And other trees all around are different entirely, with all kinds of shapes of leaves.  But they appear, atleast, to be in regrowth; healthy and surging with life, having recovered from a great abandonment of leaves which crunch soft under your feet.

A couple of hours of travel following the stream takes you, finally, to something new:

Some kind of campsite, here; modest, or even poor; but someone has dwelled here.  A rickety tent made of scrubby, badly skived hides stretched over branches leaning in a pyramid formation sits in front of a circle of stones, surrounding a pit of ash.  A cluster of fish bones, and a pair of chewed-on fish heads, lie discarded in the fire pit.  The ground around the tent looks to have been purposefully cleared - and there's no sign or sound of its owner, or owners.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Gadzooks!  Signs of life!

Give me a Search check (+20%, for the fine and fair conditions) to scour around the campsite for useful things.
Give me also a visual perception check, at flat, to keep an eye out.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 


Nameless' ducked down instinctively when she saw the campsite, her fight or flight instincts kicking in immediately. Trying to hide herself in the bushes as best she could, the teenage waited for as long as curiosity would allow, before slowly emerging and cross the distance between herself and the cantonment.

Pursing her lips, eyes swiveling about as she remained sharp for wherever the owner of this place may be, the towering human slowly crept about on a hair-trigger, her knife in hand, but not yet wielded menacingly - rather just there, 'in case'.

She started by counting the number of bedrolls, followed by the number of used cooking utensils. That should give her a good indication of how many where here or nearby.
MrAbdiel
 You pick through the camp site, doing your best to determine the occupants from what you find.

No utensils at all.  Cooking over this fire has been done by putting a stick into a fish's mouth and putting the fish over the fire.  No bedrolls - a heap of damp, moldy grass has been piled up inside the tent as ground matting.  It smells of sweat, and urine.  You have no tracking skill - but there are two rocks pulled up, beside the fire.  This tells you atleast two people use this camp at a time - though perhaps the rocks are for two keeping watch, while others sleep?  You can't say for sure.  But it doesn't look like an army has been here - a small group, for sure.

Searching in the immediate area, you find several different locations where dung is piled up until appalling little mounds.  But, fortunately, that's not all.

Behind the camp, shrouded by the big fan-shaped leaves of a tree-hugging vine is a heavy wooden trunk.  You can't imagine carrying it with you - or rather, you can, because forced labor has been your life - but you imaging it would be not much different to forced labor, and that isn't very inviting.  It is well made, though clearly the lid and sides have been viciously attacked and chipped with weapons in a clumsy attempt to open it.  A fat iron lock build into its front remains smugly fast; its keyhold stuffed with broken sticks from various idiotic attempts to pick it.  Lacking a way to open it yourself, after inspecting it, you cover it back up - but take note of the leafy vine behind which it hides.

In addition, behind the tent within arm's reach from beneath its rear face, you brush aside some of that matted grass and find a wooden 'lid', beneath which is a cavity dug in the ground. Nestled within it is a leather satchel; what once might have been a fine, rose stained bag before it has seen a great deal of irreverent use.  Within it are its owners few belongings they did not see fit to take with them, wherever they are - and judging by the faintest traces of heat in the fire pit, they left earlier today; and probably intend to come back.

Within, you find a length of firm, waterproof string wrapped around  a grooved wooden circle and a fist sized, leather pouch with a few compartments housing different J shaped hooks.  A handful of desiccated red mushrooms, wrapped in a torn square of cloth.  A necklace adorned with the small, cleaned skulls of birds, and rats.  Another leather pouch, this one containing seven copper coins embossed with symbols you don't recognize; each of those coins grimy with the obsessing fondling of dirty hands.  A leather bound tome, its title glittering in gold-leaf characters you never learned to decipher; half of its hand-inked pages torn out... perhaps for kindling?  A wooden pipe, engraved with a poorly rendered, abstract form of a busty woman gyrating in dance on one side.  Two worn stones of different shades, that seem to have been clashed together over and over.  A clay jug, with a cork stopper - out of which a desperate spider escapes and scuttles off, when you pop it open.  Finally, a scuffed brass tube engraved mysteriously, a little more than a hand long.  It has seams, and  ridges, and the marks of artifice - perhaps some kind of grenade?

Looking up from your find to make sure no one else has turned up to disturb you, you make a note that the the grass that leads away from this camp has some marks of wear from repeated travel.  This is the first 'path', or close to it, that leads away from the stream that you could theoretically follow away from this camp, or back to it.  It seems likely that whoever uses this camp frequently, perhaps daily, travels out that way.

 
 Spoiler 
You  can  drag the chest around, if you want - but it's going to slow you right the hell down.  But you can take any or all of...

1 Slingbag
1 Handful of Mushrooms
1 Fishing Reel (Good Quality)
1 Animal Skull Necklace
2 Leather Pouches (Small)
1 Cloth Scrap
1 Book (damaged)
1 Wooden Pipe
1 Flint and Steel (Poor Quality)
1 Clay Jug (1 Gallon)
1 Brass Oddity
1 Large tent (Poor Quality)
7 Pennies

After that, you ought to decide what to do now.  You can continue following the stream; or you can follow the trail to see where it goes, and perhaps learn who you are stealing from... Or atleast what's worth leaving this stuff behind to seek after.
 

 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 


Nameless perused the makeshift campsite, her mind already piecing things together and forming a coherent story in her mind. At first, the idea of them returning and, potentially attacking her, was not desirable. However, by now the teenager had become desensitized to violence. She had seen plenty as a slave to the Skaven, not just from them but among her own collared kind. Being a girl of rather attractive features, she had had to fight off more than one mad or desperate creep that wanted some desperate relief from his suffering. Likewise, there had been the poison globe incident, and the other with the warpstone into the belly of that rat that had attacked her. She was not shy about violence.

But she didn't want to attack these two fellows. From what she could gather, they were thieves, or brigands living on the fringe of society. They had stolen, or acquired, that well-made chest and that they had attempted to bash it open implied strongly that it was not theirs. Likewise, no cooking utensils, the barest of camping amenities, no real path to the camp and hidden away from a road. They were thieves, bandits most likely. At this point in her life, because she didn't know any better, Nameless did not begrudge them doing what they needed to do to survive. It was a world she knew well. But that leniency worked both ways, as all was fair in love and war and there was no honor among thieves.

First, Nameless took those pennies, but she chose to redeposit them - underneath the stone that was furthest from the tent. That, she guessed, was the subordinates chair. She left one penny just poking out from underneath it, to ensure it would eventually be found. That would cause a...suspicious interaction between two desperate thieves, if her guess was right.

Her second action was more elaborate.

Gathering up those fish-heads, Nameless went and smeared them against that chest to get the smell into it.

Then she left the camp.

And headed back to the den of the River Troll.

Along the way she placed the fish heads, however far enough it took. Just far enough to stretch the distance out, but not too close that she ran out of fish heads. The smell was repugnant, especially when the wind caught it and sent it blowing into the den of that Troll. But that's what she wanted. The troll could follow the strung out trail all the way back to that camp, to whoever resided there and to that locked chest. Believing it contained more goods inside, it was her hope the stupid creature would smash it open.

Finally, she washed her hands in the river to rid the scent from herself, before she returned to the camp, and climbed a tree a safe distance away. Perched up in her little hide-out among the leaves, she waited....
MrAbdiel
 It's a pair of plans of not insignificant cunning.  A troll like that would have to be hungry; and would have to range a fair bit, to get enough food.  It might be dumb enough to crack open the chest - hopefully, it wasn't full of food, for that would defeat the purpose.  And it might even wipe out the campers... which would be sad, but also perhaps necessary.  And you lurk in your hiding place, waiting to see the fruit of your fragrant labor; morning turning to evening.

But you hear them, before you see them.  Shrill; giggling; self delighted; sneering and mocking voices whose words you don't understand but whose tones are as malicious and wicked as the rats who once kept you.  There are four of them, as they wander into the camp; green skinned; gangly; ugly; mean.  They might be as tall as men, if they weren't all hunched forward in a forever craven posture of scheming intensity.  They wear 'armor' made of crusty, untanned animal skins.  Two carry lumpy wooden cudgels; one a spear with a wooden head lashed to it; and one a miner's pick in contrastingly decent condition.  They're leading a horse which seems unhappy to be there; burdened with half a dozen bloated burlap sacks carried over its back.  The quartet of goblins unload the sacks into a pile beside their tent, one of them ties the reigns to the nearest tree.  Then they get about the business of settling in, for the night.

One goes to the bag, produces the fishing line, and starts foraging around the camp for bait.  Two gather sticks from clusters they've already accumulated nearby; and the fourth tears a couple of pages from the book in the bag, wadding them up and tossing them in the fire pit before he starts building the fire.  The first drama erupts when, apparently unilaterally, the one with the spear decides to stab the horse through the neck.  The creature screams and kicks; but as a domesticated creature, it is utterly at the mercy of its captors - something you cannot help but sympathise with.  As it strains against its tether and then sinks down in shock to die, the goblins gather in a rambunctious group to begin bullying the killer.  This, it seems, was not the plan; and they slap and shove and rebuke him until he is cringing and whining in a tone that suggests a protest of innocence.  Finally, the one with the pick takes a small, sharp knife from a ragged boot and forces it into the speargoblin's hands; standing punitively sentinel over the stabber while, apparently as punishment, he begins to roughly butcher the beast.

As this drama simmers down, there is a cry from one of the other goblins - he has discovered the poorly concealed penny, barks in irritation, checks the bag to confirm the theft and then hollers to gather the four around the now cracking fire.  Accusations fly.  The fisherman accuses the butcher.  The pickman seconds the accusation.  But then the butcher, cringingly, mounts some kind of cunning verbal defense that shifts suspicion back to the firestarter, who called the meeting to order in the first place.  The pickman seconds  this  accusation also; the fisherman gets on board, and the butcher, almost hysterically delighted to have climbed up off the bottom rung of the pecking order, hops foot to foot and eggs the inquisition on.  The firestarter's defense does not convince; and soon, the other three are kicking the crap out of him.  He covers up and takes it like a champ rather than going for his club and defending himself with lethal force, suggesting this is not an uncommon sort of brutality roulette that they have all accepted; but soon the sullen, bruised and bleeding firestarter is charged with cooking the meagre fish that have been caught, and then a huge hunk of horse meat from the previous, now forgotten crime.

The smell of it cooking is  amazing.   You cannot remember the last time you had cooked meat or fish that was not cold, and chewed in tiny flakes from already picked bones.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Oops - it's goblins!  Four goblins it seems, though one has been beaten half to death already.  None of them are straying far from the camp, right now.

Also... It's been most of a day, and the troll hasn't shown up.  Perhaps it's... not that hungry?

What do you want to do?  Wait in your hiding place?  Try to sneak way?  Dive-bomb attack to die gloriously?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

Nameless watched from a bit away and above, her eyes narrowing at the sight: goblins!

She had encountered plenty of the vile little beasts as slave for the Skaven, but none as free agents on their own in the wilderness. From her time around them, she had nothing good to say. They were just as vile, domineering and sadistic as the Skaven were, but weren't half as clever. Possessed of low-cunning, they were cowardly little sh*ts.

But that horse. That made Nameless cover her mouth with her hands as it died. The relationship between man and horse was long, and something in that primordial symbiosis still lingered within Nameless as she felt her stomach sink at the sight of its demise. Even the subsequent infighting taking the goblins strength down by about 25% did not cheer her up. It only hardened her heart to them.

However, that cooking...

Nameless felt her tummy rumble again. She had never in the past decade smelled something as seductive as what was in that pot! How were the goblins able to cook that well?

No matter. Nameless had to fight the urge. She  wanted  to climb down, maybe sneak around and slit their throats in their sleep to steal that food. It would be worth the risk, she knew that. But...

That horse had screamed into the empty night air and thrashed about as it had died in what could doubtlessly be heard for miles.

Its belly had been slit, its meat carved up - its blood emanating its scent into the air.

And thirdly, that cooking. The scent was beyond incredible to the former slaves nostrils, but she knew the power of scent. She had cleaned the cages of enough rat ogres and fed them numerous times to gather an understanding of the power of such a smell to carry on the wind and lure.

Besides, it would be the height of embarrassment to climb down now, only to have that troll come along in 15 minutes time.

No, she would wait. Steeling herself, Nameless leaned back against the tree trunk. She had waited a decade. What was another few hours?

Besides, if the goblins could walk a domesticated horse back to their camp within a day, that meant there was civilisation nearby. Hope!
MrAbdiel
 The evening crawls on.

The goblins roast chunks of horse; gorge on them, rare and bloody; then roast more.  They eat, infact, until they are bloated; having stripped much of the meat off the neck, and ribs.  It makes sense - a beast of that size is more meat than four goblins however hungry can handle.  It will go bad before they get through it, so best to over-eat now, while it's fresh. You've eaten bad meat before - and only someone in that desperate situation would.  Strangely, they have not eaten the horse's legs.  These, carved off from the joints, are stacked to one side, in the blood pool of the equine massacre; perhaps for some other purpose.

With the stars winking down at you through the canopy of the tree, the night draws on - and still, the troll seems reluctant to appear even with this extra sensory provocation.  Perhaps it can't smell, over its own stench?  Perhaps it has already eaten?  The damn creature just seemed not  to be manifesting.

Firestarter and Butcher are left on guard duty, sitting on the rocks facing away from each other as two other goblins, snore away in the tent with full bellies.  Predictably, these two are not on speaking terms right now; they watch the dark around them with unusually grim determination, as if that might spite the other.


You are so focused on listening for the crash of a troll in the distance and keeping your eyes on the wretched goblin guards that you don't spot the new entrant into the camp until it's too late do even consider doing anything about it.

It's a man - older than you, but not old, certainly - with a shaggy mop of curly black hair, and a wispy beard that has not manifested in full strength yet.  You spot him because of his beige color tunic when it's picked out by the firelight; but by then he's managed to make his way right up to the camp.  He holds in his hands two wooden rods joined by a rope threaded through the end of each... and with a face full of some cocktail of anger and fear, he rushes into the camp from behind the tent.   Butcher , spear across his lap, blinks lazilly and turns just in time to do absolutely nothing as the flail clocks him in the upper left arm.  There is a crack of bone and a pitiful goblin caterwalling as he tumbles off his stone seat, yelping and wailing.   Firestarter , facing away from this incursion, looks over his shoulder in dumb shock at this arrival.  The two goblins in the tent simply moan; apparently too full of horse to respond quickly to an alarm even so pained, and urgent.

It's a good hit - but whatever this fellow's intentions, he is picking a fight he is likely to lose, once the other goblins get their act together.  The man is unarmored, and clearly inexpert.

But if  you  intervene, you'll be... two unarmored, inexpert, outnumbered humans.  The odds would be better... but are they good enough, to risk for a stranger in the night?
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
P.S., I'm doing some of the rolling myself with a discord bot called Jodri, which is AMAZING for WFRPe stuff; so if you're wondering where some of the rolls are, they are there.  Can send screenshots if needed, but trust me bro.

If you want to join this combat, you'll need to roll initiative.

The Flailer's initiative is  9 .

The Goblins will be   (1d10+3)[ 9 ]  
 Butcher  and  Firestarter  will spend next turn surprised, still; Butcher's also managing a nasty crit, and Firestarter is already beat up.   Pickman  and  Fisherman , incredibly, are still asleep - gorged on horsemeat, dreaming of that time they kicked the hell out of  Firestarter  while he was wailing and yelping.

If Nameless is going to wait it out, give me merely a hide roll at +20 as the goblins are suddenly more alert of threats around them.

If she's going to dive in, you can either spend a turn climbing down and join combat the turn after, or risk it for the biscuit with a crazy jump-charge into the combat.  You'll make  Three  consecutive agility checks, one for each three yards you're dropping into the combat.  If you fail any of them, you'll fall the remaining distance.  Pass or fail, I'll count it as a charge, and let you roll as if your charging attack had the impact quality.  Even if you twist your ankle and fall on your ass in the attempt.

And with that, it's time for me to go to bed!

Edit: Flipped a coin for the Tiebreaker.

Round 1:

Flailer 9
Gobbos 9 (Surprised/Sleeping!)
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 


Nameless watched, pursing her lips as she did so. Seeing the hooded man emerge out of the darkness in a whirring fury could mean only one thing: this man owned the dead horse.

What other reason would he have for tracking them down and throwing himself heedless into the fight?

Swallowing, Nameless made a few calculations.

If she helped him, he was her ticket to civilisation. If he was passionate enough to avenge a horse, chances are good he would show sympathy to her situation. Wouldn't he?

But doing so put herself at risk. If they didn't beat the goblins, they would surely have to at least flee.

If she didn't help him, then she'd be stuck up here, waiting for a trap of her own making that wasn't appearing to spring. What's more, she  was  getting hungry, and even if she waited for the goblins to leave and go about their day, she'd be running a strong risk of drawing their attention in the wild if she did manage to sneak away.

Perhaps her best chance was with him.

Nameless quickly moved and scurried down the tree, her knife soon in hand as she came up upon the camp of goblins fighting the human, the darkness still cloaking her.
MrAbdiel
 While you shimmy down the tree, the flail-wielding avenger continues his rampage.  He is not especially strong looking; and has no grace, or  élan  in his movements.  You have only foggy memories of playing at war with boys from the village in the north; but even you can see there is no soldier in him.  The weapon he is using is plain, unvarnished wood; not bloodstained, or capped with metal.  A tool designed for something other than killing.  It's awkward for him to heft as he moves, with big overhead chopping-swings and not a drop of the mock-swordplay that a girl named Mey-la once possessed - and a mile from the liquid steel  murder  in the movements of the skaven killer-caste.

But hot-damn, if it's not a little impressive; the lad has caught them napping, and snuck up, and left one braying in the dust with a ruined arm that squirts blood from the ruptured green skin.  And then,  staggering in his stride but resetting his blow, he plows on forth and swings the flail again - this time at  Firestarter , who throws himself forward off his stone into the dust to avoid the blow.  But not far enough - the flail's head cracks down on the goblin's calf, breaks a bone through the skin, and now two of them are screaming and bleeding.

 Butcher,  one ruined arm flopping at his side, scrambles to the tent and starts jabbing the sleepers with the butt of his spear.  They start and bleat, fumbling blearily for their weapons.

 
 Spoiler: OOC Round 2 Outcome 
The Flailer charges again, and wonks the pre-tenderized goblin  Firestarter  for enough damage to crit his leg, leaving him helpless!

Goblins recover from surprise.   Butcher  spends his turn jabbing  Fisherman  and  Pickman  awake.  They are prone, and not yet armed.

At Initiative 10, Nameless begins Round Three.  All targets are theoretically within charge distance.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 


Nameless pursed her lips and swallowed as she watched it unfold, something coiling up within her as she took half a second to watch.

In the pits of the skaven, she could never come to a fellow humans defense, no matter how much she felt instinct compel her to do so. But here? Something stirred within her.

  "Ahhh!!"   her banshee scream ripped through the clearing as she barrelled forward, her towering figure ploughing through the foliage and blasting aside any of the weak shrubbery that stood between her and the nearest goblin - one of the sleepers.
MrAbdiel
 You have fought, before. You have killed, before.  You have striven for your life amidst the chaos of a battle, before.  But for the first time, you let loose with no reservation - there are no masters to think about, who will shovel you to the rat-ogres or send you back to your cell when it's over.  There is no one here, whom you do not intend to kill, who will accuse you and see you thrown into a pit of corpses with your throat cut.  There is you, and the enemy; perhaps an ally too.  And then there is the wide, wide forest; the only uninvolved witness to the battle, and your part in it.

The stranger with the flail takes a backward step, lifting his flail in an awkward block as if he expects you to fall upon  him  in your wrath.  But you blow by him in your charge, using the weight of your body to shoulder-check into  Butcher 's ruined side. You swing wild at his face, and he leans away from it; but you bring the knife in your grip down into the meat of his thigh as he totters and  wrench  it back.  The bloody gouge spurts unwholesome black-red blood; and flopping backwards, he wails and begins crawling away from you.  The two in the tent -  Fisherman, and Pickman , are finally on their feet, now; club in the hand of the former, pick in the hands of the latter; and they menace you, looking for a moment to attack this wild, frightening new assailant.

 
 Spoiler: Round 3 Resolution! 
Stranger with the Flail steps back and takes a parry stance.  Butcher and Firestarter are now both bleeding, and helpless.  The other two stand and ready weapons, but can't attack right away.
 Your move!  Strike and parry stance, you suggested before.  Still want to go with that? Or All Out Attack in hopes to reduce the enemy from 2 to 1?
 
 
MrAbdiel
 You lash out with your closed fist and feel it clock hard into the bony skull of the pick-wielding goblin.  He reels, but the blow almost seems to focus him - suddenly, now that he's the one suffering, he can take you as a credible danger.  He and his club brandishing offsider face off with you together; they make tentative swipes and moves, but neither is bold enough to commit to an attack that would forbid them an chance to defence themselves against your looming blows.

The stranger, watching this duel unfold, seems to gather his wits; recognizing, finally, that you are very much focused on his enemy.

 Firestarter  stops crawling and wailing, now.  His torments, at least in this world, are over forever.

 
 Spoiler: OOC Round 4 Resolution! 
Pickman takes 4 wounds!  Firestarter finishes bleeding; Butcher continues.  The stranger seems to conclude which side you are on, and will rejoin the combat in the following round. The upright goblins miss you, but take parrying stances!
 
 
MrAbdiel
 With two of them harassing you, you are in danger of getting flanked; and you skitter back on the calloused balls of your feet as they menace forward, making warding strikes but finding no purchase.   Pickman  makes a move to get around your side, but the stranger finds his decision and charges in again - a mighty blow but one his opponent, this time, is ready for.  The goblin sneers and dodges - but now, atleast, you're shoulder to shoulder with someone fighting with you.  This, too, is a novel experience.

As if intending to enhance the drama of the moment, the forest goes quiet except for your collected breath.  The other wounded goblin has fallen silent.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Round 5 Result! 
It's a wash - lots of misses, this round.

Time to experiment a little to see if we can speed things up.  Let's try double turns - each turn you take two turns, as does your enemy, just for PBP sake.  I'll be generous with it - if the enemy crits you harshly in their turn 1, I'll let you reconfigure what might have been your projected more cavalier turn 2; but in an early game with a lot of whiffs and parries, running two turns-a-turn might be the go.
 So make two turns worth of actions, and I'll do so, and I'll resolve them as if they happened in a normal turn-by-turn sequence.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

Nameless' heart thumped inside her chest as she swiped, her little knife finding flesh, but dodged back out of the way of returning swipes.

The adrenaline pumping in her blood, the life and death situation...it was  intoxicating . After such a miserable existence, Nameless felt  alive .

Turning and shooting a glance at the fellow human, a temporary understanding between them, Nameless moved to the side, moving in to swipe and parry...
MrAbdiel
 Together, goblins and humans enact their microcosm of the battle that has played out since beyond the history of either: greenskins and man, warring for the fate of the surface world.  Given these more even odds, you naturally pair off into two duels;  Pickman  at you,  Fisherman  at the stranger.  For him, fighting the creatures one-on-one seems to go well - they struggle back and forth in a weapon bind with club and flail before the goblin, in a display of strange irony, trips when his heel strikes the hoof of the massacre'd horse; one of the stacked, cold legs projecting just enough into his backstep to make him vulnerable to a punishing down-strike that crushes the goblin's hips and leaves his screaming, bleeding, and dying.

Your luck is more mixed.  You are careful not to overcommit yourself, trying to keep mobile; and your manage to strike out again and land a bleeding slice that carves through the goblin's wretched armor and into its chest.  But the attack costs you an opening; and this time, the cretin exploits it well - tricking you into dodging back in time with a lunging blow that punches the spike of the pick  into  your bicep and out the other side.  In a burst of instinct and adrenaline, you shove off the weapon before the goblin has a chance to twist it and cause even more damage - but the pain his hideous, and the blood pours out of your upper arm from both sides.

Still, trading the knife to your other hand, you are still upright - and so is your ally.  This goblin, slashed and battered, is all alone.

 
 Spoiler: OOC! 
Alas!  A parry to no avail - he lands a whopper of a hit: 12 wounds to the right arm; 8 off your total, after your toughness reduction.  Now you outnumber the last goblin 2 to 1, for another +10% to hit.  Take two turns and finish the bugger off before he gets lucky again!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

What was it that she felt rush through her body?

Other than mauling, brutal pain as her arm was pierced through?

Hatred. Sheer, bright hot hatred.

Screaming a mix of agony and fury, Nameless battered away the pick-axe with one hand and lunged forward - her small throwing knife driving straight into the creatures eye as she tumbled down on top of it. Tears blurred her vision, hot pulsing blood beat through her head as she withdrew that weapon and hammered furiously at its neck and its chest - deliberately striking the parts where she could puncture the lungs and sever the arteries so that it would choke to death on it sown blood beneath her.
MrAbdiel
 You lunge, and stab, and stab again; until your whole body feels leaden and exhausted and your brain tells you that the messy of green skin and gore beneath your hands has been dead for a superfluous thirty seconds.  As your senses come back to you and you begin again to feel the penetration of your arm and smell the blood and goblin filth, you hear a sound that is  not  novel to you - human weeping is a sound your ears know well.

Just as you'd guessed, the man seems to have come about the horse.  He kneels before the butchered and ruined tableaux of the beast; the badly flayed hide draped over a few sticks, the legs cut away and stacked oddly to one side; the head and neck and body gouged and cut and scraped for meat from the last night's feast.  The eyes scooped; eaten first.

He sobs quite loud, echoing in the night; his trembling hand finding a patch of the horse's face that still has its rusty colored pelt undisturbed.  He strokes it, and babbles in the rapidfire language you heard the slaves of the region speaking.  You understand none of it; except that it is not for you, but the massacred beast.

Then he does turn to you, after all; starts speaking, as he rubs tears from his face with a wrist so not to smear himself with blood.  He seems to take you in, then, for the first time; the strangeness of this towering, scarred young woman who slunk down from the trees to aid him, earning a wound in the process.  A little back and forth of not understanding each other establishes for him that you do not speak his tongue, and that he does not seem to recognize the portions of the surface languages you do in fact know.  But he gestures to your bleeding arm and, once his intention is clear, bandages it with a patterned yellow handkercheif from one pocket.  It quickly stains red; but the pressure slows the bleeding, atleast.

Now, with the adrenaline wearing off and with blood lost from your veins, you remember how greviously tired you are.  How desperately hungry.  How cold, in the night that rolls on in the absense of the creatures you have killed.

Your inability to understand the man's words doesn't seem ultimately have stopped him from talking to you.  Having greived, starts moving about the camp; first retrieving the damaged reigns and bridle from the horse's body, then going to the goblins, one at a time, and shearing off their left ears with a small, sharp knife from his pocket - a neat little contraption where the blade seems to fold out of the carved-horn hilt.

With the ears taken and apparently pocketed, he comes to his next challenge - and pauses, fists on his hips, looking gloomily at the heaped sacks that came in, on the horse's back.

 
 Spoiler: OOC! 
You have survived your first combat, and made an unintelligible friend!  While he's going about doing his business in the camp, what are you doing?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

Nameless had stabbed furiously at the goblin, allowing years of pent up anger to flow through her arm and into that knife as each stab of the weapon withdrew an arc of bloody droplets.

By the time she was done, she was visibly panting, exhausted and starving...and then the pain in her arm returned.

 "Ahh....!"  is all she can whimper as she grips at her arm, the pick having punctured through the muscle tissue, but seeming to have at least passed through cleanly. She had seen puncture wounds before, she knew it would heal with a month or so of rest, but that didn't make it hurt any less than a son of a bitch.

When the other male approached her, Nameless initially scuttled backwards on her butt, her knife coming up defensively. It was mostly the operation of instinct, or at least habits that had been hammered into her during her slavery under the trats. Few people acted out of kindness. But when he gently moved down, hands open and softly wrapped that cloth around her arm to stymie and stop the bleeding, Nameless...smiled.

It was a goofy smile. Sweet even. But it was a smile nonetheless.

 &lt;"Thank you."&gt;  she said, in Queekish, her voice surprisingly gentle, given that she was splattered in blood and had just charged out of the darkness, screaming and waving a knife around.

When the pain in her arm subsided enough, Nameless wasted no time in darting over to that pot and stuffing as much of the stew as she could in her mouth. Like a greedy guts growing kid, she wolfed it down in a rather undignified manner until anything remaining in that pot had disappeared down into her tummy.

That need satisfied, Nameless then went about quickly gathering the remaining things: the tent, the fishing line, the bag, the mushrooms, book etc.

 &lt;"Hey, I've got something over here!"&gt;  she said to her fellow human. Obviously, to him she just sounded...weird. Very weird. Her chittering, fast language like nothing the humans had. But the way she reached out and tugged on his sleeve and pointed over to the back of the camp was enough to draw attention, as she took him to present the chest.

 &lt;"We'll share whatever is inside, yes?"&gt;  she said, her smile warm, head tilted, as she gestured to the chest, and then to him and her back and forth. Even with body language, it was clear she wanted to share the chest with him.
MrAbdiel
The stew was horse and fish based.  It would have been foul to taste buds with any discernment at all.  It is the best thing you have eaten since you were forsaken by the sun.

Your new friend looks queasy, but gracious; you are obviously in a desperate state, and he is able to put out of mind the ghastly act of devouring some portion of his horse, considering how you have helped him in avenging it.

When you alert him to the chest, he takes a look at it; but is animated by a certain urgency that precludes being interested in its contents.  He is more interest in the sacks, and going back the way he came; dark though it is.  Through a profusion of gestures and patience, you come to an understanding: he will concede the chest to you entirely if you help him move it, and the sacks, to wherever he is indicating - a task that, without a horse, will require at least a few trips.  With that offer, he gets on the side of the chest and hauls up one of its side handles with his right arm so you can use your uninjured left.  It’s heavy, but not immovable - probably not full of coins, or metal, or rocks.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Does the arrangement satisfy Nameless?  Is she willing to trust him to guide her back out of the woods?
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 


Pursing her lips, a part of her, the paranoid survivalist, told her to just knife him in the back and run off. But they had fought together. He could have betrayed her easily by now. While she had gorged herself on that stew, he could have easily clobbered her over the back of her head with his bat. He could have grabbed her injured bicep and twisted, permanently disabling her. Or an older man out in these woods, alone, could have done even worse things to her...

But he hadn't. He seemed despondent about the horse, but otherwise gave off the impression of just a guy mourning the loss, thankful for her help and willing to make trades again.

Swallowing, Nameless nods, moving off into the woods with him.
MrAbdiel
 Fortunately, no treachery ensues.  With his flail under the his other arm and the chest between you, you start making your way together though the gloom of the forest.  He knows the way, it seems; but you have the night-eyes to prevent him tripping and falling and making the whole operation painful and difficult, so an easy synergy quickly emerges.  He continues to talk to you, as you go; perhaps a gesture designed more to sooth his frayed nerves on the adrenal cooldown, than to actually communicate anything.

It's the better part of an hour, before you emerge from the trees.

The first thing you notice is the moon; full, and lonely in the sky with its wholesome silver glow.  No trace tonight of the green moon, which the skaven call 'Morskrit'; and just as well.  Instead, there is a banquet of white stars in the sky you have not seen in so long; and this last night, dared not clear the canopy of the trees to witness.

The second and third things you notice at the same time - the cart, and the dog.  A small cart, designed for drawing by a single horse, lies off the side of the road furthest the forest's face.  It has been upended, though it seems undamaged; turned over gently, perhaps.  And the dog leaps up to guard it - a gold furred beast with an unusually long tail; and the bright, intelligent eyes of a guarding breed.  The skaven  hated  dogs; their word for the animals had some of the human connotations of  monsters  and  spoilers.   But like with the horse, you are not so sheltered from your humanity that you do not recognize this friend of man, also.  He springs up from where he lay by the cart, and charges up at the pair of you; giving you customary  bork bork bork!  of canine enthusiasm and alarm until his master, your new companion, calls him to heel and assures him with a scruffling of the fur on his neck that the stranger is no threat.  You set the chest down for a moment, resting your arm from the strain; and the dog, whom your stranger has called  Rocco  a couple of times now, is all a-sniff of you, in curiousity.

A voice echoes out from under the cart; small, and tired.  It precedes a young boy, perhaps ten years old and crowned with black curls, crawling from beneath it.  You can't help but notice how different he is, from how you are used to seeing children; burdened in the terrible conditions of labor and confinement.  This one is healthy, and content, and mostly clean; even for having been woken from a nap, beneath a cart on the side of the road.  He trots over to your companion whom you might guess is his father, and they embrace each other.

The child asks a question.  The father hesitates, and looks at the bundle of reins taken from his hip, and offers a reply; one furnished with horizon-pushing gesture of the palm, and a little shrug of the shoulders.  The child responds immediately, pointing back and the forest and down the road, and chirping in some animated call to action.  The father hushes him; offers some quieter, soothing words; and the boy accepts, with some sniffling.

Whatever the boy had been told about the fate of the horse, it was likely a kinder lie than the awful truth of it.

Still tear-faced, the child turns to you, looks over your looming self, and asks you something that causes his father to blink, and puff a little laugh.

"Ah...  Gaulfredo."  He offers to you; and then pats his own chest indicatively and repeats slowly, for your benefit.   "Gaulfredo." 

And then, with a hand on the boy's head:   "Vittorio." 

And finally, with a firm rub of the dog's back that it seems to receive with wonderment as unsolicited praise worth panting over:  "Rocco." 

Then he makes a gesture to you, in expectation and hope.

Mey-La.  Nee-Ruh-Kaha.  You have two names, both given to you by people who  owned  you.  Another name too, you think; but it's buried in the back of your skull under layers of suffering, like mud that has hardened to sediment over some precious forgotten relic.  It's not the first time you have tried to retrieve it; but this time, like the others, it does not rise for you.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
A little RP'ish scene, for ya.  Importantly, how does Nameless respond when probed for a name? Does she give one of her slave-given names, or pull a word she knows as a 'fresh start' name, or politely offer nothing, permitting them to figure out their own name to add to the pre-existing two?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

Is this what working together felt like? Without the threat of the lash or vicious 'encouragement' by sadistic task-masters?

Nameless didn't know, and for about an hour she didn't care. Without the threat of the goblins - and having greedily gathered up all of their possessions for herself - Nameless walked along behind the unknown man with one strong hand wrapped around the handle of  her  chest and the sounds of nature around them. The mans talking was welcome. Honestly, she liked it. It might have his own reasons for the verbal diarrhoea, but Nameless appreciated the sounds of a fellow human who was not under the coercion of a Skaven taskmaster. Just listening to him talk felt  normal . Like this is what normal humans did. They carried things around the beautiful forest and they talked.

The melody of his language stood in stark contrast to the swift, fast-paced chittering of her own.  Her own , as if she had willingly learned the Skavens rapid-fire language. The language she had been  forced  to learn as a slave. The mans was instead more melodic, as if she were listening to a gentle music among the soft breeze of a forest. After a decade of brutal drudgery and hissing rats, it was beautiful to her.

When they arrived at that cart, Nameless oddly deferred to the mans judgement. This was, after all, his realm. If he appeared scared then she would be. But when that - dog!! - arrived and he showed nought but affection, so did Nameless. But then a boy emerged - a healthy boy! Not some wasted looking, pallid little miserable wretch, but an actual boy, with a vigilant father...this is what human children were  supposed  to look like.

When the dog ceased its guard-like growling and instead switched its mood to gentle curiosity, Nameless indulged thoroughly.

She knelt down, hands out, allowing the dog to lick her face as she giggled and laughed. She ran her hands around the dogs beautiful head, patting and stroking its most prominent features as she kissed it between the eyes, on the forehead and under the ears/against the cheek. For a second she almost seemed to have tears in her eyes, an immediate love for the animal visible upo her mien as she had to tear herself away to address the youngling.

Towering above him at 6'5", Nameless offered an awkward, but genuine, smile down to the lad, along with a wave.

 &lt;"Hello!"&gt;  she said in Queekish, until the male then performed his 'what's your name?' body language theatre.

When Nameless pursed her lips and hesitated in answering, the more emotionally intelligent could tell that she understood the question but had to think of a response. That meant she had no official name - only what she would call herself now.

And the only praxis with which she could currently express herself was the disgusting language of the rat-men that had taken everything from her.

Swallowing gently, a pregnant pause lingering in the air between them, it was clear Nameless understood the question. Finally, she shrugged.

 &lt;"I don't know yet,"&gt;  she replied in Queekish. Not that they understood.
MrAbdiel
 Rocco isn't fussy, once he's given the all-clear; and when this new friend is dispensing attention, and scratches, and tolerating his over-excited canine affection, he is happy to supply.

The boy, Vittorio, seems curious and unafraid; having been given little reason to be afraid of people, you must assume.  He confers with his father when you are unable to supply an answer, and they go back and forth for a bit.  Gaulfredo gives you a faint smile to suggest that, even if he doesn't understand, he is not offended.  But the work of the evening is not done.  With a little help from each other, the three of you stash the chest under the overturned cart.  Gaulfredo retrieves a knit blanket from beneath it, and puts it around his own shoulders like a cape, demonstratively, before passing the bundle to you.  It's not as cold tonight as the last; but the blanket is soft, and it keeps the worst of the cold off your shoulders and back.

Another four hours pass.  Back to the goblin camp; back to the cart; back to the camp; back to the cart.  You carry one of the sacks over your your left shoulder; Gaulfredo carries one over his, and Vittorio hefts one awkwardly, eager to help, occasionally trading it back to his father when it's too much for him.  Each time, Gaulfredo leaves Vittorio just a little away from the camp - sparing him the scene, perhaps - and hefts the bag to him.  The goblins are there, mangled and silent; the troll, still, has not manifested.  If he intends to after you are long gone, he will have quite a grotesque feast waiting indeed.

The sun is rising across the tree-dotted hills on the other side of the road, when you get back.  The work has been exhausting on your already exhausted body, but atleast it was  given  work, and not  driven  work.  With the sacks recovered, you help to turn the cart right way up; and once it is loaded up with the chest, and the sacks, and the almost unconcious from tiredness boy, Gaulfredo shows you how to take the weight of one of the cart's two shafts that would have gone either side of the drawing horse, with your good hand.  Together, you and Gaulfredo begin the work of walking the cart down the hard packed earthen country road.  It's a well designed road, atleast; it weaves around the hills at the same height instead of dipping over them, which would have made hand-drawing the cart impossible.  But another couple of hours, with the sun up and hot on your skin, and your legs burning from work and your arm burning from injury, you come up to the wooden gate of a fenced paddock with a simple house, and wooden barn within its limits.  Gaulfredo nudges Vittorio awake to open the gate and then the barn for you; and you wheel it inside where it is set to rest.  There's two stalls, there; one for the now departed horse; one occupied by a grey coated old mare who looks considerably older than the draft that had pulled the cart.  She watches your arrival with silent interest; snuffs idly at her feed; and then lays down in her stall.  Rocco, who has not had hands and therefore no responsibility this whole time, trots in energetically and laps at a pail of water left at once side of the barn for just this purpose.  Wearilly, Gaulfredo takes a few things from a wooden cabinet, and then beckons for you to follow; leading up a wooden ramp to a loft area with loose mounts of yellow hay.  He lays down a couple of blankets, and offers you another; says something with a placating gesture and something of an apologetic tone.  After changing your makeshift bandage for a clean strip of linen, he makes another apology sounding sentence; and then heads back down the ramp, with a little wave.

 "Dì la buonanotte a Taalia, Vittorio."   He bids the boy, as they prepare to leave you in this makeshift guest quarters - warm enough to sleep with all the blankets, warmer still in the morning sun.

"Buona notte, Taalia."  The boy waves at you, and then trots after his father; and they close the barn door behind them.  There is no locking of bolts or mechanisms to restrain the door; indeed, there is a hinged wooden flap on the lower half of the door, which does not seem secure at all.  They appear unworried about people breaking in; and certainly not intending to keep you locked in.

Rocco makes his way up the ramp to settle down on the hay, watching you with such expectation like you should do some trick for him - or else you are simply endlessly engaging to dogs, by some gift you never knew you had.

But here you are - free, and now more safe than in a long time.  And what's more, not alone.  For the price of one more scar... Not a bad day, all things considered.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
End of chapter 1 - Free.

Feel free to drop a little reply to that scene; but we'll pick up after I've had some sleep, with Nameless/Mey'la/Nee-Ruh-Kaha/Taalia waking up!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

In actuality? Nameless stayed up for another half an hour playing with the dog. She knelt on her impromptu bed, the happiness in her heart worn on her face as she used both hands to to pet, stroke and rub the top half of the dogs head. Sometimes it would gently latch its muzzle around a forearm or a hand, and even with her injured bicep the now-free woman would go down onto the ground on her side in a giggling heap.

Was there a possibility that she would be discovered the next day sleeping on her side, the dog curled against her front, her free hand across its forward quarter, a bright smile across her sleeping face?

Maybe.
MrAbdiel
   The Power of One 
  Part 1 - "In Sterquiliniis Invenitur" 
 
 Chapter 2 - Tetto   

You might have been so discovered, if your intruder was quiet enough.  But this was no skilled assassin; no goblin skulker, he.  The boy Vittorio scampers through the hinged wooden flap on the barn door that is accessible only to dogs and children.  The squeal of the hinge stirs you; but superanimates Rocco for whom this seems to be a daily ritual to which he is well adapted.  Your blurry waking senses register the dog who had been snoozing against you firing to his feet in a desperate scrabble to be part of whatever is happening; down the wooden ramp and to the battered tin bowl Vittorio has brought him. It's a meal of table scraps and chicken gizzards - not dissimilar to the meals you have grown up on.  Scooting down the ramp a bit to watch, while Rocco avidly  snarfs  his snarfables, Vittorio takes some kind of vegetable treat from a cloth bag and reaches up to offer it to the geriatric horse in the corner stall.  The beast ponderously gets to its hoofs to take it with mute gratitude, as the boy moves to the next stall, produces another treat, and halts in his tracks.  No horse, in this stall; the disruption of the ritual with the reminder of the reality (or whatever softened lie he was told) bringing a shadow of sorrow to his face.  But then he remembers you; and looks up to see you on the ramp, and smiles; and makes his way to turn the offering to you, instead.

 
 Spoiler: Intrustive Memory 
  You remember an apple tree.  
 


He calls you  Taalia  again; and offers the first-sized, pink-red fruit to you. He insists, with an unnecessary pantomime, that you should eat it.  It's crunchy, and sweet, and familiar to your taste buds.

 "Mela."   He reports, pointing at the fruit.  Then, sitting on the ramp, he seems to decide to take on the mantle of tutor.  He points up.   "Tetto".   Is Tetto the sky, or the roof, or  up ?  Or the index finger?  You can't tell, and this child does not have the didactic know-how to know you don't know.  He points down the ramp, at the old horse now settling to the ground again.  "Cavallo."  Is Cavallo  horse , or is it the name of this horse?  These are mysteries that will take some unravelling, but your teacher seems pleased with your learning attitude.

Through gaps in the barn's walls, sunlight is still glowing.  Since you arrived in the morning, and since the light is flowing in from the other side of the world, you might have slept away half the day; and you're still tired enough to sleep more of it.  It's not, after all, like you have anywhere to be.

Outside your keen ears can pick up voices; Gaulfredo, and a woman. They are arguing; her voice pitching to high, insistent points before grinding into some entrenched, rapidly articulated counterposition by him; and they go back and forth like this for some time.  The argument is less interesting to Vittorio than pointing and naming, however; or perhaps, since it's on the very edge of  your  hearing, he hasn't noticed it at all.  But the sparring smooths to conversation, as the voices come closer; and the barn door cracks open for Gaulfredo and this woman - you might assume his wife - to come through.  She's a little shorter than him, which makes her a full foot shorter than you  Dark brown curly hair, long and tied back, frames a pretty face of a woman who is, like Gaulfredo, on the mature end of young adult.  She regards you with wary brown eyes; a look and an attitude that one day you would reflect was less about fear of a stranger, and more about the fact that her husband had brought home a pretty young  amazon  with no name he found in the forest and that she was supposed to be okay with this.

She makes an effort to speak with you, with one eyebrow steepled and a fiery aspect to her interlocution; trying, it seems to you, to see if you are faking.  But once satisfied that you have no idea what the heck she is talking about, she softens a little, and her expression gains a spectre of pity, and she looks you over in your rags, and bandages and sighs.  And then throws up her hands; a sign of concession which Vittorio immediately celebrates.

And that is the final obstacle.  With this hesitant concession, you appear to be welcome in the house of Gaulfredo.  The woman - who the boy tells you is  Ariana  (likely a name... or  mother , or  woman ) finds you some clothes.  A faded yellow tunic, probably Gaulfredo's, considering Ariana's size; paired with a brown peasant skirt that would fall to her ankle; and so makes it just past your knee.  Their house is a fair thing; a grey stone building that might have been an old watchtower has been converted into a kitchen on the lower floor and their personal chamber on the floor above; with timber extensions built into the side that give the country home the relative peasant luxury of a dining room, and a washroom, and a separate small room for lavatory and storage.  The house has plenty of wooden furniture, and even more than the minimum of decoration; canvases in plain wooden frames show some quite charming renderings of horses, and the view from the second floor of the tower, and a slightly younger Vittorio.  There is a herbal smell that radiates from the cooking happening in the kitchen, but also seems to be baked into the ambiance of the house itself.

When you are brought to the table, there is more food made available to you than, perhaps, at any single point in your whole life; foods whose styles you have to dredge from your old memories of Norsca, and before.  Seeded bread, whose dough seems to have been contorted into a braid before baking; making the pulling apart of it that much easier.  A red soup of legumes and diced vegetables that you are encouraged to to eat with a  spoon ; a device now almost foreign to your hand.  The roasted exterior of whatever unlucky bird Rocco had been fed the interiors of already.  A bowl of puzzling, slim, worm-like tubes drizzled in some kind of flavorsome oil and dusted with salt and other spices - an alien delicacy indeed, but whose flavor turns out to be thankfully mild.

Before anyone eats, Gaulfredo pauses the family with his upraised hands, and addresses another figure in the room - a pair of small wooden figurines stood on the doorframe; the man horned, proud and holding a bow to his chest; the woman maternal, benevolent, and holding a shepherd's crook.

 
 Spoiler: Intrustive Memory 
  "Men have gods too; and they will not permit their children to suffer this way forever."  
 


After that, you are afforded much opportunity to eat as you have no way to contribute to the conversation; but much of it is about you, and you follow a few things.

They seem to have settled on calling you  Taalia.   Ariana seems to have calmed about you, after her earlier bristling; and your displays of mute appreciation seem to keep that suspicion at bay.  At one point, you interpret something Gaulfredo says as he pantomines something rectangular and large, and gestures to you; he hasn't forgotten the chest, and seems to be planning something for it.  He also mentions  Cavallo , but Ariana objects with a maternally defensive air; and their quiet negotiation that follows yields no clear outcome.  And finally, Arianna gestures at your bandaged arm, and speaks quite firmly with insistence about it; something to which there is no objection. Much more is said, of course; but aside from the words that Vittorio is (sort of) teaching you, it all whips by.  In the evening, the barn is yours again; yours, and  Cavallo's , and  Rocco's. And this time, you sleep right through from just after dusk, to just after dawn.

 
 Spoiler: OOC 
Not much for you to act on just yet, but I want some rolls before I go too far!

I want: A flat (+0%) Intelligence test, to see how well you do learning a new language over the next few days/weeks as you recover.
A flat (+0%) Charm test, to see how well you endear yourself to the community that is about to be fascinated by your arrival.
An assisted (+20%) Toughness test, to resist infection in the wound in your arm.

You can also note down that you have earned 250XP for your wilderness adventure.  Nothing to spend it on yet since you're still in the slave career - but options are about to start opening up.  Once you're grounded in the language a little, you already have career teachers available for Peasant (Ariana) and Farmer (Gaulfredo), but more will be persuable, soon.  Trappings, as always, are part of the challenge to entry, however.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 



Taalia watched with a smile as the dog gorged himself on the innards of whatever unlucky bird had been culled to supply the feed, her clear affection for the animal undimmed by its behaviour at even its most ravenous. But when the boy approached and spoke to her, Taalia was no longer in a near-panicked and exhausted state of mind. The day prior he had been on the tail end of... events  so to speak. Escaping slavery. Losing her surrogate father. Crossing paths with a troll. Fighting goblins. Taking a pick through the arm. Starving. Meeting a stranger and helping him with the labour of retrieving the sacks. These were a sequence of events that were not the most conducive towards stable, level-headed thought, but now that Taalia had been given some to recover and rest, she could afford to ponder more on her situation and those around her.

The kid seemed sweet, like so many she had known were. If her polite distance from the child seemed rude, she would one day have to apologise: she'd seen so many arrive and die within a week, experience had taught her not to get too attached.

Nevertheless, he was gentle company, and as Mela sat on the ramp next to him, she watched with her heterochromia eyes as he tried to explain his language to her, but only in the most rudimentary sense that children could grasp. He wasn't old enough yet to conceptualise the construction of a sentence, the position of subjects, verbs and objects or the particles that strung them together to form coherant sentences, even if he understood how to do so on a basal level. And so, his education was no deeper than the nouns of things around them which, under the circumstances, seemed fine enough for now.

 "Mela?"  Taalia repeated, holding up the bright red apple in her left hand and pointing at it wit her right. Speaking just those two syllables in a different language changed her appearance. Not physically, of course, but her mien. Queekish, in which she was more fluent than most native speakers, was rapid fire, skittering and harsh. Even when spoken slowly it was an unpleasant, if swiftly flowing language to listen to. But this new one she was being taught? The  -la  emphasis at the end with her gentle voice made her seem brighter somehow.

But then she heard the arguing.

The lad couldn't hear it. Perhaps that was for the best. Or he was used to parents of hot-blooded dispositions who wore their hearts on their sleeves and so thought nothing of it. But for Taalia, raised voices could only mean one thing: beatings.

The Skaven don't raise their voices at you because they're worried you can't hear them. They raise their voices as a prelude to violence.

Swallowing, biting her bottom lip, her eyes peering in the direction from which the argument wafted, even if such a stare was directed towards a barn wall, Taalia felt her toes curling as she turned her eyes just enough to peer out of the corner of her eye to that small knife which lay next to her makeshift bed.

The barn door pressed open, and in strode Gaulfredo and the nicest looking human woman Taalia had seen in a decade. The last one, of course, being the Thanes wife whom she had served in what seemed like a lifetime ago. But unlike that tall blonde with her higher cheekbones and cold beauty, this one was more warm, despite the skeptical scowl across her face.

Taalia, of course, thought other things.   'She's come to kill me. She thinks I'm here to challenge her for her partner...'   she internally chittered, once more checking that that knife was there out of the corner of her eye as she stood when the two approached.  'I can take her,'  Taalia told herself, steeling her spine. One swift kick forward and then dive for the knife and throw it into her chest. Done.

Ariana's initial 'test' only solidified this fear, as Taalia pursed her lips, subtly shifting her weight on her feet, readying herself to step back from the assault she just  knew  was coming...

But it never did. Almost as swiftly as her passion had arisen, Ariana's disposition softened, her voice simmering down into that gentle, pleasant melody of her normal decibel level. Likewise, the tension building in Taalia's muscles found release as the spectre of danger passed, as she looked down at the lad, up at Gaulfredo and then at Ariana. She didn't know what they were saying, but she guessed that she was able to stay?

This idea actually was correct, as the escaped slave swiftly discovered. It was also where Ariana learned more about Taalia. For when the older woman supplied her with some clothes, she also provided a place within which to change into them. Taalia was not skinny, nor emaciated. Indeed, thanks to being a favoured pet of Papa Rat and his supply of just a little bit more food, she was positively plump by slave standards, with her 10% body fat. She was tall, very tall, with well proportioned limbs and physique, but living as a slave like she had, her skin had felt the foremans whip more than once. Some scars crisscrossed across her back like highlighted cracks in a marble statue. Her other thirteen scars, on her trap, her neck, her forearm and elsewhere, not to mention the two on her face, where all visible for those moments she de-clothed in front of the other woman to change, a suggestion to the lady of the house about what this girl had been through to arrive where she was now.

The dinner table, likewise, was an exercise of memories and warmth. Taalia could remember back when she was very small, sitting around the house-hold table, prays before dinner, the use of cutlery. Though the past 10 years had hardwired her to stuff as much food into her face as she could, she was self-aware and smart enough to know that such conduct would not go over well. So she ate. Quite happily. Sometimes a little too enthusiastically, often exhaling through her nose as she took in the incredible new flavours that were for her, a banquet fit for royalty. It was evident just how hungry she was when she polished off bread, pasta, fruit, vegetables - anything put before her quickly disappeared. In short, she ate like a horse. Or maybe a few horses.

When given the chance though, Taalia did try to show off. Spotting some fruit on the table, when there was a lull in conversation, she reached out with one long arm, plucked up an apple and held it up.

 "Mela..." 
MrAbdiel
  "Mela!"   Gaulfredo repeats, hands flying into the air in delight and eliciting a laugh from the fellow at once.  Vittorio chirps enthusiastically about the  mela , perhaps claiming credit for his tutelage.  Even Ariana looks a little impressed - though after witnessing your scars, her disposition to you has markedly shifted towards a more tentative, loosely maternal one.  The effort to speak helps bridge the mysterious divide between you and these people a great deal - they surely will not be able to learn Queekish.  They are not under sufficient duress.

As you backfill ten years of starvation with the food on the table, Ariana becomes mildly self conscious; like her hospitable spread is coming dangerous close to being revealed to be  not enough food .  The idea of someone worrying that they  had not fed you enough  is bizarre; even perversely funny, considering how frequently your keepers used to forget to feed you at all.  She rises from the table, takes a slightly less fresh, harder loaf of bread from a cloth bag, and cuts it into wedges, adding them to the table; and this is enough so that eventually you are looking at a plate of a few bread pieces and half an apple without wanting to eat them.  You are, infact, visited by the alien sensation of  guts-ache ; an intestinal tract adapted for famine and forage screaming to your brain about the impractical volume of the present shipment.  But you find later that having eaten so much, your body finds it very easy to sleep; and you curl up in your loft with Rocco gnawing on a hard heel of bread beside you to sleep more peacefully than any other time in your life.

The next day brings a new face: an older, dark brown hair salted almost all the way to grey and braided back against her skull; but still straight backed, and young enough to travel alone on the animal now parked in the barn - a sort of smaller, grey horse with longer ears and a more obstreperous disposition.  She comes in layered skirts with a red shawl around her neck, with brass coin like ornaments on its corner tassels and a necklace with two figures not unlike those above the kitchen door.  She confers with Gaulfredo and Ariana; and then takes a look at your wounded arm, tutting a little as she does.  She pours some foul smelling ointment on to a clean bandage and wraps it around your bicep, then rigs your arm up in a cloth sling to isolate and rest the wounded muscle.  Then she gives you a fond, pitying smile; touches your elbow; and peels away to confer with Ariana, in the herb garden nearby.  Not a moment too soon, it seems; for another visitor comes at that point, his own conveyance moved into the barn as it begins to crowd: an ox, pulling a cart with two large chests fastened to the sides of the vehicle.  The man driving is white haired and blessed with wrinkles, but spry and vigorous in movements; dressed in plain and clean peasant clothes accented with a leather toolbelt, and apron.   Not as tall as you (but who is?), but taller than Gaulfredo by an in inch or two, he gives the farmer the kind of handshake that seems almost like a contest between the two men about who can shake most strongly and enthusiastically without piking out.  It's a draw; but soon Gaulfredo is leading him to the chest in the barn; and he kneels down to look at the desecrated lock with mulling sounds.  He looks to you and asks a question that might be anticipating polite laughter, based on the rising tone; but Gaulfredo supplies an apology for you, gesturing to you, and his lips, and provoking a polite, open handed 'what can ya do' apology gesture from the older gentleman.  He gets to work: forge-blacked steel pliers pulling out the broken off stumps of sticks jammed in the lock one at a time, before a finger pair of brass pliers with hooked, angular tips follow to more delicately fish around inside the mechanism for detritus.  This is a man of tools and devices, you think; a little Rashabang-esque in his squint-eyed devotion to the task at hand.

Your third visitor arrives while the second is still working; a rider on a proud white steed, over whose flank is slung a leather sleeve from which rises the butt of a longarm..  The man is almost, but not quite as all as you; blonde hair cut short to his scalp and retreating either side of a widow's peak; leather armor sleeves and chaps completed by a mail shirt, with a diagonal yellow sash.  He speaks at length with Gaulfredo, who appears to be mostly responding with directional gestures - gesturing back down the road you and he came from, most recently; pushing his hand in the air as if to indicate a place far in that direction.  At one point, gesturing to his own lips, he shakes his head to the tall stranger.  He, finally, turns green eyes to you, having seemed mostly disinterested in you.  He calls something then; and when recognition does not resolve on your face, he lifts a hand to his mouth and flaps fingers and thumb open and shut.  He seems to want you to say something.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Three new folks on the scene; all buzzing around the farm with interest.  If you have specific interest in keeping an eye on, or trying to communicate with, one or all of them, now's the time!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 


The initial guests were well received.

Only a couple of days had past, but Taalia had made a noticeable improvement. She had been visibly starving, even a tad pale with nervous twitching and skittish suspicion. But the long periods of sleep did her well, as did the copious amounts of food and and warm care shown to her by her hosts. When she sat at that table, uttered "Mela..." and pointed to the apple, the response from all brought a happy, girlish smile to her face as memories from before that raid were exhumed from deep within her mind.  This  was what it felt like to be around those who cared for you. To sit at a dinner table, gifted with bountiful, delicious food, in the enjoyable company of family. How much she had missed out on during her years imprisoned to the ratmen.

The first visitor to inspect her was initially fascinating to Taalia, mostly due to her age. In all her time within the pits, she had never seen a woman older than Ariana. Never. Though the skills they brought to a community were invaluable, in many ways serving as the glue that bound it together and as a long memory and repertoire of skills and knowledge, the Skaven had no need for such qualities. And so, when the older woman arrived with her braided salt-and-pepper hair and smoldering dark eyes, Taalia couldn't help but stare. Though she flinched when the woman inspected her arm, and sucked in air through her teeth when that balm oil was applied, during the preparation of those materials the ex-slave had been likewise captivated by the mixing process. One part this herb. Two parts that oil. Three parts this buffer. A pinch of this root. In some ways it reminded her of the fiendish alchemical vats the Skaven had sometimes forced her to attend, but instead of a foul spelling liquid that would be vaporised into poison wind globes, this was a mixture of local ingredients to doubtless disinfect a wound and accelerate the healing process.

 &lt;"What's that?"&gt;  Taalia asked, pointing to one little pot of oil.

The response was, of course, unintelligible, but by the way Taalia reached out, plucked it up and inspected it with her dexterous hands, it was detectable that she had handled chemicals and reagents before. She inspected each of the ingredients this way, setting each one back neatly at exactly the position she had found it.

But when she went with Ariana to the herb garden to converse, Taalia's attention was drawn away again, this time to the barn. Moving through the farm, taking a moment to sweep her gaze across the verdant green crop fields and beautiful sun, her towering figure emerged into the barn where her eyes immediately spotted the new fellow, and the delicate means within which was undoing the lock. Initially, Taalia had pictured just tying the back of the horse to it, bracing teh case and then getting the equine to pull it free using sheer brute strength. But this method was much more precise.

 "Ahh!"  she said, drawing herself down near and close so that she could watch the means by which the refuse that clogged the inside of the lock was being withdrawn. She watched with her bright and curious heterochromia eyes. Much like with the older woman and her mixology, it was clear that Taalia discerned what was happening, she wasn't just watching for fun: she  understood .

The third visitor didn't get any "oohs!" and "ahs!" out of her - not initially anyway. However, when she was called out to come and talk to him, she felt goosebumps across her skin as she saw him for the first time. His blonde hair, sun-kissed features, his bright blue eyes and arriving on a white steed. Taalia had not been so brutalised that she hadn't felt any inclinations as she got older, and the dashing patrolman on his horse elicited one small blush and bashful eyes-dart-away reaction from her. But when she did, she spotted the stock of the holstered rifle, and her third  "Ahh..!"  of the day as she approached it.

Reaching out, pressing a hand against the polished and carved wooden stock, she affectionately patted it, turning to look at the patrolman, who now did his gesture for her to speak.

 &lt;"My owner had two of these,"&gt;  she started  &lt;"But pistols, not full on jezzails,"&gt;  her gestures were to look like she was holding two pistols up before her, as if posing for a Western movie poster.  &lt;"He wore them on his hips, but I only saw him use them twice. The most recent time was when we escaped certain death together. I thought they were mine when he...passed on...but...I dunno, maybe he came back and took them but left me? I'm not sure to be honest. But they both made the loudest boom!"&gt;  she piped up at the end, grinning, pretending to shoot each invisible pistol in sequence, even making little  "Psh! Psh!"  sound effects.

She smiled, the memory oddly fond in a perverted way as she looked back at that gun, before the light of an idea clearly shimmered in her two-colored eyes.

 &lt;"Could you teach me how to use this?"&gt;  she asked brightly, hand back on the rifle.

For Gaulfredo the experience was likely unusual, as this was the most Taalia had spoken since arriving. Where once she had said singular things or little phrases, now she spoke at length in the chittering, rapid-fire language of the ratmen, and with relative articulation it would seem.
MrAbdiel
 The healer-woman spoke back when you asked your questions; neither of you understanding the other, but both in a gentle enough spirit of cooperation.  The old tinker takes avuncular glee in having an audience; adjusting his technique as he goes to give a better view.  Every time he mages to pull another fragment of debris he shows it to you, and then adds it to a little pile on the floor; then dusts the keyhole with a small brush, blows in it, then goes in again looking for more.  Once he's satisfied it's clear of obstructions, he takes an oil can from his tool kit and applies it to the lock; then produces a set of fine lockpicks, and begins the long and arduous process of negotiating with the mechanism.

He's still going, when the roadwarden arrives and draws off your attention. And when you approach to lay a hand admiringly on the stock of his weapon, his hand preceeds yours - flat to the heel of the stock.  It's not a panicked move; he seems not to have read threat in your gesture; but when you touch the polished wood, he has moved a cautionary hand to prevent you from, say, madly seizing the weapon for your own, as if that had ever entered your mind.

When you look up at the end of your Queekish reminiscence about Rashabang and his weapons, you see on the roadwarden's face a look you have not seen among your new friends yet: specific, worried interest.  Not concern for your health, but a limited recognition of the sounds out of your mouth, if not anything close to complete understanding.  He calls over Ariana, and the wise woman; and the two men and two women stand in conference, talking about you.  You read their body language as best you can.  The rider asks something; Gaulfredo shakes his head, gesturing again down the road and loosely upward.  The rider responds; and Ariana cuts in with a nod, gesturing to her forearms, and her face, and behind herself as though to her back.  Finally, they all turn to you; and after a moment of concentrated recollection, the rider sucks his teeth, and offers in an heavilly accented, but accurate enough rendition of Queekish:

 &lt;"Rat-Rat, Man-Man?  Rat-Man Rat-Man?"&gt; 

He's not saying it right - the skaven word for themselves comes out closer to "The chosen people" if literally translated, but the roadwarden is clearly trying to mash together the words for rat, and man, in some sequence that inplies rat-men.  It might be the only queekish he knows; but he seems to be figuring out what you have been unable to say.

 "Eureka!" 

This, from back inside the barn; the tinker having overcome the lock and popping the latch; flagging you back to him with one hand as if hesitant to precede you to the reveal.

No pile of treasure; not that you'd expect that.  But when you flip up the lid on the newly oiled hinges, you see mostly a wealth of cloth.  Women's clothes - too small for you, certainly; but fascinating to discover.  Many of them seem very fine; and most of them are rich red in color, though there is a small amount of variation.  A glass mirror in a polished wooden frame lies nestled within the soft clothes; and within a folding side compartment, there are also bags of smaller, personal tools; brushes, and pigments, and papers.

Of the clothes, almost none of them seem able to fit your unusually scaled frame - except the hat, which is wide enough to pop onto your head if somewhat ostentatious in color; and the two pairs of sandals, the buckles of which, with some play, can shift to accomodate your feet - though you are more than used to going without footwear at all!

 
 Spoiler: OOC: The Chest! 
The chest contains...

3 * Good Quality Clothing (Women's, various.)
1 * Best Quality Clothing (Women's, red.)
1 * Noble Garb (Women's, Red)
1 * Wide Brimmed Hat (Women's Red)
1 * Good Mask (Plaster, Red)
1 * Good Hand Mirror
2 * Perfume
1 * Writing Kit
1 * Cloak, Red
4 * Sash, Red, Blue, Green, Yellow
2 * Sandals
1 * Good Shoes, Red
1 * Good Cosmetics
1 * Disguise Kit
1 * Pouch of simple jewellery, mostly wood and glass beads

And, obviously, 1 * Large Chest is also yours.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Nameless 

The roadwardens sudden and concerned interest was not unanticipated, but it was still gripping in its severity.

Taalia stood there, watching the adults confer with each other, no doubt the roadwarden conferring what he believed: she was either a spy or an escaped slave of the ratmen. Ariana confirmed it was likely the latter, given the numerous scars across her body and her age.

But then the roadwarden turned and address her. In  Queekish .

Taalia's eyes visibly widened as she understood the first set of words yet on the surface. It was broken, and the words he used to communicate his question were not the right ones for the task, but Taalia knew what he was trying to ask.

 &lt;"Skaven,"&gt;  Taalia replied. Kneeling down, she held her right arm out, extended her index finger and then pressed it into the soft ground and started to draw a symbol. It did not take long to complete, just three swipes of her arm, but the result was unmistakable:

 
 Spoiler 
   
 


She looked at the Roadwarden as she drew herself back up to her full height. Looking at him, trying to gauge his response, Taalia drew her wrists together, her hands clenched into fists. She was posing as if her wrists were tied together, shackled.

 &lt;"Slave,"&gt;  she said, keeping the syllables low and trying not to overwhelm him.

Given how fluent she had proven to be, and her age, one could reasonably ascertain that she had been a slave for a very long time. That she spoke no Tilean at all, not even a few rudimentary words a child might know, also suggested that this was not her native land. She had been taken from a long way away, spent years surviving under the ratmens lashes, and had somehow emerged here in this sunny land of plenty.

 "Eureka!" 

The solemn and unsettling atmosphere that had been gathering was penetrated by the cry of success, as Taalia's head whipped around back to the barn. Like the excitable teenager she was, eyes wide, she hurried off in that direction, bringing herself next to the tradesman as that chest was opened to reveal the glorious bounty within: clothes!

But very pretty clothes.

 "Ahhhh!"  Taalia inhaled, covering her mouth with her right hand as she knelt down in front of the rest, reaching in and prying through the contents. They were, without a doubt, the most beautiful clothes she had ever seen. The beautiful reds, the fine fabric, the gentle and well-crafted pressing, the stitching and embroidery. The teenager defied no stereotypes at all as she grinned widely, the sun across her face as she looked positively over the moon. She reachined in, retrieved that hat, and immediately brought it up to her head and placed it upon her crown.

Hands on her hips, she looked up at Ariana, the female influence and role model in her life at the moment, and smiled bright, even posing a little, before an idea flashed in her eyes.

 "Ariana,"  she said,  &lt;"Most of these would fit you!"&gt;  she exclaimed, reaching in, grabbing that Nobles Garb and withdrawing it. Standing up, she turned and faced the shorter woman, holding the dress up against her with the happiest looking smile one could wear. In a way, this was her repayment for their kindess.
MrAbdiel
 The crowd of rural Tileans take in your pantomime, conferring among themselves about your meaning.  They have come to no vocal conclusion before you are drawn off to the treasure you spent hours treking in the wilderness to recover - very little in the way of practical things, but what they are indeed are  things you own .  Gaulfredo doesn't reneg on his insistance that the items within are yours to keep, after your help against the goblins and recovering the sacks.  Ariana (and the wise-woman) both look over your collection of crimsons and scarlets, and admire the fairytale finery of the clothes within; but also confer with each other with a sense of nervousness, as if there is something worrisome about this discovery that taints it somehow.  Ariana is overwhelmed with even the suggestion of having what seems to be such an expensive dress near her; but your insistence wears her down to accept atleast the comedy of it; and after some persuasion she holds it up to her front, swishing it a little as if imagining wearing it somewhere such things are worn.

Then she advances on Gaulfredo, her approach a swaying, playful gait; her unintelligible words light with cheek and flirtation.  He acts unphase until she has completed her comical strumpet-walk all the way up to him, and then without warning, as if overcome by lust, seizes her, and carries her over his shoulder while making a break for the house.  She tries to rebuke him, but she is breathless with laughter as she is kidnapped; and Rocco, feeling as though he is lacking some critical understanding of a very fun game in motion, chases them both, barking and desperate for inclusion.  They are all laughing, infact; the wise-woman, and the tinker-man, and Vittorio; even the roadwarden manages a snicker, as he mounts up and kicks his horse into a lazy trot back to the road.  Gaulfredo carries the performance on all the way to the farmhouse and then, for added comedic emphasis, hastilly draws the plain linen curtains in the window before Ariana escapes his villainous grasp and comes back out.  She folds the dress as she goes, and scolds him; but her heart is not in it, and her projection of temper is undercut by her giggling, and the general tone of good feeling left in the air.

It's a good day.

 * * * * * 
A good day turns into a good week.  Your arm has much recovered, faster than you dared hope; still painful, but healing, as long as you don't overly stress it.  Your hosts do not require much of you; they seem to understand that rest is something you have been denied for a long time, and it's something they are happy enough to offer now.

This, inspite of the fact that the week is less good for Gaulfredo.  As the language opens up for you in fragments, you gain a clearer understanding of things; mostly from Vittorio, who is endlessly fascinated with you and in no danger of being bothered by questions.

 Cavallo , it turns out, does indeed merely mean  horse .  The old mare in the barn is  Dahlia ; the slain one who used to occupy the other stall was  Bartolemi .  Bartolemi was the farm's work horse; Dahlia once filled that role, but was now too old for the job.  This is confirmed during the week, when Gaulfredo brings her out of retirement, and rigs her to the one-horse plow to prepare the field.  It's not a particularly big field - not that you have much to compare it to, agriculturally speaking - but it's clear as you watch that Dahlia is hesitant pulling even the plow even to create the shallow breaking of ground required of her.  They try with Gaulfredo guiding the plow from behind and Vittorio walking in front holding the guide lead; but the progress is slow going, and once it is clear they are inflicting pain on the old beast's joints, Gaulfredo cannot bear to pressure her further; and unbridles her.  She wanders on her own back to her stall in the barn; apparently, her favourite place to be.

Vittorio explains.   "Dahlia, she too old.  No plow, no harvest; no harvest, no money; no money, no horse; no horse, no plow."   He explains the conundrum of finances with blissful optimism; an impenetrable expectation that his parents will figure something out.

Later, Gaulfredo finds you; and with a smile that does not show the stress he must be under, he asks you if you'd travel with him.   "We go to Bella Collina, ah?  The village?  Market, ah?" 

The fact that Ariana is comfortable with you travelling with her husband must mean you've worked your way out of that 'threat' category entirely.  And perhaps she is apprehensive to allow Vittorio out on this trip, given what happened last time; but travelling alone, it seems, is ... if not unwise, certainly a needless risk.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Presuming you want to check out the village, what would Taalia bring with her?  Her first opportunity to go anywhere with a market, and people in numbers that may range to the double digits.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia giggled and laughed as she watched the kabuki theatre, the pretend back and forth, Ariana carried off before admonishing her husband in gest, all around at least snickering at the playful banter. This is what family felt like at the best of times, and Taalia laughed along with the others as she enjoyed every moment. While the group enjoyed the little show, Taalia subtly looked at the Wise Woman, saw how she reacted, stood and behaved herself in a group enmeshed in comedy, and she replicated it.

Though others may have noticed the disguise kit, wondering what it was for among a chest full of clothing and a mask...well, Taalia did not speculate as such for now.

 oOo 
As the week rolled on, Taalia tried to help out where she could. Not used to being inactive, and still feeling grateful for the incredible luck that she had receive by being taken in by this small farmers family, Taalia wanted to pull her weight...particularly as she ate even more than Gaulfredo did.

Vittorio, likewise, grew in Taalia's eyes. A week had past since she had been found and ingratiated into the farm and he had not died. That was a good thing. It was also unusual to Taalia, who had been used to seeing kids age not last longer than a week. But now that he had, her internal defences came down and she was noticably warmer with him. Patient too. Very patient. She had never really had 'conversational' partners before, people to talk to about anything that crossed their fancy. In the slave pits, such mirth and winsome enjoyments were not permitted. The Skaven wanted their property constantly anxious and on their toes, unsure whether death would come from a foreman or fellow slave.

But here? Taalia was getting used to and enjoying it. She would indulge his questions, and would go for walks where he would sometimes accompany her. She wanted to see more of the beautiful farm and surrounding forests, to enjoy the sun on her face and breeze through the umbral tops of trees.

Though her left arm was not yet fully healed, Taalia helped where she could. If she saw Gaulfredo attempting some physical labour, she would soon approach, gesturing with her right hand. "Aiuto? Aiuto?" and if he acquiesced, she would assist, unwittingly demonstrating that her years of manual labour had made her rather strong and tough, even for her height.

Ariana also received Taalia's presence as a little helper, though her duties usually involved managing the house and less strenuous, but no less important, growths such as the herb garde, the vegetable patches and the chicken pen. (assuming there is one) Showing a keen interest and good eye for following instructions and gauging measurements, weights and keeping track of time, Taalia also started to help Ariana cook and prepare meals, the girls love for doing so a genuine enjoyment in the action but also the melliferous scents that arose from the kitchen when things went smoothly. She would watch, understood partially the instructions, mentally note the recipes and learned. When she produced a large bowl of red-sauced pasta, complete with tantalising herbs she had gathered from the garden, and the results had been pleasing to those who tried it...well...that was another memory that went into the vault.

But as the week went on Taalia also thought about the horse, and the difficulty its death had now inflicted on the farm. She had seen it die, heard its death neigh. She had also seen that the other goblins were not pleased with the action of their comrade, punishing him severely. When she pondered the concept, it was striking to Taalia the great turns life could take as the result of a single decision and five seconds. The goblin had decided to kill the horse, five seconds later it was dead and now this entire farm faced hard times unless some blessing befell them.

The raiding party that took her from her home all those years ago. The Norscan captain had plotted his route on a map, and just like that, her town was in their crosshairs. A little action led to all these consequences. What if the Norscans had travelled further down the coast? What if they missed her town by even an hour and she and her parents had gone further inwards? What if storms had made their travel unfeasible? A million scenarios, anything to avoid what actually happened, and Taalia spared a thought to where she would be now if those Norscans had failed. Would she be now in her homeland, learning how to cook form her mother, learning how to tend to a field from her father and her hand already promised to the boy of a local family who they would join through marriage? The plight of Gaulfredo, Ariana and Vittorio would never be known to her. Indeed, it would be more than likely Gaulfredo would have perished facing the goblins, his son returning to Ariana, whom would now have to face the years ahead as a widow and without beasts of burden to manage the farm. What would have been their fate if that Norscan captain had not plotted his route past Taalia's village and taken her from the burning frames of her home?


When Gaulfredo informed her of the departure, Taalia grinned brightly. Her hair now well groomed, regaining its natural texture after years of neglect in the pits, the flush of health across her sunny features, she would nod.

 "Yes, would like much!"  she would answer in her broken Tilean, though even learning as much in a week was an impressive effort.

When asked what she would bring, she wasted little time in bringing the mirror and holding it up. She also had folded the three sets of good womens clothes she had discovered in the chest, and  if Ariana had graciously declined the offer of the Nobles garb  the expensive looking noble lady's outfit was there too.

 "Precious, yes?"  she gestured to the assembled items.

She physically paused for a second, blue-and-green eyes up as she was thinking out her next sentence.

 "Trade for new Cavallo. Or...trade for new..."  she paused, eyes drifting off as she thought. Then she brought both hands up to her head and held her index and middle finger on each one up to form a pair of horns, then gestured to the fields as if walking through it. It was discernible she was talking about an ox - trading the items for an ox that would be able to haul the equipment to plow the fields.

The way she spoke was cute more than anything, but it was clear her simple sounding self only  sounded  that way because of her very limited vocabulary and control over the sentence structure.

Also, it would not escape Gaulfredo's notice that on the day of travel, Taalia had gotten into the cosmetics kit she found in her chest, and had used the mirror. She was no professional, so had kept things simple, but a little shade there, a pinch of color there, and her hair well groomed, she came along nicely. Why would she be doing that on the day they were going to town, to be around others? It was a mystery.

ooc:
 
 Spoiler 

Taalia will bring the mirror (it's about 30gc as per quality and item, though I'm not expecting her to get it), the three sets of good womens clothing (about 9gc) and, if Ariana had not taken Taalia up on her offer of receiving the dress, then she'll take the nobles garb too (50gc). That's about 89 gold crowns in value. Now keep in mind I'm not rules-lawyering or anything saying you must value it at this Mr GM the rules say so! I'm just using these numbers as a general frame of reference for the setting, and I'm not expecting strict adherence to them hah.

She doesn't even have to trade for currency, but looking at page 119 of the core rulebook, there's a variety of livestock she could trade them for in equivalent value. The most obvious one is an ox or a draft horse.

Others include a large number of chickens, or sheep, or a few cows, or pigs even.

A pedigree dog is also 3gc, maybe she'll get a puppy lol.
Or a kitten for a shilling.
 
MrAbdiel
 With a broken conversation after the fact and a second offer, Ariana accepts the gift.  It's a beautiful garment - make of fine sheer silken elements that is nicer than anything she has ever owned.  She models it once for you, and Gaulfredo and Vittorio.  Gaulfredo is appropriately gobsmacked - though he seems the type to have act that way even if he wasn't.  Vittorio remarks on it warmly, and his juvenile praise, however he says it, is highly prized by his mother.  But after that, the dress is carefully put away in her room, hidden amongst her things; waiting, perhaps forever, for an occasion worthy of its wearing.  Her gratitude and rapid warming to you is discernible - you are very welcome in the kitchen, and the things you show preference to on the table seem to crop up more often and in larger volumes.

Your idle pondering about the death of the horse Bartolemi yields more questions than answers.  Goblins are strange creatures, and you know them less well than the ratmen; but do they practice animal husbandry?  Did they intend to use the horse for something else, which their shortsighted member failed to grasp?  The seemed happy enough to eat it.  Why did they scold and punish the one who did the most necessary preparation for that eating - the slaughtering?  The answers are not immediate.  Something about the way the horse's legs were stacked to one side, and all the gorged meat taken from the body and head, suggests some missing element to the picture.

 * * * * * 
Gaulfredo looks over the assembled items, hand rubbing his chin thoughtfully.  He seems confident enough that there is value there, for sure; but when you begin advocated to use some of it to trade  for his benefit , for the farm's benefit, he shies back and holds up his hands, and does his best to deflect.  It's too much, you don't owe anything, and so on and so on; he wheels out a variety of excuses, but in truth, he could use the break; and you wear him into a kind of 'well we'll see' acquiescence.  Between this, and the dress given to Ariana, you begin to understand a subtlety of the Tilean's culture: meaningful gifts seem to only be given through a gauntlet of strenuous objection.  You'd refine that thought over time to understand it: it's a kind of face-saving gesture, a loose ritual that allows the giver not to seem frivolous with valuable things, and the receiver not to seem unappreciative or greedy in receiving them.  It must be tiring to have to pretend to decline things you want - what if the person mistakes your performance for genuine declination, and withdraws?  How do you signal you  don't  want the given thing and that your own declination is real?  It must require practice, to become automatic.  You barely remember gift-giving in your former life; and the rats and their slaves certainly did not have any problem with feeling greedy when they had the opportunity to claim something.  Perhaps this is just what people do, when left in peace; they develop these interesting little complexities in how they interact, so that every relationship has not only an exchange of information or power, but also a kind of rhythm.

When it comes time to go, he does not remark on the makeup you've chosen to wear aside from a curious little narrowing of one eye.  Ariana doesn't seem to wear any - she has already bagged her man, the only one for a mile in any direction, and seems happy with her purchase.  But he doesn't seem bothered by it; and looking out to the road as you step onto it, smirks a little as he guesses  whom  it might really be for.

Gaulfredo has a laden backpack on, when you go; and seems well used to carrying it along himself, even if he has been more recently accustomed to driving a cart.  Lashed to the back of it is the pickaxe taken from the goblins; and over its top laying on its side is the flail that had visited them most grievously.  The rest of the pack is full of candles, a few matches, and other odds and ends; and a side pocket with treats for Rocco, who comes along for the journey.  He lends you a belt, with a hook on it; and after awling a hole in the handle of your looted club for you, the weapon swings merrily from your hip as you walk.

You set out early; and the plan is to make it to  Bella Collina  by the end of the day, and spend the night there; back the next day.  The road is the same you came to the the farm upon - if you had blundered west through the forest, you might have come to the road; and turning north, made your way into the village proper with your scars and wordless desperation.  As it stands, you head there now a little more sure of yourself; full of stomach, bright of eye, rested and with some wealth to your name - hopefully, soon to be made liquid.  You have no experience trading anything like this, and your grasp of money is as loose as a child's; but Gaulfredo has seen you through before, and may again.

Now that you have a cursory grasp of the language - enough of it to pass time bumbling through conversation - Gaulfredo's rambling on your walk is discernable (atleast, with a few clarifying questions and slow repetitions and rephrasing.)  He tells you about his family - his father Micheluccio, and his mother Perse.  He was born well to the north, in a place called Trantio, which he assures you is also beautiful.  He moved to his mother's homeland, Verezzo (apparently the region in which you presently reside), when he was fourteen; rented a plot of land of a local land baron and purchased it after a few fruitful seasons harvesting wheat.  His parents were very fruitful, too - he has two older brothers, Rambertuccio and Ranuccio, and an older sister, Osana, all of whom are back in Trantio.  Their farm in the Trantine Hills could not sustain so many offspring; and the burden fell on the youngest to strike out and make life elsewhere. Thus Gaulfredo and his younger sister Fenicia started the homestead upon which he lives now; and Fenicia married a young man named Polo de Mirici who would become the village's clerk and make a decent life for the two in Bella Collina itself.  It's their hospitality you are relying on, when you arrive.

He asks you questions, too; but with mostly terrible stories about life underground to tell, he fills the air mostly with his own pleasant palaver to save discomfort for both of you.  You walk down the road for  six hours, with some short pauses.  At once point, a strange woman passes by you on horseback; giving the pair of you a cool and untelling look as she goes.  Gaulfredo pulls to the edge of the road, as if she needed it, as she goes, and offers no cheer or wave to her.  Her broad rimmed, dark hat and cloak mark her as mysterious; but you pick out the more unusual features without trouble as she passes.  Big irises so dark they seem black, dominating the eyes; and ears tapered to points at the top.  An  elf , Gaulfredo explains; strange people from far away who sometimes do business with the big coastal cities; and sometimes strike out on their own for other reasons.  He does not have much to say about them - he knows as much as you do, vaguely recalling the exotic allies that you were told visited the city near to where you were born.

You pass by the place where you emerged from the woods on that fateful night, and further by to the point where you are sure the troll's cave is well behind you; and then Gaulfredo leads you to the woods, where a sign nailed into a tree advises - he tells you without reading it - that the stream comes close to the road here, and it's a good place to stop for lunch.  He takes from his pack rectangular wooden frame that is lined with knotted string netting, expands it to its open form on nifty wooden hinges, and places it in the water of the small creek that has peeled off the main stream that you are familiar with, apparently further in.  The wood is lighter here; you can still see the road sunlit behind you, along with the blackbirds who return to peer at you again and make their conspiratorial chirps to each other.

Gaulfredo hands you a hunk of bred, and a wedge of soft cheese from his pack; takes the same for himself; and waits for the fish to swim into the trap.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
No event on the road so far!  If you have any questions about the world, or the region, or Gaulfredo and his kith and kin, or anything you think he might be able to answer now that you are capable of sort-of asking, you can do so now.

Also, give me a flat Intelligence roll for the week as you learn the language.  After you've accumulated three successes this way, I'll consider you conversant, and you can learn the language for free.
 

 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia enjoyed the walk, for it was the longest she had moved away from the farm since she first arrived. Her first trek into nature had been through the untamed forest outside of that cave, and though it had had its beauty it also contained hidden dangers, such as the trolls den and the four goblins. But on this cleared and patrolled path through the beautiful sunny landscape of Tilea. The girl carried her things in that slingpack and any other bag that was provided. Gaulfredo might have noted, or not been surprised by, the ease with which she took to the procedure. Given her athletic stature and her life of labour, carrying a moderate load across a gentle road was one of the easiest physical exertions she could perform, as even hours into their trek she didn't seemed phased, her smile still present as she rubbernecked her eyes around the scenery unfolding around them. The windswept green fields, the natural beauty of the forests, the songs of the birds they passed and that sun smothering her in a warm embrace. Taalia wouldn't have been surprised if Gaulfredo had've turned to her and spoke truthfully that she had died back in those tunnels with an assassins blade between her shoulders, but that this was the afterlife the gods deemed fit to reward her with.

But of course, no such mystical revelation came. For all of his salt-of-the-earth sensibilities, Gaulfredo was no hidden agent of the divine sent to withdraw the curtains on the illusion after easing her into the afterlife. He was just a man. A man with a long family story to tell, which Taalia enjoyed discerning and piecing together in her head. She couldn't understand all of it, but pieced together that he was the youngest male of the family, and financial situations required that he and his younger sister fly the nest, so to speak, only for them to end up where they are now. Through committed and persistent work, Gaulfredo bettered himself, expanded his holdings and fostered a small family of his own. His sister, meanwhile, Fenicia, had moved into the graces of a respectable partner in the town to which they were heading. It was quite a story and Taalia enjoyed listening to it. The idea that people moved about as they wished and  owned  their own property was so foreign to her. For over a decade  she  had been the property, her labour the benefit of someone else, while all she counted as hers in the world were rags on her body and whatever food she could scrounge from the pits. Possessing something, having it for herself and using that to acquire even more things...that was momentous to her. Hearing Gaulfredo's story as they walked, sometimes Taalia would zone him out - not deliberately out of boredom. But rather because her mind wandered, because his tale of migration, settlement, acquisition and expansion prompted the question: could she do that?

Surely she could now, couldn't she?

This was the first question she asked him, when given the chance. It took several attempts, of course, because it wasn't so much the words but the confirmation of a concept that lay behind them. For any Tilean such an idea was easy and self-evident, but for Taalia who had spent a decade as a brutalised slave who owned nothing, it was not a natural idea. She'd seen the prosperous members of the Skaven own things, trade warpstone tokens for items and objects, but she'd never even considered that  she  could posses things.

Though the questions he asked often had answers that all stemmed from her time in the pits, thus serving to collectively highlight the miserable and wretched conditions under which she had toiled, Taalia spoke of them as if they came from a past lifetime, because in may ways they did. She had meant what she had promised herself when she first entered the forest after the escape: she'd go down swinging if the ratmen had tried to catch her. Emerging out into the blinding light and beautiful forest after servitude to those vile creatures in that pit had been like a condemned soul clawing its way back into its former body and lurching to life, reborn with a second chance acquired and determined to be better spent.

When they stop, Taalia nods as she receives the food,  "Gracias,"  she says gently, as her blue-and-green eyes curiously watched upon the little fish trap Gaulfredo had planted. It was obvious to her how the mechanism worked, but sitting by that stream with the wind rustling the tall trees around them, she enjoyed the process all the same.
MrAbdiel
  "Gratzi." 

Gaulfredo corrects you, jovially; enunciating the word for your benefit.   "Gracias is gratzi in Estalia.  But Estalians are pompous, and you might meet ten of them before you find one capable of honest Tilean gratitude."
 
He goes on for a short while about Estalians and their relationship to Tileans.  Estalia seems to be a land far to the west; and Tileans, or atleast Gaulfredo, does not like them very much. You gather they have some kind of disagreement about one of their gods; beyond that, the language is a little to specific to take in without an extended session of careful communication, and informative pantomime.

Rocco works his way closer to where you sit over a few minutes, cunning in his caution, and then plops himself half in your lap to harvest your precious, precious attention while Gaulfredo checks the trap. The net has snagged four fish; none longer than your hand from wrist to fingertips, and maybe half as wide.  They have ceased to wriggle out of the water; but when he selects the two smallest, he gives each of them a kiss on their scaly sides, and tosses them back into the water where, after a moment's floating, they animate again and vanish downstream, relishing their luck.  The other two are not so fortunate, but their purpose is more noble.  He shears off their small fins, scales them and guts them so quickly the action seems almost trivial, and washes them in the stream a final time before laying them on a plate of salt and ground pepper laid out a moment before; and after seasoning them them, finally, cooking them over a small fire, the kindling for which you gather.  You learn that Rocco also helps, in this way - when asked quite simply to  gettastick , he hares off into the trees and returns with a stick that, with some persuasion, can be shifted out of service as a trophy, and into service as firewood.

Gaulfredo laments that he has no lemon or butter, but the little fish is a fine enough complement to the now gone cheese and bread; and after a lean meal and a little cleaning up, you are once again on your way.  You pass no more travellers on the road; and no goblins harangue you from the forest's edge.  Your fortune holds, and as the sun dips toward the rolling hills and scattered clusters of trees to the west, the road finally gets you where you are going -  Bella Collina .

The last leg of the journey is uphill, and you pass a few modest homes as you near the village centre. Four homes, this way; all with large barns and two with tall silos; and similar numbers to the west and east, where a road that crosses yours leads towards the intersection that serves as the centre of the community. There can't be more than a dozen so buildings in the village itself; so there might be as few as thirty people who live here; but from how far out you came from Gaulfredo's farm, this little hub must service three or four or more times as many farmers scattered across the countryside.  This is the time of afternoon when people are typically packing up, preparing to sleep away the dark hours and rise in the lit ones; but the village is alive with activity.  In the middle of the crossroads, there the junction flares out into a broad, dirt and gravel town square, a bonfire crackles and jumps.  There must be forty people here, at least; and ten children of varying heights that you can see, though distant squeals suggest there are more.  Four men, marked out as some kind of attendants facilitating this event by yellow bandanas wrapped over their hair and left with trailing tails behind them, are lighting lanterns, and standing torches to keep the whole square illuminated.  Men and women are setting up tables and chairs around the perimeter of the square; and the electricity of anticipation hangs over the event palpably.

But the village itself is very new to you, even if this festivity wasn't occuring; and your eyes mark the prominent buildings in the square.  There is a large, well made estate house with two stories and a host of lovely flowers at its front - the home of someone important, you must imagine.  Two other buildings of note grab your eye - one, a steepled hall of pale wood whose sides are dotted with artwork made from carved wooden panels, with hemp-rope frames.  And two; not a building at all, but a kind of shrine.  Stones are stacked and mortared  into a tall, open faced half-dome that, at its peak, might be ten feet tall.  You wonder how they got the sides to stand up, waiting for the keystones at the top of the half-dome to hold it together.  But more than that, you wonder at the bronze statue within; cared for enough that it is not discoloured except in the cracks of its details.  A warrior woman, with armored calves, and forearms, and with a breastplate molded to her feminine shape above a skirt made of strips of something loose, but sufficiently concealing down to her knees.  In one hand, she holds a spear; the other, a shield; and the helm on her head bears a tall crest that runs from the front of the hairline to the back of the neck. The helm itself on the statue is tipped back, revealing a pretty but serenely distant countenance.  What is most remarkable to you us the woman is as tall as you.  Not just the statue - that would be one thing.  But the scale of her, the length of limbs and the posture in which she is rendered, suggest a depiction of a woman as physically imposing as you.

 "Ah; it is  Guizzo Marea.   After all that had happened, I had quite forgot." 

Someone starts playing music, somewhere in the crowd; a jaunting, enticing shuttle of bow on string that elicits a whoop from the crowd, as if now things would begin in earnest.

You have made it to  Bella Collina ; just in time for Flicker-Tide.
 
 
 Spoiler: OOC 
Loving seeing so much of Taalia's development as she adapts to and thinks about the surface world.  But now a new experience - people, and lots of them.  It's a party!  With only the foggiest memory of attending a wedding once, your memory of parties is... let's say, sparse.  The last event you attended with a bonfire was a norse sacrifice ritual - but this is nothing like that (unless you decided one of your phobias is bonfires.)

How does Taalia act, in such a situation?  Run off to find answers and meet people; keep calm and ask questions?  Or simply not know what to do, and mind the excited Rocco?
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


"Gratzi," came the gentle correction.

 "Gratzi!"  Taalia nodded, that smile still there.

Rocco found a warm lap with the girl, but by now Taalia was onto his tricks. She eyed him with a smirk and skeptical eye, knowing as soon as she fed him a bit of fish and bread his affection would no longer be so forthcoming.  Manipulative dog.

 "Just want food..."  she snickered, watching the eyes of the dog somehow expanding as he peered up at her pitifully. His heart-string tugging efforts were soon rewarded as he desired, with a bit of the caught fish, cheese and bread. Tail wagging, happy, he proceeded to roll in dirt on his back, before they all soon got underway.

The arrival at the village was a brand new experience for her. The people were numerous, the sound of early festivities in the air with the scent of roasting walnuts, sweets, pastries and music. Taalia was no stranger to groups of people, the slave pens had a constantly arriving stream of them. Nor would she ever forget the foul, hideous pit within which the Skaven had conducted their black ritual to summon that... thing  in the bowels of the earth. But this could not be further removed from that blasphemous desecration. Here people were happy. They were speaking jovially, dressed in a beautiful riot of colorful outfits with little dancing circles gathering around the scattered musicians while children and adult alike seemed to be enjoying themselves.

But there were an awful lot of them.

Taalia's former eagerness to arrive seemed to be shrinking within her as she gazed upon the large crowd, her towering image slinking closer to Gauldfredo as if she could half-hide behind him while peering curiously over his shoulder at the festival. Her shy disposition diminished somewhat when she came upon that statue, the rest of the world seeming to disappear as she became singularly focused on what looked like herself captured as a statue, brandishing armor and weapons and captured in a magnificent pose of strength and intelligence. It was a striking image and one that seized her attention and held it for a good long while - so much so that Gaulfredo had to gently tug upon her shoulder to snap her out of the daze. Issuing a few doubtless teasing words with a friendly smile, his eyes on her, then up at the statue, then back at her. "Tua sorella?" he snickered.

With the spell seemingly broken and only giving the statue a quick look over her shoulder as they moved on, Taalia held the excitable Rocco close by her side as a deep-seated, but long buried anxiety chewed at her nervous system. There were so many people. The scent of sweets and pastries was aromatically delicious. THe gentle strum of festive music brought small smiles to her face and seeing so many children enjoying themselves with compatriots while their parents remained at a watchful distance continued it. But there was something eating away at her esteem, something worming into the back of her head that caused her to stay unusually close to Gaulfredo's side, even bringing up a hand to rest for assurance on his elbow.

Despite this seemingly demure and bashful state, the curiosity in Taalia's eyes and the small smiels rising across her lips communicated that she wanted to be there. She'd just need a little time to adjust to the over-stimulation.
MrAbdiel
 This cluster of humanity, fortunately for the nebulous discomfort in your gut, seems more than happy to be self-occupied in what transpires. This means they do not react as a mass to you - though they might, under other circumstances.  You are, certainly, the tallest woman here.  Perhaps the tallest person - the middle aged fellow sawing at a viola may be your height, though he is seated for his performance so it's hard to say.  Beyond that, you're distinct in another way - while the citizens of Bella Collina have skintones ranging from Gaulfredo's light tan to the swarthier brown of some the violist, your own skin is pale.  Not the bleached ivory of the Northfolk you once served, but a fair hue with even a dusting of pink where the sun has bitten at you earlier n the week.  You are a stranger, here; but the firelight  as the dusk gives up the sun does wonders to bridge some of the divide, and soon you're another form picked out in oranges and half-moon silver like the rest.

Flicker-Tide, Gaulfredo tells you as you hover at the perimeter of the festivity, is a local tradition to Bella Collina.  One of the town's favorite sons travelled to the distant Empire of Sigmar to learn at their magical schools, and returned a fledgeling wizard many years ago.  When he came, he brought an assortment of mysterious powders that burn strange colors.  The whole town was so amazed - with a few naysayers intractably worried about magic, despite their knowledge of the local lad - that they made a tradition out of it.  Each year, at a half-moon in springtime, they host a feast, and a dance; ostensibly, to celebrate travellers who journey far and then come home.  The original event was some twenty years ago; and the wizard is now a court mage for a merchant prince in the city of Verezzo itself; but he keeps the village supplied with 'spark bags', at request.  You get to witness the highlight of the evening - little cloth bags of what feels like gravel are sold at two pennies a bag.  Some of the impatient children throw them into the fire early, resulting in a flash of colour (mostly blues and greens) and a sustained flare of a clue or green flame that reverts to its typical orange after four or five seconds.  After an hour of taking the event at leisurely pace - you have walked all day after all, and watching the people enjoy themselves from the comfort of a blanket to one side is not uninviting - then the wisewoman you met once before calls the assembly to order.  Her name is Madre Angeletta, so you've learned; and she conducts a prayer with raised hands that calls for wanderers to be drawn home in safety; and then absolves the people (children especially) of their restrain.  There is a bombardment of the bags onto the fire; perhaps a hundred, mostly launched by the children.  And the rainbow of colours that flicker and flash from the bonfire is something to behold. Gaulfredo throws one in, too - the fire from it turns out to be scarlet red, and he seems happy enough with that result.  Only Rocco seems not to enjoy the flicker-fires; the flashes, and the smells, are all quite a lot for him; and he requires Gaulfredo's attending scritching to bear him through the event.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You can spend 2p for a bag, up to three; and roll a D7 for each, to determine where in the standard ROYGBIV array the color comes out, 1 being Red, 7 being Violet. You might interpret the results as you will!
 


The acrid, chemical smell hangs in the air in low, thick smoke immediately after; and the four bandana'd workers you'd noticed before get to work fanning the cloud away with big cotton sails suspended in wooden V's.  Notable individuals in the array of assembled people includes the old tinker, Maso Cestié, though Signore Cestié may be appropriate for the older gent; he declines the circle-dance around the bonfire that is kicking up, but sits on a barrel beside the violist, tapping his foot and waffling to the very distracted musician.  And the road warden, Bertuccio, is present too; sans horse, apparently waiting with arms folded for someone to become too drunk and require escort to the pavilion erected just north west of the ring of buildings, for the visitors.  Strangest of the people assembled is a dwarven fellow - you have seen one such creature taken as a slave; but after his beard was cut by his captors, he became lethargic, useless as a prisoner, and was beaten to death without protest.  The squat, thick limbed little man seems to be having a good time like most of the others - he claps and cheers when everyone else does, and tries to provoke conversation with the other revellers; but it seems to taper off.  Either people struggle to relate to the dark bearded mountain-kinsman, or he is an odious conversationalist.  Everyone knows him, though.  "Nogrom", Gaulfredo tells you.   "He has been in the village since I arrived; his plot is off the north road, on the way to the Pavona.  Barley and hops, mostly; brews ale, sometimes; but does not sell much of it." 

After the smoke is cleared, and the gabble of conversation is moving on, the dancing begins in earnest.  It begins with two loose rings of dancers around the bonfire; men on the inside, women on the outside, reversing at intervals after some simple enough steps toward and beside and around a partner.  The rings rotate opposite directions, changing partners, then swap inside and outside with each pairing; and at a final acceleration of the music, they merge into a single ring large enough for the dancers to hold hands and gallop sideways, twelve steps left, twelve steps right, while those not dancing chant for them in singsong lilting voices:  Spark-a-dark, dov'è il mio sire? Mi poserò? Rimarrò? Benedici questo campo con il fuoco! 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
  Depending on how much interacting you want to do, there's things to do!

For 2cp, you can try the local festival food - feel free to describe it, this whole tandem operation is working out great.

If you pass a flat WP roll, you can join the dance.  A subsequent agility roll at +20 to intuit and follow along will mean you pick up the basics - it's an accessible folk dance, so no Perform: Dancer required here.

As above, for 2cp per bag, you can buy up to three spark bags and yeet them into the bonfire.

For free, you can engage with the children who will be immediately fascinated by your height and want to show you off to each other, perhaps finally inviting you to a game of  nascondino .

Finally, you can make a gossip roll to check in with the people you've met, and/or to meet the people you don't know, like the dwarf Nogrom and the violist.  Feel free to mention any and all of the folks you want to check in with - you can do it all in one post, to save us a million back and forths; a little interspersed gossip montage never hurt noone.  For each person you are going to gossip with past the first, you can add +10% to your effective Gossip roll.

 Any and all of these things, presuming they go well enough, may endear you to the people of Bella Collina. 

And then, after all that interaction is done, please make me a WP check - with a -5% penalty for every social thing you've done - buying food from the vendors, dancing, playing, engaging in the flicker-flame ritual, and for each person you gossiped with.

The outcome of this roll won't be hair-pulling terror; but it may be lingering challenge.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Once Taalia had gradually acclimatised to the increased number of people, she hovered a little further away from Gaulfredo and gravitated towards the periphery of the crowded centre, which allowed her to participate at a gentle distance. In some ways it was oddly comical, this towering late teenager, her fairer skin, heterochromia blue-green-eyes and scar across her face...the phrase 'stuck out like a tall person at a midget convention' might have been fitting, if a bit condescending, were it not for a few of the men that were close to her height, and one seemingly at it. As if she could hide in the crowd! As a young woman woman emerging onto a social scene, Taalia was noticing it more and more. Ariana was more than a foot shorter than Taalia was. The wise woman had likewise not even come up to Taalia's shoulders. And then seeing more of the population around them, she felt awkward, almost. Though her movements were fluid and she had been developing a natural long stride and gait, seeing the typical Tilean woman being a friendly-looking, dark haired woman almost a foot and a half shorter than her, hammered home that Taalia truly was a foreigner, a fact that was only accentuated whenever she tried to speak with her broken Tilean. Where-ever she had come from, the rat-men had taken her far, far away.

But no matter. The music was beautiful, the gentle choir of happiness intoxicating, the odiferous melange of roasted chesnuts, bakery produce, sweet fruits, ales and ciders that all wafted past the girls nostrils and threaten to unseat the moorings of her apprehension, so that she may cast herself out deeper into the crowd. Like a lost foal slowly inspecting a new herd of deer with cautionary curiosity, Taalia slowly ingratiated herself and mingled.

Her first stop was a stall upon which were arrayed a mouther-watering variety of amber-and-gold pastries. Ariana's cooking was descended from heaven, but these little things must have been the prototype, because Taalia came to a halt before them as if an invisible anchor had suddenly been tossed from her waist. Her eyes wide, mouth slightly agape, as he inhaled softly as she peered across the selection with her elevated perspective, her presence startling the small old woman behind the counter who had to crane her neck back to meet Talia's gaze.

"Un albero si è sradicato da solo e ha deciso di visitarlo?" she chuckled softly to herself, adjusting her glasses.

Taalia didn't understand, but she gathered from the elderly amusement that it was something gentle at least.

Perusing the selection, Taalia settled on a longer one; a pastry tube that contained meat within it, as she pointed to it excitedly.

Receiving the piece of food straight onto her left hand, Taalia inhaled over lightly oiled, crisp sensation, as she paid the lady her two pennies.

 "Gratzi!"  she said enthusiastically, which seemed to make the older woman smile.

It was a sausage roll, and it was amazing.

 oOo 

Surprisingly, Taalia wasn't as impressed with the sparkle bag as her Tilean hosts might think. She  appreciated  them, certainly, and when she watched a group of children giggle and squeal in excitement as they tossed one onto the fire, only for it to blossom into a plume of green sparks, Taalia grinned from ear to ear as her fondess for the diminutive people grew and grew. It was just that she'd seen so much more advanced in the Skaven pits. Not that the sparkle bag was  trying  to be advanced. But when the last piece of technology you threw was a poisoned wind-globe that killed a room full of ratmen, it was hard hard to top that with pretty glitter.

Nevertheless, Taalia bought one, handing over another two pennies and tucked it away in a belt.

"Oh! Aspetto! Uno straniero!"

She turned around at the high-pitched voice, her eyes settling on the forms of a group of children that had gathered about her when she had been distracted buying that sparkle-bag.

"È un gigante delle montagne!"

Taalia didn't know exactly what they were saying, but when the other kids giggled while staring up at her, a mixture of fear and curiosity in their little eyes, Taalia felt a youthful maternal instinct bubble up within her. It would have been easy for her to simply kick the boy and thus rid herself of their presence...but she just didn't want to.

She guessed that with their postures and attitudes, they were a little scared of her.

 "Ah..!"  she gasped, kneeling down and bringing herself closer to their height. As she did this, she brought both her hands up and formed pretend claws, splaying her fingers outs - but between that demonstration was her obviously playful, pretty face and grin.

She uttered something in broken Tilean, as she reached forward and nabbed the boy under his shoulders with one hand, and tickled his tummy with the other.

He giggled.

It had worked with Rocco. Taalia had guessed right!

She then tucked her other hand under his arm and started to stand up. The boy kicked his feet as he laughed and squealed in mirth as he went higher...and higher...and higher...Taalia hoisting him above her head easily, her arms and height elevating the child to eight and a half feet off the ground - his whole body and head above the crowd as she looked around, laughing and kicking his feet around. Slowly, Taalia started to pivot on the spot - drawing the boy around as if she were a living merri-go-round. As the bravest lad to approach her, he enjoyed thrills, as his childish excitement was a torrent of giggles and squealing, before the towering teenager placed him gently down on his feet as he laughed.

The other kids were grinning, their little faces alight with exhilaration as they suddenly surged forward - all with their little arms out stretched, wanting to be next.

 oOo 

The dwarf had been a source of fascination for Taalia, had she had finally received the chance to speak to him.

Or at least try to. That would be the theme of the day.  Try to .

When he was seated, she approached. She wore her friendly smile on her scared face as she did so, though once again her height became even more apparent as she struggled to hear him, let alone understand him.

 "Pleased to meet!"  she was say warmly, hoping to receive a similar return. She did. Kind of. The dwarf tried to speak to her, he seemed happy that someone had approached  him  for once, even if she could barely vocalise her thoughts.

She did, however, soon point with interest to the kegs he had with him and the cider.

 oOo 

Like Ariana, Madre Angeletta filled a feminine role model position within Taalia's current understanding of life, one that was even more senior than her younger host. That Madre was one to stand up before a crowd and announce the beginning of festivities suggested she was of some local prominence, and that her word was respected. Clearly, then, if Taalia was to be a woman in this land, then Madre was one to emulate.

The tall girl had finished speaking with the dwarf when she happened upon the chance to share some words with Madre. Having known her from earlier, clearly, Taalia didn't feel as awkward, but the language barrier was still a problem.

 "Pleased to meet!"  she announced friendly-like, not yet making the distinction that the phrase was for the first time people met, rather than a regular greeting. Then again, it had only been a week since she had started to try and learn, so even that was impressive in itself.

 "Thank you, my arm, get better!"  she held her left arm up. Though covered in the cloth of her outfit, the exertion it had performed earlier with hoisting the giggling children around suggested that her recovery was well on the way, and though painful, the initial wound had been a relatively clean puncture.

Thus their conversation started...

 oOo 
Though she had not gone out of her way to visit him, Taalia came across Maso Cestié during her wandering, her eyes widening at the side of him as she brought her right hand up to wave, almost goofily.

She would hurry over, wearing that bright smile,  "Pleased to meet!" , as she leaned across to give the older man a kiss on the cheek in greeting before pulling back, clearly intending her action to have been one of affectionate greeting rather than anything more seedy.

She hoped it was in greeting. She had seen it exchanged numerous times between other adults, and it was the thing to do, yes? She assured herself.


 oOo 
The man with the violin had played some beautiful music, the otherworldly sound unlike anything Taalia had heard before. But, her eyes drifted to someone else that was sitting watchfully near the entertainer, as the girl suddenly straightened up, drawing a handful of her now more aptly groomed hair back behind her ear. Her cosmetics touch had been light in mirror with her experience, but even still, her fair-skinned, angular features contrasted with her hetereochromatic blue-green eyes, and the scar that ran down from forehead to cheek over one of them.

Approaching, Taalia smiled and offered a little wave to Bertuccio, the faintest of blushes across her cheek as she also nodded.


 "Pleased to meet!"  she greeted, her voice a little higher than other conversations.

 "Thank you for seeing the...other...day"  she continued, her pauses moments of visibly thinking about how to convey what she wanted to say.

 "I speak! Just little. Learning,"  she beamed brightly.

 oOo 

When the time came to toss the sparkle-bags onto the fire, Taalia had little trouble. She waited, predicting off prior observation that the little ones would rush to the opportunity, given their youthful excitations. She was not wrong, as the flurry of little sacks were tossed forward into that burning pyre, the air around it blasting to life with a shower of multi-colored sparks that, when joined with the exuberant giggles and squeals of the children, drew even a smirk across the most composed adult present.

When the coiling plumes of glitter slowly receded, Taalia spotted her chance and tossed her own forward, the little sack turning about in the air before impacting against that crackling fire and exploding in a fount of golden yellow sparks. Though she had handled more lethal objects, which had also resulted in death, the girl smiled as the amber firecrackers detonated, the colour reflected in her eyes as she watched the aerial tinsel explode to life and slowly dematerialise.
MrAbdiel
 The mothers of the children form clusters at intervals throughout the little festival; and at any given time while you are hoisting them, atleast one of them is watching you.  They intuitively rotate their vigil between themselves; but perhaps it is a good parent who watches the children with a stranger; but judges wisely to find her no danger.  Some of them even offer you encouraging smiles; but none approach you to speak directly.  They prefer to talk about you, instead of to you.

 ***** 
Nogrom, once you sit to speak, is first astounded at you, then almost pitifully pleased to have someone listening to him.  But the fact of his native accent, and the truth that he seems to keep unconciously dropping into and out of atleast two other languages you don't know in the slightest, makes meaningful communication impossible.  You spot prompts where his intonation rises, apparently expecting something; and a nervous positively enforcing smile seems to be the key each time, that leads to a ragged guffaw and then what you assume is a gesture of physicalised endearment - an open palmed shove to your shoulder, almost firm enough to knock you off your chair.  This happens three or four times between strings of rambling until he has let of enough pent-up need to be 'heard' that he settles down some, and seems to relax.  The violist, nearby, catches your eye midsong and gives you a plaintive, thankful grimace.  If nothing else, you have taken the pressure off  him  to be the dwarf's situational friend, for a window of needed recovery.

 ***** 
Madre Angeletta is better equipped to understand you; and considerably less inebriated than the dwarf.   "Ah, Taalia - look at you, look at you" .  She proceeds to take her own advice, looking at you; the good to your person that a little more than a week of blissful freedom and sunlit, spaghetti fuelled living has done.  She seems almost  proud ; certainly pleased to hear your report about your arm.  "Is good, is good.  Here - for you, this one.  For you, this one."

 This one , in this case, is another pastry; which she seems to insist on purchasing for you.  You make a good guess, at the interaction - a gentle attempt to refuse before permitting her the chance to be generous, and the whole thing goes very well.  She seems pleased to have done something in spite of your attempted humility; and you have eaten what seemed to be another sausage roll, but is in fact willed not with sausage but some kind of mild, almost liquid cheese and shredded dark green vegetables which, together, make a fine filling indeed.  She works hard to understand you, and mostly succeeds, and vice versa; but before you are parted, she entrusts you with a message:  "You tell Gaulfredo that Adolpho look for him; he can be roped." 
 Can be roped  is an idiom you can't for the life of you understand, neither have you met an Adolpho; but you are thusly charged, and Madre Angeletta hustles off with a pat to your back.

 ***** 
Signore Cestié recognizes you, and seems surprised and amused to see you out and about.  He rises from his seat to meet you, but your kiss of greeting seems to catch him off guard.  You've read the gesture wrong, maybe - is it only for people who know each other well?  Does it not work, if the woman is taller? Is there some other secret meaning to it?  Fortunately, he does not seem offended; just off guard.  He plays it off by fanning his face, and looking to a few of the gents nearby who saw the interaction, giving them a look as if to suggest disbelief in his fanciful fortune to receive such a peck.  He is not as good as the Madre at the hard effort of having a conversation over an only partially broken language barrier; but he does point out to you one of the buildings around the town square.  It has a hanging wooden shingle, and some script on it you don't comprehend; but there is a woodburned image of a masonry saw crossed against a farrier's hammer.  His shop, perhaps?  But then it's his turn to mind the drunk and babbling dwarf; and the old timer takes that bullet so you don't have to, sending you off with a blown kiss, rather than a delivered one.

 ***** 
Bertuccio sees you approach.  He doesn't smile - he doesn't seem to offer those easilly - but nods and squints through your fractured greeting.   "Good.  Good learning." 

A seemingly sincere compliment, but it doesn't leave you much to go off from.  He doesn't seem to notice the make up you've put on; he has, while addressing you, the expression of a man who is waiting with much patience for someone to reveal their real intention; as if you were going to ask him a favour, or a direction, and this was preamble rather than a sincere effort to better get to know the roadwarden.

Practical.  Quiet.  Attentive.  These are his watch words for the conversation.  Perhaps he has no time for girls who just want a moment of his attention solely upon them.  Perhaps he is so strictly attentive to his duty as a keeper of peace and order he cannot let that guard down at all, except in private moments.  How stoic such a man must be, in that case.

And then comes a woman unknown to you; a little older than you, and beautiful in the way that dares an onlooker to defy it; with neither scars on her face, nor makeup; just a cascade of black ringlets to frame a pleasantly heart shaped countenance.  When she comes near, you vanish from being; or might as well have.  Bertuccio's attention switches to her completely, and the disengaged pragmatism he seemed mired in is blown away to reveal an expression of delight, and amazement, and pleasure.  He compliments her yellow dress; she swishes it once, but does not say anything; and instead continues to sway a little, reaching for his hands.  He surrenders them; and she draws him almost hypnotised away into a new round of the dance by the fire.  He does not even look at you, as he goes; and you are left on your own, with a chest full of the broken elements of the confidence you were beginning to feel.

Suddenly, the world's nature seems to change; the spread of it; the boundlessness of the open surface.  The lack of walls to put your back to; the profusing of people, people you don't  know , people who might be  anyone  of  any kind , whom you cannot all keep in sight and whom you are blindly trusting to be kind to you.  Your chest tightens, and itches crawl up your back, and up your neck; unbidden thoughts urging, insisting, that you find somewhere small, and contained, where you can rely on your survivors' wits and not the endless, impossibly complexities of this dangerous world.  Then you feel the jaws on your leg.

Gently, of course.  Rocco had detected, and cunningly seized, a large flake of pastry from the sausage roll that had fluttered down during a moment of your savoring and clung to the strap of your sandal.  He licks incriminating crumbs off his nose, and peers up at you, panting peacefully.  Rocco, atleast, can see you.  He is endlessly interested in your presence; and radiates his unspoken appreciation for all attention visited upon him in turn, be they scritches, or treats.

Before you know it, the tighteness has passed; and with it, the desire to run.  Still, the night is moving on - and you find Gaulfredo speaking to a couple you do not know.  The woman cannot be much younger than Gaulfredo; a dusting of acne scars on one cheek depleting what might otherwise have been a strikingly lovely countenance with ash-blonde hair and dark eyes that seem almost sad, despite her apparent good mood.  The gentleman is similarly aged, blue of eye and yellow of hair, with a rail-thin build that competes with some of the emaciated slaves you'd known in your time below.  He's almost as tall as you, too; and that should make him gawky and unpleasant to behold.  But he has a large nose that was broken to the right, and never quite straightened when it healed; and that, paired with a wide smile as friendly as any you've ever seen, somehow turns his whole arrangement of gangly limbs from unsettling to charming; like a friendly puppet.  This is Fenicia and Polo, Gaulfredo's sister and brother-in-law; and they greet you warmly -  she with a gentle hug, he with a smile and a hand (minus one ring finger) over his heart.  The festival has drawn on, and you and Gaulfredo are both tired from the journey; and your hosts lead you to a fine looking house adjacent to the main village hall and estate.  It's a much 'nicer' place, than Gaulfredo's; the wooden floors fit more perfectly together, and are stained a uniform dark brown with slick polish.  Plaster on the walls within is whitewashed and clean; and pots in every room contain flowers that are just now starting to wilt.

Gaulfredo gets a bed made up on the floor in a room that seems to have no purpose except for sitting on comfortable chairs; you are afforded the guest bedroom.  There is a bed.  That bed is composed of a feather mattress, and cotton sheets.  There is a pillow of duck down, under your head.  It is a sumptuous amount of comfort that borders on obscene, to your body that has grown up on stone cave floors and just now had the pleasure of sleeping on hay.

But sleep finds you, all the same.  Tomorrow, to market. 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Okay!  For a start,you might add 200XP to your pile for all this goodly story writing/roleplaying.  You nailed the WP test, so no lingering traumas!
 You are on your way to adapting to surface life!

Tomorrow is the day you're hoping to make some deals.  I know you've had some ideas, in the OOC - you're hoping to sell the stuff you brought, or trade it for livestock and perhaps also some possessions.  If there's anything you want to add to that list, or if you've settled on a preference between chickens or sheep, say so!

Also, the time is coming to settle on a career choice.  With your particularly positive interaction with the Madre, you can add Hedgecraft Apprentice to the list of Peasant and Farmer options you presently have, if you can get the trappings lined up, begged borrowed or stolen.  I will warn you, however, due to the adapted and meticulous way I'm doing career changes and advancement in this solo, that the Madre  does not have the Petty Magic (Hedge) or Speak Arcane Language (Magick) advances, and cannot teach them to you.   I put her through Hedgecraft because she's the wise woman of the region, but not the magical kind.  Plenty of useful stuff in that career, but you would not be able to get the magic out of it this go-around.  Because I'm not charging for shifting out of completed careers, this means you could go into Hedgecraft Apprentice, learn everything not magically relevent, then consider it complete; but return to it essentially for free later if you DID find someone who could teach you those parts... and, for that matter, if I come to what I feel is an equitable way of determining if Taalia actually has magical capability in her blood, which is not something really addressed in the rules of the game!
 
MrAbdiel
 The day after, Polo is gone to his work before you wake; but Fenicia prepares a breakfast for you both - crusty bread with some kind of preserved tomato and herb paste.  Fenicia is not the cook Ariana is by a long shot; but the difference is heaven and earth between this simple meal and the slop you were made to eat this time two weeks ago.  With a little more time to watch her interacting with her brother, she seems content, and healthy; a little uncertain of herself, in the medium-wealth of her home.  Gaulfredo tells her how you met; and she sheds tears when he tells her about the horse; her brother loosing a couple as well but trying to be stoic.  This family are  horse people , it seems; she must have greeted her brother and that horse pulling the cart to town for seed and supply dozens of times.  Rocco seems to approve of her; when she calls to him, he pops up on his paws and produces a funny, wonky howling song; a warbling  rooowoooroooroowooo  that makes her laugh, and  rooowoooroo  back at him.

The rest of their conversation is not so funny, as much as you catch of it.

She talks of the news from other provinces - with Polo as the town clerk, he manages most of the communication for the man who lives in the estate next door.  That man is some kind of village leader or delegate, though he did not manifest at the events the previous evening, and this seems to be common enough behaviour.  There are threats to Tilea from many directions, it seems.  An important river to the north east has been sabotaged by a foreign state (though how one sabotages a river requires creative thought), cutting off a major trade route.  Orcs and goblins in the mountains far to the north are engaged in a stand-off campaign against Tilean merchant hosts battling to open a pass towards a northern neighbour on the other side; and the coasts, apparently in a common state of affairs, are suffering under the predations of coastal raiders.  This last situation does not require so much imagination.  All of this forecasts lean times to come; but self sufficient in the interior of the country is the safest place to be, and Gaulfredo resolves to buy as much supply as he can, while he's here.

The 'market' the next day considerably less impressive than the festival prior.  The workers from the night before are out again cleaning up festival debris left behind; but a handful of stalls in the square established by peddlars and petty merchants do business with the dozen or so villagers drifting in and out.  Most of it is small stuff - cloth, and wooden plates, and homewares.  Beyond that, it's simply a matter of knowing who in town might want or need a thing; fortunately, information Gaulfredo has.

His early business is conducted quickly enough, speaking to another of the farmers who came in for the festival and, with a series of rapid conversations that seem to escalate in energy and then smooth down to friendly agreement, he gives the man both the flail and pick.  He comes away with a bag of silver coins that  looks  like a lot to your numerically untrained eyes; but he seems nervous still.

It seems like it will be a bad day, for your own sales.  There are some ladies interested in the clothes you have, and Gaulfredo is happy to do most of the talking and dealing for you.  They make some offers, and he makes some strident defences of the quality of the dresses and their wholesome provenance which might not be expressly accurate.  Ultimately, he does not seem happy with the offers - he thinks you ought to hold onto the garments for later sale, perhaps some day in when you have the opportunity to try a market with richer patrons.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Offers. 
For the Good Clothes * 3 and the Good Mask * 1, for a totall of 4 gold  corone  and 4 silver  scellini .  Gaulfredo thinks this is a bad deal, but it's money available right now; perhaps the opportunity cost makes it worthwhile.
 


The mirror, he assesses, is very fine; so fine he does not think anyone in town will be able to afford such an expense!  It's a trinket for fair and noble ladies, casting back a clean and clear reflection of the face within; and while a few folks entertain the fantasy of it by pretending to be interested, Gaulfredo identifies they are wasting your time.  But then, luck breaks in your favor, in a disguised blessing; the local  il fisco  comes to down, tan rouncey beneath him; the man himself liveried in yellow sash and cap on top of fine riding leathers.  Your cunning companion sees his opening, and seizes upon it.

The  il fisco  is responsible for enforcing the collections of dues and rents from the properties around the villages near to the town; and in turn responsible for finally conveying the town's dues to the city of Verezzo proper, and the merchant princes of the republic within.  The farmer's pitch is simple enough - why do all that travelling with bags full of coin, cumbersome and troublesome, where he might carry instead this simple piece of silvered glass?  And when he reaches Verezzo weeks from now, a man of his connection should certainly be able to sell it at a neat profit to himself - and no one the wiser.  The  il fisco  sees profit; but unfortunately, he doesn't have the coin on him for the proposed deal.  He hasn't collected it yet; and it will be more than just this village to get it.  But Gaulfredo has an answer for that too - bringin Polo out of his office to oversee, he arranges a deal where the  il fisco  can pay in notes of credit against his agent as a collector for the merchants of Verezzo.  This seems doable; all parties seem pleased; and Gaulfredo seems particularly pleased with his guile in making the opportunity manifest, if you're happy to take it.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Offers. 
Well, Gaulfredo rolled poorly on the haggle rolls for the clothes and mask; but he rolled a 09 for the mirror, and that was the big one.
 You actually undervalued it - a small silver mirror is 20gc, so a good one is 60gc of premium value.

Gaulfredo's deal will get you an effective 50GC of credit notes, ten for 5GC each, which are as good as coin in the province of Verezzo for anyone who has to pay taxes, which is everyone.  That 10GC of difference is what's needed to compel the  il fisco  to take the deal, expecting to make that profit when he hits bigger markets.

In a very small market like Bella Collina, it's the best deal you're going to get!
 But if you had ambitions to head to the big smoke sooner rather than later, you might be leaving gold on the table.
 


As for your purchases, Gaulfredo does his best.  Even with this wealth potentially in hand, the local merchant scion who is typically absent but who is more or less the 'lord' in these parts is unlikely to sell land to an illiterate stranger who crawled out of a hole in the ground.  Polo grimaces a little at the discussion of land exchange - some kind of friction between merchant elements closer to Verezzo means that such a mysterious buyer might be interpreted as someone's catspaw making a political move.  Citizens in good standing can buy land in good times; but with the agitation on all Tilea's borders, the mobility of property is freezing up.  Gaulfredo and Aliana seem happy to have you on their property for the foreseeable future - you've been a good guest and, not to forget, essentially saved their lives and farm by helping Gaulfredo against the goblins and assisting him and Vittorio in bringing back the sacks of seed corn he needs to plant this spring, if he's going to recover from the failed wheat crop the season before.

Their land is not especially big; it would not support a full flock of sheep without devoting acreage to grazing land.  But handful of the creatures might be penned and tended.  One of the children you played with the night before, a shrewd 11 year old daughter of a local sheep farmer who will undoubtedly excel when the farm one day becomes hers, negotiates as her absent father's advocate as Gaulfredo advocates for you.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Sheep Offers. 
Gaulfredo nailed this roll, too.  For 14GC, you can get five young ewes and a good quality ram - a saving of 2GC.  The cost of materials and labor to build a pen and shelter for them will round that out to 20GC to set up that operation on the farm, with the pen being constructed over the next week and the livestock delivered the week after.  Gaulfredo thinks it's a good deal, and expects he can teach you to tend such a small number of the animals.
 


The old man with a permanent crick in the neck whom Gaulfredo jousts with over the price of chickens is more intractable.  He has his price for birds, and won't be bargained with; disappointing for Gaulfredo, but a fair tactic for someone who has what the other party wants.

 
 Spoiler: Chook Offers. 
No remarkable fail or success here.  Gaulfredo and Ariana already have a small coop at the back of their house with a dozen laying hens and an old, possessive rooster.  But they can build another, larger coop for your operation off the side of the barn.  You'll pay sticker price for chickens, 5p each, for up to twenty - the most available right now.  Gaulfredo recommends a rooster for each ten hens.  A lower ratio than that, and they'll fight.  To build a coop for that many chickens, you'll have to fork over 10GC - mostly for materials and a few hands to get some elements of the building done, with Gaulfredo and you finishing most of it yourselves.  At that standard, it'll be reasonably fox-proof, and it'll keep the weather off the poor birbs.
 


Gaulfredo hems and haws over the virtues of oxen over draught horses.  He likes horses most; but oxen need only graze, and with the forecast of difficult times ahead, it'd be irresponsible to take the option that requires more expensive maintenance; and that he'd be reluctant to eat if he had to.  Talking to a pair of red-haired brothers who are switching to dairy stock, Gaulfredo finegals a price for an ox.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Beefy Boi Offers 
With another well timed haggle winner of a roll, Gaulfredo has a deal on the table for a healthy young ox capable of drawing cart and plow for 24GC.  He wants to split it with you, 12GC each - on account of the fact that you'll both need the beast to take the cart into town for supplies.  You'd already offered to buy it for him outright; but he still feels in your debt, what with the life saving.  A split purchase like this seems, to your intuition, to suggest an evening out of any feelings of debt one to the other; a graduation from guest and host to affectionate business partners, and even friends.  He'll sweeten the deal by letting you name it.
 


At the mention of dogs, he knows just the man - a neighbour called Adolpho, whose farm is 'next door' down the road home; and will be a stop on your way home. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia had crawled into bed mostly happy. Dinner with Gaulfredo's sister and brother-in-law had been enjoyable, and though the cookings not quite up to Ariana's level...oh goodness heavens, who was  she  to start talking about cuisine being on a particular level? It had been delicious as all the surface food had been. Even the goblins had cooked better food than those...nevermind. Taalia didn't want to think about it. Just be thankful for her surroundings, as she sunk into that beautifully plush, soft bed, her towering figure welcoming the sensation of laying on a cloud.

But though Taalia tried drifting off to sleep, her mind inevitably wandered back to that bitc - no, that wasn't nice. To that  lady  in the yellow dress, the one Bertuccio seemed so smitten with. Taalia felt her lips purse tightly as her skin warmed up, a dreadful sensation bubbling up deep from within. What did  she  have that I didn't? Well, that was a silly question, she knew. An intact face for one. A pretty yellow dress for second. No language barrier to over-come that makes you look like some graceless idiot barely able to string a sentence together.

Numerous dark fantasies that usually featured Yellow Dresses' ironic demise ran through Taalia's head as she lay there stewing in the failure of her attempted conversation, but failure was a generous word. Failure implied something at least partially gained momentum before halting. Taalia hadn't even gotten that far. She could barely hold his attention for more than a few seconds. That snake could though. Show off cow, Taalia grumbled to herself. Fine then, she didn't want to talk Bertuccio anyway! She rolled over onto her side, face half-clenched, eyes closed as she huffed to the thoughts in her own head.

Opening her eyes, Taalia reached out and rummaged through her slipbag and withdrew that mirror, the beautiful quality item being held up so she could see herself in the moonlight. She looked, considering her features. She imagined herself without that on her face...her free hand reaching up to gently run her finger down the two sets of scars as she pursed her lips. The handiwork of the rat-men would be with her forever...

Blinking, Taalia snapped out of it as she growled gently and put the mirror back in the bag. Two weeks ago she'd gone to sleep on a cold floor, two days hungry and her back red from a caning by some zealous foreman - and she was now  complaining ? She was living in the lap of luxury! Surrounding by community, people who meant her well and amazing cuisine. She more of a future now than she ever did back under those misbegotten fleabags. So some handsome, rugged, brave man didn't want her...no, Taalia rephrased that in her head. So a man who took his duty to honor seriously, and only had eyes for his existing beloved.

Taalia smiled. Yes! That was it.

Smiling a little, feeling at least a little better having rationalised things, she soon drifted off to sleep...


 oOo 

The next morning Taalia was her usual quiet, but friendly self for breakfast. She spoke in broken Tilean still, but a few words here and there were getting better, her attitude one of over-all warmth and gratitude to be there, thanking her hosts each time something was handed to her.

Taalia had readied herself quicker than Gaulfredo that morning, as she was used to the up-and-work schedule of the Skaven while her host took his time with important matters such as breakfast and reading oneself for the day ahead. And so, when she was standing outside of Polo's house, she spotted a group of boys across the street, seemingly around her age. Brazenly confident, Taalia simply approached, their attention swiftly secured as she neared to within 10 feet or so, her unusual features and height causing her to stand out immediately.

 "Pleased to meet!"  she smiled, friendly, giving a small wave.

The boys looked at each other in exchanged glances that all shared the same confusion as to how to answer. What do we say? Doubtless one thought. What does she want? Speculated another.

"Er...Buongiorno!" one said, a smiling coming up as the others joined him, nodding their heads, each repeating the word.

Taalia knew what that meant. It was a greeting for the  morning .

Looking for a second as if she recognised that, Taalia spoke again,  "Buongiorno!"  she nodded, smiling brightly, if a bit dorkishly.

"Ah...ah you...ehh...from here?" the main one asked, clearly trying to dumb his speech down to meet hers.

Taalia shook her head,  "No, I am visitor." 

The conversation continued on innocuously enough, and when it ended and Taalia pulled away once Gaulfredo emerged, it was clear that the boys didn't know what to make of her. She hadn't come off as unpleasant, just...not that accessible, which had hampered her natural friendliness from endearing her to them. When she nodded and said goodbye, and they likewise bid her well, it felt more awkward than pleasing, and as the teenager moved to catch up to Gaulfredo, she felt even more like an outsider who didn't belong.


 oOo 

The series of trades were a fascinating exercise in haggling, bargaining and appraisal for the ex-slave. Having thought about how incredible the idea of just 'owning' something was, that people weren't just knifing each other in the back to steal what they want was furtherly amazing. Thus, she watched and listened to the dance of the haggle. Someone didn't just give a price and money was handed over, no no. This was as much a social ceremony as anything else in this culture, the back and forth, interest and apprehension, refusal or acquiesced, it was all a social dance that resulted in goods exchanging hands on a voluntary basis. It was quite beautiful to her, actually.

The initial refusal to sell the dress Taalia left up to Gaulfredo's recommendation. But the mirror - that caused the biggest amount of activity. Clerks were involved, bills of credit, wealthy dashing men with beautiful clothes on horses. The intricacies of what was happening was over the girls head, but she understood on a fundamental level what was happening: the mirror was worth a lot.  A lot . The man did not have the funds on him, as ascertained by his lack of bulging coin sacks and shrugs of non-possession, but the signed strips of paper provided by the respected authority was some type of loan or credit.

It turns out Taalia was right. Gaulfredo was more than happy with that trade, and as he handed the notes to Taalia the girl felt a rush through her body the likes of which she had  never  felt. Holding those bills in her hands, her heterochromia blue-green eyes savoring their image and feel, knowing not just what they were but what they  represented ! Stuff Bertuccio, he could have that yellow-dressed hussy - Taalia had money! In one moment she had become arguably the wealthiest teenager in the region, and 2 weeks ago she'd gone to sleep on a cold floor, hungry and beaten by deformed rat-men.

But what good was money without things to buy? Once again, as she had reminisced upon during their trip, the idea of  owning  things was portentous to her. Having stuffed the bills into her little slipsack and hugging that bag to her chest with a powerful, protective grip, Taalia had followed Gaulfredo as they passed the other farmers and the animals they had for sale.

Yes, for sale! Now  she  could buy other things!

Taalia loved the sheep the moment she saw them, their dumb but gentle faces and the white fluff of their wool. The chickens, likewise, were cute to her, the idea of having some pet bird to pet a rather entertaining idea. But it didn't take Taalia long to see what else these things were: productive.

And not in a brutalised-and-worked-to-death way like her life as a slave. No no, they were treated nicely, but as she saw the stacks of wool being processed for sale and the rows of eggs for sale, Taalia saw why these animals were valuable. She also soon learned how many eggs each chicken could be expected to produce, and the cogs started turning in her brain.

Having learned the numeric system relatively early, Taalia used her knowledge of numbers, pennies, silver and gold crowns to gauge just how much money she had in her pack.

She had a lot. She could buy a lot. It seems that her years of misery were being given some sort of reparation by the gods of fate.

Gaulfredo, once again, worked his game brilliantly. Perhaps the fresh memory of Ariana's appreciation for Taalia's gift was particularly motivating to help his new charge and establish a working relationship? Whatever the animus, he did well by her and soon presented her with the options. But now it was time for Taalia to surprise him. She might not know haggling, yet, but she knew numbers. Years working in Papa Rats workshop had taught her a rudimentary understanding of maths. One didn't work with the insane machinery of the Skaven and keep all of their fingers if they didn't.

Holding Gaulfredo by the arm she spoke to him softly, quietly, where no one could hear. She gave an outline of her plan to return to those women and accept their offer for the clothes, and use that extra money to buy the sheep and pen and half of the available chickens and coop space, use the poultry produce to expand the coop over the coming months and pay him a type of rent for staying and using a small section of his land. She gave numbers where necessary, but obviously stopped short of furnishing his judgement with the truly ambitious, year-long prediction she had mentally calculated within the last minute.
MrAbdiel
 Gaulfredo was a simple man.  Like most, he could not read; but his grasp of numbers was intuitive and deep, and he grasps the picture you paint even through the fogged glass of your imperfect tongue.  He is, as before, happy to be your conspirator in this; even though losing the clothes at a less than ideal price pains him.  But your dream is contageous; and he was not much younger than you when he was carving his own little place in the world, and perhaps your inspired moment reminds him of that feeling of drive and eagerness.  So you sell the dresses, for just enough liquidity to make your purchases; and as quickly as the wealth entered your life, it vanishes in a flurry of handshakes and scheduled drop offs.  The materials first; livestock later; enough time to learn from Ariana and Gaulfredo a little about the animals you've now committed this princely sum to acquiring.  With a little luck, in a month's time, you'll be a farmer yourself.  And surely, after all you've been through, the universe owes you a little more luck still to come.  He makes a purchase of his own, part of which is a gift for you - a pair of quarterstaves of nice, sturdy hickory.  A good staff is necessary for herding sheep, he assures you; and a good companion to walk with.  Not to mention, perhaps, a better weapon on the road than the small throwing knife, or the crude goblin club.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You gain 1 * Quarterstaff.  If you want to make any other minor purchases before you leave town, let me know!
 


The vendors have not brought their herds to town - just sample stock, to prove their worth.  The lone ox you've offered payment for will be led to the farm within the week, you're assured; and the other animals the week after, by which time the enclosures should be ready.  So with the shopping done, and plenty of daylight left, the time comes  to farewell Fenicia and Polo and head back to the farm with a few more coins in your bag, and a wealth of promises that, you are forced to hope, the other villagers will keep.

 * * * * * 
There is one more stop, on the way home; a visit to the neighbour Adolpho's property, perhaps to see about a dog.  But after overshooting your farm by twenty minutes to get to this neighbour, the ruddy-skinned and barrel chested Adolpho does not seem pleased to see Gaulfredo.  Passing through a swinging wooded gate, Rocco hares off around across the ungrazed and poorly tamed front paddock of the farmhouse,  rooowoorooo ing at excitable pitches and eliciting a chorus of the same from beyond the house.  At the same time, as soon as Gaulfredo is within Adolpho's shouting distance, the shouting begins; a red faced tirade that comes too quickly for you to follow any of it, or your friend's rejoinders as he rapidly becomes defensive.  Their voices become strident and furious; and both men have taken off their hats and are using them to gesture wildly as they point - back at the way they came, toward the house, toward the back of the house, to the route Rocco took on his way around.  You are sure it's going to come to blows, but it doesn't quite; though Adolpho returns to a saturnine simmer, rather than letting the matter go entirely as he stalks off around the house.  Once he's out of sight, Gaulfredo replaces his hat, and looks at you with an apologetic expression.   "Ah.  Is trouble, but not so bad.  Here, let us see." 

Later, with some work, the whole picture is made clear to you.  Adolpho is a widower, who has alone brought up his now teenage daughter, Diletta.  Adolpho's business is dogs; most recently, Tylesian Corsos, which he breeds and trains to see off to specialty clients in Verezzo.  The process of producing an acceptable and trained specimen of the high shouldered, strong-jawed breed is arduous; but when done correctly, they are peerless war-dogs, descended from the pets of the ancients of Tylos who once ruled these lands long before the land became the Tilean states.  You see a few of the beasts, when you round the corner of the house; penned up and barking at Rocco on the other side of their wood slatted pens.  Rocco barks back; apparently a common enough communion between the canine neighbours.

Rocco is more than a neighbour now, it seems.  The dog - the  sly  dog, the  absolute  dog - has made his way over to the distant farm some romantic evening months ago and won the affections of one of the Corsos - one who was supposed to be bred by its own kind, to produce more pedigree wardogs.  Rocco's affair was unknown and discreet, as illicit gentlemen can sometimes be; and Adolpho had already made projections and tentative sales for what he had expected would be a litter of Corsos that he could train and distrubute.  Having left the farm in the hands of Diletta - a plain faced, brown haired girl who is as short as you are tall, but who offers you an embarassed smile given her father's temper - he had gone away for six weeks of travel to Verezzo to try to secure buyers for the dogs he expected to have.  But what he had, when he got home, was a litter of four Tylesian Corso/Trantine Sheepdog cross pups, four weeks grown and mostly weened.  Rural life and dealing with animals is often less than picturesque; and had he been present for the birth of the pups, Gaulfredo suspects the man would have put the pups down.  But now their eyes are open, and their pitchy little yips are in the air, and they are past the point where even such a pragmatic man can simply kill  a creature and coldly call it necessary.  The dog's mother has lost a breeding cycle, and Adolpho has probably lost money on sales.  Gaulfredo maintains that his dog is a worker, who remains off the leash; and he is not at fault if Adolpho left his breeder in heat out and advertising.  Adolpho is predictably unsympathetic to this argument; and they go round in circles for a while before they come to an arrangement: Gaulfredo will take the two male pups, which will just cause mischeif; and Adolpho will keep and the two female pups, whom he hopes he will be able to find a purpose for.  The transaction costs Gaulfredo two of the gold coins he had remaining after selling his flail, and the pick, and buying his half of the ox; but with that token admitting some responsibility for the happening, Adolpho is mollified, and the neighbours are united again.

 "This one for Vittorio, I think;"  he says, with the pup held in the crook of one arm, crouching down so Rocco, now a father, can sniff and nuzzle and regard his progeny with excitement.   "With more animals, is good to have more dogs, I think." 

The other pup; whining sadly as you carry it away from its mother and back to the road, sooths itself by mooshing its puppy face into the flat of your stomach, as you cradle it.  He is the size of a head of lettuce.  He has four teeth, for now.  And he, just like you when you came to this sunlit and new world, is in need of a name.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You and Gaulfredo each gain 1 * puppy. Trapping quality yet to be determined.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

It was on the exit of the town that Taalia turned to look over her shoulder and consider the village. Her social achievements were...mixed. She still felt stupid over Bertuccio, but the teenager wasn't yet aware just how quickly that would pass. Her interaction with the children had been positively delightful, as Taalia felt herself opening up more to them. If she was being honest, it was a flush of warmth across her body to interact with them in such a friendly manner, have having spent years watching them...well...the less said the better. Signore Cestié had been a social misstep on her behalf, she could recognise that now, and she was secretly grateful that he had the graces and elderly lenience to forgive her ignorance of decorum. No more kisses on the cheeks, at least with men. Maybe it was gender exclusive? She would have to learn more. Outside of the children, the meeting she enjoyed the most was with Madre, the Wise Woman who had seen to her arm. Perhaps Taalia had long needed an older maternal presence, or maybe role model in her life, but she saw the way the senior female carried herself and behaved, how she didn't have to say much but when she did speak she was listened to. It was clear she occupied a lofty position of respect within the community, a venerable collection of memories and knowledge that was sought by those wise enough to recognise their value, and perhaps fate had smiled upon Taalia again by having this older woman apparently feel some endearment towards her. Indeed, Taalia tried to picture herself at that age, and when the image coalesced she looked quite different from Madre in appearance, but in mannerisms and position within the broader community it was similar: a reliable presence people appreciated and listened to. Taalia smiled and nodded. That sounded nice to her!

Turning and looking once more at the town whose dimensions were diminishing in the background, the teenager smiled. She then turned to Gaulfredo and, abruptly, gave him a hug before continuing on.

 "Gratzi!" 
 oOo 

The initial shouting intimidated Taalia, that much was clear. She had approached Adolpho's estate alongside Gaulfredo, she had not expected such a hot-blooded, heart-on-the-sleeve exchange. But, as she was quickly learning, that's how the Tileans were. Even Gaulfredo and Ariana had these occasional shouting matches, but they never  meant  it. The elevated voices, the passionate gesticulations, the words flung back and forth, these only seemed superfluous theatre rather than any true feelings of resentment. The Norscans had never been so...openly passionate. They could be ferocious,  everyone  knew that, their fury was legendary. But in the home life a raised voice meant legitimate resentment. But among the Tileans? It was just Tuesday. Then Taalia thought back to Madre and realised this was another thing that set her apart in her eyes, she didn't  need  passionate outbursts, no litany of offences to accuse in passion as she shook a fist, no hot-tempered yelling, nothing: she just spoke and people listened.

However, that didn't halt Taalia from stepping back and shrinking her image a little as Adolpho and Gaulfredo whirred their anger engines to life, their exchange becoming so heated at one point the teenagers finely honed danger sense started to tingle at possible violence. But as the crescendo of verbal agitation rose, so too did it diminish like a hot wave of emotion, and soon Adolpho, though clearly not happy with some transgression, was speaking with a more restrained but firm countenance. It interested Taalia as much as it frightened her. Perhaps it was some unwritten social contract? If you rose your voice and shouted, you were giving permission to your other to likewise vent their frustrations in an equally passionate manner, but both knew that such was just another little social ceremony, an reciprocal outpouring that was only entered into if both parties participated. Perhaps if Taalia remained composed, spoke firmly but softly, no such fire would be needed? Her opposite would understand she wasn't 'in the game' so to speak?

In either case, Taalia hung around with Rocco, and when she learned of his...trespassing's, the teenager smirked and beheld the sly dog.

 "Tut tut tut..."  she shook her had, waving her finger slowly at the animal,  &lt;"You devious little beast..."&gt;  she chuckled. It seemed that the humans weren't the only creatures of passion on the surface.

Not that such a thing was foreign to Taalia. Back in the pits she...well, she had seen things children that age should not have to witness. Vile, grotesque things she only managed to barely escape by hiding, until her impressive stature and surprisingly strong frame could fight others off on her own. As bleak as the memories were, she couldn't bring herself to hate them. None of the men who were brought to the pens had entered with such beastly intents, but the pits broke them in spirit and mind, driving them to madness and foul actions.

Brought back to the present by the sound of the gate, Taalia entered the breeding pens, the barking cane corso's an impressive breed with strong shoulders and large heads. Having had to enter the rat ogre pens to feed the ferocious beasts, this was nothing Taalia had not experienced before, and a keen eye might notice she knew to stand at a safe distance, not put her hands near the cages and to speak quietly and not look any of the animals in the eyes.

But then - the puppy.

Taalia's countenance shifted immediately, her blue-green eyes widening, her mouth gaping open in a beloved gasp.

 "Ohhhhh!"  she exhaled in an act of instant love as he received the baby animal in her hands, holding him to behold Rocco's offspring before lowering the puppy to her face to smother it with kisses and hugs. Like a mother receiving her newborn, Taalia cradled the puppy and kissed it, pet it and hugged it. Though distracted by how adorable the ungainly puppy was, Taalia could see the mixture between Rocco's image and that of the bitch - a muscular, dark-furred wardog that sat with menacing patience within her cage, watching with yellowed eyes as a stranger fawned over one of her offspring. Would this little boy receive his mothers strong build and guard instincts along with Rocco's devious intelligence and, ahem, drive? That would make an excellent pet.

When they were back on the road and Taalia had set her new dog down so it could relieve itself on the side of the road, she watched as Gaulfredo asked as to its name. The teenager thought, pursing her lips, eyes tilted upwards. Memories took her back to that first day she escaped the ratmen, the first hour she wandered among the forest with broken chains. She recalled the first animal she had seen, perched and spotted among the foliage above and whom took to the skies as they pleased, free as, well, a bird.

 "Corvo,"  she answered.

Ooc:

Taalia will 2 of her remaining pennies to buy some soap to regularly bathe and washe and clean herself in the local river.
MrAbdiel
   The Power of One 
  Part 1 - "In Sterquiliniis Invenitur" 
 
 Chapter 3 - Vita   

You can barely contain your excitement.  Over the next two weeks, your plans begin to come together.  The ox is walked to your property by one of the red-haired brothers who made the sale.  A healthy looking beast with big crescent horns and a white furred hide, with cannons of rusty red on its shins.  Gaulfredo has had time to rig his blow and cart for the yoke instead of the horse harness, and with a little cajoling and farmland knowhow, he reassures the beast and leads it to its new home in the barn, next to its equine neighbour.  Soon, you and he (and Vittorio, and Rocco and Corvo and Elmo who variously insist on coming along or are in need of constant attention) are making trips to properties near and far to pick up cartloads of hewn logs from neighbours and rough planks from a local sawmill.  Your formative years have been spent moving rocks in pits where you weren't trusted with a pickaxe, or fiddling with the mysterious fine machinery of Rashabang.  Construction with basic tools is something you have never been required to do; but your hosts are growing in affection for you and are patient as you learn and offer help when you can.

Your plans begin to manifest.  The chicken coop is built again the side of the barn; a simple, wooden board enclosure with  stones and earth healed around its base to dissuade snakes and foxes from trying to get in.   Shelves made of wooden beams inside are set with wooden crates, lined with straw for the birds to roost.  Gaulfredo goes to the trouble of building the door into the existing wall of the barn, in addition to the exterior door; this way, you'll be able to fetch the eggs and otherwise tend to the birds directly from within the barn, without going all the way out and around; and without risking a full blown chicken escape if the barn's main door is closed.  The sheep pen is simpler, but harder work; study logs are used to make a fence off the back side of the barn with a wooden swing gate; and a sloped extension from the edge of the barn's roof offers shade and shelter to the creatures in most weather conditions; though you'll have to lead them into the barn proper during storms.  The pen is split in two, separated by another gate, permitting you to choose which animals are where, depending on your plans for them.  During most of this, Ariana, Vittorio and Rocco look after Corvo, for you.  The needy little pups are adorable and charming neighbours to have in the barn, but they  yip  you awake to let them out so they can relieve themselves during the night.  Rocco does the hard work of herding them back into the barn, afterward; but the helplessness of Elmo and Corvo is pronounced at such an age.  You enjoy it when you can, mitigate it when you can't.  Ariana showcases yet another skill - she's well used to raising dogs and teaching them to be working beasts, and both Elmo and Corvo are learning the love of collaboration that is the sacred pact of man, and dog.

And on the third week, your flocks arrive.  Four young ewes - unproven yearlings, but from fine enough stock - and a proven, full grown breeder ram of brown coat and  spiral horns.  His name is  Hermes , and he seems to know it - when you call it, he distinctly turns to look at you with dumb animal curiosity; though he doesn't come to heel, like a dog does.  The ewes orbit him, fawningly discharging all their discomfort with this new living arrangement to him.  Gaulfredo teaches you the basics easily enough.  He simply takes Hermes by the horn, and leads him along for a few steps.  Then, when he releases the horn, the beast understands; and follows him from out the front of the house, to around to an overgrown patch of grass near the barn to let the creatures graze.  The ewes follow the ram, and when one starts wandering off oblivously following the grass under its nose, Gaulfredo merely blocks its path with his staff, and gives it a little nudge, and it retreats to Hermes side.  They are simple creatures, slow, and placid, and needful of protection and guidance; and they seem almost reassured when you close the gate to their pen in the evening.

The chickens are more of a handful.  Ten hens of various hues from dove-white to scorched-wood brown, and a rambunctious rooster named  Hurcio  after a legendary mercenary warrior of the Tileans.  The chickens do not follow you instinctively, through Gaulfredo assures you they may well come to, eventually.  You leave them  cooped up  for a few days and then it's alright to let them out during daylight hours.  They wander inoffensively around the area near to the coop, foraging and pecking and scratching at the ground; and by the evening as the sun is coming down, they retreat without prompting into their roosts and all you need to do is close the door, and wait for the next day when you let them out and scoop up their eggs.  Usually, it's one a night; sometimes two, which is an exciting development.  Eggs begin to feature more in Ariana's cooking, and there's a little less stress about getting meat on the table when eggs are available.

But in the fourth week, it's Hurcio who causes the first major disaster of your career as a farmer.  It's otherwise a great week.  Your arm feels almost back to normal.  Ariana has made you a cloth carry-harness for you to bring Corvo hither and yon close to yourself while keeping your hands free; he peeks out of the linen sling while resting against the flat of your stomach, very happy with this arrangement.  But most of the time, when you don't need to be anywhere, he is perfectly mobile on his own, if still a little goofy and clumsy when running at full tilt.  But who wasn't, when they were young?  And your Tilean has become so much better in this short time that you no longer feel like you have to fight to be understood or to understand these people.  You are adapting to a new life; and all its many promises.

The sun is setting.  The chickens are closed in their coop, and you are leading Hermes and his harem into their pen.  Just as you close the gate, you hear a crowing, squabbling racket from inside the coop - sustained and violent sounding. You vault the sheep pen fence, Corvo bobbing in his sling, and burst into the coop to find shocking tableux.  An epic of familial turmoil and revenge is instantly visible, staged out in the scene as the birds scatter.  One of the hens has laid unusually late in the afternoon, while perching one of the high beams in the coop.  The egg naturally did not long balance on the beam, and tumbled and splatted on the coop floor.  Hurcio is yellow in beak and claw - he must have been first to the scene, shamelessly indulging in the cthonic repast of devouring his young.  Witnessing this, perhaps jealous of this grim feast or, more dramatically, maternally vengeful, the hens swarm and peck their rooster, overwhelming him with numbers and girlpower.  Is it that moment when you throw open the coop door and surge in to break up the brawl.  The chickens have never expressed a desire to go out at night, so the state of the door does not cry out to you to be closed first as a precaution.  But Hurcio, humilated and unmanned, flees out the door with a hollering cackle of anguish, and three of the hens shoot between your ankles in pursuit.  The rooster launches into the air, but his clipped wings do not permit him to soar; only to spastically flutter into the sheep pen.  This perceived attack run from an unexpected vector startles Hermes, who at once gets to moving as his best instinct to avoid predators tells him to do.  Corvo chooses this moment to leap from the sling, tumble onto the floor, and start chasing some of the other panicking chooks.  You reflexively snatch him back up again before he can get far; but then to your horror you realise that in your haste to rescue the chickens, you neglected to latch the sheep gate - which wouldn't have been a problem, without the cascade of events.  But cascade they have, and now Hermes has charged unhindered through the gate, with his dashing along behind him.  Calling him does not stop him, in this state of alarm.  It's all you can do to cut two of the ewes off as they begin to scatter in their confusion, and you hoist them physically one after another into the pen with the gate now latched.  By the time you have recaptured these, the others are out of sight - and the sun is getting rapidly low.  You sprint around the barn and find Gaulfredo getting ready to  unhitch the ox from its day's plowing, and recruit him to aid you.

He takes one look at the sinking sun, and then takes Corvo off your hands, and passes him to Vittorio.  "Go inside, mind the pups; tell your mother we need her help, and to bring her lantern."  Vittorio, dual wielding puppies, takes off with full purpose; and soon Ariana joins you, lighting a pair of torches for you and Gaulfredo from her lantern's flame.

One rooster, three hens, two sheep and a ram are somewhere on the property; and they have not been here long enough to hope with full confidence they will find their way back.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Disaster on the Farm! 
We gotta bring these critters home!  Splitting up to find them is the move.  You can give me three visual perception rolls, if you would be so kind; difficulty is challenging, though it would be harder if you didn't have nightvision!
 

 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 
   


Taalia settled further into farming life, her inclination a natural affinity as she eagerly learned from Gaulfredo and Ariana. Though she was older than their own son, there was nevertheless a growing familial comraderies between them, as she had literally been a babe in the woods brought in from the wilderness. Her naivety, clear history of trauma and abuse combined with her friendly and very intelligent nature and eagerness to help, made her a helpful addition that made her inclusion to the estate a much easier and smoother transition. If she were lazy, despondent, or perhaps even paranoid and violently difficult to deal with, it would be doubtless that the charitable patience of the family would have been breached and Taalia sent on her way with her geld notes, minimal Tilean and little else. Down what path would she have taken under such duress? Where would she have gone? Who would have taken her in for a night? Would she end up as some highway bully, brought in by the road warden? Or perhaps as a reluctant worker in the brothels or street beggar? The former seems unlikely given her prior witnesses in the slave pens, and the latter likewise the graduation from one slavery to another form, only this time in servitude to the mercy of others. Or if she had not followed the river down towards the valley but had instead turned and walked up into the mountains? No, it was most likely that she would have ended up in a violent profession where her stature and impressive strength, combined with her broken Tilean, would have seen her lead a probably short and brutish life. Though she would have the freedom to direct where she went, that didn't always mean it'd be where she'd want to go, and Taalia was becoming comfortable enough that she could ruminate on just how poorly things could have gone had she not gained acceptance into Gaulfredo and Ariana's household. It was ironic then that though it had been the thought of the treasures hidden within that locked chest that had lured her to attempt a robbery of the goblins, it had merely been a conduit through which she had passed into an even more bountiful blessing - the green fields and warm rural living of a household and farm, and the seemingly positive path it had put her life back on.

But, hopeful as things were there were always obstacles to overcome.

The building of the coop and the sheep pen was the first labour of construction that Taalia genuinely liked. She had worked on plenty of Rashabangs insane gizmos' and devices, even developing a gradual intuition for them, their make and purpose, and though she had enjoyed building things she had never made something for herself. Now she was. The wood for the coup required coordination to erect and fasten, the loose, small stones that were compacted tightly with earth around the base to deter the digging claws of foxes or the the prying invasion of snakes. Working with Gaulfredo was a joy, as Taalia even assisted him with his own labours in harvesting his crops. She was tall, fit and strong, motivated and seemingly had no lack of energy, as if she were a substitute strapping son until Vittorio came of age.

However, it was during the construction of the sheeps pen that the ex-slave was reminded that she still had a long way to go. For you see, as she settled into her life and acclimatized, Taalia became more aware of customs, cultural aspects and traditions that unfolded around her. The slave pits of the Skaven was a miserable land of thankless toil, brutal hardship, selfish survival and endless anxiety that ate away at the nerves. But up here, on the surface, though hunger could certainly set in and the purses weren't exactly fat with coin, life had more sunshine and fulfillments that made the next day worth looking forward to. Sometimes when Taalia was working on the coop, tending to one of the animals or cleaning up after dinner, she would hear Ariana giggling gently, with further hidden inspection observing her and Gaulfredo engaged in flirtatious exchange. Nothing heavy, they weren't animals. But a giggle here, a nuzzle-against the neck there, an affectionate holding of the forearm. Taalia couldn't help but smile whenever she spied these little coupling moments, before returning to her labours, her mind wandering. Being on a farm, she saw the eventual produce everywhere. Vittorio was the obvious marker of such affections, as well as her adorable pup Corvo who came forth from his devious fathers nightly adventures. The sheep she had ordered she knew had a ram to both protect and, ahem, furnish them with young lambs in the months to come. The chickens, likewise, and their rooster. In some alternative imagination of the concept, the fields had the crop seeds deposited into them, from which would come the corn and wheat that was Gaulfredo's main produce. So, Taalia wondered to herself, where was hers?

The ex-slave thought that she might test her curiosity during the construction of the sheeps pen. She had helped acquire the materials, she had watched and participated as they were set down into place, but she was not the sole one responsible for its finalisation. She still had other duties to attend to on the farm, and so the last stages of the pens make was entrusted to a handful of boys not much younger than herself. One seemed to be the son of the sheep trader whom had likely not been available during their market negotiation, but whom was present now with a handful of his friends to earn some pennies, doubtless for some ales at a tavern later. They were fit lads, sculpted by rural life as they were, and Taalia found them appealing enough to approach when they were taking a breather. She did so carrying a tray upon which was arrayed mugs of cold water that came from pots stored in shadowed regions of the house to serve the needs of cold refreshments.

 "Buongiorno"  she would smile, approaching the pen, holding the tray out.

 "You all look tired...I brought some water,"  she offered, her Tilean improved considerably since market day but was still rather jilted.

The boys exchanged looks, smiles creeping upon their faces, as she was half a foot taller than the highest among them.

"Thank you, did you reach to the top of the trees to collect the rain water?" the son asked, a coy, playful look across his face. To his sides, the other boys snickered, one shaking his head as he did so, another rolling his eyes.

At this, Taalia was confused, but seeing others laughing had, so far in her experience, meant that something fun was being spoken about. Smiling awkwardly,  "No...we store jugs under the floor, keeps them cool." 

"So it comes from your jugs?" the boy asked again, his friends now openly laughing to his side as he struggled to retain his composure, desperately wanting to join his companions in their mirth.

"Is that's why there's so much?" his friend commented, and this time the son's face split into raucous laughter.

Taalia's smile slowly rescinded, her eyes swiveled back and forth between each lad, the realisation that she was being mocked, and rather vulgarly at that, dawning across her reddening face. A part of her wanted to disappear into the earth to avoid the jostling, while another aspect of her mind wanted to smash the tray over the boys head to make an example out of him - but she had learned enough to know that that wasn't how things were done on the surface. Besides, the cool-headed little businesswoman seated at the back of her head managed to yell over the fury of her other assembled emotions to tell her wisely that she wanted to have good relations with the local sheep farmer, not brain his son with a tray because he was acting like a little ******** teenage boy would.

He also had to finish building the sheep pen. He couldn't really do that with a concussion.

Her eyes hardened, her jaw clenched. For a moment it seemed like she would discard civilised decorum and at least throw something at the boys, but she restrained. One seemed to rein in his laughter when he could see that she was actually hurt by the comments, rather than taking it in vulgar jest and throwing back her own barbs. But the other two were not as aware.

 "You get nothing!"  Taalia hissed, fighting off the temptation to get physical, as she brought the tray back against herself as if to protect it, before she turned and stormed off. As she departed, a few words of assurance that they were just joking and to not take things too seriously followed, but she only suspected she would be returning to further teasing at her expense, and so cool water refreshments were the price they paid for their mockery. She would have to talk to Ariana later, find out how best to deal with this. Or Madre. Yes, Madre could be asked too. She'd know what to do.


 oOo 

The breakout came at about a week after her third bumbling attempt at socialising on her own. Corvo, the gorgeous puppy in his sling, had been the love of her life for now, as despite his constant, and sometimes annoying, need for attention, she was very fond of the growing dog and often found herself talking to him. She had been told the time would soon come when she would need to place the baby dog into situations where he was separated from her, the time of which extended futher and further. He would whine, he would yip, he would likely even profess a little baby howl and loud yapping as instincts told him he had been abandoned and needed to cry as loud as he could so that he could located be rescued. But it would teach him eventually how to cope with being separated from Taalia for as long a period as was necessary. Taalia knew it needed to be done, but in her heart she dreaded the day.

She was likewise becoming more affectionate with Vitorrio. Her prior cool detachment as a defense mechanism had gradually melted away, and as her Tilean became more proficient that she could fluently converse, she could talk to him about things, her experiences and her thoughts. She'd give him hair ruffles, kiss him on the forehead, hold his hand if he wanted to walk somewhere near the forest where it might not be safe. As Gaulfredo and Ariana were her surrogate parents, in a way Taalia was his big step sister, and he taught her as much about the social fabric and culture of Tilea as a equally valuable reward for her presence.

It was perhaps this absentmindedness that caused her not to secure the latch on the sheeps pen, because complacency had assured her that the unadventurous and cowardly sheep never tested it under normal circumstances. But when  non -normal circumstances arose, Taalia could only watch in futile horror, shouting at her pets, as three wooly arses fled off into the property, a few chickens darting by for good measure.

Staving off the panic that was setting into her nervous system, Taalia had inspiration from the most unlikely of places: her prior Skaven owners.

They never chased down slaves. They didn't need to. Why? Because they were everywhere slaves were likely to flee to. This made long-term escape a veritable impossibility, and an idea formed through Taalia's head.

Don't directly chase the animals down, they would just flee and they were faster than she was ever going to be. Instead, head them off and herd them back to the farm, as Gaulfredo had also demonstrated.

Shutting up the pens and coops to stop the flow of freedom-seeking animals, Taalia discarded her puppy-sling to Vitorrio with a little surprised yelp from Corvo inside.

 "We're going to herd them back here; be ready to open and allow them in!"  she said hurriedly, darting off to fetch her quarter staff and recruit the help of Gaulfredo, Ariana and Rocco. When a lantern was offered, Taalia rescinded and let someone else have it who needed it more. She didn't need it. She could see perfectly fine at day, dusk or night time.
MrAbdiel
 Together, you scour the countryside to the limits of Gaulfredo's acreage, and then further into the fallowing fields of his neighbours and the lightly wooded, undeveloped land along the north-running road. Twenty minutes of searching first reveals nothing to the light of your torch; but then you catch a glimpse of a shed white feather.  Following your instincts, you are rewarded: one of your hens, scratching away at the base of an old tree stump, trying to carve out a place to rest in this wilderness.  With no torch to burden you, you sneak up on it; and before it can  bawk  and run, you press your hands flat on its back rendering its struggles futile, and scoop it up.

One down; the hen offering protesting flaps of its wings and nervous  braaawking  as you tuck it under your arm and spring back toward the farm house.  On the way, a swaying beacon of smooth yellow light shows you Ariana is heading back, too; and with one of your stray ewes placidly slung over her shoulders.   "Here, give her to me; Gaulfredo followed Rocco up to the north road!"   Rocco's nose was your group's best compass, in this scenario; so he was best trusted.  Handing off the bird to Ariana isn't easy; she ends up holding all of the ewe's ankles beneath her chin with one hand, and the chicken under one arm with the lantern in the grip on that same side; but she's a hard working lady, and she makes it work.  That's two of the six fugitive animals recovered - four to go, and perhaps Gaulfredo and Rocco have found some already.

You find Gauldredo's torchlight bobbing along in a hilly patch of undeveloped land that strictly belongs to one of the merchant families of Verezzo.  It's a short hustle north along the road north to Bella Collina, and Rocco darts back and forth sniffing listening, darting around as he tracks and leads.  He's on the right track - but it's your keen nose that first catches the  stench. 
Thick.  Mucky.  Piscean.  A smell you smelled once before; and as you surge over the next rise, your instinct is validated: the troll you met once before, sleeping in its cave, has wandered south far enough to be your problem again.  As you see it, it is dragging behind it the mostly masticated corpse of a dear; a hunter's trap wrapped around one of its remaining legs suggesting this crippling injury is why the troll was able to catch it at all.  But gorged and drooling deer blood as it is, the troll has discover its fortunes to have radically changed; just thirty yards away, three of your wayward animals.  Hermes found his way out here, somehow; perhaps seeking the cover of the loose trees by instinct.  The ewe with him has cloven to his side the whole time; and incredibly, your remaining missing hen has fallen into their orbit, perhaps in a craving for the protection of fellow travellers.  What an adventure they might have, in a less dangerous world - a ram, his ewe, and their little chicken friend along for the ride, exploring the roads and countryside.  But that is not this world; indeed, the world has conspired to put your animal charges, and your present financial interest, in the immediate zone of one of the most awful threats you have brushed with.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Roll Initiative.

 (1d10+2)[ 11 ]  for Team Sheep.
 (1d10+4)[ 12 ]  for Team Chicken.
 (1d10+2)[ 9 ]  for Gaulfredo.
 (1d10+3)[ 5 ]  for Rocco.
 (1d10+2)[ 11 ]  for The River Troll of Bella Collina.

Also, you can give me a straight Int roll.  Severity of success or failure may yield some additional information.

Edit:

So...

Chicken - 12
Sheep - 11
Troll - 11
Taalia - 10
Gaulfredo - 9
Rocco - 5

If you hit or beat a 12, you can act first!
 
 
MrAbdiel
 Hermes bleats quietly; a communicative gesture to the troll, for a zero sum - the troll is a beast to intelligent to possess animal instinct, and too dumb to figure it out the hard way. The imperilled hen clucks tentatively; bothered by the smell, but betting her chances are best staying near to the larger beasts right now.

The troll notices, of course, Gaulfredo's torch; turns his attention away from the beasts, and begins lumbering toward the light with bizarrely innocent, idiot malice.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Sheep and chooks do nothing this turn.  The troll fails his Stoopid-check, and must turn to engage the new distraction - Gaulfredo.  He's within charge distance of the Tilean, now; with Gaulfredo still to act.  You're up!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia's throat tightened as she spotted that thing, and for a moment all the good luck of her life seemed to immediately drain away.  Of course  that thing had wandered up here. When she had set a trail of fish heads for it - nothing. But on the night her sheep escape, there it was, Johnny on the spot and menacing both her, Gaulfredo and her animals. She  knew  it. These past few weeks had been nothing but a sick lure-trap joke by some deity sadistically watching her, and here came the punchline!

Then, things turned worse...or better? The troll turned its attention to them and started lumbering in their direction.

Eyes wide, seeing Gaulfredo pausing up, Taalia reached over and grabbed his lantern, then hurled it  in front  of the troll. Praying for a split second that that would create a small fire to draw the trolls senses in, or at least frighten it off, she spoke hurriedly to Gaulfredo.

 "Run home! You'll only get killed here!"  she beckoned Gaulfredo, giving him a gentle shove to prompt him to turn and run off, using the starlight.

Ensuring he'd turn and leave, Taalia then moved also. She moved around in a vast circle while the troll was, hopefully, distracted, towards her sheep to grab them by the horns and lead them away, her accord built up with them over the past three weeks praying to be enough.
MrAbdiel
 Gaulfredo isn't keen to die, but neither is he one to leave those under his protection - friends, or beasts - to perish either.  When the trolls eyes are on him, he turns to bolt; but at the end of his run, peers back to see if the troll is following him, or changing targets.  It might as easilly turn and attack the beasts, or you, and that would require his personal sense of man's honor to turn and fight...

But your plan has worked perfectly, it seems.  The torch flips through the air and skids to a halt at the troll's feet; and dumbfounded, it stares down and tries to figure out its bright mysteries.  Rocco, picking up on his master's stress, has his hackles up; but restrains his barking with a hiss from Gaulfredo; so man and dog watch from a safe distance as you lead Hermes away with one hand, chicken under the other, with the ewe instinctively following her man.

You hurry away; and the smell gets lesser and lesser, and then the wind changes and blows it north away from you entirely.  You arrive back at the farm to put away your wayward animals; Ariana and Vittorio waiting for you.  Both are serious as stones; the boy because of the weight of his puppy-warden responsibilities, the woman because of a hard-learned toughness demanded of country women, who could not afford to be soft and feminine at all times.  She has Gaulfredo's staff in one hand, and her lantern in the other; and relieved as she is to see you, the unspoken question,  where is Gaulfredo , is visible on her face.

But the answer comes before the question.  Rocco bounds up to start bothering Vittorio and the pups in his care; and Gaulfredo wanders towards the light of the lantern.

He cradles a bloody bundle of brown and red feathers to his body; poor Hurcio being borne gently back to his home.

You, Ariana and Gaulfredo huddle around the fallen rooster.  Two great gouges - certainly the claws of the troll - run from his breastbone to his hip, where the left leg is entirely torn away below the knee.  He must have been at the very extreme of the troll's reach, or else he would have burst apart or been smashed to death.  As it is, he lives, though just barely; lying in Gaulfredo's arms, puffing, blank eyed with shock like a soldier on the battlefield, unsure if his sacrifice has won the day or not.

 "Ah, poor Hurcio.  The roosters always charge headlong when they see the hens in danger - he must have heard that last hen in distress, and come racing in only to be struck aside.  He lay not far from where we saw them all - I scooped him, as I ran." 

He offers the stricken bird to your arms, and pulls another yellow handkerchief from his pocket, as he did once for you, to wrap the bleeding stump.  Ariana frowns.   "Oh, Gaulfredo.  You mustn't.  We can buy another rooster next week.  I am sorry, Taalia - this one has run his race." 

Gaulfredo, friend of the animals, is appalled.  "We mustn't let him die when we could help him live!  Many chickens have lived with one leg; even some with none.  Here, we must rush him to Madre Angeletta.  She has the best medicines."

Ariana tries once more to talk sense into him.   "Gaulfredo, Taalia will owe more in medicines than she paid for the bird himself!"   But the man will not have it; he deflects, sheathing his plainly emotional desire to see the animal saved in a less-than-serious claim of chivalry.   "Nonsense, my love; I will not dishonor this fallen soldier.  Myrmidia abandon our house, if I should become a man who repays bravery with accounting." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Trolls are dumb, without handlers.  You have avoided the creature!  In the meantime, you have a decision to make.  Gaulfredo wants to rush Hurcio to the Madre for healing, but Ariana thinks this is economically foolhardy, even if it is kind to the animal.  You don't have the liquidity to pay for chicken medicines right now - you'd be throwing yourself on the Madre's mercy, and perhaps incurring some level of debt to her, depending on how she chose to hold it over you.  Whose advice would you follow?

Less urgently, did Taalia have a name she wanted to give to the ox?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


Taalia was still a little shaken when she arrived back at the farm. Hardly new to the sights of fearsome beasts, she had fought off rat-ogres before, the experience had been worse knowing that Gaulfredo, Rocco and her new animals could have been torn asunder by that stupid, disgusting beast.

But, all conflicts had sacrifices, and though he had been the one to initiate all of this mess - though it ultimately was her fault - the rooster had paid the ultimate price. Or might seem to.

When Gaulfredo cradled the injured bird, Taalia felt sympathy with his position, as she reached out to gently press her index and middle finger to it affectionately. In her mind she agreed with Adriana. He was just a rooster, and he could be replaced easy enough.

But that did not settle well with Taalia, even if she agreed with it. When she was buried in that tunnel, her life tossed aside by the Skaven who shrugged their shoulders and took the economical route, she had wished that someone would have shown her the spirit of mercy instead and made an uneconomical decision. How could she cast aside Hurcio in a similar way?

Pursing her lips, swallowing,  "I'll take him,"  she announced.

Standing, leaning over and putting a hand gently on Ariana's shoulder, she spoke.

 "I agree with you in numbers. But...I will explain later. I have to try." 

She hoped that would suffice, as she reached down genlty to receive the injured bird into her hands.

Helping with any last minute preparations, and trying her best to protect Vitorio from any of the nightmare-inducing details children didn't need to hear, Taalia gathered her slipsack, her staff, put on new shoes and gathered any other items she thought she might need and made ready to travel to Madre's house.

The only thing she needed were directions.


ooc:
And Taalia is off to bring her injured pet to the local Wise Woman, hoping she is feeling as merciful as the time she was when she healed her.
MrAbdiel
 Gaulfredo doesn't like it.  His instinct is to go with you; but Ariana pulls him aside, and they confer quietly.  You know what she must be saying - the troll is still out there; who will protect us if it comes this way?  Your own drive to survive is as plain as the scars on your face. It's easy to imagine you out-guiling a beast like that if it happens to find you, on the road.  But what if it comes to the farmhouse, and only Ariana and Vittorio are there with the animals?  Gaulfredo hangs his head, and nods a little, and returns to you.  He presses a gold coin into your palm, just in case.

 "Alright.  Alright.  Well.  Madre Angeletta is three quarters the way to Bella Collina.  Very small farm; one horse, one ox, one goat, one chicken.  There is a post on the roadside, by it; with a wooden box and clay figures in it. You will know it, when you pass it.  Take Rocco with you - less lonely, that way.  If you see the troll, you tell Rocco 'skitti, skitti', and he will run a circle around him then run way.  Beasts with legs so big can move fast, but Rocco is very fast indeed." 

Ariana has rushed to pack you a cloth bundle of bread and cheese for the road; it's quite a few hours walk, through the night.  And with the weakly cooing Hurcio in the puppy-sling around your neck, a staff in hand, and the indefatigable Rocco at your heel, you make for Madre Angeletta's house in the dark of night.

The troll does not manifest again, on your journey; that much you can be thankful for.  But as you walk, you think back on the beast.  Yes, it  was  strange that it should now be ranging so far from its cave for food.  Surely it should have been discovered doing this, and the locals alerted already, if it did not have a sustainable hunting ground within those woods where you found it first?  When you tried to lure it to the chest as your wreckingball solution to the lock (which would likely have cost you the value of all the battered and shredded items within, now that you think on it), it had apparently slept through the smell of food which surely a beast to disgusting should have roused to eat.  Something about the troll, its behaviours and its place in the region, does not fit.

It's a cool night, but walking keeps your blood warm.  You haven't slept since last night and now it's almost a new morning, but you are adapted to not having enough sleep, and your body finds its familiar reserves waiting.  The sandals you found in that chest had been barely worn by their previous occupant, and they are now comfortable to your feet for distances long and short.  Hurcio is uncomplaining as you carry him to some new place; a human valkyrie, taking him to chicken Valhalla.  This Valhalla is a cottage that is large on the scale of cottages; with a sheltered animal pen out the back, and a ring of fruit trees that are now mostly out of season, but happy to offer you their muted spring fragrance as you approach.  A rough knock on the door brings the sleepy Madre Angeletta to the door.  Warmth, the faint remnants of pipe smoke, and the smell of long melted beeswax candles wash into your senses, from beyond her.

 "Eh?  Taalia?  What are you doing, at such an hour?"
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Time on the road was peaceful to the soul, even if the situation was less than ideal. As the ex-slave walked along, the chirping of crickets about her, the placid gentle gaze of the moon blanketing the surrounding area in silvery light while the exhausted, barely conscious mewling of the rooster within her sack was a constant reminder of her purpose, Taalia had time to contemplate her situation and how close she had come to losing all of it.

That Troll, that...disgusting, ugly, stupid creature, had bumbled into her life once again and had almost destroyed all of it to satiate its animalistic gluttony. It was a cruel little spite of life how such a lumbering, dimwitted creature could destroy the lives of those gifted with reason and reflection, but if Taalia's experience had taught her anything so far, it was that life wasn't fair.

But, though she was ultimately responsible for the actions of the roosters, hens and sheep under her charge, she had to ultimately admire Hurio's courage. Sure, he had taken flight when beset upon by a flight of his hens, overwhelmed by their numbers and seeking to retreat in order to redeploy his wits and direction. Sure, this action of his had been the first domino in the sequence of disasters. But, when witnessing the enormous, beastly troll threatening one of his hens in the wild, what had this diminutive bird who wouldn't even have weighed 1/1000th of what the troll did, perform out of reflex? He charged the troll. he heeded his genetically-derived instincts, understood that the equation demanded the risk of his life in order to save a hen, and he threw himself into the fire regardless. Though a part of Taalia's mind thought it was stupid to take such a risk, the more romantic element of her soul admired the fearless and self-sacrificing bravery of the animal. Surely he deserved at least the effort of an hour-long walk to gamble on the chance of saving his life?

Exhaling gently in relief that she had arrived at Madre's house. The cottage was almost exactly what she expected: frugal, warm and self-sustaining.

When the elder woman opened the door and spotted her, asking her question, Talia held open the sling about her body to reveal the injured rooster. Indeed, it was a relief to see the older woman, to hear her voice once more. Though Taalia knew she would be helpless before such a beast as the troll - or would she? - there was something reassuring to the young human about the presence of older, wiser and more knowledgeable minds around her that she could trust.

 "Dear Madre, I sincerely apologize for waking you at this hour, please believe me that if the occasion were not this dire then I would not have disturbed you so"  Talia spoke, perhaps surprising the elder woman with how far her command of Tilean had come since last they spoke. She wasn't the dumb-sounding though sweet and earnest girl from the market, she spoke smoothly and well.

 "Gaulfredo and I barely survived an encounter with a troll, but Hurcio here received gashes from its claws. You were the only one who we thought of to bring him to..." 
MrAbdiel
 The elder woman's eyes flare with surprise.   "A troll?  In Bella Collina's hills?  The bloody creatures are a kind of vermin; they crop up even in places they ought never to be found.  Did you manage to drive it off?" 

With her body language and gestures, she leads you inside, closes the door behind you and Rocco, and clears space on a humble dining room table to lay Hurcio, who remains placid in his acceptance of death.  With her words, she asks about the encounter with the troll, and she listens along as you sketch the details for her.

 "Well, I am glad no one was hurt - no one but this little soldier.  The troll, we will have to deal with very soon; for now, let us see if we can save your little friend." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
I felt it would be cheap not to roll the heal check, after all this; but she rolled a 38, needing a 68 or less; so that's a good success.
 


What proceeds is an hour of quite intense medical service rendered to this stricken chicken.    The bloody handkercheif over the stump has done good work; the bird has lost blood, but not so much it has no chance to live.  She makes a tourniquet out of string, and with surprising efficiency, crushes some saltlike crystals with water into a smoking paste that, wafted under the chicken's beak, renders it delerious, and barely concious; insensible to pain.  And just as well; because the Madre goes as far as to stitch shut Hurcio's slashes, and to clean the stump back to the knee by paring away the remnants of the ruined lower leg.  She instructs you to hold this, to press on that, to thread this needle, to wash this off in the basin, to put these leaves in the bowl and grind it with this until it produces a milky fluid then strain that off... And at the end of the procedure, Hurcio is still less than concious... but the Madre seems confident he will persist.  She offers a little prayer to the gods represented in the box outside her house, and on her pendant, and in Gaulfredo and Ariana's kitchen: Ishea and Karnos; the mother of farms, and hearths, and villages, and the father of wild places, her husband.

 "The solution you mixed should guard against infection.  I will keep him here in the house for a few days, so that I can respond to infection if it occurs; but I think you might have saved his life.  With his wings, he'll learn to balance on the one leg, fine enough; and he'll scoot around your yard with only a little loss of speed.  But they are not particularly cheap ingredients.  I wonder..." 

You help her clean up after the surgery; and she asks:  "You've worked as an assistant before, I think. Most people can't help but fail to help, when they try; but you're not underfoot at all.  I know you've just taken up responsibilities of your own, on that farm.  Mother Ishea would forbid be to demand payment for a plea like yours coming to my door - but if you were interested in paying an old woman back for a kindness, after receiving the first for free, then you might learn a thing or two." 

How wild your luck, that what began as a tragedy has turned into a job offer.  Do the gods hate you, or love you?  It's unclear.  But spending time assisting Madre Angeletta will take up some of your time; atleast a couple of days, in the week.  You'll need to rely on Gaulfredo's family to care for your animals, while you are attending such a responsibility away from the farm.  But the chance to learn is there - and a chance to pay back a kindness paid to you. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


Taalia smiled prettily when she was let in, her towering form and younger visage contrasting with the shorter, older Madre and the skills she quickly demonstrated. The ensuing 'surgery', such as it was, was fascinating to Taalia, as she observed the various combinations of liquids, water, herbs and plants that were used to create balms, draughts and solutions that were employed to both docile the injured animal and restore his injured flesh.

Though an outside observer might think it absurd that such effort be taken for a creature that could be so easily replaced, Taalia could acknowledge the cold calculus of inefficiency while siding with the sentimentality that this animal had earned this service.

And so, when Madre went about her craft, Taalia watched. She helped as best she could which, ultimately, proved more than capable of what one might expect. She did not get in the way, she did not clumsily spill this solution or incorrectly stir this or that. Instead, the years of toiling within the Skavens workshop and the fierce drilling they demanded had paid off in the teenager proving to be a suitable, if amateur, assistant to Madres work.

 ""You've worked as an assistant before, I think. Most people can't help but fail to help, when they try; but you're not underfoot at all." 

Taalia pursed her lips and nodded. Were it anyone else, she would have smiled and deflected. But with Madre, she was someone Taalia looked up to. Alone with her at this hour in her cottage, the rooster recuperating and the crackling of the fire in the cosy dwelling, Taalia nodded, her voice soft.

 "I served my former...owners, as best I could. Not out of loyalty, but necessity. Those who failed to pay attention or adhere to protocol, lost fingers, limbs, or worse. I am only here in whole because I learned from others mistakes." 

It was a confession she had not provided to anyone, not even Gaulfredo and Ariana since having learned the ability to fluently speak in the local language. Madre was the only one she trusted with an insight into her bleak past.

 "I know you've just taken up responsibilities of your own, on that farm. Mother Ishea would forbid be to demand payment for a plea like yours coming to my door - but if you were interested in paying an old woman back for a kindness, after receiving the first for free, then you might learn a thing or two."" 

Taalia considered what the older woman was offering, her eyes widening slightly. She recalled back to her wonder at how she had treated the wound of her arm, and how it had come along nicely, clean of infection and almost finished in recuperation. She also had witnessed and assisted in her work for treating the injured rooster. But even more than that, Taalia recalled how Madre was  respected  in the community. Mentally she rembered the market: when Madre spoke, she did so quietly and yet people  listened .

She remembered Rashabang, a rat of a  very  different inclination and mind and how he had shown her favour. That patronage, though not official and only minor compared to genuine apprenticeships, had been enough to preserve Taalia's life.

This was the calculus and sentimentality that went into the girls mind as she stood before the older woman, the warm quiet of the cottage lingering in that pregnant pause as Madre waited patiently for a response from the towering girl before her.

 "I have duties, yes, on Gaulfredo's farm. I owe everything to him and Ariana,"  she smiled, her voice tempered and gentle,  "I dread to think where I would be in the world today had I not encountered Gauldredo's bravery in weeks past in the forest. I hope to build something here, so I think I can agree, yes..." 

She nodded, looking Madre in her face,  "I will, yes,"  she smiled.
MrAbdiel
Hurcio remains in the Madre's care for now; and charged with new trust and purpose, you hoof your way home with Rocco; flinging a stick ahead of you for him to chase, and bring back; pausing to make a night snack of the meal Ariana scrambled together for you.  It's not unlike the last time you travelled this road late at night; though that time you were dragging the cart with Gaulfredo, appreciating the engineering of the road that curved along the gentle hillsides rather than insisting on going over them, retaining its relative flatness.  You are wary for the troll as you pass where you know its lair to be; but no sign comes of it; and you come home to find that Vittorio and Gaulfredo have long gone to bed, but Ariana reclines on one of the low and lazy chairs at the front of the house, with a blanket over herself and a candle burning on an upturned wooden bucket beside her.  She gets the update on Hurcio, and is surprised that he'll make it; but not upset at the fruition of your instinct.   "Well.  Good on you, Taalia, for having faith in him then.  Gaulfredo knows a joke about a one-legged chicken; you should ask him about it, sometime."   She gives you a hug spontaneously, the most natural, mothering gesture in the world, and tells you to get some rest.  The troll hasn't come around; all the animals are now accounted for; and the gods know you need it.  Corvo sleeps with his brother in Vittorio's room for the night; but Rocco is well accustomed to boarding with you in the barn, and sleep claims you as soon as your head hits the folded blanket that serves as a pillow.

 * * * * * 
It's close to midday the next day when you are roused by Corvo licking at your face, demanding attention.  Vittorio, very pleased with this deployment, squirms in place with delight at his mischief at the door to the barn, before scuttling off as though his haste could make you un-see him.

More importantly, it turns out as you rise that he had been send to wake you; Corvo was merely a means to an end.  Bertuccio is here; his white charger nuzzling with the faintest remnants of interest at the leaves of an unfruitful orange tree at the front of the farmhouse.  Ariana, Gaulfredo, and Bertuccio are inside, apparently waiting for you; though Ariana rises to fix you some eggs to eat, while you talk with the gentlemen.

 "Taalia.   Buongiorno.   The Madre Angeletta told me about your brush with the troll; Gaulfredo has told me that some weeks ago, when you first met him, you fought off some goblins on the road to Bella Collina."   With that report, you catch his eyes flicking over you briefly.  Assessing the likelihood of such a fight taking place in the way it was described, and your physical capacity to take part in it.  Perhaps he's seeing you for the first time as something other than a foreign curio; but his countenance remains calm, and professional; defying his youth.   "I had hoped you could tell me everything you remember about those goblins.  Nine times out of ten, trolls and greenskins find each other for mischeif.  And this troll, I've come to beleive, is responsible for the loss of a handful of sheep and cattle, on other farms closer to town.  Up until now, folk were blaming the elf that passed through.  But a troll... well.  What do you remember?" 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

When Arianna hugged her, Taalia at first froze from the gesture, as it was not a physical connection she was used to. No one, ever, in the past ten years had  hugged her. The encirclement of the other womans arms, her tone, the warm affection she displayed...it was all alien to the ex-slave, even as ingratiated to surface life as she had become.

But, that instinctual longing within her responded. Taalia looked to Madre like an elderly mother figure, whether maternal or grandmotherly...the lines were blurred. But Ariana was a figure she drew inspiration and warmth from, and so when those arms came around her and her initial apprehensive wore off, Taalia put her surprisingly strong, long arms around the Tilean woman and hugged her back.

 oOo 

The next morning, or afternoon, Taalia awoke to about the best sensation one could hope for: an adorable puppy licking their face. Her mind drawn out of deep slumber with giggles and smiles, she drew open her heterochromia eyes to see the little dog lapping at her, at which point she brought up one hand to scoop the little dog up and affectionately nuzzle her mouth/face against its belly and elicit the little playful yelps she so adored.

When she was brought to the kitchen, Taalia didn't seem to care that Bertuccio  was there. The teenager looked like one might imagine a teenager to appear after having just been woken up after an adventurous night: dishevelled, still getting a grip on the world around her and sometimes closing one or both eyes as the grains within her lids pressured her eyeballs.

If Bertuccio's handsome, rugged youthful visage had once won sway within Taalia's heart, it was now a distant memory. The ditching of that hussy and amends would need to be paid to rekindle any of that potential.

 "The troll was one of the first living things I encountered after departing the cave, and my former owner,"  she stated plainly, using language and brusque revelations about her past that she had not yet shown to Gaulfredo and Ariana.

 "It was...several weeks ago..."  she thought to herself, lips and eyelids pursed,  "the gutter runners had attacked Rashabang and I in the depths of the Under Empire. My owner, he had thought himself gaining prominence and a higher station within Skaven society. His ambition was met with the knives of the assassins sent to slay us. Ironically, he...saved my life. Though I don't think he did it out of any sense of devotion, rather just preserving a valued pet..."  she shrugged, speaking matter of factly, her emotions well hidden.

 "Like with  Hermes  and the troll,"  she stated, gesturing in the direction of the sheep-pen.

 "I distracted the Troll and rushed to lead him away from it. Not because I value his companionship, or think highly of him as a fellow soul or love him or anything...but because he's valuable to me, to us, and what he can do for us. It was the same with Rashabang and I: he didn't love or value me, I was just very useful to him. He only had to show me the work to be done once, I didn't cause problems, I could talk to and keep the other slaves in line...."
 
Taalia trailed off, pursing her lips, her eyes staring into the distance as if remembering things she'd rather not  before suppressing it all and continuing.

 "We fled up a tunnel. Up, that is a specific word. One of the assassins tried throwing their knife at me, but their range was too far. That's how I gained the weapon Gaulfredo spotted..."  she gestured to the man, reminding him of that small knife she was equiped with when she had charged the goblins in a hunger-starved furor. To emphasise the point, she tilted her head to the side, reached up to push down her collar and reveal the light scar across her trapezium muscle to validate her words.

 "When we emerged onto the surface, into the daylight..."  she swallowed, her eyes a little wide as her vision drifted back and forth, not focused on anyone in particular.

 "I think it had been a decade...I was taken by the Norscans when I was....I don't even remember..."  she said, pursing her lips, swallowing, holding back a tear now that she recognised just how long a time that had been and how much of her formative years had been stolen.

 "A decade since I had seen the sun. The assassins were no longer a threat, but my owner, or rather...not  owner , more like  temporary  holder, Rashabang...he was getting old. He was brilliant. I worked in his workshop, but I knew he wouldn't make it. But before I had the chance to...put him out of his misery..."  she uttered, revealing perhaps a murderous streak to her past,  "...he keeled over. An assassins knife had caught him after all" 

The ex-slave paused. It was clear this was an...emotionally charged topic for her, her mind and memories separated from the world by the most passive visage she could muster that was betrayed only by the 1,000 yard stare worn by her eyes.

 "Anyway..."  she redrew herself,  "I buried him. But later I coudln't find him. That's another story..."  she shook her head, still wondering whether he had been reclaimed by the gutterrunners - who were unbelievably mercifully enough to let her live - or if he himself had recovered and ventured off on his own.

 "But I travelled down along the stream. In the Under Empire their cities and towns are always near streams. The Skaven have to drink too. So I speculated that if I was going to encounter other surface dwellers, they'd be by a river.

I came across a cave-entrance in a river embankment. I hoped to find shelter for the night but it  stank ! The scent of putrid, rotting flesh..."  she hissed, eyes half closed as she shook her head.

 "I went inside anyway, thinking maybe an animal died. That's where I saw  it . That troll..." 

She allowed a pause to linger in the air before continuing.

 "It was asleep. Thank whatever Gods are looking over me right now, it was asleep. I'd have come out of its arse weeks ago if it wasn't..."  she said, her crude words contrasting with how casually she said it.

 "It had all these bones littered around its den, and a few things that glittered. There was a risky part of my brain that prompted me to try and pick a few things up, but I knew better. I backed out and ran as fast as I could.

Heading into the forest, but sticking to the river, I came across a clearing. It was a campsite, as much as one could be. I rummaged through it, careful not to put anything out of place. That's where I got all of the..."  she gestured generally to the slipbag, among other things.

 "And the chest,"  she said.  "Gaulfredo knows that part. Originally, the goblins had all these fish heads strewn about the camp site. I knew they were goblins, as I climbed up a tree where I could watch, wanting to see who came back. When I saw it was them - and I knew what type of creatures they were, I had had to share space with them in the slave pits of the Skaven - I knew what nasty little things they were. I waited for them to leave once again, at which point I shifted some coins on them to fake a robbery, and I used some of their fish heads to try and create a lure for the troll to come and kill them, and hopefully smash open the chest. But nothing came of it. Hours passed, day turned to night, and eventually the four goblins returned, this time with a horse in tow..." 

She trailed off again, knowing Gaulfredo knew what was coming next. Mercifully, Taalia spared him the details.

 "One of the goblins seem to act...out of order. He ended the horses life, but the other goblins were clearly not happy about it. They berated him, they abused him, but they put the..."  she wanted to be sensitive, but she coulnd't,  "they made the best of the carcass as they could." 

It had been the first thing she'd eaten on the surface.

 "As time went on, I was watching from a tree, knowing the troll had not taken the bait. The next thing I know, Gaulfredo,"  she gestured to the man,  "emerges out of the darkness with the bravery of ten men and whacks one of them over the head. I clambered down and joined in. I didn't know if he was ultimately friend or foe, I just saw a fellow human, and I was so hungry I was willing to take the risk. The rest, as they say, is history." 
MrAbdiel
 Bertuccio and Gaulfredo listen; Ariana joins to listen about halfway through, setting a bowl of scrambled egg, with halves of cherry tomatos and pepper scattered through it.  She does not, however, insist you stop speaking to eat it, as she might have under another circumstance; the gravity of it all is not lost on her.

The roadwarden listens, glances at the farmers, and back to you, and thinks for a long moment.

 "...Well.  Trolls aren't expecially native to the area; river trolls like that usually hide by larger rivers than the little stream running parallel to the village road.  They wouldn't bring a river troll over the mountains; the beast would eat its handlers out of desperation.  It probably walked in with the last greenskin raiding force to hit Monte Castello, and fled without much direction after the attack force was broken four months ago.  My guess is that those goblins were keeping it as a pet, or weapon.  That's why it hasn't wandered out looking for food sooner." 

The guess makes sense, even out of details you hadn't shared.  The set-aside horse's legs; one for each goblin to carry the next day, to the cave.  Likely, why the three reacted badly to the one's slaying of the horse.  It's easier to walk an animal to slaughter and carry off the choice cuts than to butcher it in the field and then haul the dead carcass to the meat market.  And perhaps that's why the troll hadn't reacted to your clever fish-head bait trap, but  had  apparently stalked almost all the way to your farm; back then, the goblins were regularly feeding it, so it wasn't hungry enough to bother.  Now, the goblins dead and gone by your and Gaulfredo's efforts, the troll must be forced to hunt and roam again.  Have you set this monster upon the region, by killing its handlers?  No, not likely. The goblins didn't strike you as responsible wardens of such a thing - perhaps, if you hadn't killed them, they'd have been driving it into Bella Collina as their wrecking ball, and carrying off their spoils.

 "We're going to have to kill it.  I'll put together a  banda di caccia.   We'll have to set a trap to lure it out of the cave, probably to the road, so we can put archers on it.  I've been part of a troll hunt once; I know how it's done.  But I don't want to lose anyone; so I'd like to plan with some precision.
 Can I trouble you to show me where the cave is?  If you're due to retreive your, er... injured chicken from the village, I'll be back this way tomorrow morning heading back to Bella Collina." 
 "I'll get in some practice with my bow, then."   Gaulfredo remarks, with phlegmatic resignation.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Bertuccio could use your help locating the troll cave.  Additionally, if you had a specific pitch about how to manage your farm projects while you're doing your part-time medicine woman learning, you could pitch that to Gaulfredo and Ariana.  Right now, while it's just collecting eggs, and walking sheep to grass and back again, the farming routine is simple enough that a child could do it.  You're many months off full dairy/textile/poultry operations!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Perhaps it was her deeply buried, scornful hormones within her that felt slightly tilted that Bertuccio didn't show her any sympathy after hearing her story...but the pragmatist she was quickly staved off any such distractions.

Though again, this 'pragmatist' had to be replaced by another as she battled the excitement of the idea of asking for, and receiving, the chance to use a gun.

Instead, Taalia simply nodded in response to his request to lead him and his troupe to the beasts lair.

 "I stumbled across it once, and deliberately visited it a second time. I know where it is. I cannot guarantee it will be there when I show you, but I can at least lead you to its dwelling,"  she said, her command of Tilean improving out of sight since last she spoke to the Roadwarden.

Thinking again to her most recent encounter, Taalia spoke once more.

 "I managed to distract it last time with the lantern,"  she said,  "I threw it at the monsters feet and the fire spilled forth. It was so consumed with attention towards the flames that I managed to retrieve my flock without harassment." 

Just further advice that could be helpful.
MrAbdiel
 An easy day and night tick by with no disasters on the farm.  Gaulfredo pauses his work plowing for the planting of the corn to spend the afternoon stringing and practicing with a plain looking yew bow; dragging a dusty archer butte out from under the farmhouse and sinking arrows into it from range with reasonably, if unimpressive accuracy.  Vittorio is keen to graduate from dog-minding to sheep and chook minding. Your suggestion, that you might teach him to read while you are learning, is amazing to him.  He has never read anything, or recognized a visual word; the notion of being able to hear someone's words long after they have spoken them is a fantastical idea, but one he's willing to take part in.

The day after, Gaulfredo rigs up Tomas and the cart, so you needn't walk; and so that you can pick up a few things from the village.  A small sack of flour, and whatever vegetables are at the trading post that you can pick up with the rest of the money Ariana gives you; plus Gaulfredo gives you a quiver of arrows he would like you to take to old Signore Cestié's workshop, to have their heads sharpened.  Since you're heading into town, it seems like a simple enough matter to accomplish.  And Corvo now reliable toddles back to you when you call him, so it's a good adventure for the pup too.  True to his word, Bertuccio shows up that morning and rides along side your cart, as you obey the limited driving instinct that you have picked up so far.

He's not remarkably conversational; but as the light scatter of trees turns into the loose forest that runs the length of the road to the village, it occurs to the road warden to ask you, in departure from the bland small-talk that had been the heartbeat of the journey.   "...Taalia.  The name.  Imperial?  Are you from Sigmar's Lands?" 

The familiar set of trees that leads to the former camp of the goblins, and therefore the way to the troll lair, is coming up on your right. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia watched as Gaulfredo retrieved his weapon and started to practice, his accuracy on point but...against a stationary target, it didn't particularly inspire confidence in her. Though Taalia was not some veteran of war, she had been in plenty of fights and seen even more in the pits and slave pens, and she knew the unexpected speed at which monsters could move when they were truly motivated. A part of her wanted to pull him aside, ask him to set his bow aside with reassurances that he had more than proven his valor and that all it would take it was one mistake and Ariana would be a widow and his son would grow up without a father. Unless he had a horse upon which to ride and use to keep a good distance from the trolls wicked claws, she did not like the idea of him entering the fray at all.

She decided she would try to bring it up later. She knew he was not an insecure, boastful nor arrogant man, but he was a proud one, compelled by duty to protect family and hearth. She admired it, but she worried that he might end up paying the price.

 oOo 

Walking alongside the ox, with Bertuccio on his horse beside them and Corvo in his sling - a source of great enjoyment for Taalia - the day seemed a fine one to simply walk along the road to town. The sun was out, the breeze gentle, it was as picturesque as she had ever known, and a sight of which she'd never grow tired.

 "...Taalia. The name. Imperial? Are you from Sigmar's Lands?" 

Taalia turned her head to look up at the roadwarden, her face impassive as he tried to make conversation.

  Had he not lsitened to a word I'd said yesterday?   She asked herself, having explained quite clearly she had been living underground for almost ten years, taken at an early age. She didn't know where she was from! Mentally she filed it away, ticking a little box in her head. Externally, she just offered a small smile.

 "I don't know where I am from,"  she answered. Now that she was relatively fluent and able to speak with the musical flow of the Tilean language, instead of the jilted, bumbling clumsiness of before, she had a smooth, sonorous and smoky voice.

 "The Norscans raided my town when I was very little. We lived on a coast, with apple trees. My house collapsed in on me. That's how I got this,"  she turned and ran a finger down the scar on her face.

 "Taalia is what Gaulfredo and Ariana called me. I rather like it, I have much to be thankful for." 

When she noticed the on-coming familiar landmarks, Taalia would point to them.

 "The goblin camp was down in that direction. Which means that the trolls lair was..."  she draws her finger along the tree lines, mentally pivoting the georgraphy to recall the route she took 3 times to go from the camp to the vile abode of that dreadful thing,  "...that way, in a large embankment underneath a tree. But I would not venture there close, not now, with Tommaso and the little one,"  she gestures to the sling around her shoulders with Corvo inside.
MrAbdiel
 Bertuccio's eyebrows lift a little at her answer; and he offers a minimal nod as she answers both his question, and the next three or four questions he might have intended to ask; plundering his vault of polite interest and leaving him quiet and thoughtful instead of forcedly chatty.  He takes special note of the stretch of treeline when you point it out.  "Right.  Well, I'll double back to look it over after we see you safe to town; and compose a plan.  You're, ah.  Very brave, to have come through all that."

It's a lame compliment; awkwardly given.  Perhaps that's just the ceiling of his social cunning, however handsome and mysterious he might first have appeared?  And with no natural opportunity arising in which he could offer her the recreational use of his long gun, his virtues seem to be diminishing by the moment.

He bids you farewell, at the  edge of Bella Collina; wheeling back around the way you came to do some investigations.  You check on Hurcio; he is alert, laying on his side in a basket, chirping is slow processing distress from his amputation; but healthy enough in the Madre's care.  Madre Angeletta releases him, basket and all, back into your care; and recommends keeping him seperated from the other chickens until he has figured out how to hop around under his own power in his new condition.

Shopping for the flour and vegetables is a quick, anodyne experience with a pair of middle aged spinsters who run the town's trading post, where sundries like this are sold by locals and bought by locals with the post's owners taking a cut. You're likely to rely on this place to move your quickly spoiling goods; though wool, and lambs for slaughter, can be marketed more leisurely with no fear of turning.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
 Now  you can make me a gossip check!  Both to make a positive impression on this gossipy new pair, and to harvest scuttlebutt.
 


Delivering the arrows to Signore Cestié's workshop is much more rewarding.  You know it as the place he pointed out to you during the rumpus of the Flicker-Tide celebration; well sized, with a tradesman's shingle hanging from its front.  Inside, the smells and sights strike you at once with purified nostalgia; the grease and shaved metal and smoke smells of Rashabang's workshop without the all penetrating rat musks and the nose-searing ozone tang of warpstone.  He has many interesting benches and tools; some which seem loosely familiar to you.  This one clamps something for rotating while it is carved with a pointed tool; this one revolves a rough and porous tone for grinding tools to shape and blades to edge; and so on.  Most of those in Rashabang's lair ran on labor one steppe removed - rat slaves, or sometimes straight up rats, running in wheels or pushing or pumping.  These seem to be almost entirely arranged with a set of stirrups for the feet next to an operator's chair; and perhaps kicking one's feet in the stirrups does the work of whatever rotating or spinning force is needed for the great tool.  A couple of wooden cabinets on the walls display unusual brass and steel tools, doodads, and  stuff  - though no guns, you notice.

You haven't see Signore Cestié since Flicker-Tide, so he is both pleased to see you and amazed at how rapidly you have grappled with the language; though he still speaks slowly, and about 10% louder than he needs to, as an affectation of character common to older gentlemen.  "Taalia, Taalia, you are so smart!  You have learned so much, ah?  Eh?  Gaulfredo wants his bodkins sharpened?  Little good it will do him - if it's a troll hunt, Bertuccio will no doubt have a heap of arrows of his own supple, and a channel of burning pitch to dip them in.  Nasty creatures, trolls; they heal in moments, and if you get to close, they -throw up their acid guts- all over you!  Terrible, terrible.  Though I should like to get my hands on a troll's stomach, some time; just to see what I might make of it."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

It was a bit revelatory walking to town with Bertuccio this way, as he was one of the few outside of Gaulfredo and Ariana she had spent any length of time with. She admittedly felt a bit silly for her earlier school girl crush, taken in by the handsome, rugged authority figure who was both brave and protective, and she could still see it. But talking to him tempered her opinion somewhat, as he was clearly not a man of many words. Which was fine, in his own right. That didn't make him  bad  or anything, he did a noble job for the community after all. But it did suggest to her that perhaps she wasn't interesting to him, or nights with him were not particularly conversive affairs.

 "Right. Well, I'll double back to look it over after we see you safe to town; and compose a plan. You're, ah. Very brave, to have come through all that." 

She smiled plainly.  "Thank you Signore Beruccio, I would like to assist with the troll's demise in whatever way I can, if weapons are spare,"  she returned as she looked up at him,  "and if you were willing and after the threat of the troll has passed, I would sincerely appreciate it if you could teach me how to use a firearm!"  she brightened up, her smile genuine and a spark of excitement in her eyes, as she gestured to the stock of the weapon that poked out of its holster on the horses side.

 oOo 

In town at the trading post, Taalia made small-talk where she could. She had pleasant smiles and listened more than she spoke. After all, this was the first time she could actually understand the flow of information and conversation being spoken about her. The last time it was all just melody to her, but now she knew what it all meant. People talking had a certain rhythm, a way of speaking and giving information via what they did say and what they didn't say. Gaulfredo, Ariana and Madre were quite open and honest with her, but the people about town? They had no reason not to employ the usual little social ritual of chitter chatter with her.

However, something Taalia did find particularly interesting were the notices of trade and sources of material goods. The Skaven had their trade networks in their Under Empire, and humans had them on the surface. That tax collector who had bought her mirror was going to sell the item for a larger profit in the 'big city', where ever that was. Food, goods, material, it all went into the big city and gold crowns came out.

Of particular interest to Taalia and her current expertise, such as it was, were the prices for the different type of animals, how much people were wanting, how much they were willing to pay or negotiate, and where such husbandry was to be directed. This was of considerable interest as numbers started to crunch inside her mind, raising her hand to stroke her chin delicately as she considered her own future here and what she could make of herself if she could master her own niche in this network. Wouldn't that be a dream come true? In a decades time to own her own rural house, acres, flocks and herds, and raising her own children while directing her hired labourers. Why not? She could be the maser of her own destiny here - she wasn't a slave anymore.

 oOo 

Taalia smiled brightly at seeing Signore Cestié' again. He had not played a particularly big role in her surface life so far, but she appreciated his trade work and his grandfatherly mien had the same elderly appeal to her as Madre's did - though if she understood it correctly, Madre was several decades younger. It also helped that the scent and sounds of the workshop were homely in how familiar she found them.

 "Signore Cestié'!"  the girl beamed, receiving his astonished compliments as she held her skirt and pivoted on the spot before facing him again, almost like a girl visiting their grandfather before heading off to their debut ball. It was amazing how wonderful an 'atta girl! compliment felt coming from a learned elder of a town.

 "They are!"  she concurred with hits words on the troll, her expression darkening.

 "It almost ate me twice!"  she exclaimed,  "my ram and sheep!"  she exclaimed,  "it clawed off my roosters leg! Pah! " she hissed softly, shaking her head.

 "I would very much like to be part of its demise,"  she nodded, before Signore Cestié' made his curiosity known.

 "Would you?"  she asked, a coy smile crossing her pretty, scarred face, her eyelids narrowing slightly as she sensed opportunity.

 "What would you offer if I could provide it?"  she asked, her tone on that edge of 'serious if you mean it but just joking if you don't'.
MrAbdiel
Bertuccio keeps a reserved and cautious look, when you indicate your interest in the longarm.  It's either a precious instrument to him, or he holds some quiet reservation about teaching you (or anyone) to use it.  But he doesn't flatly shoot down the idea (haha); just puts a perquisite in front of his consideration.   "Well. We'll see how you fare with a crossbow, first."   Come to think of it, it's the only firearm you've seen since you last saw Rashabang's weapons.  Perhaps they are rarer for men, than they are for rats.  Perhaps it's the most expensive thing in the village surrounds...

 * * * * * 
You chat amiably with the two spinsters at the trading post; Amalia and Amadea.  Or you try; they're impressed at how quickly you have adopted the local tongue, but apparently they think that means you have become a superhuman linguist; because when they start nattering to each other, glancing to you periodically with smiles as they do, they chatter at such a clip you feel like the conversational equivalent of a toddler, one hand held by grown siblings either side; dangling in the air as you are rushed on without your feet more than brushing the ground.  The pair of them seem friendly clever, and good humoured; though how quickly they resort to talking about other villagers or farmers, you expect they are not to be trusted with secrets.
 
"...And this troll business; that's no good at all.  I hope the boys give it a hiding; I really do.  What mischeif.  It's been eating whole cows, and all."
"Oh, I hope they just chase it offer.  I shouldn't like to see killing, when we don't need it; even if it is an ugly old troll."
"Speaking of trolls - the young   Rampollo Damio   rolled in, this morning."
"Did he now?  Good for him.  And did he bring his would-be-bride from the Blues?"
"No, the marriage has fallen through, as you said."
"Didn't I say?"
"Say, you did."
"I did say.  Can't hardly trust the Blue families to follow through on an honest contract.  That's why they've been pecked to the bottom of the pile."
"I'm sure it won't take long before young Damio has a new fancy; though an honest Yellow family, this time if you please."
"If you please, yes." 

Damio must be the ruler of the village, or the region, for whom Polo works; Rampollo some kind of minor title.  But what kind of ruler spends so much time away from their land, pursuing what sounds like flimsy marriage proposals?

 * * * * * 
"Pah!"  Signore Cestié agrees, flaring his hands in the air sympathetically when you exclaim, delightedly.   Exclaiming , and hand-talking, seems to be a big part of the Tilean language. The rats had something distantly similar - a style of cypher language they used to lie to each other, where furtive hand gestures performed while talking suggested the listener should invert the meaning of certain parts of a queekish claim.  That rattish cryptograph you never were able to pierce; but the Tilean version seems less like telling two stories, one of which is a lie; and more like telling one story, but needing to express about a hundred and fifty percent of its real emotional impact for anyone to take it seriously.

 "Part of its demise, ah?  You might just be.  We'd be fools to muster only the minimum for the  banda di caccia,  when dealing with monsters. They take quite some killing!  But I'm afraid there won't be much stomach left.  They'll put it all to the torch right away - as well they should.  Really, you need specialist hunters to claim parts of creatures like that.  Called in from the major cities; dwarves and such.  But I think I could make a leather sheath for a shield, our of a troll stomach; if I can figure out to tan it.  Those would sell nicely - a troll's gut is about the only thing a troll's vomit won't burn through.  It would be big! Big enough that they can eat a calf in one hungry sitting, and house it all.  And it would need to be slit open to let the gore and acid out, and so forth.  Even if you could get it out, the whole  banda  would want a cut of whatever I'd pay you, since they'd all have fought to take it down.  But here - if you can bring me just a scrap of its stomach wall, enough I can toy with different tanning solutions on it..."   He makes a gesture with his hands; maybe a dinner-plate sized 'scrap'.   "Why, I'd pay you ten gold for it, and no one need gripe." 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


Though Taalia felt like she was barely able to keep her head above the waves of the spinsters words, she also knew that this was  invaluable  to her. Where else could she learn to be completely, 100% fluent, than by talking regularly with these two? If talking with her foster family and others was learning how to swim, this was testing oneself against the currents, without the threat of drowning of course.

And so, though much of it went over her head, she smiled and learned what she could, sometimes mimicking the hand-purse gestures the women made. Sometimes she could follow along just by seeing how their hands moved, as they told a story all on their own!

 "This Rampollo Damio,"  Taalia asked when a break in the conversation was present.

 "Forgive me, but who is he?"  she asked with adorable innocence.


 oOo 

Taalia listened to Signore Cestié's explanation, her eyes widening a little at how much he'd be willing to give for what. By now, Taalia was gaining a sense of scale for money, pennies, silver and gold, and she knew that ten gold crowns was  a lot  of money.

Nodding, but her eyes glittering with opportunity,  "I'll see if it can be done, Signore Cestié,"  she said with her smoky voice.

 "Of course, the death of the creature and preservation of our lives takes priority. I don't want a house-hold losing a member for the sake of some currency,"  she confided.

 oOo 
Taalia moved along in the town, her quarter staff in one hand, pack over her back with items, sling around her front with her puppy. She looked around as she went, people talking in their days around her no longer feeling so foreign to her, as the barrier of language had largely been removed. A month ago she had felt out of place, a clear interloper who had no idea what was going on around her. Now? A big difference just a month made.

However, she spotted something she had  not  observed in her prior trip: the tavern.

It was a fascinating place, not one that would have normally been on her radar. She had dwellings, food and her own duties, but there was something that Gaulfredo and Ariana enjoyed with their dinner, wine, that piqued Taalia's interest: alcohol.

She had her own money now. She had already decided she was going to give 5 silver to Madre when she went over to her house tomorrow, to get ahead by a couple of weeks on her first month of agreed payment for items she had given her. Another coin she had set aside as well, never to be spent, for it held a...sentimental value to her that could not be financially evaluated. That left two silver and 8 pennies, until next weekend. All her other needs for the week were met. She should save half of that, and the other half?

Within several minutes, Taalia had entered the tavern, her eyes peering around the insides and taking in the sights and sounds, even of this small-town tavern during the middle of the day.

Approaching the front desk, the bartender eyeing her curiously, Taalia would flash the man with a bright smile, reaching into her sling to pat her puppy as she did so.

 "Good afternoon Signore,"  she said politely, her eyes at the bottles arranged across the back wall.

Moments later, she was departing the tavern, 1 silver poorer, but grasping a bottle of beautiful, amber-copper liquid in her hands that she stared at with the fascinated love a mother might have for their newborn. It was called Whiskey - she couldn't wait to show Gaulfredo and Ariana!
MrAbdiel
 Amalia and Amadea are more than happy to inform you.  What begins as an immediate answer to your question becomes, rapidly, a double commentary on the politics of the region.  You catch most of it, because of the way they seem to enjoy repeating themselves to each other, which gives you a chance to catch up.

You are in a region called the Republic of Verezzo.  Republic, you grasp, means that it does not have a king, like the Norscan tribes did; but a series of representatives who jockey and bicker to make decisions collectively.  Most of Tilea is ruled by one merchant Prince or another, as a family dynasty they try to pass down; but the doughty citizens of Verezzo threw down their Prince many years ago after he attempted to sell the great city's grain stores in famine back to the farmers who filled them in times of plenty, at extortionate rates.  Tileans do not like kings and rulers, and Verezzans perhaps least of all; a square of land to raise one's family and agreeable neighbours for times of crisis is the dream (or so these rural gossips tell you).

Verezzo is governed by a senate of forty-nine merchants.  To be eligable to be a  senatore , a merchant must have a personal worth ten thousand  duro  with a yearly income of one tenth of that figure.  To cast a vote to elect such a cantidate to the senate, a merchant (or otherwise wealthy citizen) must have a personal worth of one thousand  duro , and a yearly income of one tenth of that.  Thus, golden chains bind Verezzans together; the senators must court wealthy trading partners, but must also seek the votes of lesser merchants and so will fan our their interests across the countryside to find such men and women to wring a vote out of.  The lesser merchants are only eligible for this courtship with considerable wealth themselves, so they are strongly driven to marry inheriting children to those of other similarly middle-wealthy families, and also to strive to maximize their business with small operators in villages and farms.  Independant farmers and land owners may dream of becoming a  elettore  merchant one day; but in the meantime, someone closer to that dream or having attained it already will earnestly seek their business both for profit and to prevent someone else from using it to elevate themselves.  All these numerical facts - the incomes, the net worths, the trade values - are scrupulously audited by the  corporazione degli impiegati : the guild of clerks.  They take on themselves the duties of bean-counting with the gravity of a religious order.  It is certainly not irreligious - they take vows before gods named  Scripsisti  and  Mercopio  to engage in this duty in the spirit it is given to them; and sometimes, they even follow through. One who has become a member of the Clerk's guild can never vote for a senator or become one themselves, nor can their children.

Thus, the lawmakers and the voters are merchants of varying levels, but everyone who seeks power is incentivised to create their own  elettore ; and it is assumed that the major churches, mercenary paymasters, artisan guildsmen and presumably even the clerks themselves cultivate and promote the fortunes of promising landowners and entrepreneurs.

This is all to prepare you for the understanding that the senate of Verezzo is divided into four factions, which are coalitions of  senatore  and the noble families to which they are attached.  Allegiances are waxy; firm most of the time, but fluid when heat is applied.  The sitting  senatori  denote their allegiance with color themes: red, blue, green, yellow.  City events tend to be colorful swirls where  senatori , their prospective  elettori  and connected attendants, servants, guests, courtesans and even animals are marked in some way with their faction colors.  Further from the city, where towns and villages are more dominated by the interests of individual  senatori  and  elettori , the color themes become more singular.  The yellow you've seen around - the yellow dress on the girl, the sash on Bertuccio, even Gaulfredo's handkercheifs - are visual identifiers that they are, at their various places in the chain, connected or devoted to the yellow faction.

And finally, after explaining all this, the ladies are able to answer your question.  A  rampollo  is an individual who is openly seeking to become an  elettore , and has received a kind of tacit sponsorship from a faction to do so.  Damio, they explain, acts then both as a representative for the village's interest with wider Verezzo, and also personally seeks to promote the growth and financial wellbeing of Bella Collina and her sattelite farms.  Perhaps, over time when the village's power to produce has grown, he will make enough money as a merchant connecting village to city; or close enough, making up the difference by marrying well.  That seems not to be happening yet, though; a hope to poach a bride from a stalwart Blue family has not been successful.

 "Politici!"  they exclaim together in theatrical disgust, throwing their hands in the air.

 * * * * * 
Signore Cestié seems really to enjoy your youthful company, now that he can understand you; and is excited by your prospective acquisition of some troll matter, as much as he is pleased you're taking the threat seriously.  Before you go, he insists on giving you a gift - it's a fist sized brass bell on a woven hemp collar, to put on Hermes' neck.  That way, if he takes off again, he'll be a little easier to find before he ends up facing off against such dangers!

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Make me a +20 Perception test.
 


After that, the tavern draws your eye - a quaint little watering hole with a few rooms upstairs for travellers to board if they have nowhere in town to be.  In the small village, it serves multiple functions - drinking venue, dining hall, caterering and libations, meeting place, and recovery ward.  In the heart of the day when you are there, a few villagers taking early breaks from their labors partake in a morning drink and a small bowl of soup.  The tavernkeeper, a thin if handsome middle aged man with with ash blond hair and a moustage in the curled imperial style not common in Tilea, is named Gheradino.  He's happy to serve you your bottle - and, perhaps seeking repeat custom, knocks a silver off the price for you.  His two children are some of those you played with, during Flicker-Tide.  The girl, Perusia, is about Vittorio's age; the boy, Rubeus, is a little younger, and is the one who first discerned the value of your height.  He spots you from  the common room balcony which leads from the boarding rooms, and zooms down the stairs to meet you; and lifts his arms high in hopes you'll hoist him up so he can touch the bottom of the balcony.

But with that sidestop done, you are clear to make your way home.  You give Tomasso a little more time to drink from the trough outside the tavern, and then you're on the road back to the farm - though the Madre is sitting on her porch waiting for you to pass, and flags you down as you go by.  She lifts a sack up to you where you sit on the cart.   "Here - keep these with you, Taalia.  I will show you more about them, as you learn - but it's best to have them on you.  They'll do you no good, if you need them, and they're here with me!" 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You make add 5 bandages, 1 vial of healing poultice, 1 antitoxin kit, and 1 healing draught to your trappings, as per your loan-and-repayment arrangement with the Madre. The bandages are free; she makes them herself, and they're just boiled rags!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


Taalia found her mind racing at the explanation of the political system on the surface, it's complexity both interesting but also a little staggering. The Ratmen had been pretty straight forward and simple: the strongest killed and ate his successor to achieve power over a clan, and everyone heeded the words of the Council of Thirteen.

Still, the amount of money required to stand for office was  enormous . Here Taalia was dreaming of a hundred gold crowns one day, when such a thing was a yearly generation at  minimum . To have such wealth in one life-time! Could she create such a fortune?

 oOo 
Taalia smiled at the presentation of a gift, her mouth smiling wide and her eyes glittering in both excitement and appreciation. It was a cute little bell, and it certainly would have come in handy during Hermes' mad dash for freedom that almost saw him devoured by a troll.

However, it was also the fact that Signore Cestié had thought of her trouble and made her something to help prevent further chaos, that touched her so. Holding that bell in her hands, she looked over to the elder, smiled genuinely and gave him a light hug. No kiss on the cheek this time! Just a hands on shoulders hug, before she drew back. It was becoming clear to those around her, that as Taalia came out of her shell and ingratiated into the local life, she was quite a physically affectionate person.

 "Thank you Signore Cestié! I'll affix it around his neck as soon as I get back!" 

However, as she was departing the shop, she spotted that brass oddity. Halting her advance, pausing and double-taking, she perked an eyebrow as she pivoted on the spot and went back into the shop.

 "Signore Cestié?"  she asked, looking for him.
 
"May I trouble you a minute longer? Something caught my eye,"  she asked, drawing him over to the spot in this area where those other oddities were.

 "But what are they?"  she pointed.

 oOo 
In the tavern, Taalia smirked down at the youngster who had hurriedly approached her, arms out-stretched with his request.

Tiling her head back and forth, mouth slightly bent downwards as she pretended to be on the fence about it, she smiled and reached down, hands under his arms and hoisting him up with curious ease.

 "Here you are you little devil!"  she grinned, smiling along with him as she held him up assuredly, arms stretched out, easily bringing the youngster in range of the bottom of the balcony he so desperately wanted to touch.

When the innkeeper gave her a discount - essentially giving her the bottle for free - Taalia's eyes widened a little, her mouth agape.

 "No, no, let me give you something in exchange, surely Signore!"  she requested, having already adopted into the give-refuse ceremony of gift-giving.

Perhaps it was because she had made his boy laugh and seemed a sweet soul, or maybe he saw value in making a good first impression by hooking his establishment into her feelings of genoristy. Whatever the case, he wouldn't take it, participating in the little ritual with her until she was nodding with a bright smile and many thanks.

Taking note of the name of the whiskey bottle and then of the others arrayed on the shelves, Taalia mentioned that she would like to try a new one every couple of months. With that, the Innkeepers cunning ploy had worked.

 oOo 
Having departed the town, quarter staff in hand and goods about her, Taalia had stopped momentarily to let Corvo have a run around on the side of the road and in the grass, both for enjoyment and to relieve himself at some point. Feeling good about how the day went and scooping her baby dog back up into her sling, she continued on, until being flagged down by Madre.

Approaching with a wave and usual courtesies of small talk, greetings and warm sentiments, Taalia's eyes curiously watched the procession of items that Madre handed over to her. Immediately, the girl recognised what each one was and what it did, having been instructed in their properties and use over the past couple of weeks. She also knew what she could accomplish with such items, and how the ability to dispense pain relief and healing to stricken bodies might draw neighbors and such close to Gaulfredo's farm to approach her and request such assistance.

 "Thank you Madre, you have taught me so much!"  the towering girl exclaimed, before a 'oh!' look shot across her face.

 "Before I forget, as promised!"  and her hands went straight to her purse - producing the five silver monthly payment, two weeks ahead of schedule, and handing it over to the older woman. Though this could be interpreted in a negative way...paying money to a greedy woman, Taalia certainly felt no such sentiment. Madre was teaching her  invaluable  skills. To read and write? To heal the sick? Taalia did not know what she had done to deserve such an educator, but her regular repayments was a sign of discipline and devotion to the older woman's education, as the girl smiled as she handed the coinage over.

 "I have learned so much from you Signora Madre,"  she said, that smoky voice quite distinct,  "it is a privilege,"  she smiled and nodded.
MrAbdiel
 The old tinker looks where you are pointing, reaches to pluck one of the brass cylinders off the shelf, and lifts it in the air before you.  It most resembles to you some kind of battery the skaven might use for their horrible machines; perhaps a vessel full of corrosive fluid, or a plain, simple bomb.

Signore Cestié turns the cylinder so is curved face is vertical, and its flat faces are up and down.  With a simple enough turn of the wrist, he disengages whatever locking mechanism the device has on its top; and the brass cap comes away.  He repeats the process from the bottom - but nothing falls out.  Then he turns it upside down - and three smaller brass cylinders smoothly slide out from within the tube, each a little smaller than the one before, settling into place with a  click  until what the tinker is holding is not a brass cylinder, but four interlocked brass cylinders tapering downward in size.  It flares slightlyat the narrow end, and as he turns it to hand it to you, you see at once that it has glass lenses in the narrow and wide ends.  Wordless, preparing to soak up your wonderment, he offers it to you to hold again, and mimics the act of holding it up to your eye, and points then our his door to the village square of Bella Collina, and the snatches of green countryside far beyond.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The Brass Oddity is, infact, a Telescope.
 


With this done, all your business in town concludes smoothly.  Nothing remains but the now familiar trip back home, with your chicken and your pup and your ox.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Roll a d100, unmodified, to see if you have an encounter on the road.  Roll less than an 80, and it's an uneventful trip.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

If Signore Cestié was hoping for a youthful, amazed reaction, he got it. Taalia's eyes widened as she gasped with a soft   "amazing..."  .

It was a useful device that wasn't for maiming, burning or destruction!

 "May I, Signore?"  she asked, holding her hands out, as she received the telescope and brought it to her eye to peer around with its magnification. Seeing the world so up-close made her laugh gently, as she spun herself around and stared up at Cestie himself, his enormous, blurred face filling up her fish-eye view as she giggled happily.

Compacting the device once again and returning it to Cestie, Taalia looked quite happy.

She also remembered the one she had back at home.

 "Signore Cestie, how much do you sell these for, may I ask?"  
 oOo 
Her meeting with Madre completed, the one woman zoo headed home across the well-travelled road. Staff in hand, puppy in her sling, rooster resting in a saddlebag, and spare hand holding Tomaso's collar, and humming a little tune to herself.
MrAbdiel
 One hundred gold crowns.

That's the sum he settled on, after some hemming and hawing; and the absurdity of that value rattles in your head all the way home.  They are neat devices, but uses importantly on ships to spot enemy vessels and distant shores; and by generals in the field to witness troop movements with some detail.  But the price came not in the brass, but the glass; fine, clear, high quality lenses that produced a clear, magnified image.  Of the two the old tinker has, one has a cracked lens; but he keeps it in case the other cracks a lens, and then he'll atleast be able to make one functional unit out of two broken ones.

 "The lenscrafting masters in Miragliano are very skilled, Taalia.  I was born there; lived there for many years.  There are skilled artisans of many, many kinds who will command very high prices for their work; and I am lucky to have these two here, even with one damaged.  My family has a long history of craftsmanship; and I would like to think, in another life, I might have been skilled enough to make something as fantastical as this.  If I'd taken the time.  Something they'd see, in Miragliano, and be amazed; something they would want to replicate... in  Nuln ." 

He became a little emotional, as he spoke of it; talking of this far  Nuln  like a fantasy.  He clearly wishes to have seen that place; but he is an old man, now; perhaps more than seventy years old.  But he does have his spyglasses, and as he recaps them and places them back on the shelf, you see in him a man who is content with managing a long life with moderate success, even if all his desires had not manifested.

You check your own brass cylinder when you got home - and just as you hoped, the ends which you had instinctively thought were caps to contain and shape a blast can be screwed off and a slender, finely made spyglass slides out from within.  You play around with it and figure out the focusing of the lenses; it seems unbroken, and perfectly functional.  How did the goblins get it?  Certainly their small band did not kill a general or a ship's captain.  But it's better in your hands, than theirs; that much, you  can  know.

Your hosts are glad to see you back, and to know all went well enough; and after the appropriate amount of feigned refusal, they concede the kindness you have displayed in buying your first bottle of spirits.   "It looks very good, Taalia!"   This, Gaulfredo announces based on his examination of the whisky's color.  Ariana seems unimpressed with this method of discernment, but chooses not to cut his legs out as he projects expertise.   "Very fine, I think.  We will open it together after the troll is slain, ah?  Vengeance for Hurcio's leg!" 
 * * * * * 
A day later, many of Bella Collina's villagers attend a meeting called by Bertuccio.  It's mostly men, from young to old; with a number of village women and farmer's wives crammed into the common room of the village tavern.  Gheradino has run out of chairs for the occasion; folk sit on the hardwood floor on blankets, and on the tables, as Bertuccio explains the situation, and the plan.

 "The beast is a troll - they call it a river roll, though this one seems not to have waters deep enough for its liking.  It's foul, big, dangerous and dumb - but if we are cunning, we can destroy it without any more harm being done." 
 "We could burn off the trees near its lair - that'd get it moving.  My uncle in Pavona did so once, and it drove the creature clear out of the county when it had less of a place to hide!"   Amadea chimes in, with her brand of 'help'.  Bertuccio shakes his head quickly.

 "No no, lady; if we drive it away, it just becomes the problem of another village.  It may only be up here because it's because everyone in Luccini was too lazy or afraid to kill it directly, and chased it up to us."
 
This produces an assenting grumble from the crowd.  If there's one thing they knew, it's that other Tileans from other states were probably to blame.  It had the ring of truth.

You sit beside Gaulfredo on a blanket on the wood floor, as the road warden lays out his plan.

The troll was too dangerous to fight in melee, for obvious reasons.  That was a task for a company of knights with lances to pierce its heart.  Without spending a fortune to incentivise the action of a company of mercenaries (and waiting, hoping it doesn't kill and eat anyone in the meantime), the options to fight and kill the troll were more limited.  Fire is important - trolls hate fire, and wounds not inflicted with flaming weapons rapidly close and heal on their bodies.  But they are easily confused and distracted.  So the plan is determined thus:

Bertuccio would lure the troll out of the cover of the trees, over the road, and into the empty paddock on the other side of the road.  Once a cattle pen, the farmer (whose name is Alberto and who listens intently with worry, since his home is so close to the lair) had vacated it after the fence broke and two of his cows went missing... now presumed eaten.  On the far side of that paddock, the villagers will be waiting with their bows, arrows with pitch-cloth heads, and a trench of lit pitch infront of them. They would light an arrow, aim, and fire in volleys as called by the dwarf Nogrom.  If the troll survived long enough to start to close with the archers, they were to fall back behind a second line of pitch while the Troll was delayed with a distration - two of Adolpho's war dog, if Bertuccio and Gheradino on horseback were not distraction enough for it.

Once they were successful dragging it back toward the road, another few volleys would resume from the arrows and, with Mymidia's blessing, it would go down.  Then it would be on Bertuccio or Gherardino to close in, draw the heavy axes they'd be carrying, and take off its head before it could possibly recover.  Then the body could covered in a pyre and immolated once and for all.

 "If the worst happens, don't fight it close.  It'll kill you dead with its claws and teeth, if you're lucky.  If you're not, he'll heave up a gutful of burning poison that will make you wish you got the teeth.  But just the same, you can't outrun a beast with legs that long.  Sad as it is, if it gets close, we have to put the dogs on it and run.  But we shouldn't need to do that."   He gives Adolpho a mildly apologetic look.  The dog-breeder gives a little nod back - well accustomed to this kind of sacrifice as part of the dogs' duty.

 "We'll meet at Alberto's farmhouse, where all the supply will be waiting, shortly after dawn tomorrow. Bring your bows.  We'll take care of this, and we'll be ready for Spring Planting the day after.  The Rampollo says, the closest arrow to the beast's heart wins a pig." 

This feels like a hollow offer for such a dangerous task, and everyone knows it.  But still...

Free pig is free pig.

The mood is tense, optimistic, concerned.  Bertuccio waits, to see if there are any questions. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia had an affection for Cestie, that much was clear. He was a knowledgeable, grandfatherly figure in her life. Much like Madre, this was a presence for which she was deprived during her apprehension within the slave pens of the ratmen.

With that being said, she felt...unusual about the mention of how much the telescope was valued. On one hand a part of her wanted to celebrate. 100 gold crowns! What a fortune! That was twice the value of the mirror - and look what she had put that currency towards? From what she understood of the local economy, she could rent a couple of acres and start her own pig farm with that kind of money. Assuming she managed to sell it, that is.

But that was also what bothered her: if she managed to sell it to a passer-through.

Because you see, if  she  did that, then Cestié could not. That was a sale of his that was lost to a  rival , which is what she would become if she entered this business, if even for a single item. The idea of depriving the older man, who had been so kind to her, in his twilight years did not sit well with the girl. Was there some sort of compromise to be reached? It was no secret among her circle that Taalia was an ambitious girl. Having been given a taste of the financial rewards one could accrue in an open market of trade, her labour had so far yielded silver from her chickens but would yield larger sums of gold from her sheep. What could she do with a further 100 gold crowns? Establish a family farming dynasty that would became prominent members of the local community, she'd wager, if fate brought a good husband and children into her life. If she could even dream so far, perhaps even hope a son of hers would become eligible to one day cast a vote in the Senatore elections? Or, Myrmidia willing, maybe even far enough down the line  run  in such processes.

But she was daydreaming. She would dwell upon it and see what she could come up with.

But then she could also see how keen he was to see this 'Nuln', wherever that was.

It was interesting, in it's own way. Her becoming excited over what  could  be, and Cestié reminiscing on what had  not  been. They were almost at opposite ends of their lives.

 "If I can help you to see this Nuln, if even for a day, I will try!"  she beamed. It was likely that Cestié, with his wisdom of years, could tell this was just the overly optimistic and affectionate boasting of youth. How could this girl actually help him see that famed city anyway?

 "If someone had of told me four months ago that today I would be where I am now, I would have laughed at them. But had I not been where I was in the forest, at that specific time, Gaulfredo would have thrown himself into the spears of goblins and would have perished, Ariana now a widow and Vorotio without a father. Yet, had I  not  assisted him and gone on some other path after my escape, where would I be now?"  she said sincerely, her voice low.

 "I thought that it was my fate to die in labour to the vile and evil. Yet today, here I am, blessed and lucky and happy. I have received help from Gaulfredo and Ariana, Madre and yourself - your actions setting me on courses for the better, and through my help to others, your kindness plants trees whose shade in which you will not sit - but others will. We're all connected in some way, I think,"  she smiled.

From the mouth of babes?

 oOo 

Taalia sat next to Gaulfredo as she listened to the plan set forth by Bertuccio. She was no grand strategist or tactical genius, so to her the plan seemed sound. Lure the troll out, distract it, burn it, kill it, and do so while keeping a maximum distance.

At first, Taalia thought of suggesting a plan that revolved around trapping it within its lair. Collapsing its entrance somehow, or filling it with pitch and setting it alight to either smoke it out or suffocate it? However, Bertuccio had the experience here, and she did not. All she had was her own imaginative speculations, while Bertuccio had actual experience. Both were valuable in their own way, but experience here would hopefully preserve all the lives of those involved.

When Bertuccio went quiet awaiting questions or suggestions, Taalia looked around the crowd. Seeing no one speaking up, she raised her hand to speak.

 "Gaulfredo and I encountered the Troll in the forest, where we prevented it from eating my sheep,"  she spoke, her smoky voice projecting well enough that all could hear from the 'newcomer'.

 "I threw a lantern at its feet which drew in its mind. I wonder if those sparkle bags during the festival could have the same effect if used sparingly?" 
MrAbdiel
 Bertuccio listens, and lifts his eyebrows, and nods.   "I wish we had kept some.  I have been told they are afraid of fire, but I do not think that's quite it.  Fire kills them; but they are just distractable.  And the spark-bags are very distracting.  Would that we kept some, instead of burning them all - but if you have some, keep them on hand.  Lighting them off a fire trench and throwing them might make the difference." 

Signore Cestié smiles a little, at your ingenuity; he attends, even if he won't be part of the warparty.  Too old, too slow, too likely to cause a complication.  When you look back at him, he lifts his skinny hand and gives you a thumbs-up; a gesture you have never seen before but which is self evidently approving.

You can only hope that little bag won't be the difference between life, and death.  You've lived your life close enough to death as is; dealing with this at a bowshot distance would be just fine.

 * * * * * 
After spending the evening practising with Gaulfredo's bow, you have the hang of it; you're not that great of a shot with just one night of practise, but Gaulfredo reassures you.  "None of us will be good shots.  We'd all like to win the pig, but we are not sharpshooters.  But this is why we fire in volley; a wall of arrows is more accurate than any sharpshooter might be on his own."

A 'wall' is a generous descriptor.  With a bow loaned to you from Gerardhino the innkeeper (he has a shortbow of his own he prefers to use from horseback, which he will employ), you stand with the little Bella Collina militia.   Gaulfredo  the farmer,  Polo  the clerk, the dwarf  Nogrom ; these, you know.  There's also the violist from Flicker-Tide, whose name turns out to be Emio; the red haired brothers who sold you your ox, too -  Ernesto  and  Istuccio  - and the owner of the land you're going to fight on,  Alberto .   Adolpho , with two large, black hounds politely waiting for the command to bite and kill, stands on one end of the line; on the other end stands the only other woman in the group.  The yellow dressed girl,  Bella .  She is still annoyingly pretty today, without the lighting and her fine dress; a linen skirt knotted at one side to reveal her calves, so she won't risk tripping on it if she has to run; and to get a little distance of the fabric from the now crackling trench of burning pitch in front of you.  Why is  she  here?  Clearly there is no expectation for women to fight as men do, here.  The answer does not come forth naturally, as you wait in the tension of the cool morning air; waiting, and waiting.  You glance over to  the farmhouse of Alberto's property; a small shape from here, but you can see the Madre Angeletta and Alberto's wife over there, with a basket of bandages and medical unguents; preparing, waiting.  Waiting.

A gunshot rings out, in the woods across the road.

Waiting.

And finally, two horses burst from the treeline; Bertuccio on his charger, and Gheradino riding high in the saddle of a chestnut mare.  After them, crashing through the trees, comes the Troll of Bella Collina; as big, and ugly as it was when you saw it last.  A ripple of  dismay goes through your little line of archers, from those seeing in the first time.  It makes the horses and riders look small, by comparison.

 "Light up!  Light up!"   The militia sergeant, Nogrom, calls the group back to attention, and the milita light up the arrows they are holding from the trench.  The troll chases Bertuccio, whose horse, heroic in its own courage, rounds and runs parallel to your archery line, at a distance of about forty five yards.

 "Aim! Take aim!"   Trembling hands try to steady their bows, and draw their strings.  Ahead, Gherardino takes a shot from the saddle with his shortbow; it plugs into the back of the troll's shoulder, doing no damage you can see - but it wheels to this new sensation, and runs back sideways across the field towards him.  The chestnut mare takes off, building the speed to keep away from the troll, vaulting a spar of broken fence as it goes.

  "Loose!"  
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Combat begins.  Roll initiative.  Also, technically a troll has Fear.  But at this range, while it's not immediately charging at you, I'm going to treat it as Unsettling; so make a Willpower check, or take a -10% to WS and BS until you 'save it off' at the end of a subsequent turn.  And then, having taken a full aim action 'off screen', you can make a shot with a bow!  It's -20% at this range, +10% for aiming, and another -10% if you are Unsettled.

Your co-combatants are:

1. Gaulfredo   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 20 ] 
2. Polo   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 91 ]  (Unnerved!)
3. Nogrom   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 18 ] 
4. Emio   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 28 ] 
5. Istuccio   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 38 ]  (Unnerved!)
6. Alberto   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 97 ]  (Unnerved!)
7. Adolpho   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 55 ]  (Unnerved!)
8. Bella   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 36 ]  (Unnerved!)

also,

9. Bertuccio, riding Fiammo   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 92 ]  (Unnerved!)
10. Gherardino, riding Diletto   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 7 ] 

and finally

11. Oscar (Wardog)   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 91 ]  (Unnerved!)
12. Pierre (Wardog)   Nerve  - (1d100)[ 81 ]  (Unnerved!)
 

 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Having seen psychotic and frenzied rat-ogres before in their cages, and having to feed them at risk to her personal safety, the trolls size and menacing demeanour was nothing for the ex-slave.

Steely eyed, she drew the string back on her short-bow and....nothing.

The arrow sailed high, but fell short, Taalia's judgement off by several yards.

Hissing under her breath, she got down onto one knee, notched another arrow and drew the string back to take aim once more.
MrAbdiel
 Of the archers, only Gaulfredo, Nogrom and Emio seem to hold their cool well, like you have; the others' hands tremble and as they watch the troll snatch up a huge post from the broken fence and swing it mid stride such that it bats Gheradino's horse's tail, just shy of its legs.

The volley flies, and scatters around the troll; a single arrow from the lot sticking into its hide and holding, with its little circle of burning pitch persisting and smoking away.

It's not a strong volley; but the weakness of it seems, atleast, not to have taken the beast's attention toward the vulnerable archers.  Bertuccio hastilly finishes packing powder into his longgun, while Gheradino tears across the stretch of low-grazed field.

 "Light up!"   Nogrom calls again, as more of the archers get their bearings.   "Aim... Loose!" 
 
 Spoiler: OOC! 
Troll, shockingly, did not beat your maximum initiative; so it hasn't gotten any kind of incremental approach benefit.  All the good guys will go immediately after you; then troll, then you again.  So...

You - 14
Good boys and girls - 13
Troll - 9

You spend one turn picking up an arrow from the piles on the ground and lighting it, and a second turn aiming and fire it; that's a full volley.
 So all the scardies get two more chances each to recover from Unnerving; one before, and one after the volley to come.  If it ends up charging down on you all, it'll trigger an actual fear test - but we'll see if that comes up!

So far it has taken... smol damage.  But the volley was always, literally, a long shot at this range!  Time to go again and hope it remains horse-hungry.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

On one knee, keeping her cool with practiced steeliness, Taalia knocked another arrow, drew the string back and took aim. Narrowing one eye, she kept her nerves to aim where she thought the Troll was going, not where it  was .

Releasing the flaming arrow, she watched as it scythed through the air and struck the hideous creature right in its ugly head.
MrAbdiel
 Only Istuccio and Alberto haven't regained their nerve by the second volley; and this round of arrows is much better.  Three of them stick into the warty, blue-brown hide of the monster; burning pitch sizzling around the wounds they do.  Now two hang from its chest, one from its left thigh, and one pokes out of the top of its brow - you're pretty sure that one was yours - and the unlit one from Gheradino's shortbow from its back.  Now, your militia volley is doing more damage than the riders, and the troll turns its huge, bloodshot and yellow eyes in your direction.  And it yells.

  "Bahz ho nu kAAAAHHHhhh?  Nu kaaaAAAH?"  

Its voice is as ugly and rough as its exterior; its language thankfully lost on you, though it sounds like the same jabbering argot the goblins conversed in while you watched them from your perch that night.  But it sounds angry - angry as hell.

Suddenly disinterested in the horses and riders, it breaks into a loping run toward you and your fellow archers.  The steps become longer with each bound, and the speed with which it closes the distance - from forty yards, to twenty, and barrelling on - is shocking.  An intrusive memory leaps to mind - you remember the little bones, in its cave - the ones too small for it to chew.

Bertuccio and Gheradino give chase at once, and Nogrom gives his shout - though the quaver of alarm in his voice is hard not to hear.

 "Fall back!  Back to the second line!  Back and reform for close fire!" 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You've done some damage, now!  Damage enough to be noticed.  And the troll is closing the gap.  While the action in world is happening simultaneously, he's technically run from 46 yards away to 10 yards away from you, this turn.

The plan, the  order,  is to run back to the second line of pitch and prepare to fire again.  That'll put you and the others within 20 yards - short range for the bows, dramatically increasing your accuracy.  They are hoping the dogs, and riders, can turn it back to linger within this range so it can be put down in another volley or two.

But that IS going to mean it's within charge range the whole time, so the time has come for Fear tests!  We'll see who is running to the line, and who is gripped by panic.

So make a Willpower Test.  You can have +10, because of the reassuring presence of the (apparently competent?) Nogrom, who is giving commands.

Strictly, failing a fear test means one freezes in place.  I'm going to modify it in this case and say failing this fear test means one  does not stop running  at the line 12 yards behind, but keeps running their full run distance!

So the fear test, and then your turn (either running to the line or defying that command in some way); and we'll see if the dogs and riders can hold the troll on their turn after yours.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

It was a small hint of satisfaction as her arrow  Thwacked!  into the beasts ugly head, but as it turned to face them and roar its fury, Taalia knew things were going to get dicey.

Hearing that command, her resolve still unshaken, the girl turned and fled to the designated lines, her long legs carrying her at a swifter pace than those around them as she moved with the quickness of an elf or a skaven.

Taalia stuck to the plan. She didn't pull any cowboy manure and try to be a hero, she knew that if anyone went off script it could be disastrous.
MrAbdiel
  "Geet'em!  Geet'em!" 

Adolpho commands his dogs as the group falls back to the second line.  The larger of the wardogs, Oscar, responds with fearless fury; barking and snarling and tearing forward, snapping out at the troll's ankles in such a display of aggression that the hulking beast arrests his charge against the archers.  The other dog, Pierre, does not move.  It stands in place as Oscar charges forward and his handler Adolpho dashes back; vexed with confusion and trepidation at the sight of the huge enemy, and lets out a pitiful whine while shrinking to a low, submissive crouch.

At the next line most of the group halts; but not all.  Adolpho, and the lanky clerk Polo, overshoot the line two fold; both pause at the this and falter, seeming to want to return to the bowline but hesitant to approach the creature at all.  The riders circle wide to the flanks of the monster, waiting for Adolpho's call to pull the dogs back and open the beast to another unobstructed round of attack.

It is admirable, and frightening, to see Oscar facing the troll toe to toe; the dog is outmatched by orders of magnitude, but bounds and hops around, darting in to threaten an ankle and out again.  The Troll's fence post slams down, but the slippery black hound shunts to one side and barks his defiant warning.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: End of the Retreat Round 
Amazingly, most of the NPC's passed with an average WP of 30.  No less than three because of Nogrom's dwarfliness.

At the end of this round, 6 archers and yourself are at the firing line; two have fled beyond it in fear.
 


With the troll halted at twenty yards, the militia take up new arrows, and light them from the pitch.

 "Get back up here, ye bloody cowards!  You can't shoot him with yer tears!" , Nogrom implores with exasperation.  But Polo and Adolpho are frozen with the dueling interests of survival and duty.  Pierre, less valorous than his counterpart Oscar, lets loose a sudden, involuntary stream of canine urine beneath himself; visibly quaking as the troll's blows crack against the ground where the other dog was, moments before.  Adolpho retains the semblance of mind to command his animal, atleast.   "Geer'round!  Geer'round!" 

And with the command, Oscar changes from snarling direct engagement to sprinting little circles around the troll; his speed and canine agility making him a considerably hard target.  The speed might have saved his life; but not completely.  With a wide sweeping swing of the fence post, the troll catches Oscar under the legs; knocking him up and in the air with a bloodfreezing yelp of animal pain before he hits the ground and skitters back to his feet - though his left rear leg drags limply behind him, and his threatening barks are all interspersed with spikes of agonized yelping.  Apallingly, the troll's injuries are ceasing to ooze the dark blood they flowed at first - is the fire weakness a myth?  Or not very pronounced?  Is it possible to keep it hurt at this run-and-fire pace?

 
 Spoiler: OOC: End of Reload Round 
Archers take up an arrow and light them this turn.  Riders take aim.  Oscar uses his trained trick, "Geer'round" (Full Defense), but the Troll still hits him, and he fails to dodge. 11 Wounds puts him at a -1 Critical to the leg, rolled up as "Leg Incapacitated until medical attention received".
 

 "Skiddim!  Oscar!  Skiddim!"   The peril of his animal seeming to unfreeze Adolpho's blood, his resolve finally hardens and he abandons Polo frozen at the rear, rushing back to the arrow line.  Oscar, at the command, turns and runs from the combat at a bobbling limp, toward Bertuccio  to the left of the bowline.  The troll looks ready to give chase - but not before the archers have had their say, point blank!

 
 Spoiler: Start of the next round! 
The troll has regenerated some - its vulnerability is to  damage dealt by fire , not quite to  arrows with a fire chaser.  I've chosen to say that 2 of each arrow's damage is 'fire' and the rest is arrow damage, so with four hits, but sustained regeneration, it's taken 8 wounds it's unable to heal.

Now, atleast, you can take a good shot, though.  At this range, it's your ballistic skill, +10% for aiming; no negative penalties.  Same for the other shooters! 

After the shots, it's the troll's turn.  With any luck, it won't be much able to act.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia watched with wide-eyed amazement at the value the war dog brought to the fight. She knew that Skaven  hated  dogs, and witnessing the trained skill, valor and cunning of the war-hound before her, Taalia could now see why. And when Oscar yelped in pain from the blow it received from the Troll, her whole body flinched up as maternal instincts drew her mind to Corvo.

But she had to push those grim portents aside. The girl knew they had to down the savage beast before more paid with their limbs or lives.

Drawing her bow up again, pushing the riser forward with her left arm and pulling the string back with her right, Taalia took aim once more and let a burning arrow loose.
MrAbdiel
 Another good volley - your arrow, and three others (one you're quite sure is Gaulfredo's) pepper the troll, and now it's close enough that the rank smell of its skin and flesh is mixed with the fragrance of burning hair and oil.  Bertuccio's longgun cracks and the bullet strikes the troll's head so hard you think for a moment that it's done the job; but no, like your arrow, it's simply gotten wedged in the creature's skull.  But it's clearly wounded now, laboring and grunting, even though the perverse healing of its body squirts free the bullet from its head with an audible 'pop'.  With Oscar disengaged, and the horses having crept close enough to take point blank shots, the troll's big, awful eyes swivel quickly to the maker of the loudest noise - Bertuccio, and his smoking gun.  Another charge so fast it makes your stomach ache to see, closing the distance and leaping to slash with clawed hands so close they shear Bertuccio's cloak off his shoulders, and cause the horse Fiamma to scream in panic.

 "Load and light!"   Nogrom calls again, taking up another pitch arrow and lighting it while Bertuccio takes the aggression load of the monster.   "We've almost got it!  Boy, get yer backside clear!  NOW!" 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: End of firing round! 
Wham bam!  The troll goes up to 14 Fire Damage and 12 Physical damage, putting it within 1 wound of crits... then regenerates 10 wounds like an absolute savage.  He charges Bertuccio, but rolls poorly; lucky for the road warden.

Nogrom's giving the order to prepare another volley, but considering the peril of the moment and Taalia's earlier question during the meeting, I figure I'll give you the chance to decide if you to load and light, or load and fire (into melee with a -20% penalty), or do something else.

But the archers (minus Polo, still afeard) are loading and lighting, counting on Bertuccio getting clear so they can fire.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

That mix of anger and despair rushed through Taalia's body as she watched the Troll stagger, lumber back and forth...but the wounds slowly close up and the bullets and arrow ejected from its tough hide.

Myrmidia's tits! These things were tough to bring down! A rat-ogre would have succumbed to its wounds by now, curling over and passing into whatever black hell awaited its putrid soul. But these Trolls just recuperated swiftly and continued fighting.

One part of her wanted to rush over to Oscar and comfort the dog, rewarding his bravery with kisses, pats and medical attention. Another part of her, still brewing from her initial entrance into the community, saw Bertuccio's close brush with death and wanted to scream and cover her mouth in a loud begging pray for his safe preservation.

But the survivor within her knew the truth: the danger would only pass if the troll was dead.

And how would it die?

More arrows.

Pursing her lips, exhaling, Taalia touched her arrow to the flame, took aim and loosed once more...
MrAbdiel
 The archer line lights, and fires; seven strong now, with Polo struck lame by the sight of the creature hoving chunks of ground out of the field with each claw swing and improvised club blow.  Bertuccio has little choice but to withdraw - he won't last long in melee with the creature - but neither can he tear off at full pace, for fear of then giving the troll no good choice but to charge the defenseless archers.  So he steers Fiamma into a short dash away from the troll, just enough to open distance to force it to charge again; hoping to survive that charge and pull back again so the archers can fire.

But he need not endure it.  Pierre, quickened at last by either Adolpho's encouragement or Oscar's persistant, suffering yips, finds his courage and rushes the beast, snapping at the ankles and barking with the same furious gusto as Oscar before; if a little more tentative, and nervous.

The punishment for heroism is swift in coming.  The troll does not charge after the horse, but wheels around with a downward slap of the open hand.  Pierre is not quick enough to escape; and when he comes up from under the palm, he is teetering drunkenly, whining, pained; blood coming from the dog's mouth, and nose, and ears.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: End of Loading Round. 
Bertuccio and Fiamma withdraw.  Pierre recovers from fear, finally, and charges the Troll.  He misses, but engages the troll all the same, so it does not charge Bertuccio.  Instead, it attacks Pierre three times, hits once, and does 13 wounds, soaking 3 for dawg toughness and reducing Pierre to exactly 0 - just shy of a crit.  Polo, true to form, does not recover from fear.  Everyone else loads and lights.

The troll recovers another damn 10 wounds - but only 2 of them are physical, the rest are fire based, so he recovers 2 net.
 

 "Pierre!  Skiddi!  Skiddi, Pierre!"   Adolpho's voice is pitched and frantic.  Raising dogs to fight requires a certain emotional distance from the beasts that normal pet owners and farmers with working dogs do not have; but to see such noble and obedient creatures executing their commands only to be brutalized by a monster like this would be compelling for all but the most jaded individuals.  Pierre scuttles away from the combat toward Oscar, who now lingers back behind the lines near Polo, whose feet remain frozen to the ground.

You draw and loose.  It should have been a killing volley; but the troll takes a leaping, instinctive step after the fleeing hound, and most of the arrows go wide.  You arrow thunks into the creature's chest - closest to the heart, and therefor the pig, not that you would think of it at that moment; Emio's into the meat of the monster's thigh again; and  Adolpho redeems his earlier hesitation with  shot that bites deep into the troll's arm and causes a huge jet of dark blood to ooze forcefully from the curling bicep as it crunches the arrow's shaft between its fibres.

It lets out a whimper.  It totters a step.  Everyone holds their breath.

 
 Spoiler: Suspense Spoiler... 
...And then it lets loose a furious, agonized roar that washes you with warm stinking breath, and stinging spittle even ten yards away.  Wild, bleeding, hurting, its great ears flap in idiot desperation for some special sound or sign to direct it; but Bertuccio is reloading, and cannot fire another shot that might draw the monster's attention.  So it surges forth on instinct, rushing towards the girl on the end of the bow line - Bella.

What was she doing here, anyway? Had she come to impress Bertuccio with her courage?  Did she fancy herself a robust adventurer, and not just an effortless dancer?  There is no grace in her steps as the huge club, a fencepost like the ones you dug for hours to sink to make your sheep pen, comes crashing down, barely missing her in her fumbling withdrawal; her scream of mortal peril piercing the morning air almost as starkly as the troll's roar.

The arrows had failed to stop it, and now it was upon you.  Even on the brink of death, the miasma of its foulness and the heavy metal taste of its blood in the air choke up your senses.

 "All in!  All in!" , Nogrom calls.

 All In  wasn't part of the plan you discussed; it's a desperate adaptation as things go bad.  Bertuccio is white as a sheet, hands fumbling to find his sword; Gheradino steers his horse toward the combat and tosses down his bow, going for his handaxe.  Nogrom looks ready to charge in, too.  Everyone else is startled and bewildered, unprepared for combat with the undying wrecking machine; looking for a chance to withdraw without losing their lives.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
What a cliffhanger.  I want to go to bed, but I'm not going anywhere until this is resolved!

Pierre withdraws.  Everyone except Bertuccio (reloading) and Polo (frightened) fires at the troll eight yards away.
 Three arrows hit.  The troll is at 20 Fire wounds, and 9 Physical wounds... from a total of 29 wounds; one shy of a crit, just like the dog a moment before!  It only regenerates 2 of them on its turn, but it's still trucking.

I randomized the charge between you, the seven archers, and the two riders in range - and Bella was the target.  Poetic, in a certain way.  But she's lucky - he missed his charge attack.  If he was in melee already, he could attack three times (like he has at the dogs) or just puke acid all over her.  Who's gonna be prettiest then?

The plan is coming apart and the troll isn't dying.  You have your club, I assume; Gaulfredo beside you has a knife, and Nogrom has a small axe, but most of these guys are utterly unprepared for close quarters with this thing.
 

 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Human communal feelings were a weird and unusual thing. Just a month or so ago during that festival, and Taalia would have laughed and cheered if that troll had hoisted Bella up and stuffed the hussy into its ugly mouth to chew and swallow her down. But now, today, a surge of protectiveness blasted through the teenagers body as her muscles reacted to rush forward and help the stupid girl, to save her from the grisly fate her silly actions had put her before. Is that what grown men felt when throwing themselves into the fire to protect a pretty girl or a child? Perhaps.

Lurching forward, her mind blank and her body acting on instinct, Taalia had dropped her bow and simply charging forward  "AHHHHH!!!!!"  her banshee-scream accompanying the surprisingly strong fist-swings across the ugly thing.
MrAbdiel
 With the fire of human survival burning in your blood, you hurl yourself at the monstrosity.  You have allies, in this moment.  But most of them aren't prepared to strike in melee.  Nogrom hustles forward as fast as his short legs can take him, wriggling his handaxe free of its leather loop; Gaulfredo sucks in a fortifying breath and pulls his knife, moving in too.  Gheradino slings back his shortbow and pulls a shortspear from a leather caddy against his saddlebag.  But all this is too slow; the troll will have killed someone by the time they strike.  Even your own hand, straining against the straps securing your quarterstaff to your sling over your shoulder, is forced to give up as your feet carry you to the fray faster than you can arm yourself. Only Bertuccio draws fast enough as he charges in, and the sweep of his sword clangs jarringly off the monster's club, raises up incidentally in the path of his advance, robbing him of the chance to land a telling blow.

In the memory of the moment, all things moving like they are suspended in molten glass, there are only two close enough to the troll, when you arrive - yourself, and Bella.  With only her bow in hand, retreating with her steps, she raises it up defensively only to have it swatted from her hands by a clipping blow from the monster.  Then you are on it; trying to shut your senses to the stench of it, which competes horrifically with your worst remembered smells from the empire below; your lungs burning with your scream, your hands searching for some weak point on the monster to gouge, or twist, or pull.  Your hand wraps around  the first arrow sticking from the side of its head, and you pull it free only to stab it over and over again into the rubbery skin of the troll's chest, and neck.  Bewildered by your hurricane assault, it topples backward; reaching a huge arm to palm you back forcing you to settle for stabbing that limb with the now broken arrow shaft.  And then the final combatants return to the frey; Oscar and Pierre, both injured, but both instinctively aware that a prey creature on the ground is presenting the moment of the kill.  Oscar bites onto the wrist flailing at you, but Pierre sinks his big, crushing jaws into the troll's neck and writhes, tears, and spills  more blood on the ground and back into its throat.  You, and the dogs, wild animals all, savage the monster until it begins to slacken under you, and Nogrom has to shove Pierre aside to chop his axe once, twice, three times into the monster's neck before the head rolls off, snared only by a ribbon of skin.

The monster is dead.  With a little help from the battered beasts, you have killed it, and Nogrom has done the courtesy of making double sure.

For a moment you think you're under attack once more as the world shifts around you - but no; this is a friendlier grapple than you've ever had.  Gaulfredo's hand is on your arm, and someone else on the other, helping you to your feet and then  whoop , up into the air, on your back suspended on a hammock of hoisting hands.

A moment ago, everyone thought they might die; now, they are alive; and your reckless, gobsmacking willingness to launch yourself weaponless in a moment of opportunity has not gone unnoticed, or unappreciated.

 "Taal-ia!  Taal-ia!"
"It's dead!  It's dead!"
"Taalia Troll-Slayer!" 

The adjuration is lasting, and almost delirious.  No one has died but the monster; a better outcome could scarcely be hoped for.  The Madre Angeletta would have you, along with a worried Adolpho, help her look at the dogs after the battle; Oscar's leg is badly hurt and perhaps dislocated, which may require the Madre to medicate him with an herb to fight inflammation of the joint before it can be put right; and Pierre is just plain battered and pummelled, but not critically injured.  Nogrom is unable to join in lifting you on shoulders and parading you around the empty paddock, with everyone else; for obvious dwarfly reasons. But he makes up for it by marching at the head of the procession, announcing you and your deed to the grass, and the sky, and the blackbirds in the trees at the edge of the field.  Even Bella and Bertuccio, after a moment where the latter holds the former while the former grips the knowledge of how close she came to death, join in.  Everyone except Polo.

Polo, who is a  good  man by many accounts; but who has been cursed now with a terrible doubt that he is not a good  man.   All men secretly wonder and worry that, if the orcs came over the hill, or the dark elves from the shore, or a troll from its cave, that they might not have the stuff within them to stand, and fight, and perhaps die.  Polo knows, now, he does not have the stuff.  He volunteered for the archery unit for today's hunt, and fired one arrow; and elsewise was locked in paroxysms of fear and doubt for the whole combat - a combat that, who knows, might not have been so touch-and-go if he had contributed to the firing more.  He sits in the grass alone, temples in his hands, fingers in his hair; perhaps searching his soul, and his memories of the last three desperate minutes.

The pig, needless to say, is  in the bag.   
 
 Spoiler: Victory! 
So here's what happened.  You actually almost missed.  River trolls give a -10WS to anyone in melee with them because of their prodigious funk, so you actually rolled worse than you thought; but the critical +10% bonus from charging, or the +10% bonus from Bella in melee, pushed you up and over.

You did a 5 point crit to the arm; your roll coming up with a 20% chance to bleed out which would have been immediately obviated by the regeneration.  But the dogs were in range to charge, and one of them hit, even if Bertuccio missed his big chance to be a hero and missed; and that was enough to do the deed. Nogrom just made sure of it.
 Congratulations!  You are an hero!  Rewards, fiscal and porcine, to come tomorrow, but feel free to post and bask in the aftermath!
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

There was a human saying for near-death experiences: my life flashed before my eyes.

It was not intended as a literal expression, but rather as an analogy that when one is in mortal peril time seems to slow down if only for a brief second, and one is given a moment to think on the actions that led them to this precious situation.

The same could be said for Taalia. She yanked at her quarterstaff, trying desperately to free the weapon before reaching the troll and rescuing her fellow human sister from its acid-belching clutches. But as her manufactured weapon was apprehended by some leather strap and the hulking, vile beast before her drew a clawed-hand back to deliver the fatal, grisly blow to the beautiful dancer, Taalia allowed her reason to check out of her mind and permitted instinct to take over.

Where the troll, in its shorted-sighted and dimwitted view of the world, might have viewed Bella as its prey, instead it received the towering  other  girl slamming into its chest and knocking its injured body to the ground.

Taalia didn't say anything, nor did she think. She clamoured around for the nearest thing and latched her fingers around the shaft of the arrow that she had sunk into its forehead only minutes ago. With a wet, bloodied  squelch!  as she pulled it free from that leathery hide, Taalia screamed like the famed wild women of the Lustrian jungles as she slammed that impromptu knife in and out of the trolls chest. Perhaps she actually did have a Norscan ancestor ages back in her family tree, some wild-eyed berserker who had lain dormant within her make-up until the perfect time to re-emerge, seize the memories of her enslavement and visit them upon the troll through the sharpened steel of an arrow-head. Or, alternatively, she channelled abduction from her homelands, separation from her family, brutalisation by the rat-men, the blasphemous promises of the Horned Rat and beatings after beatings by vile filth below human kind into the primal rage that screamed from her lungs and swung her fists down to plunge the steel into the beasts chest and withdraw it in bloody arcs.

In either case, the towering girl lived up to her physical presence and howled savagely as she stabbed the beast to death as dogs gnawed at its body. Finally, to end the bloody spectacle, the dwarf swung his hatchet several times to sever the ugly things head from its shoulders and secure peace and safety for the community for that much longer.

And just like that, it was over.

Taalia slowly calmed down, her mind descending from that disturbingly brutal and simple plane of awareness to which situation and internal angst had propelled her. Her vision unblurred, her brain unfreezing and slowly drawing in realisations of the world around her, as her heterochromia eyes dragged back and forth between decapitated carcass and her gathering fellow citizens around her.

 "Taal-ia! Taal-ia!" 

The words built up slowly in her awareness. Savagely brutalised Troll. Her blood-soaked hands. Arrow head. Injured dogs. Communal neighbours.

 "It's dead! It's dead! Taalia Troll-Slayer!" 

Taalia snort-laughed, her shoulders compressing for just a second as the realisation of the situation washed over her.

The dead troll. Her bloodied hands grasping the weapon...she had done it!

That snort-laugh again, her stunned, mindless look of disbelief slowly morphing into one of recognition, semi-humble eschewment of praise and the absolute desire for recognition.

The tall girl was hoisted up onto the little sea of hands, her yelping laughter audible as she was held aloft by those who had taken her in and whom had been rewarded for their trust. Six weeks ago she was an illiterate, skinny foreigner whom had clambered out of a hole in the ground. Today, she was Taalia Trollslayer.

It didn't matter just how ridiculously close to death she had come. Though unusually tall, strong and tough for a human woman, she was mortal all the same, and a swipe of the Trolls massive, clawed hands could have split her belly open and spilled forth the grisly insides as much as any other. Or grabbed her at both ends and torn her in twain, or dissolved her entirely with the disgusting contents of its stomach. All manner of awful ways in which the troll could have removed Taalia from the surface just as fast as she had emerged...

...but it didn't.

Fate had favoured her and her community today over the that of the troll and felt fit to preserve her instead. That was good enough for now.


ooc:
 
 Spoiler 
Free drinks at the local tavern and a great piss-up shindig?

Some things Taalia will do while being as humble/thankful as she can, but kinda-wanting to bask in the attention and praise foisted upon her by her adoptive community:

- See to the dogs health. She'll do as best a healing job on them both as she can, along with her mentor, Madre.

- Recover as much of the Trolls stomach as possible. (for Cestie's tinkering and reward)

- Naturally thank and cheer and share praises with all the other men present - yes, even Pollo. The dice were cruel to him, probably explained that he's just a nerd, but she'll try to make him feel good as best she can.

- She'll travel to the Trolls lair and take time searching through it for any interesting things.

- She'll thank the dwarf for his tactical leadership and hug him.

- She'll ask Bella if she's okay...begrudgingly. She'll also consult with Bertuccio and ask him if he regrets choosing Bella over her instead and no I'm totally kidding lol. She'll 'debrief' with him, or whatever the militia version is.

- If possible, she'll secure some trophy of the trolls demise, like a tooth or something, with the others.
 
MrAbdiel
 Hugging Nogrom is an  operation.   He's on the taller side for a dwarf - over four and a half feet.  But in the jubilation of the after-kill, both of you speckled in trollblood, you crash into him with your arms around his shoulders, and he responds in kind.  It's not the most perfect hug you can imagine, but what is life except a series of struggles and imperfect triumphs?   "Ye're a good shot and a wildcat in close, Taalia.  Gods bless ye!  Gods bless ye!"   Nogrom, it seems, doesn't play the game of polite deflections of compliments well; when you thank him for his leadership in the combat preceding, he takes it as an opportunity to recite to you his thoughts and decisionmaking from the moment the first shot was fired to the end of the conflict; most of which is obvious enough, and almost none of which seems to be important right this moment.  New as you are to the civilized world, even you can see the dwarf's inability to read moments and people.  Perhaps they are the reason he seems to be somewhat isolated even within the community of Bella Collina.  You entertain his rambles, until the Madre pulls you away for help.

She needs your assistance holding the poor hound Oscar's hindquarters, while she splints what she thinks is a fracture in the dog's leg.  Dogs don't respect medical devices, particularly; the the likelihood is that he'll knock it off within the day; but, the Madre tells you,  "Every now and then you get one that seems to just trust that you know what you're doing, and they're the real gems."   Adolpho holds Oscar's forequarters in one arm and rubs the dog's head and neck soothingly with the other hand, through the ordeal.  The same hysterically angry man you saw when you got Corvo now showing such gentleness, with this wounded warrior.  Clear enough, his life is defined by his dogs; and he takes threats and trespasses against them seriously.  But he asks about Corvo; and offers some hints about routines to better prepare him for the life of a working dog; and finally, invites you to come to his home and bring Corvo to visit his sisters, when you should like to.

Belle comes to you before you can work up the will to grudgingly check on her.  She is so grateful for your bravery, in the combat; inspired by you, even.  She doesn't even have the decency to be rude, or belittling in your time of triumph; she competes with Nogrom for your most vocal advocate in the ad hoc celebration.  Not only presumptuously pretty, but unimpeachably  friendly  and unfortunately  sweet , now that you've actually met her.

Perhaps you  should  have let her die?

Bertuccio is also appreciative; though his praise is not as vocal and strident as the others.  It's not because he's less impressed - though he might well be - but it's definitely in keeping with his normal, restrained personality.  He does, however, let you shoot his longgun once; setting up the troll's head on a rock, he shows you how it's loaded, and the powder packed; the pan primed; and you aim it at the head, and let it rip.  The gun lets off a satisfying crack, and the head topples back off the post, in a satisfying testament to your aim.   "There.  Now you know, just in case.  In most cases, you're better off with a bow, I should say; mostly because that one shot just cost me three silver in powder." 

Your shot loosened one of the monster's big, yellowing fangs from the lower jaw; five inches from root to point.  A nice souvenir, you think, as you put it away; and go to secure the next where the others are setting up a huge pyre over the body.  When you ask for a scrap of its stomach, as per Signore Cestié's request, no one can think to object; though getting it is revolting.  It requires piercing the stomach, which Gaulfredo does with his knife; and immediately everyone is send dryretching away as the most powerful, pungent miasma of acidic smell washes out on a tide of porridge-thick acid and decaying fish matter.  It sizzles angrilly on the ground, burning away all the grass and bleaching the earth; but once given enough time to breath, you duck in to extract a sample flap of gut-skin and barely avoid throwing up in the troll's throw-up.  You feel you will have earned this reward; every coin of it.

This awful smell is soon covered with the smell of smoke as they light up the pyre and begin the slow immolation of the rest of the carcass.  Adolpho, Emio and Istucchio stay behind with Alberto to keep the fire fed as long as they need to, and the hunting party slowly breaks apart to go their separate ways.  You catch Polo for a moment before the group has fully dissolved; no one has hounded him for his cowardice, but if someone had gotten seriously hurt, that likely wouldn't have been the case.  You reassure him as best you can.  Sometimes, the horror of a moment is too much.  It took you time to harden to dangers, as you have; and even you can recall that revolting pit of profanities, the Skaven ritual, and the repulsive summoning that made your heart wilt like wax.  You don't tell him that, obviously - but your ability to sympathize with his malfunction in the moment comes through, and he appreciates it.   "I'll, ah... I'll just have to do better on the next troll, hmm?"   He gives a self-deprecating smile; but between your kindness, and Gaulfredo's distracting rambles, he begins to rise above his self reproach.

There's no great celebration that night, in Bella Collina - for the next evening, it's the Spring Planting festival; and all the partying will be done then.  You do share a precious moment with Gaulfredo and Ariana; each with a small cup of the whisky you bought, clinking vessels and toasting to victory, and your valor; and vengeance, for Hurcio.  The rooster, still recovering from his injury, is unable to understand the news; but you tell him anyway.

Gods help the creature that takes the other leg.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
We'll do some zooming ahead in the timeline soon; but there's a few things to get to first.  The most immediate of which is for you to give me a Consume Alcohol test, for Taalia's first night on the hooch.  Just to see how she washes up the next morning.

Also, you may enjoy 400XP for your grand victory over the Troll of Bella Collina.  You have gained a trinket (troll's tooth), and a scrap of troll-gut.

Next stop: Spring Harvest festival, Signore Cestié's for reward, pig presentation, searching the troll cave.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


Though Taalia felt herself wanting to move to other people while the dwarf just kept talking, she had to admit a part of her liked it. There was something about some one with the social skills of a goldish giving her the time of day to just talk. After years as a slave under the Skaven, just basic conversation or discussion was almost forbidden among the slaves. So though she did eventually feel the need to turn her attention elsewhere, she'd be lying if she said she didn't just enjoy letting the dwarf ramble.

Taalia happily helped with the dog, learning from Madre and watching her work. It was testimony to her own developing skills where she  recognised  what Madre was doing and  why . She also happily spoke about Corvo, what a little devil he was yet how wonderful he was coming along with Ariana's help. Hearing the dog trainers offer, Taalia grinned and nodded happily - she'd definitely enjoy visiting his kennels!

Belle's appreciation and talk...gets to Taalia. Yes, she had been the centre of her high school jealousy, and she had written her off as just a pretty hussy with an unmarred face....but it was hard to cling to jealous prejudices when talking with the individual and learning they're as sweet on the inside as they are on the outside. In honesty, Taalia almost found herself falling under her spell - a seemingly genuine spell though - allowing a natural smile and talking back. Taalia had always had Ariana and Madre to talk to, but they were older women. Admittedly, Bella was near her own age, and what a source of information, gossip and behaviour she was!

Though for Taalia...firing that gun was  fantastic . The kick against her shoulder, the loud boom and the  impact  of the shot against the target in the distance - that she hit! - sent a rush down her body like she had never felt.

She wanted one.

One day, she promised herself, she would buy a gun.

If only Rat Papa had  not  been playing dead...his two pistols could have been hers! If only...

 "Could I learn to use the bow regularly?"  she asked as she turned to look up at Bertuccio hopefully, noticeably reluctant to hand the firearm back - but of course, doing so.

When it came time to console Polo, Taalia tried a new tactic she had been developing: playing the man, rather than the argument. She had seen how Gaulfredo had haggled so well by appealing to the individual, and so that is what Taalia tried.

 "Out of the hundreds of men in the region, how many volunteered? How many were willing to put themselves within arms-reach of a troll and risk their life for their fellows?" 

She pursed her lips and shrugged,  "only the ones you see here. And you. You live comfortable, you could have easily let someone else deal with it, but you put yourself in danger and even loosed an arrow at it. Sure, you felt fear, everyone does, there's no shame in it. But you were here ready to die for for others against that horrible beast. How many other men in the region could claim the same? How many others could claim they fought a troll and lived to tell the tale?"  she smiled and encouraged.

Later on back at the farmstead, Taalia grinned as she clinked the cups against those of her foster parents. Flushed with victory and addrenaline, the teenager brought that cup to her mouth and took in a swill.

Her eyes widening, spluttering and coughing as the spirits  burned  her mouth and her whole body shuddered and quaked. Her head hung forward and she slammed her open palm on the table, as Ariana and Gaulfredo laughed gently as their joined prediction came true.

Drawing her head back up, her normally sunkissed features were flushed red as she panted, swallowing, shaking her head and blinking her eyes.

 "By...Myrmidia...wha..."  she gasped, Gaulfredo snickering and pouring her another glass.

"Sip or take it all down at once. You'll come to appreciate the flavours and kick."


ooc:
Yes, indeed, off to market and festival! And the cave!
MrAbdiel
 Polo is somewhat reassured, Bella is somewhat well received, and Oscar is somewhat put right.

Bertuccio, classically, fails to understand the question entirely.  You ask him if you can learn to use a bow regularly.  His response?

 "I don't see why not. Gaulfredo has one; and a butte to target.  Cheaper than gunpowder, for sure." 
 * * * * * 
You divert first to town, to drop of Signore Cestié's bounty.  Rather than endure the disgusting smell the entire way, you put it in the wide mouth of your looted clay job.  When he pops the cork, he reels.

 "Ah!  Is this it?  Oh, the smell, the smell!  Ooh, dear; that will need... work!" 

True to his word, he goes to a small locked coffer beneath the main counter of his workshop, opens it with no less than three intricate looking keys - right, left, middle - and produces ten gold coins from within, just for you.  He also replaces your clay jug with one of his own, more or less like for like.  No point fouling two of them!

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You gain 10 Gold Crowns!
 


While you're there, you broach the question of your telescope with him.  He's amazed that you have one; more so at the story of how you got it.   "In the company of goblins?  They certainly don't make such things.  They must have killed some poor traveller, with an eye for travel and terrain.  Awful, awful.  But no, no; I wouldn't buy it, Taalia; I think you should keep it.  Oh, but I suppose it's a lot of money, for a young person like yourself.  You're not likely to find a buyer without traipsing all the way to the city.  But before you sell it, perhaps you'll let me show you why the ones on my shelf aren't for sale."   With that open ended invite for some kind of sight-seeing adventure, you head back to the cart, with Gaulfredo; with one more stop on the way.

 * * * * * 
"Gods alive, Taalia!  It smells worse than the troll, in here - worse than the outside of it, anyway."

Gaulfredo holds up a lit torch for you, as you pick your way carefully through the troll cave.  It's filthy to the point of redefining the word - heaps of the beast's feces and fermented puke line the walls and corners of the big circular cavern, the scattering of little bones familiar landmarks to you.  There are the remnants of many things here that are now worthless - chewed and half eaten leather gloves, masticated boots, a broken short sword of unimpressive make.  Of the things not unbroken, you find...

A single wooden chip, carved in a circle, with a carved 'B' on it, and a rough carving of a pig's head on the other.

 "That's a bath token, for the Pigly Inn; the coaching inn first from here on the road to Verezzo.  I've been there once,"  Gaulfredo offers;  "But I cannot vouch for the baths." 

Three copper pennies and two silver pieces, all gross.

 "These.. will all need a good scrub, I fear." 

And finally, a brass... thing.  A bowl, suspended on trio of chains attached to its rim that join at the bottom of a longer, handle chain.  There is some engraving on it; too filthy to be discerned.

 "A censer, I think; a religious tool, for priests blessing a place.  Yech..." 

As you retrieve this last item, you notice something else that isn't an item - in the circle left in the filth you lift it from, you see a scrap of white stone, grooved with the passage of a chisel.  There is more to this cave  itself  than just being a troll-hole; but excavating it to discover what it hides would be a considerable investment of time shoveling cartloads of troll leavings out.  It might be best to just leave it for a braver archaelogist! 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia looks happy and fascinated by Signore Cestié's explanation, though her exaltation could do with the enormous amount of money the girl now carried in a discreet pouch on her hip.

To his first suggestion of keeping the telescope, Taalia nods sympathetically.

 "It is a beautiful item. Were I a woman of means I would most certainly keep it as a prized possession!"  she admits, confessing some pain in parting with such a practical but fun piece of human ingenuity.

 "But with the currency I could bring in from selling it?"  she says, leaning in closer, her voice lowered as if admitting such intrigue or secret.

 "I could hire my own acres next to Gaulfredos farm,  build pens, hire a couple of boys and buy half a score of pigs and sell the liters to Verenzo. You heard the talk about possible shortages ahead. If I wait to try and establish, it might not happen."  she shrugged, having revealed a hint of both her far-thinking ambition and her growing awareness of local currents.

Then he asked if she would like a demonstration of why these were held out of reach of the masses grasping, grubby paws.

Nodding,  "Certainly, Signore Cestié's. I would love to see!" 
 oOo 
Taalia smirked and snickered at Gaulfredo's protests, finding them amusing more than anything.

 "When I was a slave for the Skaven,"  she spoke matter-of-factly, having become quite open with her years of awful toil to her foster parents  "a regular duty was feeding the Rat-ogres and cleaning their cages. Once a week at least, for years. You learn to 'tune it out'"  she says over her shoulder as she wades through the cave, inspecting and perusing.

Mentally cataloguing the items, she found the most interest in the wooden token and the stone.

Holding that chip and learning about its origins intrigued the girl. She didn't know what a coachinn was, of course. But she knew enough Tilean language now and could speculate on this tokens use, to guess that it was a place where many travellers visited.

The stone, however, was of particular fascination to the girl.

Holding it up, her eyes peering at it as if she could discern the hidden mysteries within, she spoke over her shoulder.

 "Sometimes the rat-men would make us toil in their mines. Dangerous places. Prone to cave-ins and collapses. There was a stone, a green stone that glowed with a menacing hue, called warpstone. They used it to power their technology and they even processed it into tokens that were about this size." 

She smirked and snickered,  "I'm not saying  this  is such a thing,"  she makes sure he does not misinterpret her train of thought.

 "I think there is even more to this place..."  she stated, looking around the cave and suddenly viewing it in a different light. Its cavernous dimensions now seemed a little  too  perfect, perhaps outside believable coincidence that the troll had crafted its own neatly sized cave within the side of a river bank and under a tree.

 "I will hire a few good men to come and help me dig this place up..."  she nodded, still staring at that stone.

Mentally going through the typical wages, she produced a number,  "should only take a few silver and a days work,"  she said.

'Only' take a 'few' silver, she said, as if she was Ms Moneybags now. But she was right: a day, two at most, herself and three good men working to dig through this place on the action of a hunch.

Maybe it would be worth it?

If it wasn't then she would satisfy an instinctual itch and the men would be paid fairly, so no one could complain there.

And if there was? Well...

(Probably don't need a response to this one, as the mental wheels have been set in motion)
MrAbdiel
 You've done a lot of back and forth between the farm and Bella Collina; and the day after is yet another instance.  This time, it's all of you; Gaulfredo, Ariana, Vittorio.  The needier animals - the pups, the recovering Hurcio - are left in Adolpho's care; the exchange being that his daughter, Diletta, rides to the Spring Planting festival with the rest of you.  The girl likes her privacy, and prefers the dogs she tends to people; but her father is driving her into public life.  Without a mother in the house to encourage her in any more subtle way, it is the best he can do; and the embarrassed girl sits crammed to the left side of the cart while Vittorio (who looks very smart in his recently acquired pair of leather shoes) talks her ear off about Elmo and Corvo and the funny things he has seen them trying to do.  She helps her father raise and train dogs for a living; none of it is news to her.  But Vittorio has never required an enthusiastic partner to gabble on; only the semblance of attention.  So he prevents her from needing to speak much, and she might well be grateful for it.

The Spring Planting festival, which you notice being just as often called the Spring  Harvest  festival depending on whether farmers are trying their luck with wheat (harvest in spring) or corn (plant in spring), is even bigger and more festive than Flicker-Tide.  Squared bails of hay are scattered around the festival area from the town square down the length of the four radial streets, used for chairs and tables and stackable building materials for the children who cannot  not  be building a cubby.  No gargantuan bonfire this time, but a large central ceremonial fire in the centre of the square, and some mock wicker effigies of the hearth-goddess Ishea and her hunter companion and lover Karnas.  Later in the evening, they will be committed to the fire, too; not in an act of blasphemy but (the Madre tells you later), as the kind of fulfillment, since the cycle of growth and decline, life and death, is captured in the yearly creation and immolation of the effigies themselves.

The Madre does much of the conducting of this festival herself, as before; though the official master of ceremonies is the Rampollo Damio, who you lay eyes on for the first time when he calls the music to a halt, ascents a wobbly stage made of hay bales and wooden planks, and thanks everyone for attending.

He is not a robustly physically impressive man.  If he could manage to grow more than the loose suggestion of a beard, he might even verge toward handsome. But the gods have blessed him with an unusual amount of neck; within the limits of human imagination, and certainly not an unnatural thing... but significant enough that the first impression of everyone he meets, silently of course, is a mental reflection along the lines of  wow, that guy has so much neck.   He mitigates it as best he can with a high ruffled collar, but a pronounced adam's apple is fighting the effort.  But he seems pleasant enough; the people barely regard him as a leader, and he demands barely anything from them in that regard, and the whole system seems to work just fine.  And he is close enough to the people that he doesn't seem disgusted by the rurality of everything.  He even carries the pig, himself.
 
"...And lest it go unnoted - a great thanks and salute to our fair militia volunteers, all of whom eat and drink their fill tonight without reaching into their pockets.  And true to my word, it is my pleasure to aware this healthy pig to our superior markswoman - Taalia, Trollslayer!" 

The speech is a little stilted.  He hasn't met you, and is required to praise you, and so it feels a little inauthentic; and it's plain from the fact that he called you a superior  markswoman  that he has misunderstood the account of the slaying somewhat.  But pig is pig; and now he knows your name - this, being the man you'll have to convince at some point in the future to permit you to buy or rent land around Bella Collina.  The whole village, and farmers from all around it - perhaps over a hundred people, children considered - cheer and applaud for you as the Rampollo hefts the whole adult pig into your arms.  It gives a sporting wriggle, then resigns to its fate; and Polo takes the porcine prisoner off your hands to store somewhere in his home, until it's time for you to collect it after the festival.

There is dancing this time, too; different than Flicker-Tide.  This dance begins with groups of threes and fours wheeling back and forth in their own circles, and from time to time trading a member to another wheel nearby.  Emio the Violist saws up the tempo as usual; a rapidly drunkening Nogrom hooting and drumming on an upturned bucket to 'help' him.

Last time, you were so overwhelmed and unable to communicate; and your concern for looking like a fool made you balk and shy away from the dancing.  Now, you're a village celebrity.  And it doesn't look so complicated; and ever so fun...

 
 Spoiler: It's Safe To Dance 
If you want to.  You won't even need to leave your friends behind, on account of the fact they are also dancing.

Make... another Willpower roll to join the dance.  +20 for the general welcome and encouragement, now.  And for that matter, another +10 as Ariana, who turns out to be an excellent dancer, encourages and tries to help you.

After that, an Agility check with the same bonuses if you succeed on the first roll.  It's a very important dance.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


At the last festival Taalia had been a wide-eyed newcomer to the community, and in many ways she still was. But the difference that a couple of months could make were self-evident when the towering girl embraced the ocean of people with the grace of a new ship, rather than the pitiable bumbling of a drowning woman like last time.

Where-as the prior festival saw her dawdle about aimless, now she recognised faces and activities. She could converse with others and when she waded through the endless chorus of spoken words about her, she  understood  what was being spoken. Though only gathering fragments, it was that familiarity with the language and decipherment of what was said that made her feel more and more at home and no longer like a visiting outsider making a fool out of herself.

However, a lesson from the last festival that Taalia had remembered and wanted to improve upon was an education in commerce. Though a graceless new-girl with barely a word of conversation for those she met, she had watched as Gaulfredo had worked his haggling magic and acquired for her what she now knew to be quite an impressive sum that she had used to establish herself. Her chickens and her sheep, coop, pen and half of the ox had sprung from the fruit of that haggle tree...and now Taalia had returned equipped with the final pieces of that chests contents that she wished to sell.

This did, of course, mean that she was wearing an 'ordinary' peasant girls outfit when she attended.  But , her cosmetics kit and a beautiful yellow sash about her waist did wonders to accentuate her sunny, pleasing face, white-blonde hair and athletic figure. So when it came time to scale that ramp and stand upon stage before all assembled next to the Rompollo, Taalia looked  nice  - she had done herself up well. Her smile was broad and warm, her friendly waving sincere, and when she giggled and laughed when receiving the squealing pig within her long arms and held the struggling animal firm and fast, she had visibly come quite far since she last stumbled onto the social scene.

 "Thank you Rompolo Damio,"  she spoke if given the chance, gesturing to the other militiamen who had been present.

 "I just got lucky: none of this would have been possible without all involved! Thank you all!"  she beamed and waved.

A bit cliche, but clearly sincere, particularly given her age and 'special' upbringing.

Handing the pig over to Pollo, Taalia spent several moments lifting children up and spinning them around, speaking to familiar faces such as Madre, Signore Cestié and even Bella if she was present. But soon the crowds parted for the dancing to take place, and this time Taalia  knew  she wasn't going to let stage fright halt her advance.

The last time she had lingered around the perimeter like a mopey, tall, shy bear. This time, she held out her hand to receive Ariana's invitation, smile bright across her face as she ventured onto the pebbled floor.
MrAbdiel
 Gratitude, ale, and a seasonal disposition of jubilation are all in your favor; and the assembled village cheers for you and your well-won wriggling pig.  The militia and your friends have already discussed and congratulated you at length (Signore Cestie and the Madre Angeletta both express how impressed they are, before surrendering you to other interested parties); but others from the town flock to you throughout the night to compliment you on your pig, and ask you about the slaying of the troll.  Amalia and Amadea extract your account of the combat, which is likely to spin off through their gossip network into a distorted version of itself.  Perusia and Rubeus, the tavernkeeper Gheradino's children, have heard the story in detail from him; but they still want to know from you how bad it smelled up close, and how big its teeth were.  Strangers from other farms who only come into the village once a month for supply or for big festivals like this are equally impressed, even though this is the first they have heard of a troll in Bella Collina.  But that long tooth, hung on a narrow strip of rawhide that Gaulfredo had lying around, is proof enough!

Your selfless deflection, at that appropriate level that is not risking being mistaken for obstinance, is well received.  Gherardino and Bertuccio probably played the most dangerous parts, in the whole engagement.  They had horses and so were capable of fleeing; but when you launched yourself into the fray, they were ready to leap in too; just slower on the draw than yourself.  And they had taken on themselves the duty of provoking and baiting the creature, relying on their riding skill and wily steeds to keep them out of reach of the foul monster.  It might have been unfair to have rolled around in the praise as if it were a single handed victory; but that could never be your instinct.  And the riders seem pleased with the level of accolades they have received.  Gherardino, who grills cuts of meat from animals slaughtered for the occasion while his children zip about collecting empty mugs and delivering full ones, is wise enough to be more than pleased with any result that gets him back home to his children, of an evening; and Bertuccio seems as dull to the desire for praise as he is to most social signals.

A tradition of the Spring Harvest/Planting reveals itself, in the evening.  The ladies and girls, while aside in their conversations with one another, begin picking choice selections of straw from the bales and begin weaving and braiding them into large rings.  Their purpose is soon revealed.  Ariana appears to be a skilled hand at it, and she (almost without effort) weaves an offering, even working a copper coin into it like a jewel on the face of a crown, and places it on Gaulfredo's head.  He bows to receive it, in a semblance of royalty; but they share their typical air of mutual delight in each other and playfulness in the gesture.  This seems to be the most common purpose for the grass crowns (which they seem to be called, even though they are clearly made of straw); women bestowing the crown on their chosen man, perhaps as Ishea chooses Karnas.  But it doesn't hold firm throughout more examples as you see them.  Girls are making them for their friends; and matching grass bracelets shortly after.  Mothers make them for their small sons, and sisters for their brothers.  The Madre Angeletta seems to be making a cottage industry out of producing a bulk of somewhat haphazardly constructed crowns to give to the smallest girls who are unable to master making their own; and soon they are chasing the boys with them.  The boys flee these bestowments and their nuptial implications, perhaps arrested by the juvenile fear that to be thus crowned is irrevocably binding.

And some women, like all of the men, do not make them at all.  Not just the spinsters and widows, but enough examples of 'normal' women that the practise seems optional, if popular.  The whole thing has the air of a gently collapsed activity of old ritual significance; a sacred thing, now in a loose enough state of the decay that the tradition of it happening in some for or another holds more value than whatever it once was meant to accomplish or recognise.  When you check in with Belle, she is manufacturing a grass crown of her own; neither as intricate as Ariana's, or as swift in coming as the Madre's.  It takes her time, though not much concentration; and she looks up at you from her straw bale seat and smiles with a smile whose warmth reaches her dark eyes.   " Buona sera , Taalia!  What a lovely sash!" 

She seems to have emotionally recovered from her brush with death, but hasn't forgotten it, or the role you played in saving her life.  But unlike almost everyone else, the troll and that combat does not feature in this conversation after you bring it up, and she assures you she is doing well.   "How do you like living in Bella Collina?" , and  "Your hair is almost silver - has it always been that color?  I have never seen its like!" , and  "Bertuccio says you have begun your own flock, on Gaulfredo's farm - that's so impressive, at your age!"   She might have not even noticed you, at the last festival where she swooped in and whisked Bertuccio our from under your attentions.  But she's seen you now; and seems unabashedly fascinated with you, and how you have leaped from the pits of oblivion onto the stage of this small village community.

 "Oh!  There is the dancing music!  Quick, here!"   As the viola kicks up, she is all but springloaded for the event, in her distinct yellow dress; but she delays her enthusiasm to join the dance for a moment.   "Here you are, Taalia Trollslayer.  We are fortunate indeed, to have you found you."   She crowns you with the grass crown she has made, the frail circlet charged with nebulous but evident esteem and fascination; and then seeks to drag you (as if you needed dragging) toward the dance. Ariana flags the pair of you over, and along with Gaulfredo, you form the initial circle for the dance.  And now that you're doing it, and that you can understand what people are saying and the cues they are giving you, it's all so easy, and intuitive, and  fun , that you can only remember your instinctive retreat from the dance at Flicker-Tide with a pang of loss, for the opportunity. But there will be another Flicker-Tide; and long before that, a Fall Harvest/Fall Planting festival, with no doubt its own curious traditions and dances to discover.  But for now, you find it surprisingly east to step in, and now; and around and around, in your wheel of companions; losing Ariana to an adjacent group, and gaining a friendly stranger; losing yourself in the next round to a group of strangers, then another, and then somehow back to Gaulfredo and Ariana, with Diletta in the mix.  She's about a foot and a half shorter than you, so the geometry of this wheel is a little extra work; and she seems to be struggling to intuit it all, as you feared you might.  But persisting, and not mocking her inelegance, you find yourself helping Ariana teach when a moment ago you were learning.

How far you have come, in such a short time!  It's a thought that is never far from your mind, these past weeks; and as you wheel and dance, your eyes track a brief tableaux sketched out in firelight over the crowd: Ishea and Karnas in effigy, glowing orange in the firelight; and the statue of the spearwoman all the way at the other end of the square, where an array of short candles have been placed and lit by her sandaled feet.

 "Men also have gods," Kee-Ruh-Sis had once said, "and they will not permit their children to suffer like this forever." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Gain 100 XP, and a milestone victory, for Taalia overcoming her self doubts and suspicions, and joining the dance.  You can also gain a special boon - you can consider yourself to be 'trained' in  Performance: Dance , though with a typical -10% penalty.
 This will mean you succeed at performative level dance in situations where the dance is simple enough, and are entitled to roll as if you were trained with a -10% penalty in other situations.  If you become trained in Performance: Dance, this is rendered obsolete; but until then, you have  The Boon of the Dance. 

If there's anything else you want to do on the festival night, let me know; otherwise we'll move it on to tomorrow, and purchases and sales.
 
 
MrAbdiel
 The following day, after enjoying again the hospitality of Polo and Fenicia (this time, you and Vittorio crash in the living room, while Gaulfredo and Ariana take the spare room with its bed), you get about your secondary business in town.  You catch Polo before he escapes to his clerk work, and he is perfectly interested to look over the book that you've brought him.  He flips it open on his desk; looks physically pained as he runs his thumb along the torn stubs where so many of the pages once were.   "Bloody greenskin  animals ..." 

He doesn't speak the language of the text; but he has enough scholarship in him to determine it.   "It's in  classical  - the language of old Tylos, you see, before the tongue diverged into Tilean and Estalian, and made its impact on Breton.  It's not much of a spoken language anymore, but priests and scholars often use it as a common language among themselves.  And as a... a kind of barrier to entry to pretenders, you see?  I don't speak it myself, but it's titled something like 'Between Old Gods' or 'From one Old God to another Old God', or something similar.  I think it's a comparative text.  I can make out the proper names, in some places - that's Ishea, and Rhya, mentioned together in the same sentences several times on this page.  Rhya is what most of the Estalians - and anywhere north of the mountains, in fact - call Ishea.  Like how our Karnas is their Taal." 

Gaulfredo, to whom letters are a mystery and who sees an opportunity to chime in so not to come off as dull, pipes up.  "Yes; yes, I knew that one.  When I met you in the wood, Taalia, I thought you might have been Imperial, since I could not tell what you were speaking, and I know Breton and Estalian by sound, if not the words.  That's why Vittorio and I called you Taalia - you came from the woods in a needy moment; a gift from Karnas.  Or Taal, as I thought you might prefer at the time.  We could call you Karnasia, I suppose."  He considers; though the amended name doesn't roll off the tongue quite the same.

 "It might be a bit disappointing..."  Polo warns you, as he closes the book; its cover sagging inward over the gutted interior.   "If it were in good condition, a hand-scribed text like this might be worth a great little payday indeed.  But the goblins really went at the guts of it, before you got to it.  If it were a little battered, we could sell it for a little less; but a broken book is about as good as a broken sword.  Unless it's some secret old text for which even scraps are sought - I don't think that's the case - you might get a few gold crowns for it, just as calligraphic samples for young scribes to study for reference.  But nothing like the hundred crowns or so you could get for a scholarly book on theological matters, if it weren't half-gone.  I'd suggest holding onto it until you have a chance to take it to a bookseller in Verezzo; they're most likely to be able to help." 

Some of your smaller sales move easier than others.

The fishing reel, the pouches, the shoes and the sashes, Gaulfredo will buy from you himself.   "That's a good reel, and you never know when you need more pouches.  The sashes, I'll give to Ariana.  I think she'll like them.  And the shoes... that's a big price, but in a marriage, you make these kinds of investments, and they pay off over time." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: Easy Money 

1 fishing reel (Good quality) - 9 silver
2 leather pouches (small) - 10 silver
4 * Sash, Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, - 10 silver
1 * Good Shoes, Red - 30 silver

= 59 Silver from Gaulfredo purchases!
 


He gives you the bad news, next.  "I don't think you're going to find anyone who will buy that pipe.  Who wants a used pipe?  Anyone who is buying a pipe can afford a tobacco habit, and those people would buy a new one."

But the rest is more challenging.  The best quality clothing, hat, the perfume, the cloak -  "These are all luxury goods.  The ladies of the village are probably close to tapped out for frivolous spends from the last load of interesting garments you brought it a few weeks ago.  And being red doesn't help - the Rampollo's aligned to the Yellow Court, so yellow is the perennial fashion here.  We might be able to squeak out a sale - but in matters of gold, I think it's worth waiting until we can get to Verezzo; or atleast to town." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: Hard Money 
Harder here.  Gonna make rolls for all the stuff, adding in a +10 for you assisting, and a +10 for your present reputation boost in the village.  But like Gaulfredo says, it's a small village the it's a little exhausted for luxury clothes right now.  On the items he succeeds on, you'll get a 50% offer.  On those he fails on, you can't really sell here at all; not until a couple of months have passed.

Hat:   Vs59  - (1d100)[ 2 ] 
Perfume:   Vs59  - (1d100)[ 15 ] 
Cloak:   Vs59  - (1d100)[ 48 ] 
Best Clothes:   Vs59  - (1d100)[ 32 ] 

EDIT: Characteristically nailing all the rolls, you can finagle a half-cost sale for all these items if you need cash now; or try again after the market has somewhat replenished.

The sandals are an exception; they're not luxury, so they get a normal 100%/50% roll.  But I remind you if you sell them, you have no footwear- and Taalia might take penalties being a barefoot wanderer!
 


Later in the day, as you prepare to return, you look for some local layabouts to roust for labor - and you find them.  The gaggle of lads who helped with the construction of the sheep pen, who so crudely gained giggles at your expense while you were just trying to be nice, present themselves when they hear you asking about.  And they do their best effort to pretend like they don't remember meeting you the first time; but you're pretty bloody distinct.  It was easy when you were a gormless foreigner; now you're a local darling, and they'd really like the work.  If you'll take them.

 
 Spoiler: Shovel Ready Jobs 
It'll take 8 man-days of unskilled labor to clear the cave - that's 2 days with these four lads bringing their own shovels, for a total of 80 pennies.

You may, however, choose to roll a haggle roll at +20 for your local leverage right now to hector them down to something constituting less than that and the implication of an apology for being jerks, previously.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


Taalia found talk of the religious text quite fascinating. As a fellow slave whose fate she'll never know once explained to her: Men have their own Gods. That Gaulfredo and Vitorio had named her after a gift from some divine entity only made her blush and smile, to be thought of in such lofty and affectionate terms made her fee particularly welcome, and that despite all the cruelties and horror she'd witnessed and endured from ratmen and fellow slaves, there were things to live for in this world.

However, talk of it's value, or lack there-of, was not bothersome to the girl. After all, she didn't know what books were worth. Talk of 'old classical tongues' meant nothing to her, nor did any loss of value in the book's potential sale price due to damages incurred, even if such abrasions might have exasperated some divine being looking on from above (haha!).

 "Karnasia..."  Taalia said, trying the word out in her mouth.

 "Karnasia...Karnasia!"  she attempted several inflections, rolling the syllables about as if tasting a new wine. Finally, she pursed her lips and then smiled.

 "I like Taalia better, yes. I think you chose wisely,"  she laughed.

 "Thank you Pollo, I will take it to Verezzo in good time and see if it is any more useful to someone there! Ahh...but!"  Taalia paused, thinking, eyes narrowed as she looked off in a different direction while strumming at her chin with her right hand.

 "Verezzo is quite a large city, yes? I have never been...but I am looking forward to it!"  she piped up with that broad, bright smile of hers,  "but I saw on the trading post the cost of different meats and produce. I bring eggs every week to the market here and I enjoy talking with others while selling them. But within the next few months my sheep will need shearing and little lambs will come along. I won't be able to keep all of the lambs, not without new acerage..." 

She paused before continuing, trusting she could confide in Pollo given his familial relationship to Gaulfredo and, through him, essentially her as well as a veritable foster daughter.

 "The wool can be expensive, as can lambs and ewes. If I cannot trade them here, I will need to do so in Verezzo. If I wanted to...what is the term...forgive my limit..."  she said, rubbing her thumb against the inside of her fingertips, usually the expression for 'money', but in this case trying to think of something.

 "Borrow? Rent? Land, near Gaulfredo's?"  she asks curiously, exposing a bit of her far-thinking ambition.

 "I'm so sorry Pollo, I am rambling,"  she laughed gently,  "but do you know who I could sell animals to in Verezzo, and who I see about borrowing land?" 

From illiterate, escaped slave starving in the woods to ambitious livestock farmer in 6 months. She was ambitious and energetic, she had to be given that much.

 oOo 
Taalia ventured forth into the marketplace once more with Gaulfredo by her side, this time more in-tune with his methods and ability to persuade and convince. Where previously she had been barely able to understand a few words, now she could follow along entirely, even adding her own quips here and there. However, unlike her prior foray into the world of rural commerce, Taalia fully agreed with, heeded and came to the same conclusions as her mentor.

Initially, she felt hesitant to sell to Gaulfredo, particularly after how good he and his wife and son had been to her. In essence, she owed everything to them. She dreaded to think where in this ruthless world she could have ended up had she not come under their protective wing, but yet the exchange of money between them had an underlying trust. They were both honest and up front with each other, neither party trying to 'get the best deal' that they could from the other. She had, after all, spend 12 gold on helping Gaulfredo buy a new ox, while they had accepted 'rent' from her and Ariana had promised to show Taalia how to milk the sheep and turn it into cheese - which they would pay her for. Though the adage that money and blood don't mix was usually true, this seemed to be a case where honesty and generosity had a made a good working relationship.

Unfortunately, the rest of the sales were not as...satisfying? The approximately 9gc was nothing to sneeze at, Taalia could use it. But Gaulfredo was right, and after talk already of soon travelling to Verezzo had entered her mind, the girl started to think longer-term with money-matters and had came to the same conclusion as her friend: it was best to hang onto these.

Even the Disguise Kit could be worth a couple of sheep if she sold it wisely in the city.

But then came the matter of excavating the troll cave. And my my how the turntables.

Taalia worked hard to suppress a smug little grin when the four lads approached her. She had remembered three last time, but it was likely that had just had not been there that day.

To say that Taalia displayed a toying, coy attitude would have been fair. She was fluent in Tilien now.  And  her social graces had improved considerably. Sarcasm, toying, coying, innuendo, back-handed compliments...the two spinstr-sisters at the trading stall had been fine educators.

But, Taalia knew that the work ahead of the boys was better revenge than she could plan herself. And so, with the back and forth, even knocking their promised wages down a little bit, she accepted their offer.

 "And fellows,"  she said, her smoky voice laced with knowing mirth,  "the job will be an unpleasant one. But stick with it, and I will need some hands to help during the shearing season, and I can speak well to others of your fortitude." 

If Taalia could have gotten away with laughing darkly while rubbing her hands, she would have. Maybe there was some Skaven in her after all...
MrAbdiel
 Polo is impressed at your meteoric rise in capability and fortune.  When you mention a desire to acquire land, he turns to another of his many shelves, and pulls down a ledger, and unrolls a map that takes up all of a large table.  He tracks his finger across its sketched and scribbled surface, coming to a rest over a certain squiggle.

"Well.  There's a little land on the other side of the village, closer to town; but it would put you a fair distance from Gaulfredo and Ariana.  If you are aching for a chance to rent land, that is your most likely vector.  But there's land closer by that will open up, soon enough; do you see? This swathe here is marked for clearing, and turning into grazing land. That transformation will take a while; but you have a small flock, for now; they do not need so much to graze on, and would subsist fine on the active land while this cleared woodland fallows."

Gaulfredo peers over the map.  Aware that you've never had to read one before, he guys your eyes with the point of his finger and some instruction - here is the farm; here is the road that leads to Bella Collina... and all at once, with an almost disorienting burst of geographical catharsis, your mind births the necessary sense of special abstraction to understand the flattened rendition of the land, as seen by the gods above you.  The land to be cleared looks to be a little lower lying that Gaulfredo's; it's the presently wooded patch of road-adjacent land where Hurcio and Hermes mad their stand against the troll.  It's not quite adjacent to Gaulfredo's land; but divided from it only by a patch of scrubby, rocking hillocks that spike all the way inland from the mountains in the far east, tapering off some distance on the other side of the road.  Not unnavigable land; just not particularly useful for growing much, and apparently not useful for much else.  Easilly enough walked through or perhaps ridden once you know the land enough not to risk the horse; a closeness that puts you perhaps 'half an hour down the road' on foot from Gaulfredo.

"The clearing will begin soon, but in a few months, if you can wait that long, perhaps we can work something out.  I expect you can get a favorable rate - something like paying only for the land you're actively using, while remaining a sort of on-site custodian for the fallowing land becoming pasture.  If that suits you, I can put it by the Rampollo, and gage his feeling."

Immediacy in time, or in proximity; it seems you must choose one, or the other.

* * * * *

The forth lad, who hadn't been there during the first encounter, can't for the life of him figure out why his friends are so cowed and easily talked down.  But he backs their play, all the same; and they agree to clear the cave of crud, loose rock and detritus for you for a princely sum of one shilling each, for two days labor; and the implied understanding that this is also penance for being crude earlier.

You check on them on the first day, and  woo  is it rank.  The shovels removing the gunk are breaking the old crusts on heaps of troll leavings and releasing their foulness to the air; and the boys are taking frequent fresh air breaks; working with their shirts off and tied around their noses, shoveling until their eyes water, then getting out and getting some distance to dry retch and, sometimes, to just plain puke.  It was wise for you not to undertake this task personally.  It looks  bad. 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: Per example 

  
 


This time, they are not at all ungrateful when you bring them some skins of fresh water and something to eat.  The Madre has given you a salve of crushed herbs that give of a frosty, minty scent that is sufficiently preferable, with instructions for the lads to smear it beneath their noses while they work.

But you've got a lot on your mind.  If you were to forget that mercy for a day, and only introduce it on the second, who would blame you?  No one, that's who.


How the turntables indeed.


But on the second day, by the time you check in, it's not so bad.  In a fit of inspiration, the boys have dug a pit in the soft creekside earth outside the cave, and put all the fragrant sludge.  They used the displaced earth to shovel into the cave, soaking up some nebulous, awful fluids into a medium-gross mud to extract again; and finally, they have buried the whole mess as a lumpen mound; a grave that one could only wish smelled merely as bad as a corpse.  The covering earth does a good job masking much of the smell; and while the boys take a rest and wash up in the nearby stream with their hard-won silver in hand, you are free to look over the cave's interior, candle in hand, scent-voiding gel on your upper lip.

They've worked hard.  Their efforts have revealed a regular shape to the cave, after the initial winding entrance;  a hexagonal chamber about thirty feet across.  The ceiling of the cave is natural stone, suggesting it is a naturally formed phenomenon; but the walls have clearly been worked to flat surfaces and then treated with some unusual alchemy to whiten the stone.  The stone is stained black, right now; you only know it used to be white on account of the white chunk of rock that fits neatly back into the slot on the similarly worked and smooth floor, where you found it in the filth.  You cannot presently imagine what kind of magical, or chemical treatment would be required to cleanse this place to make it ... completely free of troll stains and smell; but it was certainly once purposed for something much greater than being the filthy lair of such a beast.  The dirty, blackened stone walls are not just smoothed, but carved; there is art there, hard to make out; hidden behind a potential effort of scrubbing and restoration that is more  archeological  that simply shovel duty, now.  You make out flowing text, in a language you have never seen; and an elegant female figure, with a set of scales held infront of her over her heart; and a spear held high above her head.

You are at once struck with the sense that you are walking on ground once considered holy.  You have delivered it from a depth of desecration; but you are not certain you know the god to which this  shrine , and you are certain that is what it is now, pays homage; nor can you know for sure if they mean you ill, or well. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


Taalia enjoyed the 'map'. It was not an item she was familiar with, but once the geographic outlay, landmarks and legends became apparent to her, she stared at it with a child-like wide-eyed fascination. This is what birds must feel like! High up there, in the air, held aloft by the unbridled freedom of their wings, casting their gaze down upon the works of man and seeing their involvement with the land as a whole. Fascinating!

 "Wow..."  she uttered, reaching a hand forward and tracing lines about the map; from Gaulfredo's to the town, from Aldolpho's to Gaulfredos - and how far Rocco, that sly little beast, had had to venture during the night - to the woods and the river where she had first been found. It gave everything a sense of...scale, of locality.

Hearing the options, Taalia considered and nodded. Land  right now  was not that useful to her. Her flock was only small, easily grazing upon a quarter of an acre of Gaulfredo's land. But if her plans worked well? If the fleecing season was good? And she sold that telescope? Then she could expand her livestock inventory in time to take advantage of the newly clear land. That seemed the wiser choice.

 "I will be patient,"  Taalia nodded with a smile, as she gestured to the area Polo had designated as 'soon to be available'.


 oOo 

The two day excavation had been arduous and testing, and Taalia never strayed far from the action. As a former slave, she was accustomed to such dreary conditions, having plied her labour in vile squalor for years. But for the lads...she was impressed that they toughed it out, for the stench truly was  rank . She didn't think any less of a fellow who had to take time to vomit, nor cast down his shovel for a breather. Indeed, breaks were more frequent than a normal work day, and Taalia frequently brought buckets of clean water from upstream the river for both cleaning fouled area's of exposed skin, washing clothes and, of course, for drinking.

When they came upon their discovery however, Taalia was mesmerised by the finding. The boys compacting the waste away into banks helped tremendously, allowing Taalia to marvel at what they had found within the cave. No, not a cave, a  shrine . This had once been a  shrine  - but to what?

The former slave noted the similarity between the figurine of the woman holding the scale while holding aloft a spear with the Tileans own image of Myrmidia. Was she looking at some ecclesiastical progenitor? Some former incarnation? But the flowing, graceful writing - that was  not  Tilean, and the chalk-white...marble? Was this marble? Or just beautifully crafted alabaster stone? The craftsmanship to devise and create such a thing of beauty was testimony to the skill and love its creators once put into this holy place. To think that she was helping to rescue its dignity from the fetid debasement of that trolls presence, was a satisfying sensation indeed.

Yes. It deserved to be restored. Peeling back the black film of time-worn desecration in her imagination, Taalia knew that something this beautiful could not be crafted by evil hands.

Taalia lived up to her bargain with the lads. After having received an apology, and having privately enjoyed the little revenge of making them work in this pit, she had forgiven their trespasses, while the findings they had uncovered her put her in a particularly grateful mood. She paid each 2 shillings, double what they had originally agreed, and assured them she would remember them when fleecing time arrived and that she would also speak well of them to others who sought labour around the town.

As for Taalia herself, she would spend at least a day each week going through this place: searching, cleaning what she could, uncovering what she could. As long as her amateur archaeological venture did not impede upon her farm-work or duties to Madre, Taalia was determined to at least clean the soul of this once holy site.
MrAbdiel
 Over the coming weeks, you start devoting portions of your time to this new project.  It feels good to be subtracting some little elements of blasphemy from the world, when you were forced to be complicit in adding so much to it as a slave to the monsters below.  Perhaps, when you're done, a priest can come by and tell you which god you have honored.  There are six walls, all relatively well preserved in so far as they are carved with legible if unintelligible text; but as you work your way through with bucket after bucket of soap and the slow disintegration of one brush after another, the progress that is revealed is not perfect.  The text could be read by someone who reads this language, now; the message of the place recaptured for scribing and study.  But if the intention is to restore the shrine to something like its former glory, it will require something more than just elbow grease.  This is a matter for a chemist, who can suggest (you must hope) some more powerful soap that is able to leech the stains of old caked troll scat from the walls.  As the weeks peel by, you put aside a little time to trying new methods, showing the sample stone that you took loose from the shrine floor with its white, beautiful underside and its blackened, stained flat top.  The Madre Angeletta's expertise is for tonics for the body, and for health; she offers a mixture which seems when applied to have, as she uncertainly forecast, no real effect.  Ariana suggests scrubbing with heated soapy water, instead of cold; and you boil a few pots of water and try it before deciding that, incremental success though their may be, you cannot afford to spend a lifetime using such increments.  You need something more effective, and Signore Cestie tells you what you already suspected.   "I'm afraid something like that might require a real specialist - a chemist, who spends their life studying which substances do which, to what.  I'm sorry, Taalia; that might be another task to add to your list, for when you visit Verezzo."   Indeed it might be; and that list begins to grow.  For now, there's plenty more surface scrubbing you can do with these hours put aside, before there is nothing left but this mysterious hope of a chemical solution.  Every hour you put into that cave shrine strips out some of the smell, and when you toss out a bucket of your shrubbing water, grey and grimey, you know you have removed atleast  that much  of the filth.  It'll do, for now.

* * * * *

At about the four month mark, Signore Cestie calls in his claim on your time.  He gives you plenty of warning for what he has planned.   "Bring a pack, with enough gear to camp for two nights; and your staff, and your telescope.  I know you have spend such terrible years deep underground - but now you will see the world from as far above the surface as you once were, below it!" 

It's a little uncertain, as a plan; your travels since you found a home have been back and forth between the welcome simplicity of Gaulfredo's farm, and the humble but eventually familiar village square of Bella Collina.  That is a road that runs north to south, with the forest to the east, the lowlands to the west.  But your courage has not failed you yet; and if Signore Cestie was so confident about the venture, why shouldn't you be?  Gaulfredo and Ariana are happy enough to mind your animals for a couple of days, even though Vittorio considers himself in charge while you're away.  So you set out as a party of four;  You, Signore Cestie; with Corvo trotting along at your heels and zooming out ahead only to zoom back; and a charming donkey that Signore Cestie brings.  The donkey's name is Lazlo, and he has a likable habit of making sneezy, muttering sounds that audibly register like human scoffs of disapproval, often with amazing comedic timing.  Lazlo carries your bags and Cestie's, and plods along behind you; resisting Corvo's efforts to make friends.  The signore himself has a quarterstaff of his own for the walk, some light travelling clothes, and a belt festooned with pouches.  A crossbow and quiver dangles on Lazlo's side, as he goes; Cestie seems almost disinterested in the idea of danger, more than anything.  He is prepared for one threat, however - the wrath of the sun.  He wears an almost comically wide-brimmed straw hat, and has brought one for you; the edges of it terminate past your shoulders by six inches either side of you.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You gain 1 * Big Straw Sun-Hat.
 


You had fears about Cestie travelling.  The Madre is in her fifties, and she is spritely enough; but Signore Cestie must be in his seventies, and you have not seen him  standing  for long let alone moving about.  Yet here he is, and he doesn't even slow you down much.  If anything, he seems less burdened by his age than he was when you first met him; a little less bent with years, a little more full of life; as though your investment of interest and friendship in the old tinker had activated some hidden reservoir of life in him.

Your path leads you along the forested side of the rocky hills adjacent to Gaulfredo's land, east toward the mountains.  It affords you a look at the land that the Rampollo is clearing that you are hoping to rent; a few acres of light woods, now mostly cleared, with plow teams tearing up the earth and hauling stumps away.  You wave at them as you go, and they wave back; but there is plenty more work to do before it is ready to support the grasses required of a pasture.  As you come toward the end of the first day of travel, the mountains are closer than ever.  They are not the jagged black teeth gnawing on the sky, like the mountains you have foggy memories of seeing in Norsca; they are nobler, somehow.  Lovely, in a way; defending Tilea from the greenskins beyond, and somehow possessing that virtue in their bearing. The largest mountains of the Apuccini range are towering, snow capped affairs; but as you make camp, Signore Cestie points to a less imposing shape; a grassy, scrub-sided mount not a third as tall as the titans behind it.   "That's the one;  Monte Iago .  There's a nice winding track up its side; I'll show you.."   You have to hope so.  So far, there has been no path to speak of; just faint suggestions of occasional travel, worn guideposts, hewn stumps, old stone clusters where those who preceded you by years had made camp, and fire.  You camp around one such old site.  It's well into summer now, and the nights are no longer cold; but ascending into the high hills, they're not uncomfortably warm either.  Signore Cestie shows you a trick - takes out a bundle of bundles, each a set of four narrow stakes connected by fine string, with tiny brass bells mounted on top of each of the narrow stakes.  He sets them out with the string suspended between them, and breaks out a jar of what he calls "Sniffer-Dust", sprinkling it in each of the little arrangements.   "It's dried meat flakes, crumbs, and crushed nipper weed.  Animals with sensitive noses love the smell of it.  If they're curious about the camp, they'll veer off and paw at the dust, ringing the bells when they do.  Most of the time that's enough to scare off an animal.  It won't work on goblins or men, but we're far enough out here to not be in fear of bandits, and not close enough to the mountains to worry about goblins.  And any small gesture you can do to eliminate or reduce a threat is a gesture worth taking, I say."  You eat bread and cheese by the fire, and a couple of your home grown eggs that you scramble up in a small skillet borrowed from Ariana for the trip; and sleep peacefully under the stars.

The next day you pack up camp, and it's up Monte Iago you go.  There is indeed an old trail beaten through the side of the mountain; a little overgrown, but obviously seeing some use; and it's no real trouble to zigzag up the switch backs toward the top of the mountain.  That is to say, it's only as difficult as hiking up a mountain normally is; which is not trivial, but perfectly doable for a strong young woman and a spritely gentleman who apparently knows the way well.  From the top of even this comparably low mountain, the view is exceptional; and you've never seen anything like it.  The lumpy sprawl of hills rolling out at the foot of the mountain surges far into the distance; the trees which you walked through, each an individual thing, seem to possess a collective shape from up here, as if they had been poured out on the land from somewhere, thick at the middle of the woodland, thinning to the edges.  Through the telescope, you can see even more.  You can make out the land being plowed, which you walked by a day ago.  You can make out the distant shape of Gaulfredo's barn; and well north of it, the  crowding of boxy shapes that must be Bella Collina.  You can see the dozens of other farmsteads and fields below, and through the telescope, more beyond the road toward the lowland; and far far away, at the hazy blue edge of the horizon, not the rumpled edges of hills or jagged mountains guarding the horizon, but a perfectly flat line that must be the sea.  Cestie points out some other things.  North, past Bella Collina, far enough away that you cannot tell the shapes apart, is another settlement.   "This is Paesa di Silo. Four hundred people live there, and near to it - that is 'town' when we talk about going to town.  All the villages around bring their grain crops to be siloed there, and run their animals there to the saleyards.  Beyond that - just a shape on the north horizon - is the city Verezzo.  That is where you will find a chemist; and just about anything else you could want; including someone to buy your telescope.  And if you choose to sell it - well, you can borrow mine anytime you like."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


In several ways, the work of restoring the shrine reminded Talia of her labour to the ratmen, albeit with several large distinctions. First, this was a labour of love. Or repentance? To draw something that was once beautiful and sanctified out of the muck and to at least clean its forgotten soul would go a long way in helping negate her contribution to the ultimately evil works of the Skaven that her hands had performed. Of course she was a slave and a child, compelled by force and pain of death, or worse, to assist the vile ratmen in their schemes and devices and no one sane would have laid blame at her feet, but that didn't make it feel any better. She knew what poison wind-globes were, she'd used them for their distinct purpose, and doomwheels and bullets, blades and saws. If there were gods other than the horned devil the Skaven worshiped, then the ancient people who created this shrine might thank her in the afterlife for having cleansed one of their few remaining physical memories - and who knew, maybe locals would offer a pray here too.

But, there was only so far that muscle toil and soapy extracts could take her. To further refurnish this place of worship, it was clear to Taalia, as suggested by Madre and Cestie, she would need the alchemical knowledge of a chemist from Verezzo.

Add that to the To Do list for the big city!


 oOo 
To say that Taalia was smitten with the forest would have been an understatement.

When first she had emerged into the pristine woodland, she had done so at the shoulder of Papa Rat, Rashabang, her life having once more been preserved by providence and the skin-deep nick of an assassins blade on her shoulder. Her first foray into the beautiful timber and umbrage had been one of quasi-mourning, burying the only father figure she knew - however perverse that sounded, particularly in hindsight - before washing in the stream. The discovery of the Troll had come soon after, her fight with the Goblins, her arm wound and meeting Gaulfredo soon after that. It had all started in the forest.

It seemed fitting then that Taalia once more embarked into the wooded landscape with a grandfather-like figure by her side, staff in hand and her growing dog, Corvo, trotting along beside her with youthful exuberance. By now old enough to travel on his own paw-power, Corvo's cheeky, playful personality was shining through, as was the lineage of his Cane Corso mother - his guard instincts exhibited several times when Taalia had tried falling asleep in the barn only for shadows cast by the moonlight to draw a protective growl from the young dog. It was sweet, and as they walked Taalia would periodically cup the dogs powerful head in her hands and kiss his forehead affectionately, while secretly thanking Dilette and Ariana for teaching her how to train and funnel the dogs natural strength and enthusiasm. She could tell that when he was matured, he'd be a big, boofy and friendly dog...to her. To others, he'd be a menacing deterrent to approaching his towering master with ill-intent.

Throughout the walk, Taalia's youth and vigour combined with her very long legs to navigate and scale any obstacle that they came across. Not that such things were treated as a chore, not by the younger of the adventuring duo anyway! Taalia happily scrambled up little rock-hill surfaces, picked her way over fallen logs and traversed through barely tamed bushlands, often going ahead of the older Cestie so that her figure could clear the way before them. With her staff in hand, she'd often jab at things to test their stability, or prod about in batches of tall grass to ensure that no snakes were lurking inside.

But, such troubles did not arise, and Taalia was often heard "oooo"ing! and "ahhh"ing! as their hike took them to new heights and elevated positions from which the youth could observe the breadth of the mountainous and hilly woodlands that spread out before them. To behold the vast forests at such a scale was an incomparable sight, and Taalia could fully understand how one might be seized by the majesty and compelled to put brush to canvas or note to sheet in order to craft a homage to the natural beauty to be found in the world. However, lacking the expertise for artistry and song, Taalia contended herself with simply enjoying the moment, her grin wide and sometimes her hand gripping Cestie by the elbow to point his attention in a particular direction where Taalia's younger eyes spotted something of interest.

And the telescope? Pwah! She could tell why Cestie was so hesitant to part with his own. Money and experience were often interchangeable, their value depending on where one was in life. Though the girl still wanted to eventually sell her own and use it to start her life in his region, she could understand why these hikes and scenes were more valuable to Cestie than more gold in his pocket - which his lifetime trade had probably already amply provided him. But time, experience and the witness of beauty? In his twilight years, that was more important to the tinkerer.

During their first night camping, Taalia and Cestie talked, as much to pass the time as anything else. Though a much older man taking a fit young lady out hiking to capture her imagination with the beauty of the natural world might seem...suspicious to some, Cestie likely had no sleazy ulterior motives: he was a village elder who derived his happiness seeing the youth looking towards the future with joy, and witnessing the flourishing of that excitement. Around the campfire Taalia did not hide much in regards to her past, particularly now that she was rather articulate, and in many ways her grim and stomach-churning stories would make one appreciate the freedom life on the surface in Tilea offered.

She admitted that the only cities she had been to had not been of human creation, but that she was looking forward to her trip to Verezzo.
MrAbdiel
 You have a bite to eat on the cool and pleasant top of Monte Iago.  Soon you'll need to head back; but after you've packed up, and after Lazlo is loaded once more, the old tinker leads to around the bend on south side of the rounded mountain top. It reveals two interesting things - beside Monte Iago is its larger brother, Monte Ezio.  The character of that mountain is more craggy; its face is not a pleasant climb, but a craggy series of shelves with jutting cliffs and hard working, scraggly cliff-plants clinging to it.  A singular spar of stone projects out from the cliffside on Ezio more than the others; a sorty of igneous plank left behind by some calamitous rockslide that sheared away the rest of that frontage in ancient times.  It must be a very commanding view from up there, too; but a thousand foot drop threatens the incautious with the price of carelessness.

But on Monte Iago's face, pointing out towards the lowlands like Ezio's jutting point, is something else - a formation of the mountain top that slopes down about a hundred feet, then scoops back up and terminates at the cliff's edge at a slight upward tilt, before the mountain drops away blow to its normal scrubby character.  Down the length of the scooping slope are sleepers of wood, installed into the ground edge to edge to form a path that resists the overgrowth of grass, with weeds poking up between them; a downward ramp that leads to an upward slope, then a great plunge.

 "Let me tell you a story, Taalia."   Signore Cestie begins, settling on the grass looking down at the ramp infront, and glancing to his left to see the fearsome spar of Monte Ezio beyond.  And then, he tells you a story.

 "There was a certain man of Verezzo; a man named Dadallo.  He was like I was, once; young, and inspired, and fascinated by the sciences even at an informal level.  And one day, Dadallo came across a treasure he never expected to see - a pack of sketches that belonged to the grand and famous inventor, Leonardo of Miragliano!  There were several plans among them, for things unrealized.  A sort of sheet on strings one can deploy in a fall to save their life by catching the wind like a ship's sail, for one; but most intriguingly, he found a plan for a machine that might allow a man to  fly  through the air, as a bird on the wing!" 

While speaking, he produces short, slim scroll case; and reverently takes from within it a yellowed roll of parchment which, unfurled, reveals the faint lines of an old sketch. Its lines are clean and straight,  ruler drawn and annotated in tiny, classical words.  It's not exactly a picture of a thing - more like a  map  of a thing; but the example of how it is supposed to come together is bizarre, to say the least!  A sort of light cart, with a mechanical chain connecting the rear and front wheels; and series of gears that  run to a central column behind the seat for the driver.  Mounted on that column are great, wide wings that must, you intuit from your limited experience with the skaven workshop machines powered by running wheels, provide drive to pump the wings.

 "So he built the machine to Leonardo's specifications; and then, he built this ramp..."  He gestures to the planks, and out to the cliff.   "And full of puff and confidence, he pedalled the machine down the ramp, and off the edge, and into the sky; and then plunged like a stone!"   He lets out a hoarse little cackle.  Lazlo, nearby, huffs in pseudo-disapproval.   "He'd have been dead, if the parachute schematic hadn't worked perfectly, atleast.  But he learned that the drawing of the flying machine was a fake - a forgery, you see?  Leonardo lived five hundred years ago, and such parchment should be much more frail."   He gives the sheet a demonstrative tug, showing its quality.   "But he had become obsessed with the quest - the quest to fly!  He tried many of his own designs, many alternative flying machines, but none of them yielded success.  His workshop in Verezzo became infamous for his failures -  more so when one day, he crashed through the roof of a villa owned by the powerful  Batta  family.  The family is very strong, in the senate; and they had Dadallo imprisoned in a tower where he could inflict no more shame on Verezzo.  And yet, fool that he might have been, he was not deterred; and scribed on the walls of his tower one more plan - making a set of light wooden wings from the structure of his prison bed's frame, and lining them with his bed's sheets.  And when he leapt from that tower, he did not plunge to his death - but he soared over the city, out to the countryside, out into exile where he would make his name as a soldier of fortune.  Eventually, he was given shelter in the town of Catrazza, on the far side of Verezzo; and he and his mercenaries are famous throughout the world for their daring exploits, and Dadallo's fearless genius."   He smiles faintly, rolling up the forgery of the flying machine plans and holding them in his loose grip.  He gives you another smile; ever so slightly melancholy.   "He let me buy these plans from him, the first time I met him.  Leonardo is my ancestor, you see; or rather, his sister was.  And Dadallo was a good enough man to hear my offer and sell these to me, on that account.  Old Leonardo, pride of Miragliano, made his way all the way up to the Empire of Sigmar, in his day; and invented many things.  Shocked the dwarves; founded the Imperial College of Engineers.  I don't think that's likely to happen, at my age.  But I wanted you to know that to live an  inspired  life is the best life to lead.  One might succeed, like Dadallo.  One might only have a comfortable life and a few friends to show for it, like me.  But I'm not ashamed of dreaming, now; nor do I waste myself on jealousy for those who succeeded.  It's a hard world; I don't need to tell you that.  But you have a whole life before you - and it won't all be good, like it is right now.  It probably won't ever be as hard as it started for you, granted - but I hope you find inspiration of your own, for whatever way you choose to go." 

To your left, out on Monte Ezio's spar of stone above its dreadful drop, a handful of figures are assembling.  They are men, fortunately; not goblins, or rats, or anything else.  Signore Cestie gives them a wave; they wave back, apparently friendly enough.  You hear the blurred mumble of their conversation from across the mountain side; you hear them chant something celebratory, or encouraging, and watch as one of their number run to the point of the spar, and throw himself off.

Some kind of machine, first seeming to be a clunky backpack strapped to him, bursts open; a T shaped frame on his back, supporting two hinged wood and canvas wings that stretch out to either side, and a large V shaped tail, like the kind on the blackbirds who are native to the area.  He plunges down, and then swoops back up; struggling in the air and then levelling out, cruising along the air and circling back; pumping his legs in some kind of stirrups to cause the wings to fold and flap.  His comrades on the ledge cheer and whoop as he figures it out; and then a second daredevil makes the jump,  to much the same effect.  Eventually, there are half a dozen of them in the air, swooping and diving; gliding in formation; returning to the stone spar to land in exhausted, giddy stumbles.  Later, Signore Cestie would explain to you that he knew they would be there.  Dadallo sends his recruits up to Ezio's Leap as part of their orientation, one batch every three months; their first unassisted flight.  Sometimes they fall to their deaths; but almost all the time, they figure it out, or atleast enter a controlled fall and break an arm and try again in three months time.  But most of them  fly ; not even just gliding, bit honest-to-gods fly, on those fragile looking contraptions.

It would be hard not to be  somewhat  inspired.  
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia listened with interest to Cestie's story, the ups and downs bringing a smile to a face, a laugh to her voice and a playful gasp to her mouth. Though she did not have a single phrase to respond to his words, the message was received loud and clear: live a life that makes you happy and follow the vision you have for it. To that end, Taalia could not have asked for a better start, or at least, 'fresh start', being blessed with a community that took her in and trinkets with which to purchase currency.

Upon the completion of his story, Taalia offered a genuine, affectionate smile in return and hugged the senior in gratitude.

 "Thank you Signor Cestie,"  she replied, her smoky voice sincere,  "I could not have asked for a better place to have landed than here among yourself and the others of Bella Collina. I will never forget your kindness or guidance. I have no last name to call on, I was told I would get one when I married,"  she laughed,  "but no ancestors to witness as inspiration, no great heroes or thinkers of my past that I know of. What I do have is yourself, Singora Madre and the others, and in that I count myself truly blessed." 

And then the spectacle started.

When the first arrayed himself to begin the flight down that makeshift ramp, Taalia gripped Cestie's elbow with one hand, covering her mouth with the other.

 "No he isn't...no he...ahh!"  she yelped as he very much did so, terror seizing her for a few moments until the man swooped back up in the grip of his marvellous contraption that supported him upon the currents of wind that let him soar.

"By Myrmidia!" Taalia squeal-giggled as she watched as the next nutter hurled himself down that cliff-face and of the edge, only to take to the skies like his fellow before him. Then the third. The fourth. And the fifth.

Terror gave way to excitement and disbelief as the towering girl laughed and clapped her hands in applause.

If those mad bastards had enough courage to hurl themselves off the cliff with enough trust in their own creations to both preserve their life and even advance it, why couldn't she?

She watched them with now quiet-amazement as they glided around, wings broad and maniacal laughter audible even from this distance, and her mind returned to those first birds she had encountered upon leaving the cave of the ratmen.

Looking up to Signor Cestie, Taalia offered a sincere smile,  "thank you" .
MrAbdiel
   The Power of One 
  Part 1 - "In Sterquiliniis Invenitur" 
 
 Chapter 4 - Ambizione   

It's been six months since you found a home with Gaulfredo and Ariana.  The learning curve has been sharp.  You grew up in a world devoid of tenderness, and now that was your primary tool; the sheep, and the chickens, and even little Corvo needed to be handled and tended and treated with firm but benevolent hands.  You learned about herding sheep, and training dogs, and tending wounded roosters.  The under the patient tutelage of the Madre Angeletta, you learned the names and functions of a host of common and exotic herbs, their medicinal uses; even some advanced techniques that might one day save a life.  You helped her extract an arrow from the thigh of one of the local lads, Enrico, after an archery session with his friends Tesifonte, Ansaldo and Cremenzio went poorly.  They weren't the brightest boys, and it might be generous to say they had  good hearts  exactly.  But they weren't so bad; not since you condemned them to shovelling troll poop as penance for spurning your fragile, emerging optimism for life.

You also finished scrubbing the shrine; its text and imagery clean and picked out in their stained black marble surfaces: the woman with the spear and the scales, divine, mysterious.  With the passage of time, the smell has all but abated.  Hopefully, when you have time, you will be able to go to Verezzo, and there, learn a way to cleans the stone more completely.

There are other smaller events, smaller than Flicker-Tide; but you might remember your first  Notte del Mistero  for some time.  There was plenty of warning to prepare; and it turned out to have no danger at all.  But the  threat  was there.

 " 'Notte del Mistero'  is the night of omens, and strange magic, Taalia,"  the Madre had warned you.   "The green moon is full in the sky only twice a year, and brightest on that night.  It's the night when spirits can most freely walk the earth; when witches and creatures of evil crawl out of the dark to find mischeif to do.  Usually, little occurs; but every few years..."   She had shaken her head, and clucked her tongue.

This year, it seems, was one of those non-events.  You gathered the sheep into the barn, and boarded up the door to the chicken coop from the outside.  Gaulfredo, Ariana, and Vittorio, Corvo and Elmo are there, too; all of you together, staves and bows in hand, waiting for something to happen.  Every now and then, through the night, a peal of thunder would sound as if the sky was about to pour down; but peeking out, there were no clouds in the sky.  Just both moons, the grand white  Occiodiveren  and the treacherous green  Occiodimorr .  The glow of it brought back awful memories, for you; a familiar viridian light that you would have been happy never to see, again.  But there are no rats, that night; no daemons; no ghosts; not even any opportunistic goblins.   "May they all be so easy,"  Ariana laughs as the sun rises, leading Vittorio and Elmo back to the house, for well earned sleep.

They would not be all so easy.  But this first one was, at least.

Of your five ewes, four became pregnant in the first breeding season.  One, the smallest, seemed to consistently shy away from Hermes' advances. Even isolating them together in the pen resulted in only hesitant and incomplete coupling; and after a while, even Hermes seemed to give up trying.  Gaulfredo is as puzzled as you.

 "She's... unusually shy, I suppose.  Normally, they get into heat and they're pretty happy to get into it.  This girl doesn't seem to get much 'heat' to speak of.  But we'll keep trying for her, in the off-season." 

The lambing is one of the most viscerally harrowing experiences of your life.  Or it would be, if you were a normal person with a normal upbringing; in this case, it merely registers as gross, and stressful.  Gaulfredo's advice is to keep Hermes seperate from the sheep, sequestering him to the barn, for now.

 "The last thing we need his him rooting around disrupting the lambs when they come; it's important for them to bond to their mothers, or the feeding'll go awry."   This is wisdom; but you notice Hermes seems mopey and sad, in the barn with the old horse and ox.  Lonely, even.  This seems to be outside of Gaulfredo's guesswork.   "Maybe he needs a friend?  But with so few ewes, a second ram would just be fighting with him all the time.  Maybe a gelded ram, for the next lambing?  Just to keep the stud ram company." 

It's best to let the sheep birth unassisted, if possible; and for three of them, that's just what they do.  One even produces two little lambs, and those take to nursing just fine.  Two of the others struggle to feed; their mothers disappointingly not finding their maternal instinct right away, seeming baffled at the small creatures butting up against their undersides and wheeling away from them in distaste.  But in one case, all it takes is to hold the ewe while the lamb takes to suckle, and she begins to bond.  In another, for a full week, Gaulfredo has to hold the ewe's head close enough to the lamb's backside while it suckles so she can get used to its scent, and that does the trick.  Only one birth is real trouble, and it requires your intervention.  Gaulfredo wasn't there, for that one; he was elsewhere on the farm, managing the harvest of his corn and the hanging of it to dry.  The pregnant ewe begins bleating in piteous distress, unable to complete its natural function; and you rush to her side, finding her partially dilated, but not sufficient for the task.  She has not pushed enough of the lamb out for you to seize and pull it, as you have been instructed.  And so, you make an instinct call; having to overpower the ewe to put her on her side, holding one of her kicking legs in the air to shift the arrangement of her hips, and then all of a sudden, with a wet rush, half of a glistening lamb has emerged in all of its amniotic marinade.  This little lamb - the only ewe born in this season - worries you for a moment as she fails to immediately quicken, but you put her idle little body against the warm wool of her mother, and cover them both with a blanket, and within a few minutes the child is rooting about and well enough that you can afford to cease your worry.  Once you had six sheep; now you have eleven.  More rams than you'd like; but there have been no disasters, than Ishea for that.

The four troublemaker boys receive your call to help out, as you told them they would.  With so few sheep to shear, it's a job a couple of them could do; but the woman who sold you the sheep comes out as a courtesy to teach you, and the lads, the proper way of it; trading some odds and ends with Gaulfredo for two pairs of shears.  It's not completely intuitive, and there's plenty of skill to it; but you get the hang of it, and so do they; and they spend the rest of the day assisting Gaulfredo with his crop.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
No cost for the shears right now, Gaulfredo has a set of Trade Tools (Farmer), so it's sort of part of that for now; but you'll be borrowing tools off him for the forseeable future until you can fork over 50GC for a set of your own that will loosely cover just about all farming endevours you need tools for!

Pay 20p for a half-day of labor from the four lads; Gaulfredo will take them for the rest.  And you now have 6 wool fleeces!
 

 * * * * * 
Finally, the time has come.  Gaulfredo has had to hire the four troublemaker boys for the journey, as well as some extra horses for the day.  Lined up on the track that leads from the farm to the road are three wagons, piled high with sacks of dried corn; suitable feed for animals, or for milling into cornflour.  This successful harvest marks Gaulfredo pulling out of a tailspin, with his farm; the failure of the wheat crop the season before had forced this unusual crop from him.  But it's paid off; or atleast, it should, once he gets it to Paesa di Silo - Silo Town, which grew up around the great silos built by the first Senate after the famine that caused the fall of the prince and the rise of the republic.  With two of the lads driving a pair of borrowed draught horses on one wagon, two driving another set on the next, and yourself and Gaulfredo on the third, your travelling party constitutes a convoy bound for Bella Collina the first day, Paesa de Silo the next, where the wagons and draught horses will be left with their keepers and the party will return to Bella Collina on foot.  Throwing your fleeces on top of the sacks is no problem at all, as well as a great basket of eggs to offload at the trading post on the way.

 "Bring that hat, Taalia!  The sun is hot this morning already and it will be worse when it's high!  Have you all you need?" 

Rocco, of course, is coming along for the ride; Corvo is welcome too.  Vittorio will be staying home, however.  This is too long on the road for Ariana to be comfortable letting him go; and who will let the sheep out and herd them back in, if not Elmo and his diminutive master?

 
 Spoiler: Decision! 
Time to make some decisions.  You have 4 ram-lambs, and 1 ewe-lamb.  You're likely to be able to sell the ram lambs for slaughter at this age, since lamb is such a sought after meat so close to Verezzo, at the price of full grown sheep.
 The alternative, as you suggested, is keeping them and growing them and hoping that some of them prove out as 'good quality' rams like their father; though keeping five rams on one farm is going to become a problem without a seperate sheep pen; a pen you might be able to build if your sales go well.

This is also a chance for you to visit Verezzo, if you want to; though it will be Taalia striking out on her own, since Gaulfredo needs to return to his farm rather than take an additional four day detour to the city.  But if you get to the city, you might sell that telescope, and all the other things; you might find the chemist you need... you might find all kinds of things!

What's the verdict?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia cleaned the 'sterilised' rag (a clean cloth soaked in boiling hot water) after having applied it to the boys wound, his arrow-induced injury now free of any projectiles, but clearly besetting him with a temporary limp.

 "I will do this one time for free,"  Taalia spoke, her towering image looking over them as she cleaned up, withdrawing a bandage from her collection and leaning down to apply it to his leg.

 "But next time it will cost you ten shillings,"  she stated, to the soft gasp of the assembled boys who had watched her work.

 "Is that incentive enough to think next time before you loose arrows at each other?" 

They looked at each other, exchanging glances as the message sunk in.

The girl pursed her lips and rose a single eyebrow, her expression both coy and playful, boys would be boys after all, but also projecting maternal caution.

 "Stupidity is expensive, isn't it?" 

She knew that at their core they were good boys, just doing dumb teenage boy things. If she was going to one day have a large livestock farm in this region, it would be good to curry healthy working relationships and foster desired skills in the young males her age who would one day be Bella Collina's future men.


 oOo 

Half a year. It had been half a year since Taalia had emerged from that cave, Papa Rat "dying" by her side, a knife wound on her left trap muscle and eyes blinking and shuttering against the temporary stinging pain of the surface light. It had been a bold new world full of dangers and horrors of its own, but as the towering girl looked around at her flock of pregnant ewes at the rear of the idyllic farming acreage that had taken it in, it was also full of sentiments, concepts and actions that made life worth living.

Though there was still that silly idea in the back of her mind that she had actually died in those caves and this was her afterlife reward, Taalia knew that such an idea was folly. Nothing had been easy about her post-slavery existence. A goblins pick through her left bicep. Nearly becoming troll-food no less than three times. Her rooster injured. The social awkwardness her bumbling inarticulation had driven her into durnig those formative months. The almost disastrous loss of Hermes and one of her ewes to that disgusting troll, not to mention the dramatic scene of its demise at her nearly berserker hands. Indeed, it had not been  easy , there had been trials and tribulations that she had had to overcome, several of which almost cost her her life. But were they worth it? Oh yes. The dangerous freedom of the surface was worth every moment.

She was also slowly coming into her own personality. Though it was fair to say she was a cheerful and friendly person, as she settled into her new life and the community, a noticeably sarcastic and slightly sassy streak was starting to emerge. However, to the benefit of all, this was more a coy and playful streak rather than one springing from bitterness. Despite her imposing physique, with her athletic proportions further defined by her farm-work, Taalia remained a warm and affectionate personality, with bouts of generosity and a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. She had even partially adopted the custom of using her hands to emphasise her communication, with her hand-purse gesture serving as a versatile means through which to accentuate gratitude, exasperation, confusion or anger. However, none could forget the...savagery, with which she had thrown herself at the troll. There was a saying, beware the anger of a patient man, that was encapsulated in her ferocious assault upon the much larger opponent that was...unsettling, for those who normally knew her as a bubbly and cheerful girl. Almost like the way a family would cradle a powerful guard dog that was nothing but goofily affectionate towards them, but revealed a frightening savage streak within when brought in proximity of a threat, as was the purpose for which they had been bred.

Nevertheless, that bright smile, cheery disposition and 'can do' attitude won most people over. Whether it was partially in her nature, or perhaps a residual effect of never being able to say 'no' to her prior owners, Taalia, oddly, had never complained about anything. The most likely explanation was that a decade of enslavement to the Ratmen had beaten any thought of complaint out of her mind and body, ironically forming her into something of a half-full optimist.

This was the case when Notte del Mistero rolled around. She had found Madre's warnings to be oddly fascinating. With morbid curiosity she had tried to pry further information out of her mentor and local wise woman, for you see, Taalia knew about magic. She knew about the Council of Thirteen: thirteen Grey Seers who held the fate of the Skaven Underempire in their grubby little white-furred claws. Rashabang too, had possessed minor magical talent. All Warplock Engineers needed to, as they melded science and magic into a dark amalgamation of warpstone-powered insanity. But Taalia had once thought that such arcane manipulations were confined to the Under Empire, tethered to the warpstone that she and other slaves had toiled to uncover from the earth in vast quantities. But to learn that sorcery existed here on the surface? Taalia wanted to know more...and so she asked more.

 "I thought that magic was confined to the Under Empire,"  she would have uttered in hush whispers,  "I...saw things, that I should not repeat here. Summonings of grotesque anomalies and otherworldly entities whose mere intrusion into our world is an offence to all decency. But I did not know that the arcane was practiced here, on the surface?" 

Such a discussion was in the back of Taalia's mind when she, Gaulfredo, Ariana, Vitorio and their collective animals huddled in the barn during that darkly auspicious night. In truth, Taalia's curiosity got the better of her, and though gripping a quarter staff 'just in case', she would often find her eyes drifting to any cracks to peer out across the night-time landscape of the farm to bear witness to those multiple coloured moons and the various hues their combination produced.


 oOo 

Taalia grunted softly as she held the glossy, ichor-saturated lamb by its shoulders and withdrew with restrained strength. Yanking too hard would injure the mother. Not hard enough to constantly impede the lambs movements. But patiently, strategically, Taalia allowed her own sigh of relief to exit her body as the lamb was ejected from that of her ewes, as the helpless creature slithered into a pool of its bodily humours that splashed forth in the celebration of its own birth.

Panting softly, grinning at the sight, Taalia laughed, her wet hands upon the lambs body immediately and picking away any residual effects that should not be there, before allowing the little creature to wallow and flop about in futility as its mind slowly came online to its new existence. A blanket over the lamb and its mother, its white wool soon clear of the viscous fluids that once coated it, the little creature uttered its first, baby-like  "Ma-a-a-a-a..."  much to Taalia's clapping delight.

Lambing season had gone as well as the novice Shepard could have hoped. Though one ewe's frigid ways were a disappointment, Taalia took heed of Gaulfredo's suggestion that a possible off-season pregnancy could be induced, while the other ewes were now proven lamb-producing mothers. Though yes...four little rams and only one ewe was disappointing, it could have been worse. A lot worse.


 oOo 

Taalia bid farewell to Vitoria and Ariana, giving the latter hugs and the former hugs and a kiss on the cheek. Having happily grown into a 'big sister' like figure as the eldest adopted daughter of the house-hold, Taalia had comfortably settled into the established social boundaries that she had noticed and picked up on across the six months, and it made for a happy social environment. Ariana did not need to feel threatened that the attractive, amazonian and younger girl would be eyeing Gaulfredo with a mind to supplant the older woman as lady of the house which, given her so-far-displayed ambition, could have been the cause were Taalia of a more selfish and ruthless bent. Instead, much like with the exchange of money between them, they shared a cordial working relationship based upon trust and foster-family affection for the formerly skinny, shivering and injured girl they'd taken in half a year before - the fruits of her short labour waiting upon the cart in the form of beautifully expensive fleeces and X amount of rams. Besides, Ariana and Taalia had spoken together previously about matters of 'the future', and Taalia had admitted to the older woman that she would one day like to attract a husband of her own and fill a household with little ones while growing her livestock farm.

Wearing her hat, quarter staff nearby, the items she wanted to sell packed away, the fleeces neatly stacked and the X number of ram-lambs along for the ride, as well as 8gc worth of currency. It was understood that she would travel with them to Paesa de Silo where they would make the fleece and livestock sales. After that, Gaulfredo and the boys would return to the farm with the gold they had acquired, while Taalia and Corvo would continue on to Verezzo and likely return within 3-4 days time.

Embarrassingly, Taalia had to ask Gaulfredo if she could borrow one of his pouches...she...er... sold  hers in a moment of short-sightedness.

ooc:
 
 Spoiler 
As mentioned in OOC, she'll assess the ram-lambs and choose the one that looks like a future 'good' quality ram, while the other 3 will be off to slaughter to sell.
She'll take the fleece to sell.

She'll take the items she couldn't sell last time (inc disguise kit, censur and damaged book), her telescope, her quarter staff, sling bag, clothes, sandles, her cosmetics kit for looking nice, her backpack/bag (either her slingbag, or one she borrows from Gaulfredo/Ariana if that's too small), she'll borrow back a pouch from Gaulfredo (red-faced, sheepishly accepting his gentle teasing), about 8gc worth of currency for lodging/food, and she'll take along Corvo with her. Also her healing draught and bandages, because you never know.

Oh she'll take her throwing knife too. Never know when a small blade could come in handy.

I can't think of anything else at the moment, but if it comes up we'll see.
 
MrAbdiel
 The trip to Bella Collina goes almost entirely without incident; almost.  The chatty boys in the wagons behind you mostly keep each other company with and endless series of jokes you seem to be missing context for that would make them funny.  As it is, they follow a formula - a build up towards some scatalogical or sexual detail, and then a whispered punchline that leaves them snickering and giggling with each other in their pairs of drivers.  Rocco prefers to ride up on the buckboard with you and Gaulfredo, but Corvo has so much energy he has to run alongside, sometimes; and on those occasions Gaulfredo nudges Rocco down off the wagon.  He's the father, after all; he ought to take some responsibility.  But it's neither of the dogs that brings you distress, just ten minutes out from the Madre's house, the last landmark on the way to Bella Collina.

She comes bumbling out of the treeline, panting and desperate.  A girl not know to you - though you think you've her in Bella Collina before, at the trading post; a hunter's daughter you think, who sometimes brings in dried meat and pelts.  She's got to be about your age; and just shy of six feet, might have been the tallest girl in the village before you showed up.  With sunbronzed skin and fine cornsilk colored hair, she might have been pretty in another cirumstance; but she looks messy and bedraggled, like she's been thrashing through the forest for an hour before emerging here, and can not go much further without collapsing.  Gaulfredo calls a stop to the wagons - not a man to see a stranger in distress and not take the risk - and she makes a bee-line towards you, one arm pinwheeling wildly with her floppy, desperate run; the other clutching a polished wooden box the size of a large book to her chest.  As the only other girl in the area, her light brown eyes track to you, pleading within them, as she almost collapses onto the side of the cart.

  "Hide this!  Please!"    She rasps; thrusting the box into your lap and then before you can much object, dropping to the ground and scurrying underneath the wagon.  You can hear her pulling herself up beneath the wagon's tray, feet scuffling on the ground.  And then a moment later, another figure emerges from the treeline.

This one you  know  you have seen before.  A silver colored mare carries her out of the woodline at a trot, neither beast nor rider seeming particularly bothered by their own trip through the woods.  The black-on-black eyes of the elf peer out from beneath the wide brim of her hat, as she takes in the sight of your wagons; the boys in theirs behind you staring dumbfounded at the whole sequence, Gaulfredo tensing up instinctively.  The elf comes close to the roadside, where your wagons are halted; though not quite up onto the road, as if she knows her presence makes you all uneasy.  Then she speaks, her Tilean perfect, though coldly, surgically uninflected with any of the interesting permutations of accent you've gotten from Gaulfredo's Trantian edge, or Signore Cestie's Miragleanan, or any of the many Verezzans.

 " Saluti , travellers.  Did you see a girl come through here, just now?  Perhaps along the treeline, there?" 

Gaulfredo is theoretically the 'leader' of the group; but he has long since come to regard you as a kind of charm and divine token to look to in times of certainty.  He glances to you, to see your immediate instincts.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Decision time!

A) Rat the girl out to the elf. Don't mention the box.
B) Rat the girl out to the elf.  Mention the box.
C) Lie about the girl; either saying you saw nothing, or that she fled back into the woods.

If you choose the latter option, make me a charm roll, at a -10 penalty.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia internally felt a slight startle as the girl burst from the woods and fled in their direction, her eyes affixing with hers. Not only was she the only other girl present, but there was something else connecting them. Something that was tested when the beautiful elf soon emerged upon her horse and requested information.

Taalia's budding sense of right and wrong implored her to tell the truth: the girl was under the wagon, a box by her own side now covered with a cloak. After all, if the girl was a thief, would Taalia not want strangers to be honest with her in apprehending those who stole her hard-earned goods?

But on the other hand, Taalia herself had once been a girl in distress, on the edges of civilisation and counting on the kindness of strangers.

Perhaps, she thought to herself, cover for her this moment and then demand to know what was in the box. If it was the elf's property, Taalia would ensure it was returned, with an apology and explanation along with it, while the girl could be on her way. That seemed like the best mixture of wisdom and kindness, even though cold wisdom told her it was none of her business and to just hand it over.

Pursing her lips, shaking her head gently.

 "Saluti, elven friend,"  Taalia answered, her voice even.

 "We did see a girl pass us on the road. Hair the color of corn, skin kissed by the sun?"  she asked, confirming her details and reinforcing her future lie.

 "Was carrying something under her arm? She gave one look at us, then kept on her passage, into those woods,"  she points to the pines on the other side of the road.
MrAbdiel
The elf watches your face carefully, as you lie to hers.  Her eyes narrow.  They track to Gaulfredo, then the other drivers, scouring them for confirmation.  It's a hard lie - why would you be stopped there, on the road side, if something hadn't disrupted you?  But Gaulfredo, following your lead, backs you up.

 "Pulled over thinking she might need help, but she didn't seem to want much but to keep moving." 

This is a reasonable enough pass-shoot combo, and with the theoretically fugitive getting futher away by the second, the elf makes her own decision, touching the brim of her hat.

 "Grazie.  Addio." 

And off she goes, cantering back into the forest to scour the treeline south.  After a minute, the girl beneath the wagon disentangles herself, catching her breath, and stretches back to her height.

 "Ah...  Hoo.  Grazie.  Grazie.  Gods bless you all.  Here, now; give it back; I have to get going back the other way." 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia sighed an exhale of relief as the elf seems to have bought her deception and moved on.

When the other girl dislodged herself and requested her box back, Taalia turned on her seat and glowered down at the girl.

"What is in the box?" she demanded firmly.

"We risked our lives to preserve you. If you have stolen items from the Elves I won't jeapordise cordial relations for them, I will return it to them and you can escape with your life. But if they're yours, you can take them and leave. Open the box and show me."
MrAbdiel
 "What?  Please, I don't have time -" 

She whines, looking elfward, then back to you.   "I didn't take anything from any elves.  I don't even know where any elves are to steal from!  I don't know what this one's problem is!" 

This is a lie, or at best a half truth; you're sure of it.  You wait it out for a moment, and she buckles given the desperation of her situation.   "Alright, look; it's a nice pistol, alright?  Open it and see for yourself.  I mean to sell it.  I took it from a merchant who has more than enough money to replace it, because I need it, and he doesn't.  The elf's just a bounty hunter, working for the  damerino s in Verezzo.  Please, give it back.  I've never stolen before, and I'll never need to steal again once I sell it on." 

This seems more like the truth.  Her eyes are wide; desperate.  She has gone through considerable distress stealing this box, and is close to evading her dangerous pursuer; she had counted on your solidarity to hide from the elf, but hadn't counted on you putting her to the test before giving her prize back.

 
 Spoiler: OOC:  If you open the box, you discover... 
 A latched hardwood pistol case, lined with velvet. Set into this box is a pistol engraved with the name 'Blue Berthilda' and a striking-hammer in the shape of a raven. Also there is a cleaning rod, grease, chamois, a fine powder-flask containing 19 shots of gunpowder and an oiled leather bag with 19 bullets. 

Conspiring with Gaulfredo, whose eyes go wide, you understand why a merchant would send a bounty hunter to recover such a thing.  Flintlock pistols require very fine craftsmanship to avoid blowing off the user's hand; making the technology in Bertuccio's longarm more compact is difficult, and requires specialized tools and learning, and atleast a rudimentary understanding of the chemical processes involved in gunpowder work.  And this one, to be displayed so, obviously has a superior quality to it.  At a tremulous guess, Gaulfredo whispers,  "It might be sold to a mercenary captain or merchant prince for five... maybe six hundred gold pieces.  Not including the box and the powder and shot, which is garnish but still a few more gold." 
 
BananaPhone
Taalias eyes widened at the sight of the beautiful pistol in her possession, her mind racing with the possibilities.

She could just club the girl over the head and take it. But no...that's what the Skaven would do.

"You cannot sell this anywhere but in Verezzo," Taalia spoke, knowing enough of the local economy to understand that much.

"And it has been personalised with a name-stamp enough that if you try and sell it there, if he is as well-connected as you say, he will find out, trace it through the network of sellers and you will be hung for theft...if you're lucky."

Taalia pursed her lips.

"And if you go now, the elf bounty hunter might find you anyway, and you'll lose this all the same."

A pregnant pause lingered as Taalia thought to herself.

"I will return it to him and claim the bounty. I will tell him the truth. In my travels I was accosted for help by some girl, and she fled with an elf in hot pursuit, hut she dropped this," she pointed to the box.

"Then when I get back to Bella Collina in 4 days time, I will give you half the bounty, which will be more than enough to give you a good start wherever you choose."

Another pregnant pause for emphasis.

"Because this is too valuable to be sold anywhere around here, and too unique not to come to his evemtual attention. Without this on your pwrson, he and the bounty hunter have no interest in you. This is the only way you get out of this ahead without having to look over you shoulder the rest of your life. Deal?"
MrAbdiel
 She's visually gutted by your principled stand.  Her shoulders sink, and she tries to muster counter arguments; but you're armed, and many, and apparently savvy about the sale of such things; and she's none of those things; just tired, and out of options.  After five or six false starts, it's all she can do to restrain herself from screaming out to the sky; though that would draw the ears of the elf, as likely as not, far as she might be.   "Merda!  Merda, Merda, Merda." 

She gives you a pained, anguished look; and then pushes away from the wagon's side, dashing back up the street toward Bella Collina, now that she's caught her breath.  Corvo barks and gives chase, until you call him back; and that's the last you see of her, for now.  With the benefit of time, Gaulfredo tells you the girl is Bellina da Isolome.  Her father was a trapper and hunter, with a shack off from the road north out of town; but he disappeared about a year ago, leaving Bellina, her mother Gianessa, and three younger brothers to fend for themselves. But she keeps bringing in the pelts and meat, from time to time; so she (or Gianessa?) seem to have taken up the family trade in the father's absense.  Gaulfredo shakes his head.   "My father told me that it was more honorable to turn to begging than to theft.  In both cases, you're taking what you haven't earned; in the former, you present other people, atleast, a chance to act with the virtue of kindness toward you.  Not that I've ever been so hard-up that I've had to choose between begging and stealing; but we got pretty close, this year.  But then we met you, and everything's getting a little better.  I think I'll buy my flail back, on the way home; I'll need it for the wheat, next season." 

You stop in Bella Collina, making use of Polo and Fenicia's hospitality one more time, while the lads are given cots in at Gheradino's tavern.  When the wagons are being hitched up the next day, you have one more visitation; Bella calls out to you from across the village square, and closes the distance to you at an entirely unnecessary jog; her dark tresses tied back in a yellow ribbon, swaying behind her like the excitable wag of a dog's tail.  She holds a bundle to her chest, as she does; a soft parcel wrapped in sack cloth, and twine.  "Taalia!  I'd heard you were coming through, to the market in Paesa di Silo.  Oh!  Your lambs!  They're so cute!"  She reaches out to pet Chops and Rack with one dainty hand.  When you introduce them by name, she gives the kind of strangled, conflicted laugh of someone who is striving to be virtuously distressed by something awful while being overwhelmed by amusement instead.  "Oh!  Oh, now I feel bad for them.  You shouldn't name them at all  If they're going to slaughter!  Oh, poor Rack; poor chops."  She rubs their heads, and they bleat appreciatively at the attention.  Corvo begins to feel left out, and earns a pat as well.  Rocco, rapidly becoming the old man of the animal group and feeling  too old for this merda , does not line up for extra pats.  Something about his canine affect seems coincidentally exhausted by the display; as if he were thinking  in my day, you earned scritches instead of getting handouts ; but it's probably just that he is squinting lazilly in the morning sunlight.

 "Well, mercies of the road to you. Here! This is for you.  I hope you like it.  People have stopped talking about the troll, now; but I won't forget.  Ciao, Taalia!"   And then she takes off, waving with one hand as she goes, apparently chasing someone else down in the morning rush to greet, and chat.

 
 Spoiler: Within the parcel... 
It's a dress - an ensemble, even.  A blouse, with frilled, embroidered neckline and cuffs; a bronzey, satin corset dress with separate sleeves, and burgundy laces; an light outergarment of dark green, with faint leaf-like patterning worked into the weave, and a pewter clasp to cinch it at the waist.  And a yellow ribbon, rolled up and tied in a neat loop with some twine, so it doesn't crease.  And, importantly, it's your size - presumably, made  for  you.

 This is a good quality set of clothes. 
 
 Spoiler: Something Like This? 
 
 

 


You head out for Paesa di Silo with your wagons, though not only them; Nogrom goes ahead of you in a cart pulled by a hard working mule, with six kegs of ale lashed to the cart's dray.  And in your wake,  Istuccio and Ernesto, the red haired brothers on a pair of matchingly rust-colored horses,  driving a small herd of ten oxen for to the pens in town.  As you head out from Bella Collina up the north road, you peel away from the nearness of the forest and into more developed land, given over to grazing and harvest in many places, with some forested blocks reserved and kept by Verezzo's woodsmen.

Two hours out from Bella Collina, you see your first orchard -

 
 Spoiler: Intrusive Thoughts 
 You remember an apple tree. 
 


- with rows or orderly apple trees largely without fruit at this point in their growing but redolent with clusters of pink and white flowers, bathing the road in their fragrance, as you pass.  After the orchards comes a long stretch of road with farms on the left, and cultivated forest on the right.  Gaulfredo elaborates.   "Every year, there is a little less forest on this road.  The farmers want to keep it, because it's good for hunting and gathering wood, without having to go too far.  But then, they already have their farms, eh?  Easy to tell someone without their own land, 'no, you don't need this land; go into the city and bake bricks instead', eh?" 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Make me... Two perception checks.  The second one is more important than the first.
 
 
MrAbdiel
 ...But your column of rural travellers comes to a halt when a figure emerges ahead of you from wood beside the road.  It's a man, you think; though he on a ragged robe that shows little of his physique, and a low hood pulled down to just above his chin and wiry beard, with holes cut for the eyes; a crudy mask, for the kind of man whose deeds are better done masked.  He calls to Nogrom, whose cart is at the head of your column.  Though behind you, the lads are fidgeting towards their weapons, and the red-haired brothers stand in their stirrups trying to gain sign of what's causing the delay ahead.

 "Hoy, to you,"  rumbles the stranger; his voice weirdly deep for his frame, and unsettling because of it.   "'Tis a day of bad fortune for you, friends; but it needn't be the last of days.  Get off your wagons, take to feet, leave your beasts, and head back the way you came; you may yet make it before nightfall, and with no harm to you.  But strive to fight, or to flee, and I,  Insolente Aldo , and the twenty companions training bows on you from the trees here, will leave your bones for the beasts and the ravens.  No sharp moves, now." 
 "Get off the road, ye wee liar!"  Nogrom barks back immediately, huffing with dismissal.   "Oldest trick there is; why twenty friends?  Why not a hundred, with blunderbusses all?  Off with ye,  fante , before I take yer head to the road wardens and string the rest of ye up by yer ankles right here!" 

Nogrom, certainly, seems unconvinced by the threat, and has offered his own in response.  They start going back and forth a little, buying you a moment to have your staff at hand, and the lambs secure.  You can't  see  any of his 'friends' at the tree line; which does not mean there are not twenty of them, and that they are not there.  Nogrom will escalate this to a fight, given a few more seconds, if you don't try to back him off; but this bandit, this  Insolente Aldo , is atleast claiming the capacity to wipe out you, and Gaulfredo, and all your friends on the road here.

Only your gut can tell you the action to take - prepare for battle, try to negotiate, or seek to convince the Bella Collinans to leave their goods and escape with their lives, and their shirts on their backs. 
BananaPhone
Taalia narrowed her eyes at this development.

You didn't survive for as long as she had among the Skaven without developing some degree of BS detection.

The fact that Nogram, a provenly competent sergeant who worked with the Roadwardens, thought thia guy was full of crap was a telling sign to Taalia.

Turning to scan the treelines, her quarter staff in hand, she whispered to Gaulfredo.

"Heard of this guy?" She asked.

She doubted a bandit group twice the size of the local militia would go unnoticed in this region.
MrAbdiel
  "Heard of-?  No, no.  We don't get bandits with names, out here.  People notice.  We have burglars, and the occasional highway ruffian jumping an individual.  No; never heard of him."
 

You rake your keens eyes over this  Insolente Aldo .  There's something wrong with him; something about the disposition of the features.  Infact, now that you're squinting for it... his eyes are too small, too high, and too close together.  The mask distracts from it; a little... and hey, that scraggly beard is more like -nose high- on the shape of his skull than head high.  That hood must be concealing some very significant deformity.  Or, as Madre Angeletta would have said...


 
 Originally Posted by Madre Angelletta, on Mutants 
  "...Mutation.  You'll come across them, from time to time; touched by darkness.  Sometimes, a fellow comes to you with a little tentacle growing out of his armpit because he doesn't know it's any worse or different than a cleft palate.  And I suppose some might say it's not - it's hard to say if it's the fear of rejection and death that drives them to serve strange powers, or if the mutation comes because they're weak to that calling, anyway.  But I try to respect all the gods, and Shallya has some wise women who say that there's a cure for mutants.  Never seen it myself.  All you can do is help the people you can, and pray you're not making a wrong decision.  I've sawn off a man's arm, before; healthy man a few day before, but when he came to me the whole limb had become a great, awful claw.  I threw a torniquet on it, and we cut it off, and called it a mining accident; and he went on to live.  I made him promise not to have any children, as payment - gods forbid he curse children with such a thing.  But the last I knew, he had moved on to another town, and gotten married.  I suppose he'll have children anyway.  I hope they're healthy.  It's not the same, as a cleft palate."  
 

This man has some kind of mutation.  That's why he's desperate enough to make this robbery in such a condition.  But looking to the treeline, you're disappointed to see he's not alone.  Your eyes pick out six, no, seven individuals peeking from behind trees. There could be more out there; but given the space available with those trees, and how good your eyes are with shadow, he couldn't have more than a dozen.  If they're like this fellow, they're probably badly equipped, probably desperate... possibly mutants.

Can one strong girl, seven men, two dogs and a dwarf overcome a dozen mutants?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But your chances are much lower, if they come roaring out of the woods before you're ready to receive them. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia had seen enough mutation in the pits of the Skaven. From her fellow slaves who strayed too close to the warpstone bare-skinned, to those...creatures that had been warped and shifted into unrecognisable shapes by Clan Maulder, Taalia was all too familiar with the mental and physical rot of mutation. Though limited in her scientific or even religious knowledge of such a condition, she knew enough to know that such people were dangerous, whether willingly so or unwittingly by just their sheer presence. For those who kept to themselves in their own little enclaves outside of non-tainted places, she had no ill will, only pity and the hope they could enjoy somewhat enjoyable lives before either their affliction took them or natural causes pushed them into the next life. But those who turned to highway robbery or thievery, she had no sympathy for. And why would she? They were just as bad as non-mutated bandits and outlaws who preyed upon the hard work of others, like parasites.

 "Nogram!"  Taalia yelled out,  "They're mutants! I spot seven to twelve in the treeline!"  she gestured in the direction of the hidden mutants, drawing her quarter staff up and remaining in a defensive position in the cart. From their elevated position within the cart and being ready to receive whatever desperate attack the mutants would launch, Taalia liked their chances better than simply fleeing.

Perhaps the dwarf could use that information, perhaps to intimidate the mutants away now that their bluff had been exposed. It was evidence enough that the lead mutant was lying, clearly attempting to bluff them out of their goods. It also gave everyone else an idea of how many mutants there were and the direction from which they would charge, if they decided to risk life and limb for a pay day where they no longer had the element of surprise.

  "I won't blame you for leaving Gaulfredo, think of your boy and wife. But I didn't claw myself out of the pits of the Skaven to work for half a year to hand it all over to this thieving scum! No one is ever stealing my labour again!"   she whispered hurriedly to her companion, reading her quarter staff in one hand and her throwing knife in the other, preparing herself for the violence to come as she ducked into the protective cover offered by the cart walls, eyes on the treeline and those figures that were hopefully spotted by the others now that their direction had been exposed.
MrAbdiel
  "Mutants?!"   Nogrom shouts back, disgusted by their nature as much as he is outraged by their intention to rob the convoy.   "T'arms!  T'arms!" 

Gaulfredo gives you a look; it's all the time he really to communicate, as he fumbles for his staff and to clamber off the wagon, trying to get ahead of it a little so the combat to ensue won't spook the horses.  Some part of you might have preferred he run, to be safe; but no part of you would credibly think he would flee - this man, who  made a suicidal charge at the goblins who killed his horse.  How then would he abandon all these horses, and these folks - much less you, whom he has come to think of as a kind of daughter, as much you think of him as a kind of father?  He stands beside you with his staff out, as all along the line the lads dismount from their steeds and wagons, pulling their cudgels, and knives.  The red haired brothers at the back of the line seem the best armed of the lot of you; one produces a bearded axe in both hands, while his brother keeps infront of him with shield, and knife.  Rocco isn't a combat dog; but he is protective, and his hackles are up as he tries to take in the rapidly escalating tensions.  Corvo, on the back of the cart, just starts barking, and barking, and barking.  He has never been in a real fight; he doesn't understand if this is threat, or play, but he is scared, and letting out the yipping, confused noises that you normally have to cuddle to soothe, in thunderstorms.

The mutants come on, then.  There are eleven of them, including their leader; all uniformly skinny, and desperate looking... if only that were the worst of their looks.  Some are almost human - a man with eggshell white skin and pale, watery eyes seems to be more discolored than anything, though he is badly sunburned up his arms.  Another seems to have no mutation at all, even if his wild and sadistic grin on yellowed teeth suggests a mind twisted and depraved.  But there are plenty of horrors that emerge from the trees.  A man with a jet black eyeball and thick purple veins radiating from it under his skin stands at the back, preferring not to charge, swinging his awful gaze around the combat.  A cretin with a weasel's muzzle pushing out of his face where a normal jaw should be looses a chittering bark as he rushes on with a crude spear.  A man with some deformity worth hiding behind a hood could pass as normal, except for that covering; another with a third ear growing from the middle of his forehead is certainly unsettling, if not horrific.  But another weilds a grain flail in hands whose fingers have been replaced with short purple tentacles.  Another dirty, shirtless man has an array of extra arms sporting  bone shivs - an extra left and right below the main arms, and a third right arm, small and flopping with vestigial impotance just above his hip.  A woman with no head at all charges in with a boat hook lashed to a pole, a grimace on her miserable features mounted now between her free-swinging breasts.  And perhaps worst of all, coming straight at  you , is a panting, glassy eyed oaf of a man with a second mouth - grinning on his abdoment, with the belly button flaring like a perverse nostril above it.  The mouth wails and chatters, and threatens you as he rushes in, club in hand:

 "AAAAHHhahahah, stronza, cazzo di puttana! Ti ucciderò, ti mangerò gli occhi! Ti mangerò gli occhi! Ahahaha! 

You've played with the throwing knife before; and you think you've gotten alright at handling it, though that was throwing it at a stationary wall.  At this moving, howling monster-man, your fling goes wide into the grass; and it's all you can do to prepare to engage him up close....

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Your turn!  I recommend charging mister belly mouth, or taking a parry stance, or taking a defensive stance.  Or charging to attack, and spending your last fate point for a new half action to take a parry stance; but that's a final fate point for the day, it's a big deal to spend.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia steeled herself as the mutants poured forth from the treeline like a disgusting wave, the grotesque spectacles of their aberrations and anomalous bodies, once a source of pity, now the impetus behind her revulsion as they sought to steal everything from Taalia that she had sought to build. Had she escaped the Skaven enslavement, braved the goblins, risked death by troll three times and months of rearing and caring for her own flock, just to hand all the proceeds over to this scum? Over her dead body.

Gripping her quarterstaff, observing that clumps were forming, she hurled herself forward at the closest mutant, bringing her weapon about in an arch and smacking the disgusting thing across its right arm.
MrAbdiel
  The Battle of Silo Road  
Combat is joined.  The mutants come loping down the sloping treeline, and the Bella Collinans move out to meet them; bodies and weapons colliding all down the line.  Belly-Mouth swings at you, but you dart to one side and bring your staff cracking down on his arm with bone jarring force.  The mouth on his face cries out in pain; the mouth on his guy continues gabbling on its vulgarities, unphased.  Along side you, Gaulfredo raises his staff horizontal and catches the downward swing of the Headless woman, the hook on her pole snaring around the staff and fouling his attempt to get any blow of his own to land.  Rocco makes up his mind and throws himself forward, doing what he knows and circling the enemies attacking you both, barking and nipping at heels; Gaulfredo tells him to go to Nogrom's side, but without being free to point and gesture to give the command shape, Rocco cannot yet interpret his master's will.

At the head of the column, Nogrom and Insolente Aldo circle each other, before Nogrom lunges in, defending his beer.  Too hasty; his handaxe misses the mark, and the mutant gang leader scores a trivial, knicking blow to the dwarf's thigh with a gleaming, steel longsword - the only weapon of quality the mutants have brought to bear.

The troublemaker boys, in their first real fight ever, make their best efforts.  Tesifonte, Ansaldo and Cremenzio wrestle back and forth with the grinning man and Tentacle Fingers, between them defending themselves and scoring a light cut to the Tenty-Finger's scalp; but Enrico, the fourth and the best influence on the other three, catches a cudgel to the stomach so fierce from the Hooded One that he throws up on the spot, red faced and agonized, wheezing as his friends try to defend him.

At the far end of the column, Ernesto and Istuccio rush into their many opponents, Ernesto making a nuisance of himself with his shield while Istucchio tries in with his axe.  But they are dangerously outmatched; the man with four arms is almost two opponents in himself, and between him and weaselface bashing on the shield, Extra Ear slips around and drops a vicious, painful looking strike onto his back, eliciting a howl of pain from him and distress from his brother, whose own blow  glances off the Albino's blocking spear!

Meanwhile, the man with the tainted eye fixates his stare on poor battered Ernesto.  A strange obsession with no visible cause to effect; but all the same Ernesto spits up a mouthful of blood...

 
 Spoiler: Round 1 
Round 1's been pretty rough for the farmers.
 I've added wounds taken (after toughness) to the initiative track.  One of the boys and one of the brothers have taken serious hits, And of the mutants, only the one you just struck have taken serious damage.  But the mutants had a lot of charge bonuses this round, as most of the farmers elected to be defensive; now the average mutant weapon skill of 25 will kick in a little more.  Round 2, you're up!

With Belly Mouth quite hurt, you have a real decision between just swinging and taking a defensive stance; or All Out Attacking for +20 to hit,trying to really land a blow.  Up to you!
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia hissed under her breath, hearing the shouts of others from the column as she brings her staff around with its prior momentum...
MrAbdiel
 The battle rages on.

With a vicious blow cracking into Bellymoth's side, he spits blood (from the top mouth) and wheezes (also from that mouth), his clumsy reprisal to you going to the side.  Gaulfredo manages to turn aside the Headless woman's boat hook, as Rocco bites onto her ankle and tugs with enough force to distract, at least.  Seeing this opening, and the progress you've made on your foe, Gaulfredo jabs out hard with the butt of his staff and cracks Bellymouth in the temple, and the monstrosity sags to the ground.  The body doesn't move; but the profane second mouth continues to blather its garbage:

 "Oh, stronza! Tu succosa cagna! Vieni qui e metti il tuo piede nella mia bocca, ahahaha!" 

But with the defeat of this foe and Rocco finding his  in , your duel has gone from two on two to three verse one - much better odds indeed.

Nogrom and Insolente Aldo duel on; the dwarf so far unable to land a blow, but atleast able to turn aside a swing that might have  cloven his head wide open, if he were less attentive to parry it.

The troublemaker boys hold there own.  Enrico manages to muster enough strength to backstep away from the Hooded man's blows, while the boys grow more savage in defense of their wounded friend; Cremenzio howling and scoring such a tremendous strike that the Tentacle-Fingered man's right arm is left dangling and ruined, causing him to drop his weapon and stumble back in pain and fear.

But the combat looks much worse, at the far end of the line.  The red haired brothers can't get any luck at all - the four enemies swarm over them, Ernesto doing his valiant best to hold them off so Istuccio can swing; but his brother is unable to land a blow.  But one of the cretins is: the pale skinned albino man, swinging a wooden mallet into the small of the shield-brother's back hard enough that even from where you are, you can hear something in the poor fellow's back crack and break, and he goes down to the ground, hard.

Grinning manicly, the man with the tainted eye turns his gaze next on battered Enrico, who starts to hack and cough uncontrollably.

 
 Spoiler: Round 2 
Things tightening up for you and Gaulfredo winning your combat, the troublemaker boys making gains in theirs, but at the far end the red haired brothers are gettin' it. You're up!

You now outnumber your enemy 3:1, which is a +20 bonus to hit, which would do well on its own or stack nicely to +40 with an all out attack.  If you wanted to break from the combat - say, charge either to help the troublemakers up from you, or maybe up to Norgom (who seems to be holding his own), Headless would get a free swing at you as you go.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia wasted no time. She knew the other boys at the end of their column needed their help, and she had to get there as quickly as possible!

Stepping to the side, she brought her staff about in an arch against the headless woman...
MrAbdiel
 Fighting this headless woman is frustrating, not least because your first blow whiffs right where the head would have been; but your return stroke cracks down on her collar bone as Gaulfredo menaces from the side, and Rocco from behind.  Outnumbered, surrounded, personally doomed and with none of the hearty loyalty to kin that is possessed by her opponents, she lets out a mournful scream and tries to run; and you knock her ankles out as she turns, buying you and Gaulfredo a moment to beat her senseless with big overhead blows from your staves.  Freed from combat, Gaulfredo scans about, spotting the unengaged creeper at the back.  Knowing you will be more value to the combats in progress than he, the farmer and his dog charge up the hill toward the mutant.  "Help the boys!"  He calls to you, as Rocco rounds to threaten the mutant voyeur, and Gaulfredo himself lands a charging blow that batters and numbs the mutant's arm!

The Hooded Man  tries to finish off teetering Enrico, whose defenses are hampered by his hacking cough and suffering; but  his lads are with him, at least; and their threat is enough to prevent the attacker landing his killing strike.  What's more, the man with the mangled arm and tentacle fingers, now denuded of his weapon, ducks defensively away from the brawl and turns to lope back towards the trees; abandoning the grinning degenerate to the vengeful lads and giving him reasons not to grin as he is savagely clubbed and cut, staggering under the assault.

Nogrom and Insolente Aldo continue their protracted duel; Nogrom the superior warrior, but unable to find an opening against the reach of his enemy's weapon; stubby dwarven legs  not made for swift manoeuvring and footwork.

At the far end of the melee, the situation continues to erode.  One of the many-armed man's shivs makes it past Istuccio's guard, poking him in the side and letting blood flow freely down his body as he tries to defend his fallen, groaning brother.  It's all Istuccio can do to defend; he whirls his unbloodied axe around himself defensively, trying to create a field of threat the enemies cannot penetrate, but penetrate it they do - Weasel Face dancing in, feignting with his knife and then boxing him hard over one ear with a clawed hand, raking his cheek with claw marks and leaving him stunned, and reeling.  Disoriented, ournumbered four to one, his situation is grim.

 
 Spoiler: Round 3 
Nogrom and Aldo continue to spar and circle.  You landed a decent blow on Headless.  She acts before Gaulfredo, and decided to try her luck running; I took the liberty of rolling you and Gaulfredo's attacks on her back, and you both did 9 damage - she's toast, and that freed up Gaulfredo to charge the tainted eye man with Rocco.  He even hit!  But his hope is to free you to roll up the combat elsewhere; he's seen what you can do when you get going.  This turn, you can charge to help Nogrom, or to help the Troublemaker boys.  Those boys are, right now, fighting one badly wounded man and the hooded man; but if that combat resolves quickly, it will free the boys up to move to help the red hair brothers, who are having the worst day at the far end of the line, too far for you to charge this turn.
 If you wanted, you could just run, which would put you in line to charge those ganging up on the red hair brothers next turn; but if they down Istuccio, there'd be nothing stopping them from charging you, instead.  Your call!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Turning and seeing the plight of the red-headed boys, Taalia screamed and hurled herself forward, charging the nearest mutant from behind and swinging madly.
MrAbdiel
 Seeing the situation get worse at the far end of the fight, you leave Gaulfredo and Nogrom to their duels, and rush to help the mass in the middle.  You collide with the scrum at speed, knocking the battered degenerate out of the group and then follow through with your staff so fiercely the blow  breaks his femer and pushes a shard of bone through the skin so that arterial blood can wash out as he collapses. This is the first man you have killed - the first with no visual deformity, at least.  The mutants you stepped over to get here were monstrous, but as the light fades from this cretin's eyes, he goes still as a bloody, battered, normal looking man; if dishevelled, and worse for wear.  But he was trying to kill you and your people; that does not engender much pity.

Nogrom and Aldo Insolente become more agitated with each other, both striking blows that might kill, but parrying each other so the ring of steel on steel echoes over the battlefield where the muddier clashes take place.

The tainted eye man wards himself with a his knife, trying to keep back Gaulfredo and his barking companion; staring malifically into Gaulfredo's face as he comes on, causing him to stumble and blink as blood begins to ooze from his tear ducts.  But this isn't enough to stop his momentum.  Grasping his staff from its base, he swings it hard and wide, and it catches the mutant in the shoulder with a crack, driving him to the ground where a few more vicious thumps and kicks do the same job on Tainted Eye that the once did on the goblins, in your first fight on the surface.

In the middle brawl, your dispatch of the degenerate frees the rest of the boys to crowd on the hooded man.  Even Enrico seems to find a second wind, and gets a lick in; they surround him, kicking and striking, none landing a telling blow but all getting a touch, and the mutant begins to howl in distress... with a weird, familiar pitch to his voice. It's the last sound that Tentacle Fingers hears, as he bleeds out in retreat.

At the bloody rear of the fight, Istuccio flails in defense of himself.  The many bone shives of the Many-Armed man are forced back by dazed, clumsy swings of his axe; but the man with an extra ear on his forehead gets in a vicious blow with a warped sword that carves into the meat of Istuccio's forarm, and forces him to drop his axe.  He totters, vulnerable, disarmed, trying to guess the angle death with take him from.  But the other two in that gang - Weasel Fae, and Albino - hear the Hooded Man's plaintive cry, and charge away from the redhaired brothers to join the mass combat; confident their two kin behind them have that situation handled.

Confused, not wanting to be left out, Corvo leaps from the wagon where he has waited so patiently, and tears off towards the most interesting part of the combat his canine brain has arbitrarilly chosen - the monstrous mutant with five arms, at whom he begins to bark from close by; bidding for play.  Play does not seem forthcoming.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Round 4 
The combat has simplified a little.
 With more mutants going down (and tentacle fingers bleeding out), the ground is shifting.  I'll put the breakdown more clearly in the OOC thread.  But you're up, when you're next able!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia sneers as she draws up her staff to take a good, hard whack at hooded man...
MrAbdiel
 Crack!  Your staff slams into the side of the hood, and down he goes like a sack of potatoes.  You don't think he's dead - not yet, and you're tempted to make sure right now.  But the hood is partially shifted with your blow, revealing a corner of jaw that is...

Familiar.  The face of someone you know?

But the battle does not pause for you to meditate.  To halt now, either to kill the Hooded Man or to unmask him, would be to give up your focus on the lethal swirl around you.  Fortunately,  Myrmidia Blessing , your felling of another mutant still seems to correspond with a shift in the tide of the melee back in your favor.  Weasel Face and Albino have crashed into the melee with the troublemaker boys - these chaps, who mocked you when they first met you but then gave an admittedly coerced apology and proved themselves, atleast, hard and honest workers who did not deserve to be killed by mutants on the road, give their all to the fight.  Enrico, the one of the four 'Troublemakers' who was not part of the group when they teased you, leans and spits blood, but two of his friends, Cremenzio and Tesifonte, are at his side with wild swings of their clubs, battering the Albino and then thumping him so hard in the solar plexus he loses his breath and seems to struggle to get it back again.  The fourth boy, Ansaldo, occupies Weasel Face; his own haymaker blow with his mallet cracking into the mutant's rodent muzzle and throwing a loose tooth across the field.  Now it's five verse two, in the midfield; and it's the mutants making tentative jabs and defending themselves while the rallying goodly folk put the wild swings and punishment on them.

At the end of the field, driven to one knee and facing two enemies who have robbed him of the use of his hand and thus the ability to wield his axe, Istuccio looks up protectively, sorrowfully, from his brother's body.  An ally from an unexpected place intervenes, for him - Corvo, having leapt from the cart and zoomed to the far combat, barks and hops behind Many Arms, trying to break into what seems to him to be an exciting, if violent game.  A pup of another breed would warrant no attention; but Many Arms does not dare expose himself to this new enemy, turning and swiping two of his bone knives at the couragious if foolish pup.  Canine agility wins through, and he dances back from the swings; his barking ceasing with a confused whine as the mutant's snarl and aggression impress upon the pup that  oh, this is not a game at all. 

But with his most impressive ally against him distracted for a moment, Istuccio takes the window to rally; pulling the shield from his fallen brother's arm and slipping his own blood-slicked, bleeding right arm into its loops, grabbing the dropped dagger with his left, and raising both just in time to catch, and successfully deflect, a life-taking blow from Extra-Ear.  At the sound of Corvo's yapping, Gaulfredo - fresh from his own recent victor - calls out to the pup in alarm, and charges to the dog's side, Rocco in tow to the defence of his reckless son.  Rocco's barks as he charges in are rough, deep, almost feral with paternal fury, snapping at Many Arm's heels and forcing the mutant to shove him away with one foot.  Gaulfredo's own staff blow comes soaring in hard, but the five-armed freak has the free dexterity to strike it aside.  That combat, at the end of the convoy, is still dire; but it is not over, and now, atleast, the red headed brothers are not alone.

 
 Spoiler: Round 5! 
Woo!  Good guys get some wins!  These troublemaker boys are all out attacking and having some big wins.  Both Weasel Face and Albino are hurt; and you dropped the Hooded Man.  You can spend your turn finishing him off, or unmasking him; but he's out cold, for now; and that my or may not be wise.  Nogrom and Aldo continue to fail at each other.  Corvo distracts Many Arms and is missed by two attacks  One of which would absolutely have hit and killed Istuccio , but didn't.  With the purchased time, Istuccio used two ready actions for the weapons of his brother (the critical result he is suffering, Arm 6, specifies that he drops anything  except a shield , so he's able to still wield that in his main hand and the dagger in his off.  That combo gives him a free parry, which he uses to avoid a death blow from Extra Ear.  Woo!  And he even doesn't bleed out this turn, which is a 20% chance each round!

It's Taalia, turn 6!
 
 
MrAbdiel
 Nogrom finally lets out a barking, cathartic laugh as he manages a cut on Insolente Aldo's chest; the mutant hissing and failing to get in a reprisal blow.  His focus on this protracted duel has taken his ability to discern how badly his side is losing, down the line - he is unlikely to realise until it's too late.

In the great middle melee, what's good for one mutant is good for another - you bring your staff around and its very tip catches Weasel Face on the chin, smashing him to the ground where he lies unconcious.  Now there's  five  of you and one of them, in that mix - bad odds, for the Albino who already seems to be realizing this and panicking.  It's Enrico, who nearly perished to the first blows of the right, who gets some pride back; swinging his club into the face of the pale skinned mutant, mashing his features, leaving him wrecked on the ground with blood pouring out of his warped jaw.

Five versus Zero.

Only Extra Ear, Many-Arms, and Aldo himself persist upright.  Extra Ear hammers on Istuccio's shield, as he defends himself and his fallen brother with his final gasps; blood running down his forearm and over the shield's hardwood rim, flowing from his smashed hand.  Many-Arms finds himself menaced by two dogs, and a staff wielding farmer in a straw hat; insensible with frustration, he strikes out at both Corvo and Rocco, but both dogs are quick enough to weave back from the short bone knives.  Finally, Gaulfredo manages to get a good strike in; cracking his staff down on the crown of Many-Arm's skull and draw his focus exclusively, eliciting a pained yowl and hiss from the emaciated brute.  Then come the boys; Cremenzio, Tesifonte and Ansaldo, freed now from the victorious central melee to charge into this penultimate holdown.  Cremenzio joins Gaulfredo swinging at Many-Arms, catching only air but establishing  his threat; Tesifonte and Ansaldo fall on Extra Ear and begin bullying him away from the suffering Istuccio. Mallet and cudgel in hand, they come in swinging but then drop their shoulders and bodily shove the mutant back, isolating him from the melee.

  "Taalia..!"  

It's Istuccio's croaking voice; diminished with weakness now, far from its basso warmth when he bargained with Gaulfredo about the price for your ox so long ago now.  He calls out to you.  And why shouldn't he? He knows the cold crawling into him as the blood flows out, and that you have been apprenticing under the Madre Angeletta.  And he knows how you threw yourself into melee with the troll, while he was a few feet away and sure he was going to die.  Now he calls to you, glassy eyed and afraid; perhaps thirty years old and kneeling over the body of his still and unmoving brother, as the blood slicks away from him.  The boys, and the dogs, have managed to peel the attackers back to provide a minimum of room to attend him, even as the battle continues.  It may be wiser to commit your considerable strength to the combat, to finish these mutants off and tend to the wounded after - but the difference in time may be the difference between the red haired ox trader bleeding out, or surviving with just his shattered hand.

 
 Spoiler: Round 6! 
  Woo!  You're a mutant staffin' machine.  Now it's just the two near the redhead brothers, and Aldo, who appears to finally be taking damage from Nogrom.  Istuccio is rolling a 20% chance to die of blood loss every round, so he's close to his number being up.  On your turn, you can either rush over and attack one of the muties, or rush over, drop your staff, and try to staunch the bleeding.  This isn't the full "heal check" you might make after the combat; just an action to stop bleeding, so it'd be a flat heal roll - if you fail, he'll check to bleed out before you can keep trying.
 
 
MrAbdiel
 At the front of the convoy, Aldo gets his chance - with a twist of the wrist, he sends Nogrom's axe spinning from his hands.   "Och!  Ye wee baggar!"   Quick as a flash, the dwarf throws himself into a roll to recover it, and the mutant's blade scythes over his head, barely missing him.

Enrico charges into the fray, wobbly as he is; but neither he, nor Tesifonte or Ansaldo can land a blow on Extra Ear, proving to be the stealth-threat of the brawl.  The audibly enhanced mutant swings a reply at Tesifonte and catches him on the cheek, his badly forged and warped sword cutting a bleeding slice in the teen's face and leaving a searing pain and awareness of the disfigurment to come that you're all too familiar with.  By contrast, Extra-Arm's luck seems to have run out; Gaulfredo is able to fend off his  shivving assault by turning his staff longwise and stabbing it like a spear, keeping reach as his advantage and jabbing the many-armed freak in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind from him.  Rocco, furious and instinctively defensive for the threat to Corvo, latches on to the mutant's right ankle, and holds tight; he staggers with the dead-weight of the dog, the hound's teeth wriggling and tearing with the shaking of his head.

As this carries on, you slide to your knee beside Istuccio, help him quickly trade the shield to the other hand, and get to work using the techniques you have learned in your first real, critical test of the Madre's training.  His hand and wrist have been badly hacked.  They might have to come off, later, depending on how bad it is on a more careful examination.  You touch the healing draught at your hip, but remember your training:


 
 Originally Posted by The Madre Angeletta, On Wounds 
  "I can't imagine how many soldiers have died choking on a draught when they should be applying pressure to a wound or tying it off.  A healing draught is a gift from Shallya, a wonderful thing; it'll see to the rapid restoration of many bruises, and contusions, and even small breaks of bones if they haven't shifted far.  But a body can't derive nourishment from a draught when it's fighting for its life.  It's a sad irony - the more  heavilly wounded  a body, the  less effective  a draught will be.  If it's a deep wound to an organ, or an artery, then potions won't save you - and if you don't have a pocket full of miracles, then all you can do is try the old crude ways: holding them together with needle and thread, and bandages, and your own two hands, if you can."  
 

...And so you snatch one of the braided rawhide straps the Madre has made you carry as part of your training, wrap it around Istucchio's forearm just below the elbow and pull it tight enough that he grunts in pain.  The bloodflow slows to a trickle-  hopefully because of your good work, and not because he's running out; and you make him put his own good hand over the bleed, and apply pressure.  If he doesn't get struck again, he is likely to survive the fight.  As for Ernesto... There's nothing you can do for him, right now.  His brother kept him from the  coup de grace .  That's all he has going for him, until the combat is over and you can inspect the damage.

 
 Spoiler: Round 7! 
You have halted Istuccio's bleeding!  Next turn, you are free to pick up your staff and stand guard over him; or, if you don't want to spend a half action picking up your staff, you can perform the Taalia Maneuver and charge bare fisted into melee to get a swing with your  Natural Weapons  talent.
 
 
MrAbdiel
 You hear Nogrom wince in pain, at the other end of the convoy the mutant leader has pulled a reversal and delivered a superficial, but psychologically important cut to the dwarf's arm, while suffering no blow in response.

But you can't afford to think about that, now - if this doesn't end soon, more of these good people are going to suffer and die; all it takes is an unlucky blow and they could be beyond your limited medical skills.  So you throw yourself with another banshee scream into Many-Arms, hammering your fist into his stomach and catching him so off guard he tumbles to the ground, vulnerable to the tender mercies of your companions.  Ansaldo's mallet rocks Extra Ear's forehead, tearing and smearing that extra ear across his countenance.  Soon, they're both on the ground; the combat turned into a mob desolation; Enrico stomping on Extra Ear's head, to finish him; Rocco latching on to Many-Arm's neck when he falls and biting, wriggling, refusing to let go while the many hands are beaten and stomped and prevented from detaching the vengeful canine father.

Once they cease to move, and quiet falls over the scene, the sound that dominates the area is the dwarf and the mutant leader going back and forth at the other end of the field.

 "Go."   Istuccio implores, giving you a nod with some confidence that he's alright now.  As one, your mob of righteous rurals surge down the line of mangled mutant bodies to the last of their number.  Nogrom scores another hit, a good one, before you arrive; but any hope  Insolente Aldo  had of turning this thing around is washed away in a swam of cudgels, and staves, and sandaled heel stomps.

When he lies still, Nogrom tips the hood back form his face and immediately grimaces, as does everyone near by.  The killing effort has dislodged what was apparently a fake beard. The chin beneath is clean shaven, beneath a normal mouth - but there is no eyes, brows, nose, or ears on this man's head.  Instead, growing from the blank flesh slate of the foreskull, a tiny humanoid torso the size of two balled fists had sprouted, with its own awful little arms and neck and face.  This, it seems, is who was doing the talking.

As you work your way through the aftermath, you head to the bodies of the mutants you knew you knocked out, but might not have killed.  The boys are putting them out of their misery pretty actively; but you're standing by  when one of them tips the hood back from the masked mutant you knocked out earlier on.

 "Bertuccio?"   Gaulfredo breathes, disbeleiving.

A nauseating, headache inducing clash of visual information and what you know otherwise boils behind your eyes.  There, lying unconcious with the concussion you gave him and the bruises and cuts of from the boys ganging up on him, is Bertuccio.  His face cannot be mistaken.  Can it?  Can it be a... lost twin?  A wild coincidence?  You didn't see him this morning, passing through Bella Collina... but he doesn't patrol the larger Silo Road that goes into town.  His territory are the other three smaller roads that connect Bella Collina to its outlying farms and other distant villages.  So is it possible?  Your eyes make it hard to say no.

"It's a trick.  Some dark magic trick, to confuse!"  Nogrom announces with brash certainty, reaching down to tug at the man's hair and nose and ears hoping they come loose to reveal a disguise.  They do not.  "...Dark magic, indeed!"  He repeats, perhaps mostly for himself, and hoists his axe, preparing to cut off the 'road warden''s head.

 
 Spoiler: OOC Combat Over! 
I rolled the attacks for the mutants, and neither of them scored a hit; but I also rolled the attacks of the boys and yeah, they're both toast this turn whether or not you splat or not; so I assumed you'd just join in the curb party.  I ran two turns of Nogrom and Aldo in case something dramatic happened while the mob surged over there, but Nogrom just got in a pride-saving hit before you guys all descended on him and certainly kicked him to death.

Everything is medically stable; there will be a bunch of medical rolls soon, but before that... check the OOC for next step!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

The battle was over and the day was won! But where the matter with the troll had been resolved without injury, this time blood had been paid to rid the region of 11 mutants.

Well...10, at least.

After tending to her dog, Corvo, holding her little man by his huge head and rubbing it, kissing his forehead and tending to the wounded, Taalia moved over to the gathering as the Hooded One's identity was revealed. Along with everyone else, Taalia gasped in disbelief. Her hand up to her mouth, shaking her head, she couldn't believe what she saw.

Bertuccio?! Impossible!

Taalia could not believe that the Roadwarden, who had been brave and strategically minded, was secretly a  mutant  preying upon travellers with a band of outlaws, and being a mere  follower  of such a group rather than its leader. If this had truly been Bertuccio, he would have recognised them all, surely, and knew the danger they posed to a hungry and desperate band of mutants, so much so that he would have wisely hung around the back until the outcome seemed certain, at which point he would either take flight or join in to leave no witnesses.

And besides - if this band were so desperate and badly equipped, what were they doing with the equivalent of the local highest ranking law man among their number?! Bertuccio would have had access to livestock, weapons, money, clothes, all manner of goods that he could have ensured 'disappeared' along the road and into the coffers of these degenerates.

The more Taalia thought about it the less sense it made to her that the...creature laying before her was indeed the real Bertuccio.

But that nagging doubt...what if it was?

It was certainly odd that a group of bandits, and mutant bandits at that, this large could operate in this region without any of them hearing about it, or the group being detected and scourged from the region by the local Roadwardens.

What if the local, highest ranking Roadwarden really did moonlight - or sunlighting in this case - as a mutant bandit?

 "Wait!"  Taalia reached up to hold Nograms axe.

Standing over the downed "Bertuccio", Taalia thought for a second and then continued.

 "The preservation of your life depends on answering four questions,"  she started.

 "When you first came to visit me, whose farm was I on, and what other two prominent members of Bella Collina were there?" 

The answer was Gaulfredo's, and Singora Madre and Singore Cestie.

 "Second: what weapon did you allow me to use after we defeated what creature?" 

The answer was his firearm after they defeated the troll.

 "Third: what part of the creature came off as a result of my practice that I took as a trophy?" 

The answer was the trolls tooth nestled away from eyesight, strung on a strip of leather and hanging between her concealed cleavage.

 "Fourth: what's your name and profession?" 

The last question was known by all present, but only Bertuccio and Taalia knew all the answers to the first three. (except Gaulfredo for the first, of course)
MrAbdiel
When "Bertuccio" comes to, groggy and alarmed, it tames him a moment to focus on you and your questions.  Even as he listens and stares, you see no recognition of you in his eyes; familiar eyes though they may be.  But after you have finished asking, he puts something together.  He answers none of your questions - only gives more more confusing information.

 "...You... know... me?"   Bertuccio's voice cracks; chokes with emotion.  "You know who this is?!"  He gestures to his face, now streaming with tears as his face lights up with the ecstatic joy of revelation.   "Tell me!  Tell me who I AM!  TELL ME WHO I AM! TELL ME WHO I AM!" 

Tearful joy becomes terrified, desperate, screamed repetition.  He moves with serpent speed suddenly, not to attack, but to wrap his arms around your let and grab on to you with desperation; perhaps, with fear you will leave without fulfilling his demand.  Corvo, at this grab, begins flipping out and barking madly.  Right now, it's just you, Nogrom, Gaulfredo and Enrico standing around watching this spectacle; the rest of the boys are rounding up the cattle and the wagons, the beasts having drifted away from the fight in nervous distress; and the red haired brothers being in no condition to round up their own oxen.

Nogrom grows rapidly alarmed.   "Oath, Taalia; it's mad and cursed!  Get away from it so I can bloody put it down before it infects us all with this howling!" 
MrAbdiel
 Once Bertuccio is secured, gagged - and hooded again, for good measure - you and the less injured boys search the immediate treeline, as well as the bodies of the mutants.

Chipped and broken knives. Warped, irredeemably swords.  Crude clubs.  Rags.  Filthy, blood-sodden foot wraps.  These mutants were hoping desperately for a score to change their fortune; but it's obvious they haven't been at this very long.  How could they?  They've accumulated only very poor weapons and, importantly, you know what happens when there's a threat in rural Verezzo - people get wind and round up a militia and take care of it.  This couldn't be happening very long - especially if Bertuccio is wrapped up in it, unless he really is moonlighting.

None of the crap they are carrying is salable beyond a few leather belts that the group agrees to hock at Paesa di Silo to recoup the costs of your bandages and medical bits and bobs.  There is one item of worth, from the mess - Insolente Aldo's sword.

Nogrom looks it over, with you; gives it a rap with his knuckles; points out the features of it, with his dwarven affinity for such things.  The blade is strong, currently has a dinged and deflected edge (mostly from parrying Nogrom's axe), and has no marks or engravings beyond some scratching on one side, just above the hilt on the ricasso.  Someone has attempted an engraving, probably with a knife, but given up quickly when it seemed too hard, having formed nothing approximating a word or symbol.  It has a practical guard, a curved, leather-bound grip, and a mushroom-shaped pommel; a well balanced sword with two edges, fit for use in either hand.  The scabbard is made of some light local wood with bronze banding over dark grey leather.
 
"It's yer's, Taalia.  I saw ye out here, today; ye're a treasure, and no lie about it."   Nogrom grumbles.  He has no use for the blade; and he might have liked to have felt like he 'won' it in a fair duel, but in truth the conflict could have gone either way and it would have been foolish delaying the end of it that came.  After a little back and forth refusing the gift, Nogrom flares with agitation and insists it ought to be yours; or he's going to pitch it into the next river he sees.  That's probably the end of that.

Istuccio speaks to you, quietly, as you bandage his hand.  His left scratches Corvo's shin; the pup unaware how he has earned this attention, but revelling in it.  "...We're alive, Taalia; again, because of you, I think.  You and this pup.  Rotten luck that these bastards picked us; but a blessing there were just enough of us, and that you were one of them.  Everyone fought; but you're different.  Everyone knows it."   He looks down at Ernesto, then back up to his bandaged hand.  His hand is painful; it's deeply cut, and as it heals, he might feel pain in it his whole life. But Istuccio took a blow to the back, and hasn't woken up; hasn't moved.  You're quite sure, based on your ginger examination, that something is broken.  Madre Angeletta says backs are the worst; there's next to nothing you can do about them.  You just wait, and see.  Istuccio, clearly, is seeing in his debilitated brother the possibly reshaping of their whole lives.  Eyes red with sequested emotion, he rubs his face with one hand, and then pushes his shield toward you.  It's a classic round shield, of hard wood with a hammered iron rim; but clearly solid construction and marked with age and use.  The barest remnant of an Ox-head motif is discernible on its face, now chipped and scuffed away to a ghost of its glory.  It has not, however, broken; which is what you want in a shield... even if this one's lower rim is now stained with the previous user's blood.
 
"Will you take this?  It belonged to our father.  I don't know what this means for my brother and I, yet; but we might yet sell our whole herd to cover expenses.  You deserve a proper reward; but I'd be honored if that shield saved your life someday, like you saved ours today." 

A little later, one of the boys discovers something in the treeline, right where you'd told them to search: another paid of bodies.  A slain riding horse, and its rider - in the soft leather regalia with the branded quiver for his crossbow that marks him as a road warden.  He's been dead for only a couple of hours - the mutants must have dragged him off the road and resolved to sort out his loot later, to prevent squabbling; his hand axe, his crossbow, and his various pouches of useful items are still on him.  He's older than Bertuccio; clearly a more senior warden, with short cropped back hair and a stubbly beard, balding on top; but with the glassy eyed sameness that corpses seem to take, after a few hours.

 "Damn."   Gaulfredo sighs, taking off his hat, rubbing his curling hair.   "A damn shame.  Karnas take him.  We ought to take him, and the saddle, back to Paesa di Silo.  The town militia will have to patrol this road until they have a new warden." 

With that, you load up the wagons with grim cargo.  The body of the poor warden in one; bound and sobbing Bertuccio in another; and Ernesto, silent and comatose on a bed of corn sacks in the other, with Istuccio sitting with him all the way.  Two of the boys take the brother's horses and keep the oxen in order; and you carry on your way.  Fortunately, there is no repeat calamity; and before nightfall, you are passing by the stockyards of Paesa di Silo.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You gain 1 * Hand Weapon (Sword!); and 1 * Shield.  Both are normal quality.  The road warden has stuff - but unless you suddenly develop stick fingers, it's to be turned in to the town.

You can also gain 200XP for this wildly close and dangerous combat, and
 encountering new mysteries!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


It was only Taalia's apprehension at the dopplegangers true identity that stayed Nograms hand. When the madman had clutched at her leg, she swiftly knelt down, bringing a knee between his shoulder blades and pinning him to the ground so that his limbs could be restrained and the hood placed back upon him.

Soon, Taalia felt vindicated in her actions. The discovery of the dead Roadwarden lent further credence to the idea that Bertuccio was indeed among them, but he had come under some form of wicked spell of mesmerisation. She could still remember the evil-eye of that lone mutant that Rocco and Gaulfredo had attacked, and she mentioned as such during their discussion. It was entirely possible that Bertuccio had come under the sway of such a creature, his senses soon to return to him over time now that he was free from the wretched influence and sanity could slowly return.

To the injured fellows, Taalia did her best, but she was still a novice. She patched up all who needed it, while those more gravely injured at least had their bleeding stopped. She could 'heal' one, allowing him some re-vitalisation enough that he could move, but Ernesto and Istuccio would unfortunately have to wait. She had ceased the bleeding, which had saved their lives, but they were in critical condition and she knew it. She could try again tomorrow once they were in safer conditions and their own bodies had recuperated some degree of health, but the important thing was that they were alive. The back injury worried the ex-slave though, as she went over in her head all the words of education that Madre had given her on the subject. The boy was older than she, and he was fortunate enough to still have a family to support him if the worst came to physical worst, but...well, they would see.

To the providing of goods, Taalia at first tried to refuse. She really did. To accept the gifts while the boys had suffered such grevious injuries...she didn't feel right about it. Perhaps sell them both and give the proceeds to the Ox-rearing brothers? But they wouldn't have it. Though Taalia did not feel like any hero, they all apparently thought otherwise: she'd swung her staff around like a madwoman, smacking heads and bodies, but when the time had come to preserve life instead of take it, she had been the only one capable of rescuing those near-death from departing the mortal coil and taking the next journey all souls travelled. Maybe she did deserve it after all? Though all contributed heroically, she had both taken life and saved it, so perhaps her actions warranted the individual reward? After all, the lineage of the Ox brothers, the importance of which was signified by that bulls-head sigil upon her shield, would have been eradicated and ended had she not plied the skills imparted upon her by Madre. A family's line gone, finished, were it not for her. In that way, hundreds of children across dozens of generations owed their future existence to her.

Maybe.

Still, after tending to the wounds, gathering the fallen items, and putting a torch to the gathered mutant bodies and their clothes to prevent the spread of their putrid contamination - after gathering proof of death of each one, of course - Taalia was one of the last to clamber back into the cart before the bruised and battered convoy continued on to Paesa di Silo.

Maybe there was a bounty for bandits? Or mutants? Or both? Perhaps, Taalia thought to herself, if there was, she could ease her conscience by donating a good chunk of whatever credit was to be gained to the Ox brothers to help buttress the potential loss of an able-bodied son in their business, while splitting the rest with everyone else.

It had been a knife-edge encounter, with adrenaline pumping, hearts racing and wounds opened and blood spilt. All of them had fought and bled together, that type of bonding is not long lost, as even the boys who had once made crude jokes about her figure had suddenly gained an elevated position of respect and consideration in Taalia's eyes.

But if the bound and currently-still image of "Bertuccio" and the injured image of the brothers were anything to contend with, it was not yet over.
MrAbdiel
 You pass by many pens and fenced gates full of livestock as you roll into town; with the dregs of day staff handing over to night watchmen and handlers.  Caesa di Silo is only a very small town - a few hundred permanent occupants - but it was a southern hub and receiving point for many villages and independent farms.  These extra pens exterior to a low but impassable masonry wall caught the overflow when this trading season came through; oxen and swine and sheep all purchased up by middlemen to sell to slaughterbarons in Verezzo or further afield.  The red haired brothers, with their fifty head of cattle, were doing quite well for themselves, in village life; but you see a team of four men on horses driving a herd of what must be a hundred oxen into a pen where great stacks of straw are layed out for their feasting.

 If each of those oxen is healthy, that herd might be worth three thousand gold pieces,  your instinct tells you.   That's how someone becomes a Senator of Verezzo. 

As you approach the gate surrounding the town, Gaulfredo hops down and jogs to the head of the convoy; smoothing his tunic and preparing his wheelin' dealin' skills.  Before long, he has harried a portly, bespectacled cattle clerk into working a little later than he intended, taking note of your stock to be penned for sale tomorrow - five oxen, three lambs - your cost being a princely total of five pennies for the care and feeding of the lambs overnight.  Since you won't be permitted to bring your lambs into a hired room for the night and the watchmen will probably chase you off if you try to set up your own little camp next to the pens outside of town, your alternative options are very few.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Cost of Doing Business 
Pay 5p to stable your lambs, for sale tomorrow!
 


The horses and wagons, Gaulfredo tells you, will be stabled inside the walls; most good inns have a stable attached, just not one that can handle every animal brought in for spring trading.  So then it's you, the dogs and horses, and your assembled boys who check in with the watchmen at the gate.

There are two kinds of warrior minding the gate, you notice.  There are the watchmen, and the militiamen.  The watchmen have brimmed metal helmets that seem designed both to keep blows to their crown from killing them, but also to keep the sun from their eyes; held on with chin straps, over leather skullcaps.  They have leather jerkins, shields on their backs and short spears in hand; and tabards featuring a blue and white quartered field and an embroidered design that, generously, is meant to be a wreath of grain.  But these watchmen seem to be few and far between; there is only one at this gate checking you, where there are four militia men.  The militiamen are much less formal; they have leather skull caps and unrimmed wooden shields, as well as clubs on leather straps; and a motley array of their own clothes brought from presumably their own homes.  Each wears a blue scarf, somewhere on their person; usually tied around the forehead, sometimes tucked into the shirt; and all look to the watchmen deferentially.

"In for trading, southers?  Pulling in late, are we not?"

The watchman, whose thick and curled moustache may be his greatest contribution to mankind, probes as he approaches the wagons.  Gaulfredo is quick to intercept, to explain, rather than let things be discovered.

 "Late, yes; because were were struck on the road by mutants - behold, my cleaved comrades!  Here, let me show you..." 

Gaulfredo throws back the blanket covering the dead roadwarden, and the watchman gives a wince.   "Aw, no; poor bloody Gabrello.  His wife'll be gutted.  Mutants, you say?  Normally we'd send the warden to go check your claim, but the harvest-marshall will have to figure out what to do. You can speak with him tomorrow, but you'd better get your wounded to bed and poor Gabrello there to Morr's man, left here against the interior wall.  I'll waive the gate fee, since I'm inclined to beleive you; but if I find there was no mutants, I'll come find you to discuss, aye?  The watch-sergeant is over that way, too, to help you with your, ah... prisoner." 

So you're through, to the interior of the town.  Paesa di Silo is the largest colony you've seen.  Possibly excepting the rat warrens, though their interconnected sprawl was hardly a 'city' or 'town', but was much more like a stain that spreads from its middle outward.  But there are dozens of buildings, within these walls!  A large circular road around the interior of the wall is flanked by two concentric rings of buildings, broken up by alleys and lanes that lead into a town centre that is several times larger than the village square of Bella Collina.  Not only that, but the buildings here are of a different character; much less in the way of log and whole wood constructions, more masonry foundations and rough-plastered exteriors with baked tile rooves.   Some buildings are three stories tall, here; such as the  Leaping Vixen House , the inn to which Nogrom and Gaulfredo lead your party.  The innkeeper  Mia  is the fattest woman you have ever seen - that is to say, moderately fat, given your upbringing; but is raucously good natured when receiving you, only settling to regular positivity when you have to start bringing in the wounded.  Gaulfredo pays for rooms for the brothers, and the boys, and you and he; Nogrom pays for himself, predictably; and with care you help the others carry stricken Ernesto upstairs and into a bed, where Istuccio lays nearby to watch him. Enrico, too, is hustled off to rest; leaving three of the troublemakers, Nogrom and Gaulfredo with you.  "Best we sort out this body and our prisoner quickly, so there's still room for all these horses in the  Vixen's  stables."

That's certainly what you try to do.  The first stop is a shrine to Morr; a quarried stone building exactly where you were told it was, consisting of a small chapel like interior and two patches of white roses flanking the door.  The cloaked, hooded figure depicted in the icon above the door is mysterious to you, still; Morr is acknowledged by the people of Bella Collina, and apparently throught the whole world; but he does not have the focus that Karnas and Ishea do, nor a statue put aside like Myrmidia in that place - just a rough woodenbox with a skull in it, set up as a small fane near Bella Collina's graveyard.  But this is a more elaborate worship for Morr, whom legends say is Myrmidia and Shallya's father.  And the acolyte to receives you looks exactly like you would expect - pale, thin, bald, ambiguously old.  Gaulfredo gives him the story, as you and the boys offload the road warden's body onto a slab inside the shrine.   "Gabrello has been a warden on the Silo road for twelve years.  A shame this would happen; but mutants always flare up in the months after the Mystery night.  The wicked moon calls them up; but you have done good to bring him here.  He will be properly interred.  Here, permit me to call the watch sergeant, to be witness." 

The watch sergeant, whose moustache pales to his inferior you met earlier but whose dagger-sharp beard compensates strongly, comes around with six militamen in tow who must range from fifteen to twenty years of age; barely more than children, much like the troublemaker lads.  Watch sergeant Alonzo is of a much more suspicious caste than the fellow at the gate, however; and he receives word of the warden's death with annoyance, and bluster.

 "Mutants?  Damn.  Mutants killed him?  Strange; he's been driving off the odd mutant for years.  Strange they'd catch him now.  How'd they manage it?  Is this one of them?"   He gestures to your prisoner, bound, sleeping off his concussion.   "He doesn't look mutated.  Is it his face?" 

Gaulfredo tries to explain.   "N-no.  No, we don't think he is one of them; just that , ah, he was caught up with them.  Ensorcelled, perhaps.  We need him only contained for a day; we will take him back to Bella Collina tomorrow, and he will be no problem to you.  But we dreaded to simply carry a bound man into the inn, and to be misunderstood." 

Without waiting for an invitation, the watch sergeant presumtuously pulls off the hood from your prisoner.  Unfortunately, as the sleeper startles and groans, the sergeant, even a couple of the militia men, shift in recognition.  "Sacred Myrmidia - that's Bertuccio, from the south roads."

Hearing this, Bertuccio's mind clears rapidly.  Through his gag, he slurs with that manic animation again.   "Mmm... Mrrmmmcuoo?  Mmm mrrmrcimoo?" 

The militia men heed some subtle signal, moving closer to you and the boys; you feel in the slave-survival core of your brain the sense of being cornered, surrounded, as the watch sergeant pulls off the prisoner's gag.

 "I'm... Bertuccio?  From the south roads?!"   Comes the sobbing, hysterical query from the prisoner.

The sergeant, bamboozled by the oddity of the situation, responds quite naturally.   "Yes, yes!  You're Bertuccio!  A bloody road warden!  What's happened to you?  What's wrong with you?" 
 "I'm Bertuccio?  I'm Bertuccio! Warden of the south roads!  I'm..."   And then he peals off into sobbing laughter, relief and grief all together - madness plain enough that the sergeant can't stand it, and roughly gags him again.  He turns on you with fury and confusion reddening his face, the acolyte of Morr, having not anticipated all of this, withdrawing tightly to the doorframe of his chapel.

 "You've come into town with one road warden dead and another gone mad, in the back of your wagon!  And you say, what - that mutants did this?  Where are the mutants?" 

With a sinking feeling in your gut, you remember the corpse pyre your group set up before you left.  It seemed like the right way to deal with the bodies of such damned men - but you wonder if someone sifting through the ash and bone will find the mutations as obvious as they were when you could see which arms belonged to whom, and whose fingers were tentacles.

Nogrom is ready to argue at the implication, and Gaulfredo has his hands up, palms forward, trying to physically suppress a spectre of escalation as he tries to explain.  It does, in retrospect, look bad.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
I hadn't anticipated this, but it's an age old WFRP tradition of being falsely accused of murder when you were just defending yourself.

I'm going to ask for some kind of check here, for Taalia to plead her innocence, and to try to make the account convincing.  It's probably charm, unless you can think of something more appropriate; and it's a flat roll, because ... well, this is a very challenging scenario!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia had remained in quiet contemplation for the rest of the trip, simply watching and listening as Gaulfredo took to being the convoy's face. Hers was perhaps prettier, her winning smile a charming heart-arrow, but Gaulfredo was far more familiar with the ways of the people of this town than she was, so she deemed it wiser to remain quiet.

Helping with the lambs and oxen, and then with the two badly injured boys into their room, Taalia enjoyed rubber-necking in the town as they passed through it on their way to the Temple of Morr. Something about the plastered, masonry-founded architecture really appealed to the girl, the simple beauty of the buildings that felt homely alongside the rural farmhouses she had enjoyed so far. Smiling to herself, the girl felt that brightness of hope sell within her chest that she could make a great life here in this region of the world, perhaps building a nice manor like this out in the countryside near her friends and, hopefully, future family.

That sense of hope was temporarily suppressed, however, as the watch sergeant dialled the tension up to eleven with his accusation. Fire was in his eyes, lips tight in a snarl as the emotions roiling within him wanted to seek vengeance for his fallen friend and brother in arms. Seeing the other militiamen start to spread out, Taalia felt that Fight of Flight part of her brain start to tick, her muscles tense as she tried to spot the available exits - but she knew it would do no good. Where would she go if she fled? She didnt know anyone, and the town was walled. There'd be no escape, and flight would only make her look even more guilty.

Ah, but!

 "Singore, you have misread the situation,"  Taalia spoke up, her snorous, smoky voice coming fourth during a single second of silence.

 "Bertuccio is a friend and comrade of ours. We slew a troll together,"  she started, reaching into her top to retrieve the trolls tooth trinket that hung around her neck to display it.

 "Why would we then stricken him with madness and bring him here? And murder a roadwarden along the way? We have even brought Singore Gabrello's equipment with him, his weapons, clothes and valuables. Why would we bring such things here if we had murdered the man along the road?" 

She allowed a pregnant pause to linger as she unsling the slingbag that hung around her shoulder.

 "We have two badly wounded boys in the local tavern, one of them has a back wound consistent with a mallet that we have also brought - but had been wielded by one of the mutants, and my companions all carry wounds consistent with the crude weapons we have brought. There were 11 in total, including Bertuccio, so we burned 10 bodies on the side of the road to stop the spread of their contamination.

Here, proof of their deaths..." 

She produced from that bag the 'proof' she had taken from the mutants she had hoped would secure some type of bounty, but now would seem to preserve their freedom.
MrAbdiel
 It's a lot of obscuring questions, and not a lot of answers.  Any manner of Why-Would-We used to argue against guilt, after all, can be answered "To Avoid Suspicion of Guilt", and the Watch Sergeant seems to be the kind of mean who comes with his suspicion musket pre-powdered, wadded, and just waiting the ball.

But it's the bag - the bag full of tentacle fingers, and tiny deformed face-growth-bodies, and weasel lips, and albino thumbs, that seals the deal.

 "...Alright.  Alright, fine.  Ten, you say?"   The Watch Sergeant offers, simmering down.

 "Eleven."   Nogrom corrects, sharply.   "Ten plus Insolente Aldo.  That's... that one."   He points to the tiny head, in the bag.  The watchman snaps the bag closed, disgusted; disappointed, even.   "Alright.  Well... We'll send out a squad of militiamen to escort your group back to Bella Collina, tomorrow; you'll show them where all this happened, so atleast we have some witness to the terrain and all.  I'll try to arrange a bounty, but normally that's road warden work."   He signals to his militia underlings, and they scoop Bertuccio out of the cart, sagging as he is drag-walked away.  The Watch Sergeant tips his helmet's brim to your group, finally satisfied, and takes the bag of mutant-trimmings.   "Hope your mate walks, again; Shallya be kind." 

And you're let loose, at that; free to return to the  Vixen  after, your horses are stabled and cart and wagons parked beside a militia checkpoint with a couple of Gualfredo's silver appreciatively in the hands of the militiamen watching them.

The lads share rooms; you're given one to yourself, on account of some discretionary allowance to your femininity.  But it does mean that you're the last to wake, today; one of the gents woke, and woke others, and when you emerge from the small but comfortable room afforded you, you pass by a couple of the troublemaker boys bringing up bowls of hot milk-and-oat mash with dried fruit, up to the red haired brothers' room.  They let you know in passing.   "It's no good, Taalia.  Ernesto's up, but can't feel his legs.  Can't wiggle his toes, or nought." 

Maybe the Madre can imagine a tonic or something that helps.  Maybe, over a couple of months, or years, he'll heal enough to find his feet again.  For now, though, Shallya has not been kind; perhaps there's just not enough kindness to go around.

* * * * *

The trading in the morning is a different experience from the half-dozen market tables in the town square, asking the same score of people to trade or barter goods.  The whole town centre is given over to tents and pavilions; hundreds of locals and visitors moving through and haggling over goods while the squads of extra militiamen pulled together for this season watch on.  Outside the gate, the livestock trading happens outside the gate; Gaulfredo takes on the responsibility of making a sale for the brothers' oxen, and so you're left to talk to the handful of traders with ovine interests, to try to offload your lambs, and fleeces... 
MrAbdiel
 Most of the traders are men, at the exterior market with the livestock; but they've heard of you, and your pluck and precocious nature mark you as the girl who, as they heard it, choked a troll to death with her great long legs.  It's not right, but it's a place to start; and you easily get a laugh out of them.  That's Gaulfredo's secret.


 
 Originally Posted by The Wisdom of Gaulfredo 
  "I call it 'the Fool's Riddle'.  But it's simple enough - when you're making a deal, the fastest way to get someone to take you seriously is to make them laugh.  Once they laugh, they're paying attention, and that's the war mostly won."  
 

Not only that, but you're able to show off the prime lamb's young teeth, and comment on his elevated haunches that mark him like his father, who must have some mountain ram in him which is good for the wool bulk.

You look down into the pouch you borrowed back off Gaulfredo.  It is stuffed with  fifty seven gold coins , and can barely close.  It's very heavy, infact, and the only sensible thing to do is go and spend some of it in the interior market, after you say goodbye to your lambs.

Corvo stares up at you with his tongue lolling and eyes bright; undoubtedly impressed in your growth as a saleswoman, too.

In the inner ring, you come upon a stall manned by a skilled leatherworker's son.  His name is Marco.  He's eighteen years old tomorrow.  He's been learning his father's trade and he intends to take over shop when his father retires; maybe move it to the big city and sell fashion goods more than practical stuff.  He went to Bella Collina one time and liked it a lot.  He bought a sausage roll there, during a local festival.  He thought it was really good, but his mother doesn't cook them.  Not that he'd need her to - he does a lot of his own cooking, now.  He might even get his own place, soon.  He likes Corvo.  He's always wanted a dog but never had one.  He has a cat.  The cat's name is Gregori.

You know all this because he tells you, almost needfully; the information coming out of him with minimal prompting like the tumble of snow from a fragile drift - the a moon-eyed snowdrift that is so immediately enamoured with you that, even though he's not allowed to go down in prices, he upgrades two of your pouches to better ones, just between the two of you.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Marco 
You spend 4g8 silver for a leather jerkin, belt, pouches, waterskin, and backpack.  Two of the pouches are best quality - one is lockable with a clever little brass toggle you have to twist in a puzzly fashion to open, making it hard to steal from.  The other is mostly waterproof, using a draw string to tighten the 'lid' top of the pouch to its bowl.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 
Clearing the "misreading" up with the Watch Sergeant was gratifying, to say the least. It wasn't enjoyable to open up a slingbag full of disgusting mutant parts, 10 unique ones in all, within a sacred site to validate their story, but what had to be done had to be done, unfortunately. Nevertheless, it was worthwhile, as the sergeants visible righteous fury rescinded when confronted with irrefutable evidence for their claim, and his anger turned towards consolation. Good.

 oOo 
The next day in the sale yards, Taalia felt born again. The collective chorus of humanity haggling and trading at hundreds of different tents, stalls and pavilions was wonderful to the ex-slave, her smile from ear to ear as she hummed to herself while leading the cart to her designated area among the exterior markets.

The girl with long, asphysiating legs?

Once Taalia might have scrunched up her face at such a typically vulgar tale passed between rough and tough men eager for a snicker at her expense. But having learned well from the Trading post spinsters, the boys in her employ and by eavesdropping on other farmers and male workers, Taalia had come to see that this was just how they talked to each other. It was nothing personal. It was just words. Indeed, gentle insults and mild ribbing showed that one was accepted and a part of the group, for any man who was so thin-skinned that he couldn't laugh at himself, and so witless he couldn't parry and thrust a verbal insult, wasn't worth having around.

 "I didn't strangle him with my legs,"  Taalia corrected one such farmer-trader, holding up her right hand to form a gripping motion with her fist.

 "It's obvious: I learned how to turn my legs into scissors - I snipped its head clean off!" 

This elicited at least a snicker and a grin, and the recognition that the girl could at least laugh at herself and not get offended.

What they might  not  have been prepared for was how the Spinster Sisters and Gaulfredo's trading lessons had also filtered down to the girl. But they sure soon felt it as the new girl sold fleece after fleece at premium prices, providing beautifully large sheets of fleece from a fine new flock from a novice shepherd.

Through this process Taalia discovered something new. She had once considered the sun rising in the morning, peeking its warm gaze across the farm and eliciting the chorus of animals, birds and gentle insects to sing at its arrival, to be the most beautiful sound she had ever encountered. But now, she had a new favourite: the metallic  clink!  of gold coins falling against each other as they collectively tumbled into her waiting hands or open purse.

Fifty seven gold pieces. What a score! That was more than she had acquired during her first trade from that mirror, and only about half the proceeds of  that  had only been spent on her flock and pen. Now she had even  more  after just six months! And it could all be put back into her growing enterprise.

Already the cogs were moving within Taalia's ambitious mind. Expanding her flock to 20-30 sheep. Renting the deed to 3-4 acres. A small, but prosperous pig farm. Hiring a lad or two as permanent employees. From beaten down slave to card-carrying member of the bourgeois in just half a year, that was quite something.

 oOo 

Taalia enjoyed Marco's attention, though it was foggy whether she was returning his interest or not. Her smile was genuine, he was above average in looks, though shorter than her...but then again, almost everyone was. But he enjoyed cooking, and seemed to have his own ambitions in mind - a go-getter with dreams pursuant to his passions.

Flattered and performing the reject-reject-reject-accept ritual of receiving superior quality goods for the same amount of coin, Taalia's pried into Marco's mind a little more, as she saw an opportunity to get a bit of a lay of the land.

 "I am actually travelling to Verazzo in a day or two,"  she said,  "I plan to stay there for approximately 2-3 days, business depending. I am looking for a good pair of riding boots, something comfortable and sturdy, that will retain their integrity for some time to come. Who would you recommend?" 
 oOo 

Taalia  wanted  to be in a good mood when she arrived back to the inn, but she knew there was one grim portent that she had to face. Though today had been a date she would long celebrate as her ascension into a higher social and productive class, something else bleak weighed upon her mind.

Holding her hand on the door, rapping upon it, Taalia waited until access was verbally granted, and gently eased open the door to Ernesto's room.

 "Ernesto, how have you progressed?"  she asked, her smoky voice carrying a gentle and warm maternal concern as she closed the door behind her.

In her hands she had her medical supplies, clearly here to visit and try her hand once again.
MrAbdiel
  "Oh, boots?  Well, if you want boots that won't wear out, you want hobnailed boots, and dwarves make the best for sure - but you pay for them, that's no lie.  Who has thirty  duro  for a pair of boots?  A mercenary who never wants to buy boots again in their life, I suppose.  I made a pair of shoes once - hey, here-" 

He lifts his left foot up and , while hopping, holds his left ankle to show the profoundly mediocre shoe there, before he drops it town to avoid topping.   "Thought it would be easier.  Came out okay, all things considering.  But cobblering is a whole art alongside leatherwork; so it'll be a while before I get good.  There's a lot of middle ground between bad shoes and the best shoes in the world, though.  In Verezzo, you'll find great cobblers.  If you want something good - custom, even - then you're probably best finding a barker.  The barkers have carts of goods and roll around the Market District selling them; but if you have the spare coin to get boots made for you particularly, the barker will be able to point you to their supplier.  For a silver, they might point you to a competitor, even." 
 * * * * * 
Ernesto calls you in; Istuccio sitting on a chair beside his bed.  The latter's arm is still in the sling you put it in, mostly to keep the injured hand out of trouble with reflexive use.  The former lies on his stomach  on the bed; the   purple-black mass of bruising on his lower back exposed as a grotesque blotch under his skin with one conspicious right-angle corner from the mallet's shape.  He looks miserable, as he should; but he gives you the faint, emancipating smile of the suffering that tells you that he removes from you the burden of needing to operate at that level if misery for his benefit.

"It hurts."  He offers, unsure of what else to say. "Everything above it hurts; but that's all.  I think I'll be okay, after the swelling goes down."  This is baseless hope; denial, even.  But he can hardly be blamed; and there's not much you can do but offer positivity in a general sense.

The Madre has told you that, at some point, you'll want a set of physicians tools if you ever have to do something as dramatic as removing a bullet; or worse, a lodged arrow head.  A bag full of fine cutting blades, metal clamps, and the alchemically brewed tonics that can't be made from wildnerness herbs is key to advanced procedures.  If Istuccio's hand had been more badly cloven, you'd have needed such then; but he was lucky.  On the other hand, with Ernesto's injury being internal and within the bones and tissue of his back, there's not much you can do one way or the other.  But you supervise some of the boys moving Ernesto very carefully to make him more comfortable in as much as is possible; you impress on them the need to keep his back as straight and unmoved as possible, in his healing process.  You squash a plan Enrico was concocting to get Ernesto blackout drunk to help with the pain - the pain is bad, but there's nothing medically useful drink does for the body when taken orally, and he needs every edge he can get.  Gaulfredo stops in, to drop off the money from their sale - an eye popping 150 duro for the sale of the five oxen, the slaughter of which will feed many mouths for a long time.  They had intended to spend that money on dairy cattle, moving into the uplands near the mountains somewhere with consistently colder weather where they could make a cheese cave - but that plan is coming apart, due to recent events.

Istuccio takes you aside.

 "Taalia, you're going on to Verezzo, yes?  I wonder if, when you're there, you can hire on a physician for us - someone who can come and be on hand for Ernesto in the next few months, as specialized in such injuries as you can find.  And lead them back to Bella Collina?  We have enough money, certainly.  And I appreciate all you've done, and everything the Madre will no doubt offer, back home, but..."   He grimaces, obviously guilt ridden at the niggling sense he is somehow shaming Madre Angeletta by appealing to schooled expertise from the 'big city'.   "...But you understand, yes?" 

He gives you twenty five duro which, to Gaulfredo's estimation, should cover a very fine specialists wages for two standard twenty-five day months. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


Taalia smiled at the helpful advice, her position on the boy ambiguous.

 "Thank you Marco,"  she smiled, nodding.

 "I have never owned a pair of boots before, actually this is my first venture into the world of livestock sales,"  she laughs gently,  "but I walk often, and a good pair of boots seems more cost effective than getting a horse and learning how to ride it!" 
 oOo 

Taalia looked sombrely at Ernesto from the doorframe, Istuccio having just made his private request. Fortunately for him, Taalia didn't have professional pride enough yet that the suggestion that she was inadequate would stin g her. Still considering herself a novice in all things, she understood the desire for the best care one could get, and if that was not from her hands, then she would rather the more experienced practitioner take over and potentially rescue the boy from invalidity than satiate her own ego.

Nodding softly, discretely receiving the pouch of money,  "I will Istuccio..."  she answered quietly, giving his elbow an affectionate and reassuring squeeze.

When Gaulfredo approached her, she leaned to the side, so that the two were speaking just outside of the door.

 "I think that perhaps we should get Polo to teach Ernesto how to read and write..."  she out-and-out suggested, looking back in the direction of the downed boy.

It wasn't just that he had acquired that injruy while fighting alongside them. No no, for almost all of Taalia's life she had witnessed only 1 end to 'slaves' who were no longer physical able to do their jobs: death. Or worse, fodder for the beasts. As such, the idea that she had 'failed' the boy and he was now upon infirmity and decrepitude's door because of her lack of ability ate away at her central nervous system as she desperately thought of ways the young man could find purpose in his life if he was not able to regain the function of his legs.

 "Where I am from..."  she said, veritably whispering in Gaulfredo's ear so as not to be overhead,  "those...well..."  she trailed off, not wanting to get into details. But, Gaulfredo knew enough of her stories and the character of the ratmen to guess where she was going.

 "Or the fiddler in the town, I cannot remember his name, he plays at each festival. If Ernesto can still keep a ledger and records, perhaps even produce music, I think that would go along way in helping him here and here..."  and she gestured first to her head, and then over the area of her chest where her heart would be. Though currently unable to articulate precisely what she meant, the meaning was clear: young men without a purpose who felt like a burden could sink into despair and madness, but if he received new training and skills, he could find new purpose and enjoyment in life.
MrAbdiel
You leave Marco smiling, but cursing himself for blowing his chance inside, and not one step closer to understanding what women want.

 * * * * * 
Gaulfredo nods.  He's made a point not to pry about the specifics of your slavery; but he seems to get it.   "You mean Emio.  Both are... good suggestions.  I don't think it's quite settled in for him, yet.  He might need some time to just... grasp it all, before we begin giving him that kind of help.  It's a crying shame.  Those two lads held off twice their number long enough that we could ultimately win; but what a price."   He calls them  lads  though the red haired brothers are not remarkably younger than Gaulfredo; the farmer himself in his early thirties, the red headed ox traders perhaps not quite into, or just on the other side of, that decade delineation.

 "I know we haven't done much riding work with you... but did you want to take one of the horses?  Not to sell, just to take the weight off your feet.  You'll have trouble if you had to gallop from something, but anything you need to run from you're better off on a horse than on foot.  Trolls come to mind, eh?  And it's a long way to Verezzo.  You'll have to stay at a coaching inn on the way.  There's no regular coach runs from Caesa de Silo to Verezzo, since it's just a farming region; but there's a stop there for folks taking wagons and carts back and forth.  If you don't want a horse, you can probably get a life with one of the wagon trains heading in to the city." 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia didn't leave Marco completely at a loss. Unsure how to reapond to such interest, she offered a genuine, warm smile, "Thank you, Marco.".

 oOo 
Taalia heeded Gaulfredo's concern and concedes to them. It would be premature to being forth the 'alternatives to active life' brochure. It might even harm his chances. It was best to let him...adapt first. The girl made a mental note to visit the brothers in the future.

At the suggestion of a horse Taalia smiled.

"Me? Ride a horse?" She asked in gentle disbelief, her heterochromia eyes lightening up at the sheer idea she would be atop one of the beautiful animals.

"Yes!" she exclaimed with a bright grin. "Yes, I would love that!" both of her hands came together as excited fists before her as she oscillated in joyous anticipation.
MrAbdiel
 Gaulfredo confers with you and Istuccio, and it's agreed to loan you Istuccio's horse; a rust colored mare named  Jezzabella .  By a certain dark logic, Ernesto could be said to need his horse less, from now on; but that mare,  Clarabella , may be a familiar comfort to be around him.  So Jezzabella it is; and while the day has crept on from all the shopping and dealing, Gaulfredo spends a few hours with you trotting around the ground next to the stable, leading Jezzabella by her reins while you ride; then walking alongside; then simply supervising as you get the hang of it.  She's an easily led beast; and as long as you're not required to go flat out, you can manage to control her just fine.  Plus, her saddlebags spare you some trouble carrying everything you have now - backpack, slingbag, sword, shield, staff, pistol box, waterskin, heaving pouch of coins...

 "You ought to buy some rations for the road, too.  Two or three days, in case it comes in handy; and the good kind will keep for quite a while.  We can get them for you on the way out, tomorrow.  Oh - and if you're planning on doing any more camping out, you might consider a tent, and a bedroll.  I know you have that goblin wreck stashed in the barn... but it's filthy and it'll let rain on you; and it would make Ariana so happy if we could throw it out." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
If you choose to follow through on any of those, a small tent for you and Corvo would be 15s, easilly enough acquired in Verezzo later.  A bed roll is a hefty 15gc - being lined with furs, it's a pricy way to camp; but it's much more comfortable than just a blanket on the ground and more insulating to the cold by far.

Rations you can buy on the way out of town.  Rations are 6s per day.

Incidentally, a horse needs 5p of fodder per day, and Corvo probably goes through 5p of food a day, too.  So if you wanted to carry 3 days food for everyone involved, that would be 1gc 6p.
 

 * * * * * 

The next day, you say farewell to your companions and head around the big semicircle of road to the gate leading out of town.  As you approach the checkpoint and the squad of militiamen there, you spot a stranger coming alongside as you carefully steer Jezzabella.   "Off already, are we my lady?  Well you are, then; well you are.  Back to the city!" 

This declaration comes confidently, with a little too much volume to be just for your benefit, or his.  He's well dressed on first glance; though as he starts strutting along parallel to you, you can see the fair looking clothes are frayed at the corners, and have seen hard work removing old stains.  The feather in his cap is splinted with a twig to hold up its wilting stem.  He gives you the smallest glance as you regard him, his eyes pleading, his forehead sweating, as you make your way toward the guard checkpoint. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia felt confident in the saddle, her smile bright and large. She had new clothes that she bought. New leather wares thst she bought. A fat purse filled with coin that she earned. And now she was upon a horse lent to her ao she could travek to Verezzo for further business.

If only she could send messages back in time to her old self when things looked darkest during her enslavement. How things had changed!

"Off already, are we my lady? Well you are, then; well you are. Back to the city!"

Taalia turned her head to regard the newcomer, warning sirens screaming in the back of her head...warnings that had been long honed during her enslavement.

"How do you know I'm from the city?" Taalia asked tersely slowing her horse down so that thr stranger would gently ovetake her and encounter the checkpont first.
MrAbdiel
 "Ahah!  How you jest, my lady."   He offers, tightly.   "I know because we came from there together; though certainly you have such servants I would not blame you for mixing us up."   He claps a little, celebrating your 'good humor', laughing nervously as he slows to match your pace so he  does not  encounter the check point before you.  The militiamen at the check point begin to look at you, as you approach; but it's not obvious they can make out your conversation clearly when he's not announcing it loudly.   "But I am  your hardworking and faithful manservant Blasio,  of course.  Whose service to you, you must agree, has been  rewarding."

He gives you a smile as tight as desperate as might be offered by a man holding on to life by his teeth.
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia's blank stare was a wild divergence from her usual sunmy disposition. Her mouth was straight, her eyes almost blank as she just stared at him.

Maybe he had good reason for the deception. Maybe he was a thief trying to escape or worse. Either way, Taalia had endured elves and thieves, mutants, insane friends and potentially crippled friends within the past 24 hours: she had no sense of humour for this.

"You have me mistaken for somone else, Sir," she said forcefully, "I suggest you return to town to look for them..." she stated, giving him the mercy of one warning as she sped her horse up to reach the checkpoint visibly before him.
MrAbdiel
 "Ah, certainly, no my Lady-"
 
He gives chase for a few yards, his unibrow furrowing with fear; holding is cap to his head as he tries to keep up; but the militiamen see the spectacle, and they see him, and they see you trying to avoid him, and two of them peel off the group to find out what's going on.

He turns, and runs.  Given reason, they run after him; and the last you see is the scruffy, unibrowed 'Blasio' rounding a corner with the militiamen in hot pursuit.

 "C'never be to careful." 

The watchman at the gate, with the remnant of his flock of militia youths, commends you for your disassociation with the cretin, and gives you a nod.  Then he looks over you, and Jezzabella, and Corvo.

 "Well, leaving the city via the north road incurs a Leg tax, signorina.  Ten copper from you, if you are so kind." 

A tax.  The guard at the front gate let you through as a courtesy, given the condition of your injured friends; this one doesn't intend to let you out on such kindness, though.
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia watched with narrow eyes as Singore Blasio dashed away, militiamen in hot pursuit.

'Stupido...' Taalia mumbled to herself silently as she approached the checkpoint.

Hearing the request fir a tax Taalia at first hesitated, due to her unfamiliarity with the concept.  But, Gaulfredo had warned her that such levies existed, as the authorities would devise different ways to reach thwir fingers into her purse.

"Of course, Singore..." Taalia responded, withdrawing her competently locked purse, counting out 10 pennies and handed them down to the militia warchman.

With the toll paid, she smiled and headed forward at a trot, Corvo keeping up beside her ss she ventured off to Verezzo!
MrAbdiel
You head out the gate; past more exterior pens on the northern face of the town's wall, past a half dozen small auxiliary silos built after those inside the walls were filled, more orchards, and then another long stretch of loosely wooded road.  A charming little lake features on one side, when you stop to eat when the sun is high; waiting in the shade and letting Corvo and Jezzabella lap their fill.  The muddle cattle footprints and cowpies dissaude you from drinking the water; but such things don't bother the beasts, and you sip from your waterskin while watching clusters of brown and white ducks swim, and root around in the shallows for grubs.

Shortly after heading off again, you catch up to a pair of wagons that must have passed you at the lake.  They're hauling covered loads of sacked oats from Caesa di Silo; the drivers are almost matched sets: gruff old gentlemen at the reins with young boys holding light crossbows.  None of them are chatty; but they're content to have you fall in with them.  The thought of facing another ambush entirely alone is unpleasant indeed, though you're assured it's less and less likely as you get closer to the city.  But there's no ambush, this time; and as the sun starts to pinken the western sky, an impressive building comes up on the road ahead.  Occupying all four corners of a big crossroad is the are wooden structures with red-pained walls.  A huge and stables on the south western corner; long dormitory houses on the north west and south east; and a great, two story affair on the north east.  At the centre of the crossroads, on a pedestal made of stacked and mortared stones with a wooden flatform, stands sculpture made of wooden logs, planed and cleaned, carved roughly to purpose and held together with big iron nails.  The overall shape is that of a large pig, wearing a wide brimmed 'hat' made of beaten and shaped copper.  The two story building has a large balcony on the second story, already occupied by patrons sitting, gazing out over the land, carousing and chatting.  The shingle hanging by its door reads:  "The Pigly Inn" .

After tying up Jezzabella and Corvo to hitching posts outside, you pass into the main room and are immediately struck by the competing smells of such a place: old ale, human sweat, horse, warring with more directly pleasant smells of cooking meat, and pastry, and some kind of sweet fruity scent.  There's as many wagon drivers, wagon hands, farmers and road wardens drinking and eating here as there are people in all of the community of Bella Collina.  But this is no festival or market day; just a brisk trade of people coming from the big city, or heading out to one of the many towns or villages that branch from this arterial crossroad.

 The proprietor, you realize after a moment of confusion, is not a short mutant; but a halfling.  You've precious little exposure to those folk - they make bad slaves, so they never lasted in the tunnels.  But an affably fat, middle aged halfling is calling over his shoulder to a window in an interior wall, through which his wife hollers back.  They needle and squabble, but seem to take no offense to each other.

 "Buona sera, signorina.  Welcome to the Pigly.  Checking in for your pa, are ye?  How many in ye party, and how many horses alongside?" 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

After she passed through the gate Taalia realised she was the furthest from home that she'd ever been, and was doing so alone. It was dangerous in some ways, like thst Blasio Stupido had demonstrated earlier.  But as she ate a ration and admired the beauty of the lake, she knew it could be beautiful too.

The cart with the two old men and younger armed fellows suited Taalia just fine. She was stop her horse, loyal hound trotting by her aide, while she made conversation where she could. She had to admit, as much as she enjoyed the idyllic living on her farm - "her" farm - there was some exciting about traveling the road. Never know who one would meet or what beautiful, or dangerous, spectacles she would encounter.

When she arrived at the Pigly Inn, Taalia was smiling gently. Tying Jezebella up, Corvo next to her, the adventuress headed inside where she was greeted by the first non-enslaved Halfling she had ever encountered. He had a homely way about him, and the more she explored of the surface, the more pleasant it was to encounter her fellow surface-dwellers in their natural predilections instead of in bondage to the disgusting Skaven.

"No Singore, I am on my own," Taalia stated with a smile and her smoky voice.

"Myself, a horse and hound. I would like a good room, stabling, meal and bath, if it is available Singore," her smile friendly.
MrAbdiel
  "Lovely!"   He coos, delighted by your forthright willingness to do business; and that general sentiment adults have with well-spoken youngsters; something akin to hope for the future of the world, in microcosm.   "Beds in one of the common halls are five  rami , but a good room for yer fair self is ten  scellini .  It's another ten  rami  for the horse, but if you're taking a private room, we let you have one of them for free.  And if you've a dog, well, we've learned it's not worth trying to pry them off their humans; if he makes his earth and water outside and doesn't chew up the furniture, you can have him in your room overnight at not charge.  And the baths are good and hot - we have a great bore dug here, so plenty of water.  That's a single  scellino , and you take this here token upstairs to the big door at the end of the balcony up here with the picture of a pig in a pot on it; the my boy Rumpold will draw you a bath while you wait.  Oh, and I'm Bolo.  Bolo Hempfire, propriety; it's a pleasure, signorina." 

But, of course, you don't need to pay for a bath token - you have little wooden disc just like the one Bolo is halfway to offering you, as you produce it; scrubbed to redemption from its abandonment in the troll cave.   "Oh!  Lookithat, so ye do.  Ooh, this one's seen some travel.  Haha!  Where'd it go?  Furthest I've heard is Magritta.  Well, since you're saving that scellino, can I tempt ye into spending it to try one of our famous Pigly Pork Pies?  My wife's Mootborn, and she knows secrets of pastry that would conjure the elven hosts from their mighty islands if they ever knew; such is the magic of it.  Second in perfection only to her lovely kisses, har har!" 

Bolo's wife, apparently hearing all of this from the kitchen beyond, responds with a stream of animated chiding in what must be the halfling tongue; a language as rapidfire and dense with syllables as Queekish, but sacrificing all the spit-spraying dental and guttural morphemes for musical palatals.  Bolo gives you a cheeky grin has he endures this torrent; apparently deriving a particular glee from embarrassing her with public flattery.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
If you want a private room, it's 10 silver.  The cheaper option is to take a cot in one of the common rooms for 5p, and another 10p to stable Jezzabella.

In either case, you already have a bath token for the Pigly, so you might as well use it!  But if you want to try their famous pie, that'll be an 1s; or a mere 3p for a less prestigious, normal meal.  Let us know if Taalia is splurging on comfort and security or going cheap!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 


Taalia looked genuinely happy when the halfling extoled his services and spoke at length about their virtue and ease of access. 10p for the horse stabling sounded just fine, and 10 silver for a room to herself in which Corvo could also rest sound perfect as well! She had never stayed in a coaching inn, and the prior 6 months had scrubbed away any sense of normalcy in sharing a room with a mass of other bodies starving for air and just a little bit more room. After all, she had been sleeping in a barn for half a year...not that she was complaining! It was luxury compared to what she was used to. But here? In this palace? A full, proper room to herself, complete with a bed? All for ten silver?

 "Deal!"  the towering teenager smiled, putting down the required currency on the counter, before she received news of another little treat she could purchase from the halfings: one of their meat pies.

Taalia had never had a pie before. She knew what they were, of course. She had enjoyed sausage rolls and other pastries...but no  pies . This meaty, savory delight fostered truly mouth-watering images inside the girls head as she pondered what type of boutiful saucer of hearty tastiness she could chow down upon should she indulge in this little treat...

 "Would I ever!"  she beamed, producing another silver coin and sliding it across the counter into the halflings waiting palm.

 "Could I take it while having my bath? With an ale as well, Singore? Something sweet."  she asked, clearly excited with anticipation but also wanting to maintain an air of decorum. Taalia was mature beyond her years, but she wasn't immune to the occasional flight of fantasy.

Once the transaction had been completed, money had changed hands and keys were administered, Taalia returned outside to lead  Jezebella  into the stables, the girl soothing the lovely beast and removing its bit, bridle and saddle for the evening, and then giving the lovely animal a brush down before retiring herself.

A room and bed all to herself. A hot, soapy bath  while  eating a delicious pie and drinking a flagon of ale?

Absolute luxury.
MrAbdiel
  
 Spoiler: OOC: Ale! 
Don't forget to mark off another 2p for that pint of ale!
 

 "I don't see why not!  Thank you kindly, signorina; here's the key to your room, so you can get settled in.  You take that token up to Rumpold to get him started, move your things into your room, and I'll have one of the servers run you up a pie and an ale in about fifteen minutes, when your bath should be drawn." 

Rumpold turns out to be an adolescent halfling.  He's two foot two inches tall with curly brown hair that sits on the top of his head in a clustered poof.  It's not clear how a person so small will be able to do much preparing of a bath at all; but the bath room set up is quite ingenious.  A long metal trough is built into the wall with a fire place beneath it, the coals kept warm and only easily stoked back to life; and when the water in the long tank is boiled, Rumpold uses a set of wooden tongs to swivel a copper pipe down so the heated water can pour into a tall sided wooded tub, with a big cork on one side to let the water out into a gutter on the floor that leads to a hatch in the wall and, presumably, some kind of collection device.  The timing works out near perfect; a young human woman with pleasingly round cheeks brings up a mug of ale and a tray with a much larger pie than you were expecting; an almost perfectly squared off disk that must be eight inches across and three high.  You eat it with a fork, and if it's pretty bloody good - a hot, spiced pork mince interior in a thick flavoursome gravy and pastry that is the best you've tasted.  It might be the best food you've ever eaten; or the best since-

 
 Spoiler: Intrusive Thoughts. 
You remember, once, the three of you rode in a borrowed wagon for two days for a wedding of some relative. They married well, and the food there was the best you had ever tasted - equal to what your mother made, with the apples. You would never taste its like again.
 


- since you can remember.

Corvo is a little bored in the room with you; but he's soothed minute by minute as you drop him scraps of the pie.  You can hear the revelry in the bar room below grow, as you soak lazilly until your fingers prune up; a minstrel must have kicked up his act down there, provoking the rhythmic, rum soaked chanting of the crowd; none of the words audible through the floor, but the sentiment of peace and merriment as good as poetry.

You soak until the ale is gone, and the water is luke warm, and the bloated feeling of having finished off the oversized pie fades to a groggy fullness.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Options! 
You can go to bed and set off in the morning, if you want.
 But if you wanted to wait around in the bar, chatting with the folks and trying to pick up gossip and meet interesting people, that's an option too.  You can make a Gossip Roll at flat, if you do - but you can have a bonus to that roll that is equal to the  number of pennies you are willing to invest in buying people drinks. 
 
 
MrAbdiel
 You spend a few hours downstairs with the singing, drinking crowd.  It's all too much for Corvo - he keeps getting underfoot, and it's too much stimulation, so you take him to your room with promises to check on him regularly with treats for being a good boy.

You find it's easy to make friends, atleast temporary ones, when you buy them ale.  Many of these drinkers are tough farmers and wagoneers, and they don't think much initially of a young woman looking to ask questions that are obviously not in a flirtatious direction.  But the universal lubricant, served by the pint, loosens many sticks from the mud; and by the time it's well into the evening, you are welcome at just about any table in the joint.  There's a table with five road wardens at one end of the room; they drink lightly, and their presence means the one fight that stars is quickly ended with a sharp kicking of the ass and an early to-bed.

You try and learn the songs as they sing them; they tend to be about the Verezzan overthrow of their prince, a few sentimental songs about leaving one's love behind or returning to her, just as many about bawdier pursuits with a distinctly less romantic conviction, and one about the Pigly Inn itself.  The nature of this inn at this crossroads must mean there's a revolving set of regulars, and there's plenty of affection for the staff from those livelier, drunker patrons.

You meet three interesting people that night, each of them with rumors to spare.

A middle aged mercenary sergeant named Daniele da Floriglio is drinking with a few of his men.  He tells you there's only a few of his company, the  Golden Gallants , here at the Pigly; but there's almost a hundred of them scattered into the towns nearby Verezzo, and in Verezzo itself.  They're anticipating work, and want to be on hand to assembly quickly; in the meantime, they're tasked to go out and make the money they can as small groups guarding wagons and coaches.   "It's not a matter of if, but when.  Tilea's a pot under pressure, right now.  The Sartosans have become very aggressive with the sea lanes, and the orcs and goblins in the pass north to Bretonnia are riled up, raiding into Carcassonne.  And some bloody fool sabotaged the great tunnel - the River of Whispers that runs under the Vaults into the Empire.  It was always dangerous, yes; but it's inoperable right now, so external trade has slowed to a crawl and so have mercenary endevours abroad.  Remas and Luccini will find any excuse, as always.  And it wasn't thank long ago that Pavona gave the Verezzan senators a spanking; that's why we're lingering here.  Within a year, we'll be on campaign going north to gouge come concessions out of Princess Lucrezzia.  Mark my works, young miss.  Hey, you're big enough gal to stand the line - you ever thought about going merc'?" 

A messenger woman in her late forties, named Galiana is drinking alone is and doing her best to keep away from the mercenaries and the road wardens, keeping her satchel on the table infront of her at all times. Still, you manage to wriggle into her good graces.   "I just passed through Verezzo on the way, actually.  Heading to Monte Castello.  From where?  Oh, I'm not supposed to say.  But I'm glad to not stop in Verezzo long.  I don't like the republics - you'd think it'd be more peaceful since no one can just stab someone and become prince; but I think it just pushes all the knives into the background.  Right now, Senator Groccolo for the Yellows is still the effective Senator Majora and Merchant Prince, but no one's forgotten that big debacle with Mydas the Mean.  You don't lose that much gold to a defecting mercenary captain, and then come back with neither revenge nor the gold and with all your mercenaries irate and unpaid and hold power.  Not for long, anyway.  But Groccolo has clung on for this long, so what do I know?  The reds are the next strongest faction, but that just means the blue and green are positioned to form a sneaky coalition; and everyone's planning to prevent everyone else from doing everything.  Don't be shocked if a few older, too-loyal electors have suspicious deaths in the next six months; or if someone declares war on Pavona to try to induce a uniting crisis." 

As you begin to get tired and ready for bed, having talked and sipped at ale and done laps upstairs to check on Corvo all night, the tavern has a late arrival that quietens the patrons to a dull roar of muttering and conspiratorial questions.  Preceded by a pair of hard faced mercenary guards (of the Golden Gallants, infant) and followed by the same is a beautiful, elegant and mysterious woman.  She must be riding in an enclosed coach, for there is not a puff of trail dust on her sweeping blue gown or its exterior blue leather corset.  Blue gloves, blue shoes, and a necklace of lapis stones keep her image confined to the singular track of azure refinement; her dark hair swept up in a complicated fascinator behind her head.  A simple plaster mask, with a predictably blue glaze, covers her face from the point of her nose to the verge of her hair; though her lips are painted a contrasting ruby red, and cheeks powdered ethereally pale.  She has a quick word to Bolo, receives a key, and heads upstairs to her room while her guards retire to the table with their companion mercenaries.  Bolo cheerfully declines to answer questions about who she is -  "I can hardly say - and if someone were to come asking about you, Signorina Taalia, I'd tell them likewise I could hardly say."   But one of the stablehand, a fellow named Bennetto who keeps the horses here but also trades them to travellers as a side business, is a little more loose lipped.

 "Oh, I wouldn't know her.  No one would - that's the point of the masks.  The Courtesan Guilds hold a fair bit of power in Verezzo, I understand; Senators like to keep one on their arm as a matter of status, but the way I hear it, the whole thing's a racket by the Courtesan Guilds themselves. Blackmail and such.  But they don't take off the mask, where anyone can see them.  That way, it's much harder for one senator's wife or another to retaliate; or for an opponent to snatch them up when they're not suspecting and use them as a hostage in some way.  So the color outfit is just a show to match them to whomever they're attached to, at a given time; but the live a life with the mask on, and a different one with it off.  Sounds like an exciting life."   Then, awkwardly,  "...If I were born a woman, I mean."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

The bath was heaven. That's the best word Taalia could describe it: heaven. She lay there in the warm, beautifully just-hot-enough water with her head resting back, her feet poking out of the end, and her skin glistening in that soapy liquid. Sometimes she would draw a saturated hand out of the bath to pluck her pie off the table next to her so that she could take a greedy bite, chew, swallow, and then groan and sink further back into the bath in mind-numbing bliss.

 "When I have my own house, Corvo..."  she spoke gently, eyes closed, wagging her finger in the air dramatically,  "I'm getting a bath, and I'm going to use it once a week! Yes sirree..." 

Corvo, his eyes up at his barely visible master, exhaled and curled more onto his side, sleeping against the tiles while his mind drifted off to more entertaining things, like barking at storms and receiving pats.


 oOo 

Daniele da Floriglio watched with amusement as Taalia sat at their table, her face strained and her arm up on its elbow and in a position of disadvantage, while Bruno, the newest addition to his company and a kid from the outskirts of Verezzo, pushed down heavier and heavier upon the farmgirls hand in an arm wrestling match. The two competitors were roughly similar in age, though Taalia's height and clearly athletic disposition marked her as a candidate for the game of strength  and skill , the later part catching the novice completely off guard as Bruno had used both his arm  and  hand to bend her own back and then pull her arm towards him, immediately gaining advantage - and never lost it. Her face straining, her grip tight, Taalia was fighting a losing battle, her fist slowly, slowly drawing backwards until  bam!  the back of her hand impacted against the table, and the mercenaries about them cheered and hollered.

Bruno himself, though flush with victory, had clearly struggled, but had nevertheless earned his win.

Taalia, meanwhile, panted heavily, her chest heaving as she flicked her hand and laughed, processing everything that had happened, as Bruno looked up at her and made a 'gimmie' motion with his victorious hand.

"One silver, that was the wager!"

Taalia, grinning, panting, rolled her eyes in good humour and reached into her purse to retrieve the coin, and then slid it across the table to the eager kid, who promptly got up to go and get himself another drink.

"I'm next!" a feminine voice came from the side, as Taalia's head turned to look at the smirking, black-haired woman in waiting, her elbow already on the table, arm up.

"Bruno strengthens his arm through years of practice," with her free hand she made a 'jerking' motion, and the other mercs snickered at her crude humor. Taalia could see how a woman had fit in with a group of hard-drinking fighters: vulgar humour and spirit. Few women served in the front lines, but from the intelligent glean in the womans eye, she likely served with the pavise crossbowmen, or handling logistics with the baggage trains. Maybe?

Taalia laughed softly, shrugging, nodding, producing another silver and putting it on the table next to that of the mercs. She drew her hand up, elbow on the table, gripped the other womans hand and -

"Start!"

This time the ex-slave was ready. She'd learned from Bruno's technique and immediately applied pushed her hand forward and  pulled  towards herself. The black-haired woman, clearly not expecting it, was now in Taalia's position as before, slowly fighting a losing battle as she winced, grimaced and strained, while Taalia felt an adrenaline surge of victory as she pulled and pulled her opponents fist towards the table.

"C'arn Victoria, gunna let some farm girl beat you?" a watching Merc snickered, as Vic's face stared to redden. But inch by inch, her battle was lost, and Taalia pressed her hand down on the bench before throwing both her arms up.

 "I win!"  she exclaimed with a laugh, happily collecting the other womans silver.

"Boo! C'arn Vicky, what's going on?" the merc from before laughed and teased, as Victoria panted heavily, face reddened as she swivelled her head about.

"B!tch is stronger than she looks!" she pointed to Taalia, her tone exacerbated but still clearly in good humor.

"What are you wrestling the bulls into their pens or something?"

Taalia laughed and took another sip of her ale, the flush of fun running through her system as she turned to look at the quiet, muscular man sitting next to Daniele da Floriglio. He had been watching with a quiet dignity, taking regular but small sips from his flagon, but Taalia could see the well-muscled shoulders and arms though the linen of his jerkin. It was clear even when he was seated that he was a tall man, perhaps an inch taller than Taalia herself, with a chest crafted from labour and exercise and a pair of bright blue eyes that looked upon things as if he were an old, patient soul within the body of a man in his prime.

"You?" Taalia asked, feeling confident as she put another silver on the table.

The man smiled the type of smile only given by one who didn't feel he had anything to prove. He brought his hand up to give a gentle declining gesture, before taking another sip of his ale.

"Ohh, Mighty Gennaro, running from a challenge of strength from a farm girl half his age! Ba-haha!" Daniele da Floriglio laughed from beside him, giving the larger man a mocking nudge.

"He'd rather take her hand and walk her down by the lake and read her some poetry...mwah!" Victoria joined in, holding her hands together and making sappy, romantic gestures as the others snickered and laughed.

Gennaro, keeping with his apparent nature, just smirked and rolled his eyes with a "Fine," as he drew his large arm up on the table, a silver coin soon joining it.

Taalia, grinning like an excited schoolkid, put her wager upon the bench and drew herself up into position - arm out, her open, as both locked fists. She expected to lose, but if she could put up a good struggle then that would be a win in itself.

It'll never really be known if Taalia won fair and square, or if Gennaro  let  her win. But what was certain, was that once she gained that initial few-second start advantage of a bent wrist and pulling towards herself, Taalia had the momentum. For a moment it looked like Gennaro was struggling, flinching even with pursed lips that signified he was at least putting in effort, but as the mercs watched with wide eyes and bright grins, Taalia strained and grit her teeth as she brought that hand down onto the table - those watching laughing and taking swills.

 "Yes!!"  the farm-girl exclaimed, panting heavily, face red, a bead of sweat across her brow, chest heaving as she drew up her arms again in the flush of victory.

"Lost to a girl from the sticks!" Victoria laughed, teasing her bigger companion with a gentle elbow to the ribs.

Gennaro just smirked and brought the flagon to his lips, "As you said, girl must wrestle the bulls into the pen or something," then sipped, but not before giving Taalia a wink and a nod.


 oOo 

Seated across the messenger, Taalia listened and tried wrapping her head around the politics that had just been explained to her. She took note of things, tried to remember it all, but even after her excellent progress in six months she couldn't grasp everything. What she gathered was that the political situation in Verezzo was becoming tense, or at least had the possibility of breaking down in some type of struggle. Taalia did not know much about the specifics, but she knew what civil conflicts looked like: the Skaven engaged in them all the time. That moment she had to use the poison windglobe  against ratmen invading Rashabangs workshop sprung to mind.

But then she thought of something else - her gun and the 'bounty'.

 "I am new to the area, you'll have to forgive my ignorance,"  she said gently, offering her humility.

 "But when I was trading my fleece in the markets, I heard mention of the Damerino's family and that they are particularly wealthy. What is their role in all of this?" 
 oOo 
The beauty of the dark-haired womans clothes took Taalia in, and for the first time since the incident with Bella and Bert at her first harvest festival, Taalia felt jealously.

  'I wish I had clothes like that...'   she mewled in her mind, reassuring herself that one day, in twenty or thirty years when she had her own large farm and house full of kids, she would garb herself in a similarly elegant and beautiful fashion.

Hearing the stable-boys explanation and remembering the discussion that the 'blue' faction was a minority political faction, Taalia guessed that this masked member of the Courtesan Guilds was attached to a politician currently out of power. What was she doing all the way out here? Was she traveling  away  or  too  Verezzo? And why?

Taalia didn't know, but as she pursed her lips, maybe it was safer to keep her pretty head  out  of politics for now. She wasn't even twenty - these were adults with decades of wheeling and dealing under their belts. What, she sold a few sheep and fleeces and now she thought she could hang with the big boys? No no, Taalia checked her ego pretty quickly. People who thought like that back where she came from got that dome snipped off pretty quick. Let the politicians play their games, she'll stick to what she's interested in for now.

 oOo 

Taalia woke up the next day with a bright smile. Though the natural vigor of youth would have surely protected her from a hang-over, Taalia had taken that extra step and had only taken in one flagon per hour. She had learned a harsh lesson from the whiskey she had brought months before: pace yourself in moderation with liquor and you'll be fine. Be a greedy guts and...well. Some groans emanated in through the walls from other rooms as an exhibit of what happened to those who were not so frugal.

Getting dressed, accounting  all  of her items and letting Corvo out for a run before giving him breakfast, Taalia went and squared things with the proprietor of the The Pigly.

 "Thank you so much, I had a wonderful time!"  she exclaimed to the halfling before paying a silver for breakfast.

 "You have a wonderful job! Meeting so many interesting people every day, your home always full of warmth!" 

It wasn't long until Jezebella was saddled once more and Taalia drew herself up into position. With Corvo trotting alongside, her shield on her back, her sword in its scabbard and staff tucked away by some straps on the saddle, Taalia bid farewell to any of the prior nights patrons she had encountered and then departed towards Verezzo, the crisp morning air fresh in her lungs.
MrAbdiel
 Caesa di Silo was a revelation to you; your vague memories of your home village with the apple tree and the Norscan settlement where you briefly served did not match that size of massed humanity.  And ordered, and living together...  well , all things considered.   A handsome wall to protect it from enemies, and a rich season of commerce around it; a tolerably competent city watch.  But it was nothing like Verezzo.

Where the community of Bella Collina might total a hundred people, and the town of Caesa di Silo was several hundred, you would later learn that Verrezzo and its immediate surrounds were home to between thirty and forty  thousand .  This is a size of number you had previously have very little use for in Tilean.

The city is build in the middle of a grand plain of grainland that must be like a golden halo around its walls when ready for harvest.  Now, the half-grown green shoots at a distance are almost indistinguishable from a great ocean of green grass, which only exacerbates the city's singularness.  It is built on the only portion of raised ground for what must be miles, with any hills and dips in the earth smoothed out over hundreds of years of plowing and fallow.  Its walls are fantastically high, with six imposing bastions forming corners on the hexagon of walls. As you emerge from the last swathe of forest on the back of your borrowed horse, you look down and realized the road has straightened and widened imperceptibly on your way here.  Now it's a long, straight run to the city with plenty of room for the wagons a hundred yards ahead of you to  proceed without deviation as the knights come by the other way.  The knights are fantastic, too; their warhorses are huge, like none you've seen; and the horses are armored like their riders in mirror-polished steel armor with brass trim and Myrmidian sun motifs.  The company of thirty of them canter by you at no hurry, all of them grown and strong men with impressive curled moustaches and firmness in their features that suggest no fear at all of what the roads, and the forest, and the world beyond have for them.  They glance at the conspiciously tall girl riding alone with her dog, as they go; some of them lift hands to touch the visors of their helms, in salute.  One, an older knight with scars much like yours raked over a pale blinded eye, must notice your marks, and gives you an avuncular wink as he passes by.

The main gate is huge, flanked by two proud perching lion statues carved from stone, each perhaps twenty feet tall.  The way is guarded by not rural constables with tin hats but professional mercenaries with halberds, breastplates, and white sashes.  They hit you with a fee for coming into the city, but regard you with very little suspicion at all; they pay much more attention to armed men and those with wagons potentially smuggling something that a lone rider and her dog.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Knock off another 5p for the gate fee, rider!
 


Inside the gate, you find your experience changes immediately.  The buildings are mostly beautiful, with baked brick foundations and whitewashed plaster exteriors; but they are all so tall!  Three, some four or even five stories tall, and the streets are too narrow - which is probably why everyone has had to build so tall.  There's also an intensity of smell that isn't present in the countryside, or in small towns; the cramped confines of humanity and their various leavings hanging still in the air.  But after an initial wave, your nostrils, hardened by life in the skaven warrens and perfected by manually scrubbing away troll-funk, incorporate it into the ignorable olfactory background.

It's a riot of color; some buildings openly display their senatorial allegiances with splashes of paint or floral arrangements, and the wealthier people look the more of the allegiant colors they display.  But even most of the typical citizens, kicking about in their scrappy work clothes or functional rags, are adorned somewhere with a pinned color ribbon or a flower behind the ear.  The problem here, in a place so huge and busy, is not that you won't find what you're looking for in a lack; it's finding what you're looking for in such a profusion of distractions and options it could be easy to be bamboozled, or get lost, or while the day away gazing in wonderment at the displays of public art and end up forgetting that you ought to find somewhere to stay the night!

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Options! 
Welcome to Verezzo.  What's your agenda?  You've arrived in the afternoon, with an hour or so before dusk!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 
  Verezzo 
  
Apples. What was it about the fist-sized, deliciously sweet fruit that kept tugging at unseen strings within her brain? Why was it every time she encountered an orchard or singular piece, some long-buried memory was exhumed as fragments and drawn past her minds-eye in an almost tauntingly vague and teasing manner. Apples, pies, orchards...Taalia could not get the images out of her head while her body gently rocked back and forth atop  Jezebella  as the road passed by them, mile after mile, before eventually Taalia found her stream of consciousness drifting.

Indeed, the closer Taalia drew to her destination, the further the excitement grew within her chest. She had never seen a human  city  before, and only had the assurances of more travelled and worldly men of the wealth and people to be found within them - but never had she witnessed one herself. Sure she had beheld the various pits the Skaven "constructed" and passed off for cities, but those weren't for lack of size. No, indeed, they festered and grew like tumors in the bowels of the earth, eating away at the immediate resources before the Skaven turned on and consumed each other just to cull a few generations away to make room for the next fetid tide of rats. No no, when one said 'city', Taalia imagined an enormous lifeform with a character of its own, something  alive . As it turns out, she would not be disappointed.

When she first emerged onto the plains and bore witness to the pyres of Verezzo reaching out of the ground ahead of her, the ex-slave had to halt her mount and simply...take it in. Her heterochromia eyes widened, her jaw dropped as she gaped and witnessed in utter amazement at the sight before her. Even from here she could spot the architecture of the walls and buildings, the bas-reliefs and statues, the odiferous melange that wafted out of the city...some of it laced with food and perfumes, other elements...eh better off ignored. But nevertheless, there before her was a sprawling bastion of humanity among the beautiful golden plains. Was that pride swelling within her? It was possible. Taalia took time enough to simply savour the beautiful sight that almost inspired her to learn how to paint, just so that she may capture a fragment of its captivating beauty for future generations to cleave unto them and understand her astonishment. But! Such artistic flights of fantasy were not to be. She had a purpose here beyond sight-seeing. Even as she passed the smart and handsome looking knights in their well-maintained armour, the teenage smiled and returned the little salutes when they were offered, while the older man, brandishing a disfigurement that mirrored her own, received a bright, knowing smile and nod of her head.

Retrieving the rope-leash the boys had made for her to restrain Corvo's young adult instincts, Taalia lowered the hoop down around her pets neck and drew it comfortably tight around the hound to ensure he remained by her side during the next couple of hours. It wouldn't do to have the excitable dog run off into the crowd chasing some flight of fantasy that caught his attention.

 "Shall we go?"  she asked down to her pet with a bright grin, before clicking her tongue to compel  Jezebella  forward at a gentle trot.

Paying the guards their due and offering no problems, Taalia emerged into her first, bona fide  city , human city that is, one where the buildings were enormous and the crowds were thick, but all of the inhabitants at least looked similar to her in some capacity instead of disgusting walking rats. Though judging by some of the smells wafting out of the less reputable looking alleys, Taalia wouldn't be surprised.

But - pish and tish! The girl somehow re-experienced her prior awe that had apprehended her mind on the outskirts and insisted she behold the visual beauty of Verezzo, only this time it was from within the walls. Streets, though narrow, stretched off in every direction, a throng of humanity and human-like inhabitants going about their business in a variety of clothes and garments that marked a rich diversity of social classes. Market stalls commonly lined the streets, while signs hung above open doors with name of the establishment within brandished upon the worked wood that marked businesses of all varieties, from taverns to tailors, workshops to jewellers. But though the wall of odours and visual stimuli threatened to momentarily rob Taalia of her reason, it was the  sounds  that were the most compressing element of a city that the girl had not been anticipating. Shouts, yells, cries of advertisement, bartering and haggling unfolding in every direction and simple conversation, flirting and laughter. It seemed like the entirety of Bella Collina's harvest festival occured within the space of a few seconds only to be distilled into a pure form to be poured into Taalia's ears, as the girl's exceptional audible sensitivity at first struggled with the veritable wall of sounds enveloping her. But, tugged between being awed and overwhelmed, the ex-slave pushed herself through, that bright smile on her face, and a pottery merchant stuck behind her on his cart shouting obscenities at her to move her arse.

Giggling a little and waving the man off, Taalia kept atop her horse and moved onwards, Corvo's leash in one hand, the reigns to her steed in the other, as the ex-slave went forth into the great big city!

ooc:
 
 Spoiler 

See OOC for items on her agenda.

Though her main goals for today, given it's an hour before dusk, is to a) find a good place to stay with a private room and stabling, and scope out a credit union she can open an account with and deposit money into.
 
MrAbdiel
  
 Spoiler: Back at the Pigly... 
The middle aged messenger woman, Galiana, listens to your question about the 'Damerino' family.  As she complete the query, the corner of her mouth is curling a little suggesting she knows something funny that you don't; but she brings you in on the joke soon enough.

 "Oh, the  damerino's  are wealthy indeed, almost as a rule.  Hah - your Tilean is very good, Taalia; I could barely detect any curl to your words at all, so much that I didn't trust my guess until just now.  What's that accent... Arabyan, maybe?  But you're a little pale for that... But a  damerino  is just a man who cads about with no sense of responsibility or the cares that those who must eat by their sweat endure.  A dandy; a toff, if you will.  It's a... mild insult.  But you'd have to be richer thabn me, to get around to taking offense!" 
 


You wander the streets and take in the sights, and sounds, and smells of Verezzo.  This first area, appropriately called the  Quartiere della Porta , has numerous taverns and inns, guard posts and shops.  Asking about, you find that it's prohibited to set up stalls and stores in the already narrow streets; but the traffic in the area makes the opportunity too good to ignore, and enterprising merchants and dealers find ways around it.  Pedlars are forbidden to carry more goods than they can ferry about in a single wooden tub.  Naturally, this rapidly invited an escalation of the sizes of tubs and techniques to carry them, which have been standardized; and those tubs are rented from the town Watch station for pennies a day.  Storefronts on the ground floor seem older, more established, and probably more expensive and desirable as property.  But the floors above them sometimes have services to offer, too; and they have to work harder to get the attention of the public while the gleaming halberdiers chase off hawkers and drive off pedlars who linger too long in  Quartiere della Porta .  Many of the elevated stores have elaborate painted advertisements on their lifted storefront, with simple words like 'FORMAGGIO' next to a painting of a large wheel of cheese, or 'PELLICCE' next to a bear hide staked into the bricks, weathered and tatty from the open elements.  On one third story balcony, looming over the road below, a husband, wife and daughter team work a swift and efficient operation selling their particular brand of street food.  In the window of their storefront, the man works a large sizzling pan stirring about diced potato and chopped herbs and fine shreds of bacon.  The girl, crouching on some kind of scaffold or ladder behind his cook station, waves a broad fan made of fabric and wooden slats to blow the fragrance of operation down to the street below.  When some passing mercenary or merchant is snared by the smell of it and has three copper to spare, they wave from where they are in the street, call out  'Patata!'  with three coins pinched in their fingers held high, and are soon attended by a scrappy urchin made presentable by the addition of a green vest.  The wife, on the balcony with a worktable infront of her, sees the urchin wave by the customer; she takes a hard crusted bread roll, cuts a 'lid' in it and pulls out its soft interior, fills it with fried and bacon'd potato cubes before finally lidding it again and wrapping it in a square of sack cloth tied up at the top with a bow of twine.  This whole operation takes about six seconds.  Then she simply drops the parcel over the edge of the bacon, where you see a half dozen kids leap into the air, arms extended to grab it; but the tallest, fastest and most dextrous children are the ones given the work, so a green-vested champion snatches it from the air and flings it across the street to another of their team of culinary athletes.  With a network of eight or ten hardworking runner-jumper-throwers and two to five passes per delivery, the  patata  reaches its target anywhere within earshot where it could be ordered, pays their immediate provider, and goes on their way either eating the potato pieces out of the break husk with their fingers or, if they're sophisticates, using the roll's lid as a kind of shovel.

Less savory, but no less hard working operations go on in the district, also.  It's illegal for a tavern to be run above the first floor (too many accidents), but of the three taverns you spot in the  Quartiere della Porta , two of them have painted murals of prowling housecats on their second stories, and a pair of powdered, corseted, and typically ample women cooing to the passing visitors and soldiers.  When they attract the interest of a patron, a young girl or boy earns their pay by tossing down a rope ladder so the intruiged party can climb up, and the ladder is pulled up after them before they vanish inside.  It's not difficult to guess what these women are selling, for someone with your cunning; but you note they these ladies are not masked, and not at all as refined as the woman in blue back at the Pigly.  These  gatte  are not the same as the masked  cortigiana , for sure.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: If you buy a Patata for 3p... 
...The urchin who attends you hasn't clocked your height until he is standing right beside you, and stares up at you in such befuddlement that when your  'patata'  arrives, it boffs into his chest and he has to catch it at a scramble before it hits the ground.   "You're very tall, signorina!"   He states this quite plainly, impressed, as you pass him the coins.  But within moments, there's someone else nearby calling for his services.   "If you did this job, you wouldn't even have to jump!"   Then he's off, providing his critical service to the community to one hungry mercenary or another.  The food is pretty good; the potato pieces have softened on the interior nicely and crisped in the sizzling olive oil; the excess of which has soaked into the bread roll so that eating even the vessel of the dish is a pleasant experience.
 


You settle on the tavern without the cathouse above it, and find  The Lucky Duck  to be cramped, but agreeable enough.  It does not have the spacious, jovial charm of the  Pigly ; it cannot afford to, and as a tavern, most of its space is given up on the ground floor to a bar full of mostly solitary male travellers drinking alone.  The proprietress does have a room for you, though:

 "Ten scellini for a private room, signorina; and ten rami to house and feed the horse.  And, uh..."   She eyes Corvo, frowning a little, clearly imagining what such a beast if turning out to be poorly trained could do to a room.   "Three more rami for the hound to stay in the room with you."   This last feel feels arbitrary, and you see some room to negotiate.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Haggling. 
A haggle roll at a mere +10 to get this tavernkeeper to waive her confected 'dog' fee of 3p, though she won't budge on the other 10s10p for you and Jezzabella.
 No reputation bonus out here, I'm afraid; the legend of Taalia Trollslayer ain't so impressive in the big smoke.

Also, if you didn't buy a patata, you still gotta eat!  The Lucky Duck will sell meals this late, but only poor meals for 1p.
 


It's some work to get Corvo to the room.  The tavern's rooms are on the floor above, but they are not permitted to have the second floor connected to the drink-selling lower floor.  Instead, the private rooms on the second floor have a rope ladder like many other businesses, and the operation to calm Corvo enough to be put into a sack that is then hoisted up slowly parallel to you climbing to console him... Well, it's free entertainment for some folk in the street, who bray with laughter at your and Corvo's expense on your way up.  But when he's up and over on to the balcony, the mockery turns into a loose cheer and scatter of applause; the praise and scorn of the crowd a fickle thing indeed.

The floor above has just eight small rooms very simply furnished, and a small interior space before the balcony with a table and two old chairs.  One is occupied by a girl not much older than yourself; pretty but tired with bags under her pale grey eyes, yellow hair, and pale skin; though her fingers are stained black from her current task.  She dominates most of the table with an ink pot and quills, a sheet of parchment on which she currently draws, a scrollcase, brass instruments of measurement and marking.  She takes a break from her work to help you and Corvo up to the floor, apparently doing some side work for the  Lucky Duck  doing ladder throw-down-pull-up duty.  She introduces herself to you as Sapienza da Larimo but, when it would normally be appropriate for young ladies meeting in Tilea to clasp each other's hands gently, she raises her darkened fingers and offers a wincing smile of apology.

 "I don't suppose you'd be interested in a map of the city districts?  Only five scellini.  They're loose maps - they don't include all the alleys, but they have all the main streets and districts.  Only three scellini, if you don't need the lettering."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia 
 
 Spoiler: Back in the Pigly... 


Taalia smiled politely and nodded at the compliment.

 "Thank you, Tilean is actually my second language,"  she nodded, before listening to the messengers 'information' about the Damerino's...which turned out to not be much.

 "Are they...known for being up front, honest enough...or a herd of bastards, something in between?" 
 


Taalia had enjoyed her gentle canter through the market avenues, as the dusking sun washed its beautiful amber through the narrow corridors of commerce and human traffic. The new food that she tried, the large bread bun containing potato and bacon, was absolutely beautiful! A true simple, hearty dish that would have really hit the spot a few times while watching her flock...if Ariana's masterful cooking hadn't already been magnificent in itself!

Failing to haggle down the price of Corvo staying in her room, Taalia accepted defeat and took to ascending to the second floor in the most awkward spectacle she had ever participated in. Her growing, large dog was instinctually anathema to remaining confined within a potato sack so that it could be carried out, its yelping and struggling causing all sorts of chaos with Taalia's attempt to sooth her pet. And when the small crowd looked on, snickering and laughing, Taalia was initially annoyed, her resentment brewing as her dog refused to heed even the most straight forward and simple obligations she gestured and attempted. One such occasion came when she was trying to stuff her dog in hind-quarters first into the sack, but Corvo had other ideas as she writhed and wriggled mightily, Taalia's narrow-eyed, lip-curled string of expletives arousing a laughter from the few who stopped to watch this towering girl's impromptu comedic act with her canine. But soon she had an idea - Corvo didn't actually  need  to get in the sack.

Stepping into the bag herself, then reaching down and snatching Corvo up in her arms like a groom would his new bride, Taalia 'rode' in the bag as she was hauled upwards towards that balcony, a bright, satisfied grin across her face as the cheered now laughed  with  her instead of  at  her. When she took that first step onto the floor above, those who were watching laughed and clapped, cheering at these unusual things as people often do, as Taalia let her pet down, turned to the crowd below, took off her hat and held it at her midsection as she bowed and blew kisses.

Meeting the other girl attached to her  private  room, Taalia offered a friendly greeting and - mimicking what she had seen others do - took off her hat and offered a little bow. Even though it was a masculine greeting, it sort of fit the towering, athletic girl.

 "I am Taalia!"  she introduced herself with a bright smile.

 "Are you are..."  Taalia thought of the word, biting her bottom lip,  "...cartographer, is it? Do you live here or traveling through?" 

Approaching the girl, Corvo entering Taalia's room and circling about with his nose drag-net-huffing in all the scents he could, the farm girl considered the shorter woman before her.

 "Are they accurate?"  she asked, tilting her head to peer over at them.

 "Because if I'm late for an appointment or your map leads me down an... unpleasant  alley, I would not be too happy." 
MrAbdiel
  
 Spoiler: Back a the Pigly... 
Galiana laughs, and waves a hand infront of her face as if silently begging to forgive the laughter as she regains herself.

 "No, no, Taalia; forgive me, I'm not being clear.  There is no damerino family.  'Damerino' is just a rude name to call someone with money who you think doesn't deserve it.  If you heard someone complaining about the 'damerinos' being very wealthy, they were probably griping about the plight of the poor, in contrast to the merchant princes in total, not naming a particular family!" 
 


Sapienza blinks, and looks down at the map she's currently drawing, and then back up at you with puzzlement; keeping an eye on Corvo from time today as he pads around the floor and gives each of the doors to the private rooms an inquisitive  sneef-sneef. 
 "I don't think I'd last long here if they weren't.  Like I said, they're not complete; they don't have all the lanes and alleys marked.  A complete map would cost you maybe five or ten gold pieces, but I'm not -"   She pauses to carefully parse her words.  "...Not... making those right now.  If you just want to make sure you don't get lost looking for the different districts or finding your way back to the gate without getting pinged over and over with gate tolls going from one to the other.  But I've been here in Verezzo for a while doing this - where is your appointment?  Maybe I can point you in the right direction."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia 
 
 Spoiler: Back at The Pigly... 
Taalia's face looked as if she had just received revelation.

 "Ohhh..."  she uttered in understanding, her eyes zoning out for a second as it became clear she now had  no  lead on who the gun had belonged to, and from whom it was stolen, except that there was a bounty on it.

Imagine if she had gone looking for the "Damerino's" in Verezzo. What an arse she'd make of herself!

 "You don't know it yet, but you just saved me a  whole  lot of trouble!"  Taalia laughed, happily getting another drink for the woman.
 

 oOo 

Taalia considered the girls proposal. Her face wasn't one of lethal suspicion, more like a big sister considering the words of a younger sibling and judging whether they were being pranked or not.

 "Very well,"  she finally acquiesed, withdrawing three silver coins from her 'silver' pouch (as not to reveal to strangers just how much money she had on herself, and where).

Handing the currency over to the girl, Taalia received her item and looked over it. Holding the map out, she received a few pointers to help gauge her current position. This allowed her to mentally plan out the next day.

Nodding,  "Thank you, Sapienza,"  she said, her tone more gentle now rather than cautious.
 
"If you would be so kind, please point out the best district for banks or credit unions, and where a girl can buy some clothes..." 
 oOo 
Taalia awoke early the next day, as she always did. Being a country girl and former slave, 5-6am was the typical hour of her awakening, and the girl set about clothing herself for the long day ahead. With her map in hand, she planned out the best route and made sure to memorise land-marks to make navigation easier, having made several of her own notes upon the parchment she held before her.

The agenda for today?

1. A merchant bank. One whose credit slips could be legal tender in Bella Collina, at least.

2. The Bounty Hunters Guild. She was sure that such a station would have posters, flyers, pamphlets and advertisements for current bounties, large and small, offered by the denizens of Verezzo. If there was a bounty on the pistol, she'd see it there, and thus would know who posted it and how to contact them or where to find their house to do so directly. Plus she could see how large the reward was.

3. A market district specialising in textiles and clothing. Using her information Sapienza had told her the night before, Taalia was going to sell the remainder of that chests contents in this region. She might have to check with the Watch and hire one of their 'tubs', as it were. Taalia didn't want to go outside the law, after all. And once she  had  sold those wares, it was back to the bank for deposit, but naturally keeping a couple of coins for her expenses.

With her plan in place, Taalia nodded to herself. Dressed for the day and ready for action, she stopped by the kitchen of the Inn to acquire a hearty breakfast before entering the stable to awaken her beautiful horse and set to it!
MrAbdiel
  "Certainly.  Here, I've used these symbols here to mark certain sites - and over on the side, this is called a key, because it..." 

She goes over the map with you, producing a scrolled copy of it from her things and happily providing it; taking your coins and putting them in a small carved wooden box.

 
 Spoiler: Points of Interest 
The city is divided into six segments, called  Quartiere ; either because the north and south gate districts weren't originally considered 'real' districts, or because the use of the word is not meant to specifically imply four sections, but rather just segmentation.

 Quartiere della Porta , or more properly Quartiere della Porta a Sud, is the main entrance on the southern face of the city.  If one imagines Verezzo topdown as a clockface, it's at six o'clock.

Points of Interest:
- Shrine of Fury
- Order Hall of the Knights of the Blazing Sun
- Alcatani Fellowship Chapter Hall
- Hall of Hired Blades

 Quartiere del Bue , the Ox Quarter, is not known for a brisk beef trade.  It is a euphemism for the respectable, hard working qualities of the people who live there.  That, too, is a euphemism: it is the region of the city where the poorest folk who can afford lodgings at all dwell; and between those lodgings on the street dwell more people still.  If the south gate is six o'clock, this quarter is eight o'clock.

Points of Interest:
- Sanitorium of Shallya
- The Petty Markets
- Shrine of Tyleus
- Fountain of Beggars
- The  Seven Signorine  Theatre

 Quartiere degli Dei , the Gods' Quarter, is a quarter of moderate wealth which peaks in islands of opulence around the holy places in the district.  It is at ten o'clock, on the Verezzo clockface.

Points of Interest:
- 'The Five Graces' (famous sculpture)
- Temple of Ishea and Karnas
- Temple of Shallya
- Temple of Verena
- Temple of Morr
- Temple of Clio
- Academy of Empirics

 Quartiere della Porta a Nord  is the gate district on the north side of town; though the gate it corresponds to is a tunnel through the thick wall with two large double doors at either end and several porticculli within.  It is accessible and guarded during the day, but coaches and wagons would have a hard time making it through and are expected to exit and enter only via the south gate.  It is twelve o'clock, on the Verezzo clockface.

Points of Interest:
- Karaz Verezzo (Little Dwarftown)
- The Leaning Tower of Verezzo
- House of Mysteries

 Quartiere del Leone  is the wealthiest quarter of the city, named for the city's majestic icon, the lion, whose likeness is apparently the giant cats you saw outside the gate. It is two o'clock, on the Verezzo clockface.

Points of Interest:
- Senate House
- The Way of Muses (street of museums and galleries)
- Temple of Scripsisti
- The People's Gardens
- The Bronze War (public art display)
- The People's Opera House

 Quartiere dei Mercanti  is the merchant quarter, and mostly self explanatory.  The bulk of trade happens here, except livestock and large scale produce sales which usually happen outside the walls to prevent everyone involved being taxed over and over for bringing the goods in and out.  It is four o'clock, on the Verezzo clockface.

Points of Interest:
- Temple of Mercopio
- The Grand Markets
- Signore Sensazione's Zoo of Wonders
- Lenders Guildrow
- Road of Excellence (Crafter's Guilds)
 


Sapienza seems to be doing her best to advise you, inasmuch as you can trust that.

"For banks, there's two options.  Well, there's more than that, but really you have the Lender's Guilds, which are the banks; or if you're a charmer, you can try your luck with the dwarves up in Karak Verezzo.  In my experience, dwarves are less likely to take your money and skip town; but they're tight-fisted with interest."

"Bounty hunters are just mercenaries with a small scope; you'll be looking to the Hall of Hired Blades for such.  Good drinks there, too."

"And markets, you have a few options.  People are trying to buy and sell their things everywhere.  The main concentration of peddling individual items, fast sales for desperate cash, happen in  Quartiere della Porta , as I'm sure you've seen.  But the major selling and buying goes on in the Petty and Grand markets.  If it's worth more than ten  duro , I'd look at the Grand Markets.  You can find such things at the Petty Markets too, but you're more likely to get ripped off.  Or you could check out the Road of Excellence, for custom orders.  A woman of your uncommon height might benefit from a measurement and make-to-order."

 "The important thing to remember is whenever you cross from one  Quartiere  to an adjacent one, you'll pay two penny gate fee; and there's no cutting through Castle Verezzo in the middle, so you have to work your way around the circle.  So it's worth having a map, and knowing where you're going!"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Today, Taalia wore her  good  clothing that Bella had given her and she had applied some cosmetics. Alongside her horse, dog and weapons, she appeared as a trustworthy young lady of sales.


 Karak Verezzo 

Taalia trotted along gently on  Jezebella  as she entered the dwarven district of Verezzo. If she had felt tall among her own kind, here she felt like a giant, as the busy street and clean alleyways became littered with people barely up to Taalia's abdomen. But it was cute in a way. She had only met Nogram as her sole dwarven representative, the unfortunately slaves that ended up in the Skaven's hands not-withstanding. Those couldn't be said to be real interactions, as such poor wretches quickly went mad from the conditions. But if those paltry examples, Nograms character and word-of-mouth was anything to go by, the dwarves were stubbon, but she believed would play straight with her.

It's not that she didn't trust her own kind. She did. She was sure there were honest banks in the Lenders Guild, but the problem was finding them. And such sifting would occur with Sapienza's warning in the back of her mind: less likely to skip town with her money.

No no, tight fisted with interest rates Taalia could deal with. Indeed, it lent a degree of structure and certainty to things if she knew how much she owed, or how much she  was  owed, and that the agents of such promises stuck to their ledgers and numbers.

Speaking with several passer-bys to get directions, Taalia soon discovered the location of a bank, that glimmering reassurance of protection for her future riches.

Dismounting her horse, and being one of the few humans around, Taalia set her dog and horse to tether and entered the building.

 Quartiere dei Mercanti - the Grand Market
 


Taalia walked alongside  Jezebella , the reins to her horse and the leash to her dog clasped in her right hand was well as the handle of the wheelburrow she had 'rented' from the watchmen for just this purpose. Arrayed on the flat opening of the tub was the items she had on offer today:

Hat, Perfume, Cloak, Best Clothes and a Disguise Kit.


All in all an wonderful haul for an entertainer, a bored young merchants daughter, or any other sort who wanted a nearly complete set of excellent clothing, and the means of disguising any particular facial shortcomings they believed they possessed.


 Quartiere della Porta - The Hall of Hired Blades 


Taalia was atop her horse once more as she entered the Hall of Hired Blades. Tilea was famed for its mercenaries, and entering this realm one could see why, as a veritable menagerie of fighters or agents were available, from lowly street toughs to professional knights polishing their armor and sharing battle stories amidst their clusters.

But, Taalia wasn't here to find a hired arm. She need to trace something instead!

Tethering her horse and hound outside of the hall, Taalia entered and observed for the closest thing to a clerk or host. When she found them, she would approach, smiling, friendly, only her height and athletic disposition marking her out as a potential candidate for this type of life.

 "Dear Singore,"  she would start,  "I am looking for the notice boards of lost or stolen property. I had a ring stolen from me recently, and I was interested in posting a bounty for its return. Is there an area where such advertisements are displayed?" 
MrAbdiel
  
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Your projected route will take you 'counter clockwise'.  Your first stop is in the same quarter as the Lucky Duck, so it's natural to do that first; then to the Merchant quarter to shop, then you'll have to pass  through  the Lion Quarter to get to the North Gate quarter.  So three gate fees going north, and then another three coming back in the evening for a total of 12p expenses taking gates.  With that in mind, whatever you choose to be your fourth 'event' of the day, can be from anywhere, since you need to come the longest distance back to the South Gate to get back to the Lucky Duck anyway (unless you want to try your luck finding another lodging elsewhere in the city).  If you prefer, we can tally up your accrued daily expenses at the end of the day, since you're not in danger of running out of money right now; so we don't have to literally nickle and dime you.
 

  Quartiere della Porta  - The Hall of Hired Blades 

The Hall of Hired Blades is a huge circular stone building with a magnificent white dome topping it; a bronze statue of Myrmidia in stride bounding skyward from its very topmost portion.  You wonder how men can build such things - does the dome not just collapse inward, partway through the construction, as the mortar fails to hold?  Apparently not.  And inside, it is not without a certain air of sublimity.  The interior of that dome is studded with what first seems to be tiles in some kind of mosaic, but upon later examination seems to be tiles  each of which has a single coin baked into its centre , before a glaze has been applied to its ceramic majority.  The ceiling is tall, but even eyes less keen than yours could see that the coins vary in metal, shape, and size - currency from all over the world, all of it the blood money of some old soldier of fortune, tiling the interior of the dome.  The interior of the hall is a hive of activity, with tables and benches scattered around and all sorts gathered at them - weird and wonderful soldiers of fortune of many stripes, though not whole units or regiments but single representatives of pairs, often with smaller, uniformed members of the Clerk's guild on hand to mediate the numismatic portion of a discussion.  Distinct from these groups, who are known by their professionalism and uniforms and sense of prideful presentation, are three other kinds of folk who populate the Hall.  The first are the kinds of knaves and ne'erdowells that other nations would call  freebooters ; what some call more generously  adventurers .  These twos, threes and fours are distinct because of their total lack of uniformity; scruffy bands of bone-pickers, beggars and failing students who have managed to arm themselves and seek fortune and glory as an alternative to their middling lives.  These are the lowest of the low; they are not often consulted directly either by the mercenaries or those courting them, but do sometimes attend the wooden boards at the edges of the hall with postings nailed to them, usually to ask someone to read something to them.  Next are the knights of orders; distinct from the mercenary knights who mill with the other soldiers of fortune.  Knights of orders are like those you saw riding out from Verezzo as you came in; knights devoted to a fraternity, and devoted to some god or principle.  They do not seem to get along well with the mercenaries, especially those with the blazing sun motif like those you've seen.  You can't imagine why - they all seem to revere Myrmidia.  Why would they be less favoured?  Only a dedicated effort to  gossip  on the subject may discover the answer.  The final group that fills the place are musicians, of which there is a number sufficient to make a small orchestra.  They have violins and violas, snares and cymbals, flutes and other instruments of wind you have never seen; but they do not assemble and play together. Rather, they loiter about in chatty clumps until a mercenary representative and their usually incognito hirer reach a tenatative agreement, and  need to further their discussions in private. The merc will toss one of the musicians a silver piece, and the happy player will follow them to one of the dozens of curtained booths rimming the hall's inner wall.  There, when the curtain closes leaving them outside while their employers are within, they will strike up and loudly play a song of their choosing or one selected for them, sufficiently loud to make casual eavesdropping on the curtain behind them all but impossible.  This means that as the day goes on and business becomes more earnest, the sounds of clashing disharmony is likely to become cacophonous; though while you are there, when the muddle of melodies is particularly onerous to the ears, an older gentleman stands up on a table and, with cane in hand and calling out notes to those players in actions, corrals them into a harmonious musical unit as effectively as you have seen Rocco drive your scattered sheep into a neat train for return to their pen.

There are lesser amenities available also; two seperate vendors are selling beverages, giving the hall a faint  tavern  smell; readers stand by notice boards with job and information postings, mostly to serve the filthy, filthy adventurers; and, as you had hoped, a kiosk manned by a helpful woman about twice your age, with her dark hair coiled up on the top of her head and a room behind her full of ledgers, journals and posters.  One of the knights in dark armor, who is taller than you but with a strangely high voice for such a stature, politely directs you to this woman he tells you is  Amelia , with whom you are able to raise questions.   "Buongiorno, signorina.  Are you looking to make a bounty posting?" 
 Quartiere dei Mercanti -  The Grand Market  

What a host of wealth!  Tents and pavilions, stalls and tables sprawl out in a grand open plaza broken up only by three tall, roughly equidistant trees; a willow, an oak, and a pine, by which folk are able to navigate and give bearings to other shoppers.  On the outskirts of these tremendous embarrassment of options, which include wonderful clothing and incredible jewelry and weapons on display by dwarven craftsmen that are more  art  than killing tool, are others like you; enterprising, mostly young folks with tubs and carts trying to sell their small wares to customers with more than two coins to rub together.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Hagglin' Time! 
Give me a Haggle Roll for each of them, to convince buyers to pay full price for your tub-wares rather than buying from the big vendors. The mom'n'pop shop dilemna!

The good news is I'll give you +20% on these rolls because of the market's size, on this first attempt; and a +10% instead on subsequent days trying to find buyers if you miss the mark and want to try for full money later.
 Depending on how much you miss (or pass) by, I'll make offers for each item.
 

 Quartiere della Porta a Nord -  Karak Verezzo  

You might have thought dwarves would build to scale for themselves, and that you would have to crouch to get in their tiny doors; but the buildings, which are distinctly dwarven in style in contrast to those around them, are perfectly tall enough for your liking, even giving your head more clearance as you pass through a stone threshold than you are used to.  What is suggested to be the dwarven  bank  is more like a dwarf  banking operation .  You don't see what you had thought might be in a bank - piles of gold, or a big vault where such should be.  It's barely big enough to be a shop front; an older dwarf with a bald head and a handsomely braided grey beard looks up at you from a counter at the back of the room, and narrows his eyes suspiciously.  His helper is a blond bearded dwarf who you  think  is a dwarven youngster; though he has a beard as thick as an adult human man, so it's hard to tell.  His rosey cheeks, and the brightness of his eyes as he looks from a heavy ledger to you, suggest your instinct may be correct.

 "Oi, now girl;  ah fear ye've wandered intae the wrong shoppe, ah fear, ah fear."  The older dwarf offers this gently, firmly, judgementally, raising a hand slightly as he does as if tae suggest you've come far enough.   "'Tis nae place tae buy a bangle, or a feather pin; unless ye mean tae dou the business of money-change, which ah can dou fer ye fer a modest fee."  
MrAbdiel
 You are well presented; and that puts you above many of the tub-shufflers out here trying to offload their wares.

A cheerful, lithe dilettante strutting about in her masculine leather pants and high buttoned doublette, upon seeing how fair you look in your dress with a shield and sword strapped to your back all the same, is convinced to give dresses another chance.

She is willing to buy the  Best Quality Clothes  from you for  12 gold  duri  .  Pushing your luck to try to fob off the matching cloak and hat, she'll take the  Cloak  for a further  5 gold  duri  ; but only if you throw in the  Wide-Brimmed Hat , for free.

A comically thin dandy - a true  damerino  - who owns one of the cathouses in the southgate district overshares how good it is to have little things like fragrances and facial props, for the specific requests of certain clientele.  He's willing to buy the  Perfume  and the  Disguise Kit  for  6  duri  ; with a further five  scellini  in it for you if you are willing to have them wrapped in green-dyed parchment (and operation that will itself cost two  scellini  which he will forpay) and deliver it to him personally at his business,  Le Tante Virtù Della Damigella  across the way from the  Lucky Duck .  No funny business, he assures you; merely having you bring the parcel to his hands, smile and curtsey on your way out, seems sufficient to his purposes.  A little odd; but five scellini for very little work...

A grey haired woman with a Bretonnian lilt to her Tilean, calling herself  Madame Suzette , is your most eccentric customer.  She has surprising energy in her step for her age and is interested in the telescope.  She fancies herself an explorer, now that the children have grown and left the nest; and is determined to set out and do what she always wanted to do: travel to far places, and see strange and beautiful vistas, which she intents to paint.  A small train of hirelings in her wake hold the piles of tents, art supplies, bags, pouches, and accumulated bric-a-brac that her apparently well financed flight of fancy has gained her, today.  While other vendors near you salivate over the opportunity to take a swing at selling her something she doesn't need once she's through with you, she offers you eighty gold for the device.  Remembering Signore Cestié's estimation, you dare to tell her this is too little, as your tub-clutching pedlar peers goggle in dismay at your apparent folly.  But she titters warmly at this, reaching up to poke at your shoulder as if to physically admire the firmness of posture provided by your spine, and revises her offer:  101 gold  duri  , for the  Telescope ; or else she will try tomorrow for a seller more easily pushed around.

A portly acolyte of Morr, as round as the dandy was thin, catches sight of the censer you've cleaned up from the Troll cave, and deviates from his errand to look over it.  He confesses it doesn't match the style of his temple, and so wouldn't be useful  perse ; but he has a weakness for antiques and old things, and is willing to buy it if you'll hold it here for an hour or so while he hustles off to borrow a little money from his initiate colleagues at the Temple of Mercopio.  He is willing to buy the  Censer  for  two gold  duri . 

But no one will buy the book.  Not that they're not interested; the initiate, the dandy, the dilettante, and Madame Suzette all pick it up and thumb through it when they're at your cart; but they have a universe mask of crestfallenness to find the interior has been so badly gutted, rendering it so deeply incomplete as to be almost useless. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia rubber-necked around the hall as she couldn't help but smile at the veritable menagerie of disparate types of fighters and 'for hires'. Naturally, for one her age, the most impressive were the knights. The girl knew next to nothing of modern warfare, having only been engaged in small scale fighters. But, when she beheld the glittering plate armour of the knights she felt a pang of...excitement? Jealously? Her youthful imagination wandered to distant fantasies where such armor encased her own towering figure and she rode atop a destrier with her companions, demandnig ridiculous amounts of coin for lending their presence to the army of whatever prince could pay the most, their inclusion the deciding factor in the engagement...ahh it was a fun vision, but Taalia had seen more violence than anyone her age should, and so knew the reality would be far more...unpleasant.

Soon, however, Taalia discovered Amelia, a friendly enough woman twice her age with a helm of dark hair.

 "Buongiorno, Signorina,"  Taalia returned with a pleasant smile.

 "I am looking for the posting for items, lost and stolen. I was accosted by a thief recently, and some of their wares were scattered upon the floor before they fled. I would like to see if any are currently being sought by their owner, so that I might return them. Where are the postings for such bounties?" 

ooc:
 
 Spoiler 
I imagine that your original post over-rode mine where Taalia made up the story about the stolen ring. In that case, I'll just go with this, as it's basically the truth, but just with some things left out.
 

 oOo 

There was that sound again.

Clink! Clink! Clink!

Wonderful, beautiful gold   duri  's passed into Taalia's hands and went straight into her secure purses, as the towering, pleasant looking girl stood in her little niche of the market, Horse resting behind her, large dog by her side, shield on her back and sword on her hip.

 "You've caught me in a generous mood - of course Singora, I think you will look quite dashing!"  Taalia said with a bright smile to the first woman, mentally figuring that she was still 1gc ahead in the deal.

 "I...don't see why not, alright, I guess? Haha,"  she laughed in confusion at the dandy's proposal. Now, Taalia didn't know it yet, but her future mid-20s self would scoff and laugh at the proposal and just settle for the gold on offer, not willing to indulge in some little desired power-trip of some pimp for a few extra silver. But, present Taalia was a bit more naive, and so saw nothing wrong with it.

 "Oh, Singora, I love your accent!"  she spoke to the adventuress.

 "I agree; but on one condition. Tell me a few phrases in your native language! And tell me, if I travel to your country, where should I visit? I am Taalia, it is a pleasure to meet you!" 

Taalia could totally see herself in this womans same position in 30 or so years time. Her lands and farms formed and generating a profit. Her strapping sons out expanding the family fortunes, her beautiful daughters managing the households and keeping the community together, while she, still with vigour, used what was left of her youthful strength to see some of the world before retirement. It was a nice idea.

The lack of buyers of the book was unfortunate, but Taalia couldn't blame them. Perhaps someone tomorrow would want it? Just needed the right person to see it.

 oOo
 Taalia moved through the opening of the dwarf banking operation, her eyes settling upon the old dwarf glaring at her suspiciously and the younger one before him. Though Taalia  should  be offended by the initially condescension of the dwarf, dismissing her as just a girl looking for feathers, she couldn't stay mad at the dwarf - they were so cute! With their little selves, his neat little beard, his cantankerous mien. It was like a grumpy little grand-dad, it only amused her.

 "Buona Sera, Singore dwarf,"  Taalia smiled, bowing her head a little in a display of friendly decorum.

 "I have been told that this is a business where one can deposit money for safe keeping and withdrawals. A bank. Have I been mislead?" 
MrAbdiel
 Amelia offers a weary smile, and gestures behind her to the wealth of logbooks and what look to be stacks of parchment.   "Well, you've come to the right place.  We keep records of bounties here, for consultation by interested parties interested parties.  In smaller towns they just nail a bounty poster to the door of the town hall, but in a place like Verezzo, the bloody adventurers have a habit of ripping them down and stuffing them in their bags, then forgetting about them and skipping over to another principality."
 
She goes to a shelf, and thumbs along a shelf with many 'books', which in this case are sheaves of parchment threaded near to the spine between two thin pieces of wood, with string.  She must have a system, or have them memorized by order; they all look interchangable to you.  But she takes three specific books off the shelf, places them before her on the desk between you, and then asks gently:  "Do you have the items with you? Or can you describe them?"   Flipping open one volume, you see it is a series of blocked entries on the open page.

 1 Ring, red gold with inset oval cut ruby.  Last seen at the  Blue Hawk Retreat  by Miodordo on the Remas border.  Reward upon identification - 1000, plus reimbursement of costs.  Poster: (an indecipherable squiggle, which is apparently a signature). 

There are many such entries, often with very elaborate description.  The names under 'poster' are all in the same hand, suggesting it is maybe not a signature but a deliberate kind of cursive cypher.  But Amelia smiles at you, ready to help.

* * * * *

 Madame Suzette  titters again, delighted as one of her attendants forks over the dosh and she turns her telescope over in her hands.   "Oh, sweet girl; I suppose I couldn't dissuade you, but Bretonnia is no place for a woman.  I am endlessly grateful I managed to get out while I was young enough to still fall in love, and command a good man to do the same.  In Bretonnia, all the commen men and women are property of the lords to till their land, paid in promises of protection. But here in Tilea, in Verezzo, each owns herself; and if she should desire protection, she has a host of brave  mercenaires  all too willing.  They do not permit a woman's hair to go uncovered; she cannot own land; though the fall all over themselves when a damsel rides through to wiggle her toes at them - then every duke and baron is on his knees in service.  It's a ridiculous place; and I wish more women would find the courage to flee."   She sighs a little; and you detect a little more longing in that sigh than she seems to inject into her words.  Perhaps, for all this venom for her homeland, she cannot pry its grip from the place in her soul that knows for better or worse, that land is her home.

 
 Spoiler: Intrusive Thoughts. 
  You remember a house; one big room you shared with your parents, with hanging cloth to divide some corners for privacy. You remember a brick stove and chimney that your father had built before you were born; and hot food being cooked on that fire.   
 

 "But if you  do  wander that way - once the orcs are cleared from the pass, I suppose - you'd do well to have a man escort you.  You will find most men there will treat you somewhat respectfully, whether you present as a woman of quality or not; but they won't take you seriously without a man to echo your sentiments.  But a pretty girl like you can attract a knight errant to squire her about, easilly enough.  The nation itself is not unbeautiful, I must say.  Her loveliness as a realm is equal to my fair Tilea, I think; especially the Grey Mountains.  I grey up in Parravon, a castle-city cut into the mountainside, where you can see the forest sprawl proudly out below; and if you wait on the high places and watch the mountains, sometimes you can see  le Pégase  fly in twos, and threes; stallion, and mare, and sometimes foal.  Ah..."   You've done it now; she's a little tearful, but boxes her sentiment with a self-reproaching little smile, and thumbs at her eyelashes to strike away the evidence.   "But here, I give you three bits of Breton.  In Parravon, they say  'Celui qui regarde toujours en arrière ne peut jamais arriver à la maison.'   Which means 'She who looks back does not arrive home'; that is to say, it is hard to navigate forward while looking over your shoulder, and there is more product in forward thinking than fretful retrospect.  In Montfort, they say a man who is trying to force what comes inevitably is ' creuser pour trouver des peaux vertes ' - he digs for greenskins.  And finally,  'mangez bien, riez souvent, aimez beaucoup'  - eat well, laugh often, love abundantly.  This one was taught to me by a friend; and now I teach it to you.  Adieu, Taalia.  Merci pour le télescope!" 

And with this, she and her retinue are off; presumably to eat, or laugh, or love.

* * * * *

The older dwarf, obviously in charge, adjusts one eyebrow slowy up, then another up with it; then both of them back level.  "Something like a bank, aye; but that human bankers are bandits in frock coats whoos names cannae be relied upon; fer even the best of them can keep their word nae but eight or nine tens of years 'fore it kills them."

Eustace Goldbrick, you learn through a little more patient and exposure to accent the traversal of which is like paddling through molasses, is an eight generation dwarf  name-trader , which is something like an independent banker.  You do not know how long dwarf lives up; but judging by his dismissal of a well lived human life, eight generations of such folks may well exceed the full span of human civilization.   Name-traders  recognize each other's names and marks, and judge credit based on the trader associated with it; and eight generations of Goldbricks sounds like a lot of credibility.   Goldbrick of Karag-Dar , you are given to understand, is almost a currency in itself to dwarves in the region of Tilea, the Southern Empire, and Parravon in Bretonnian; as well as most any dwarf hold.  He's willing to take and hold gold that you have, for safe keeping; in return, he'll give you a marker which will indicate to other  name-traders  the credit you hold with him.  You can 'withdraw' money from this 'account' by finding a dwarven nametrader in cities or towns, who will take that marker and adjust it with a mark of their own to indicate the transaction you have made with them, which is resolved on the backend between dwarves in whatever fashion they do such things.

 
 Spoiler: Exciting Banking Minigame 
Banking with dwarves means you will not lose you money to anything but incredible calamity.  The detriment is that dwarf populations large enough to have name-traders are somewhat rare; Verezzo is the one closest to you, with Eustace himself.  Other cities, and some larger towns are likely to have them also; but not villages, and very few small towns.   Caesa di Silo  does not have such a name-trader.  But this is the service he offers - confidence, security, reliability, at a flat cost of one gold  duro  a year for sums under one hundred  duro , and one percent of another invested amount above that.  Money invested in this way will also earn interest - though not much, because this is a safety tradeoff.  Gold left with Eustace for a Tilean month will earn 1d2-1% interest.

By contrast, banking with a major banking house in Verezzo will have greater accessibility - within towns including  Caesa di Silo .  There is no fee for depositing money with them; and a month of deposit there earns 1d6-3% interest - possibly degrading in value.  Additionally, with human bankers, there is a chance of shenanigans.  There is a 1% chance each month that something unusual happens with your account - and without revealing all the possibilities, the average outcome is a loss of money around 10%.

Banking with smaller, less reputable human credit unions and lenders is wilder.  With these, you can choose how risky you want to be, and they have representatives in Verezzo and its surrounding towns, including Caesa di Silo.  Choose between 2% to 10%.  Each month, your account gains that much interest; but also has that same chance of being lost entirely as the banker pulls up stumps and leaves.  It's possible to chase such a cretin down and beat your money out of him, but that would be an adventure to conduct in character, and not a garauntee.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia 

Taalia looks on the huge collection of books with awe, knowing how much it must all cost just to catalogue let alone advertise all of these bounties. How did the Hall generate income? Comission? From who? The bounty hunter, the mercenaries, or the ones who hired them? Or all of the above?

 "Well..."  she started, leaning in close so her voice could only be heard by Amelia.

 "I don't have it on me. But it is a beautifully crafted pistol, with  'Blue Berthilda'  imprinted upon it and a hammer in the shape of a raven." 

oOo


At the dwarven bank operation, Taalia listened as the general outline of banking, both dwarven and human, was laid out before her.

It was an interesting concept how seriously dwarves took their name, and indeed Taalia could admire it about them. Having no surname itself, the idea of this lineage that lived on through successive generations becoming the overall concept that was trusted rather than individual members, was intriguing to the girl. That the dwarves would place much greater stock in it, given that they lived for centuries, also made sense. Humans lived far shorter lives, so it was understandable that they could exhibit the best and worst characteristics, as they had a shorter amount of time to use to gain fame and wealth and prestige than the longer-lived, far more patient dwarves. Perhaps that was why human civilisations had come so far, so fast, yet were more volatile compared to the glacial dwarven kingdoms?

In either case, Taalia performed some head-math and believed she would be better off, for now, using a large, mainstream human lending guild for her own wealth because of that one reason: the credit slips that she could use anywhere while her money remained 'safe' in the bank. She had been attacked twice on the road now, and it was easier to hide some credit slips than it was hundreds of gold coins.

At a later date, she would deposit a hundred gold with the dwarves as a rainy day fund, should a calamity befall her and she needed money to start over again.

 "Yes, I would like to deposit the pay of a future employee,"  she stated.

 "I am a Shepardess who has just conducted her first season, and I enjoyed much success. I can entrust my own wealth to human banks. But I am now in a position to hire men to work for me, and I would not feel right trusting their pay to such potential volatility. I think I would be more responsible lodging their pay with your shoppe. I have 20 duro that I will deposit with you, and I would like the mark to be exchangeable by them upon their return to Verezzo. I do not yet know their name, but they will be a physician by trade. Is this possible?

In about a years time from now, I will return and deposit further employee pay for later collection, as well as a small amount of my own finances for long-term safe keeping. Is this agreeable?" 
MrAbdiel
 Your banking matters are resolved swiftly.

Goldbrick's... apprentice?  Nephew?  He doesn't speak, this whole time; his bright eyes darting back and forth between you and his senior as you conduct business; learning, listening.  Though as you conclude matters, he produces a thumb sized rectangle of copper, and places it on a jeweler's anvil behind the counter; taking up a small hammer in one hand and brushing his fingers contemplatively over a rack of metal punches infront of him.

Eustace Goldbrick establishes a redeemable account for you.  The details of this account - that you are the holder, that it is payable to a physician whose name is not yet known, that it is the value of twenty gold, and so forth, are tapped into its surface in a fine script of dwarven characters you do not understand.  Once this is done in triplicate on its surface, the apprentice uses several blows from differently sized chisels to break the copper blank into three portions, and takes a few minutes to buff the edges recently cut down to a smoother finish, without eroding the ridges. The result is three peices that fit together like a unique jigsaw puzzle of three pieces, with the left and right portions distinctly collective to the middle.  The common numerical characters, 1, 2 and 3, are punched into the top corners of each.  The three pieces have ordered authority.  The idea is that you give piece number 3 to your employee, which they can use to withdraw the funds from the account.  However, if that piece is stolen or lost, you can send piece 2 with a runner to Verezzo to ask Eustace to put a stop on piece 3's capacity to withdraw funds; and when you get there with piece 1, you can adjust the account unilaterally with their 'masterpiece' of the account key.  This, like all accounts, will cost you a single gold  duro  to establish.  Subsequent years in which the account is active will be subtracted from the balance.

 
 Spoiler: Cost! 
Mark off the 20GC for the account, and 1 for the account fee; you gain 1 Primary Account Key (Goldbrick, 20GC), 1 Secondary Account Key (Goldbrick, 20GC), and 1 Tertiary Account Key (Goldbrick, 20GC)
 


With some resistance, Eustace gives up some advice.   "Mmmrph.  If ye're devoted tae losing money, but  slowly , ye're baest to try with Lagubrio, at  Merchant's Trust.   I'm  sure  ye can trust them - it's right there in the name."   He flaps his arms, grumpily.

Lagubrio, at the  Merchant's Trust  in the Merchant District, is a terribly serious man in a charcoal black formal coat who is highly dismissive of you, up until the point that you present your gold, at which point he is extremely suspicious; and then when you mention he was personally recommended to you by Eustace Goldbrick as the most reliable human banker in Verezzo, at which point his eyes light up like a man basking in the praise of a king.  Opening an account with the  Merchant's Trust  is simpler; they fill out a form, and make you a writ of good standing for the value of your input monies; with space on the writ to accommodate the annotations of transactions performed by trusted operatives in other 'branches' who are likely to be clerks invested with transactive authority, rather than built and branded institutions.  But with that done, you can feel a little more comfortable; it's nice not to be carrying all your material wealth in a bag that could be taken from you by a few ambitious thugs with clubs.

The writ you are given is made out in the name you have chosen; the first instance of it being written down:   Taalia Giovanni, of Bella Collina, Verezzo.  
 * * * * * 
 "Ah!  Ah, very good, signorina; the more specific the descriptor, the easier to find an outstanding bounty.  Infact, I think I remember this one..." 

Amelia flips through the first book so rapidly you can barely imagine she is actually reading anything; then the second, and stops partway through it, tracking to a paragraph with one fingertip.   "Yes, yes - what was the name again, Bertrande? Berthilde, yes.  Imperial names, ah.  Yes, reported lost by... Rodolfuccio da Viteriano.  He's requested personal verification - but if you're in luck,you'll fine him at the Alcatani Fellowship's chapter house.  You shouldn't have much trouble finding him - he's as tall as you, signorina.  He's left no reimbursement funds as a result, expecting to give them over to a delivering agent; but the listed reimbursement amount is two hundred duri - quite a bit of metal, signorina, if you have the article!  It's common enough for bounty posters to insist on personal inspection like this then try to  run down the reward when it's in their hand; but if he gives you trouble, don't make an issue - just come back and report him to us, and we'll have our people sort him out for false posting." 

She smiles pleasantly having performed her work, and asks nothing of you; but her right hand, quite unconciously, rests palm up on the table with fingers in a loose curl, as if ready to receive something.  Not an expert on such things, you wonder what you might be expected to 'owe' her.   
 Spoiler: OOC: Tips! 
If you can hit a flat evaluate check, you'll know what amount is polite to tip.  If not, it's probably some amount of silver!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia watched with fascination as the dwarves went about their process of creating a three-way system of accreditation and validation. It was simple but quite beautiful, and the fact she found the younger dwarf to be quite adorable in his simplicity and devotion to his task helped as well. At the end of the process when those three triangles were dropped into Taalia's waiting palm, the human girl looked up at the dwarves and gave a short, polite bow - again, the masculine form of human gesture for gratitude, but oddly fitting given her height, athleticism and youth.

 "Thank you Singore, dwarves. You are both likely to outlive me, so I hope that in the future after I am gone, you will remember our affairs as a trustworthy partnership!" 

Lagubrio, on the other hand, didn't endear himself in any physical way. He wasn't adorable, or cute, or possessed of characteristics that would have made Taalia go "awww!". Instead he was about what she expected were she asked to picture a serious, numbers-driven money-lender: dark cloaked, thin and deathly serious. Although, it did amuse her internally that he thought so highly of Eustace's mere words that all his scepticism of this apparently wealthy, towering farm-girl before him was washed away in an instant and replaced by eager-to-serve awe. That's more like it! Taalia mentally noted to thank Eustace's the next time she saw him, and if she really was to develop and grow in this region, she hoped that she would become a welcome sight for the dwarf in decades to come.

However, though Eustace's recommendation oiled the wheels of business with Lagubrio a halt was soon encountered when he asked her a simple question.

 "What is your name, child?" 
 "Taalia." 

Pause, raised eyebrow.

 "Yes, dear, we have established that. But what is your  last  name. From which family do you hail?" 

Taalia should have expected the question, but it had nevertheless caught her off guard. From which family did she hail? In an instant, her intrusive thoughts of apples and orchids rushed back into her mind, a dozen images flashing across her internal eye: apple orchids under a clear blue sky, warm, freshly baked pies on the windowsil, a large home, a towering father, homely mother, the fires of the Norscans.

She didn't know. She had to make one up.

At first she thought of offering Gaulfredo's last name as her own...but that was rather presumptuous. Gaulfredo and Ariana were basically her foster parents, but they had not  given  her permission to use their last name, which had no doubt been passed down to them for generations. She couldn't just take it without asking and assume they'd be fine with it. Besides, what if the surname was used as a means of transference of debt if she couldn't repay a loan? That would be a disaster - to saddle that family with debt to cover her poor actions after they had been so good to her. No, simple out of the question.

She had to think one up; her own. Her  own  last name. Her first name had been given to her, but her surname was her own personal decision.

 "Giovanni,"  she answered.

 Giovanni . A common enough first name for men, but a rare surname. A rare surname for a rare person.

 "Taalia Giovanni." 

Thus the writ was scribed, as a good a document as any for her official new personhood. The girl handed over a veritable fortune in gold, more than most Tileans would see in their entire lifetimes, into that origination.

  Taalia Giovanni, of Bella Collina, Verezzo.  

Taalia held that document in her hands as she gently rode her horse to her next destination, unable to take her eyes away from that simple sentence that contained within it a world of concepts and meaning. If her parents were still alive, somewhere, out there, she wondered what their reaction would be to seeing her now.


 oOo 

Taalia smiled as she read the paper together with Amelia, the reward being the thing that concerned her the most. 200  duro ! That was quite a score, a huge score. In fact, a swift calculation in her head, Taalia believed she could use her half of that money to establish her pig farm completely, present close to town with even its own sty and hovel for which-ever of those four boys seemed the most able to tend to her precious, porcine investment while she expanded her flock.

Yes... half  of that reward money. Taalia would be a liar if she said the thought had not crossed her mind immediately to give that trappers daughter just 50gc or something and claim the reward was 100gc. That was still a huge amount of money for a peasant family, three years pay in fact, and Taalia started off her current flock with less so what could the girl complain about? She was a thief! By all rights she should be thankful she wasn't being clapped in irons and hauled away, where would she find the temerity to whinge about receiving three years worth of pay in a lump sum?  And  being able to rest easy knowing no nobles or bounty hunters were after her? But...Taalia knew the guilt would eat away at her. She had promised half, and she didn't want to lie to the girl. Circumstances and decisions might have conduced the girl into thievery, but Taalia didn't see why she needed to join her in that repulsive profession in the thrall of greed.

 "Thank you Singora,"  Taalia answered, depositing a few silver into that open palm, more than a few days pay for a clerk. She hoped that was the correct amount.

 "May I?"  she asked, as she reached down to remove the gun bounty pamphlet and take it with her.

 "I can use the authority of this to ensure he pays. If he does so, then you have no further need for this as the bounty would have been completed. If he doesn't pay, then I will return it to you when I come to lodge my complaint. Reasonable?" 

Assuming the lady acquiesed or needed another silver to nod and smile, Taalia was soon departing the Hall of Hired Blades, untying her horse and dog, mounting the former, attaching the leash of the latter to her saddle, and trotting off in the direction of the Alcatani Fellowship's chapter house.
MrAbdiel
  "Ah, hah, well, not precisely..."   Amelia offers a polite and nervous objection, gingerly reaching to retrieve the pamphlet from your grasp.   "Trust me, it's better that remains with us, in all cases.  If it goes with you, then we don't have the original record of the bounty; and if the poster were to snatch it from you and destroy it, it would become very hard to prove the bounty was legitimate.  Plus, I can't say for sure if the poster himself can read what they signed - brandishing that slip has less authority than we'd all like, but it has best authority here.  But, if you like, I can give you a shingle... Hold on..." 

After a moment, she produces a neat square of hard dark wood, and a piece of chalk with which she marks the details of the bounty.  Rodolfuccio da Viteriano.  200gc.  Alcatani.  Berthilde.  Enough that there should be no question that you've legitimately sought out the bounty, and are seeking to claim it.   "It'll probably be fine.  Nine times out of ten, people pay up and are happy to have what they lost back.  But our procedures have developed to catch the less than ideal circumstances.  Just, ah, return that shingle, next time you're nearby.  Before you leave town, ideally!" 

But with that shingle tucked away in a saddlebag, you get along to other pressing matters of banking and sales, and before you know it, the day has eroded down to its dark end.  As the early stars take to the sky, you return to the  Lucky Duck  - after a short stop at one of the local cathouses.

The dandy is delighted to see you; but acts as though he is never met you, and surprised to be receiving mysterious gifts.  He sets five  scellini  into your palm, laughs generously when you curtsey and assures you that  "Such a lovely young woman needn't curtsey before a slim and ribald devil, as I!" , which provokes a round of laughter from his assorted bawdy male patrons and tittering harlots.  The harlots, who seem largely to be dressed in bust-promoting corsets, long skirts, and lace-on sleeves with fluted cuffs in the Bretonnian fashion, laugh only with their lips; their eyes watch you with suspicion, a stranger and  competitor  for attention within their midst, and they seem relieved when you do not linger.

Sapienza is grateful for your token of appreciation.  She's where you left her; at that desk, drawing simple maps of the sitting, letting them dry, rolling them up.  You talk with her a little, as you eat the modest meal of bread and broth from the tavern below across from her; it's the least you can do, as she is the one turning the crank to hoist you and the height-shy Corvo up to the balcony again.  She has a daughter, Amellina, who lives with her sister in one of the farms attached to the huge grainfields outside of town.  Sapienza herself is desperately saving money, trying to buy a good set of cartographer's tools so she can try to get work mapping regions of Tilea - or perhaps some new island or frontier.  But it's very hard; the proprietress downstairs affords her a private room at a discount as long as she assists with the letting down and pulling up of ladders and patrons, so she doesn't have to slum in a cheap common room with the drunks and lechers.  But a sheet of parchment runs her about a silver piece, and she only sells them (usually) for about three silver pieces, and she has a pony in the stable that she  needs  to get back and forth to see her daughter and supply her sister with money to provide for the girl, and the gate fee in and out of town whenever that happens; and she's making slow progress towards her goal, but there's times when she has to think hard about selling her writing kit and her pony and just giving up the whole thing; finding some old farmer who has gone through a wife or two already to provide for them longterm, for the price of wifehood.  But for now, clawing her way slowly ahead, she likes to imagine a world in which she will encounter an employer who is willing to take a chance on a hardworking young mapmaker - perhaps a mercenary captain who wouldn't mind her and her daughter in the army's follower train.   "We'll see, I suppose. It's good to be young enough to have such big dreams." 
 * * * * * 

There is evening, there is morning; and then, a new day.

 Quartiere della Porta - Alcatani Fellowship Chapter House 

The Alcatani Fellowship Chapter House is a remarkably plain building, but large enough to draw attention.  On its wooden facade hangs a shingle with a pair of pikes crossed over two ears of wheat; and beneath it, on a board carved to suggest the appearance of a scroll unfurled, the mercenary company's motto:  "The Cut-Price Cutt-Throats That You Can Afford!"   A pair of fellows sit on stools at the front, pikes leaning against the walls behind them; both eating their little fried potato portions out of bread rolls.  Neither seems towering in stature sufficient to be Rodolfuccio.  One is a little skinny; the other a little fat; neither has the hard faced, hard bodied, warrior elitism that all the talk and mystique of mercenary life has often suggested, in your time in Tilea.  The fat one finishes chewing a mouthful of potato, sucks the salt and oil off his forefinger then his middle finger, and then gets around to glancing you over and asking:   "Ciao, signorina.  Are you... Lost?" 

* * * * *

 Quartiere dei Mercanti - The Road of Excellence 

Occuping the interior 'U' shaped road that runs against the castle walls in the centre of the city, and up a little against each of the district-dividing walls for the South Gate and Lion districts either side, is a run of guildhouses, crafter's workshops, artist studios and boutique stores catering to specialized needs.  Most of the traffic here are apprentices running errands for their masters; but a close second are servants running errands for  their  masters, and third, wealthy looking folk doing their own shopping.  You pull one of the apprentices aside, and beg a moment of his time...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Gossip! 
You're in the right place to look, so give me a +20 Gossip roll to seek your physician, and your chemist; one for each of them.  This does not count as your 'endevour' in this area; but it may reveal options as to what that might be!
 


* * * * *

 En route... 

Passing toward the Gods' quarter involves passing through the poor quarter; the quarter of the Ox.  The quality of life experienced by such people is much lower than the others, in the city; much lower even than yours, on the farm.  Most of those you see live in small, one-room houses crammed into clusters divided by alleys forking off from the main streets passing through the district, which are themselves well patrolled by the city's soldiery.  Just passing through, you are not required to deviate off this circular road that into the heart of the least pleasant district in Verezzo.  Still, you can't help but make breif eye contact with one sorry looking older fellow; a man whose hair might have been ginger once, now faded to rust flecked grey; lying on his front in the shade of an abandoned shack with a lumpen ceramic bowl infront of him.  He seems to be in a position of comfortable prostration initially, but when he sees you, and sees that you see  him , he perks up a little, offers a smile, and then brings the ceramic bowl to his lips so he can hold it with his teeth while he crawls forward on his hands.  He drags himself forward on a wooden panel held to his body by a large circuit of leather - two belts, buckled to each other to make the big loop.  This way, his calloused-to-blackness hands are free to pull him across the cobbles towards Jezzabella, the board scraping along beneath him and sparing his hips, and the stumps where legs should be that terminate just above the knee, the pain of being dragged along the stone.  But needing his hands for locomotion, he is forced to use his teeth to hold the bowl until he is parallel to the road as you come by him.  Corvo is immediately at the extension of his leash toward the man, interested in this new friend who occupies the same altitude as he, and at once is giving the old timer sniffs about the face, and arms, and sides.  If the man finds this less than dignified, he does not say so; but merely pushes his body up on the heel of one palm and raises the bowl in the other, reaching up to about the stirrup of your left foot.  His voice is a gravelly rumble; a condition that seems unlikely to be connected to his leglessness, but does not sound remarkably healthy either.

 "Ciao, bella signorina; spare a  rame  for a lesser man?" 
 Quartiere degli Dei 

The Gods' quarter has the best cross section of the city's inhabitants you've seen so far; poor and rich alike milling into the district whose landscape of modest to fine homes is punctuated by much grander, even fantastically ornate buildings that house the worship of the gods of men and women of Verezzo.  Surely, one of these people, one of these places, must have some use for the near-to-ruined book that you have carted around since you found it in the goblin's stash - but now, to find them...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Gossip! 
You're in the right place to look, so give me a +20 Gossip roll to seek a buyer for the book.  This does not count as your 'endeavour' in this area; but it may reveal options as to what that might be!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia genuinely enjoys Sapienza's company, and the two stay up surprisingly late in chat. They have a larger difference in age, with Sapienza being possibly half a decade younger than Ariana, it was nice for the shepardess to just  talk  normally to other people she wouldn't otherwise have met. Indeed, Taalia felt for the other womans situation and hoped that her hard work would eventually pay off. She also made a mental note to recommend the girl if she ever heard of someone requiring a cartographer of sorts - maybe even Pollo? - while Taalia herself revealed her own past. Or at least... some  of it. She spared the woman the details about the Skaven and The Under-Empire, the poor dear had enough to worry about. Instead she just mentioned that she was taken by Norscans very young, and had only managed to escape in the past half year and was fortunate to be taken in by a wonderful family in Bella Collina, and that her first season as a novice shepardess had gone well...and thus she would be travelling to Verezzo every six months or so. There were opportunities in the farmlands if one had a mixture of luck and moxie, but she'd keep an eye out for anyone needing a cartographer.

 oOo 
 Alcatani Fellowship Chapter House 

Arriving at the chapter house, Taalia was dressed again in her Good dress, her face lightly decorated with her Good cosmetics kit and her hair done up nicely. Upon her back was the backpack that contained the ornately carved wooden chest within which was the gun and its ensemble of powder and shot, yet this was entirely covered up by the shield that she had strung over her back also. Upon her hip was her sword scabbard, the handle ready to be seized at a moments notice, while her quarterstaff was resting neatly within a sling-pouch affixed to the side of  Jezebella . Dismounting her horse and tethering it to the station, and taking Corvo's leash in one hand, Taalia approached the two men that were slouched about in the consumption of lunch.

 "Buongiorno, Singore,"  Taalia said with her characteristically friendly smile.

 "I am seeking one Singore Rodolfuccio da Viteriano. Is he present?" 
 oOo 
 The Quarter of the Ox 


Taalia was not as affected by the squalor as most would be, given her...history. Indeed, places of this quarter, however ramshackle and awful, seemed positively delightful compared to the underground hell she had endured and survived. But such one-up-manship served no one really, nor did it make these people's lot and easier. The stories they could tell...she was sure most of them did not  want  to be here, though some likely had little thought beyond their next meal. For a second her mind drifted to those four troublemaker boys that had once mocked her, but whom she now actually respected for holding fast against the mutants and working well when paid. Why couldn't people like this simply leave their squalid conditions and find work elsewhere? What was stopping them? Surely most weren't crippled, lame or mentally broken? Was it a lack of ability? Of will to do so? Motivation?

Then the beggar rolled up to her after she had made the mistake of making eye contact. Back in the pits you  never  made eye contact with those you weren't allied with, as such recognition brought one to anothers potentially aggressive attention. Here, it seemed, the focus was not on physically hammering, but pulling at the heart-strings, but Taalia wasn't made of stone. She flinched seeing the elderly mans condition.

Reaching to her hip, out of sight of the beggar, where her silver coin purse was stored, she retrieved 1 silver coin and dropped it into the mans bowl.

 "Go to one of the churches. It is their divine duty to assist you, should you  want  it,"  she spoke down to him, her voice unusually stern, before turning to face right forward and ignore anyone else who might have tried their luck.

Clicking her tongue at Jezebella, the horse enhanced her pace a little, as the shepardess affected as quick an exit as she could.
MrAbdiel
  The Quarter of the Ox 

The legless man peers into the bowl, now occupied by silver, and calls up to you, as you hasten away.

"Bless you, signorina!  Bless your kindness!"

A third blessing might have been lined up; but raising his voice to call drags him into a coughing fit; and guarding his luck, he puts the coin away in a fold of his rags, and pulls himself back to his shady spot, puffing from the effort.  You cannot tell if he will heed your firm encouragement to seek help more directly at the churches; but you have given him twelve times as much as he asked for, which is good deed enough.

 Alcatani Fellowship Chapter House 

The soldiers by the door look over you, then look to each other.  They share a look that suggests some silent, mutual recognition of something unstated, before the fat one looks back to you and speaks up.   " Chiedo scusa, signorina ; but there's no such man here.  Perhaps you mean one of the one of the guild halls - Viteriano sounds like a crafter's name, to me." 
 
 Spoiler: If you succeed on a +20 Intelligence Test... 
...You read their little glances back and forth.  They know him; he may even be here.  But for some reason, they are trying to conceal this from you.  To protect him?  The way they looked you over suggests they saw something about you that made them judge you as, in some way, dangerous to him.  If they knew you were trying to return something he'd lost and wanted back badly enough to pay a lot of gold for, they might let you see him; but do you dare reveal that to these two?
 

 Quarter of the Merchants 

The sulphur smell is rich in  Signore Montaglio's Fine Substances ; even with his young apprentice turning a crank that revolves a bronze construction in the wall; a circular thing that could fit in the loop of your arms, with an appearance something like a flower with six petals overlapping all in the same direction.  A sort of wheel, you think, designed to push the smelly fumes out of the shop - but without something similar pushing more air in, you wonder if it will not become thinned and hard to breathe in here.  But Signore Montaglio doesn't seem to mind, and you are forced to trust his instinct.  A pleasantly straightforward man with the capacity to hold a conversation while performing his work without and sacrifice of his expertise, he pauses in his chemical dabblings from time to time to indulge in an odd habit - washing his fingertips in a basin, and smoothing back the fluffy sides of his dark hair.  The wiry curls there, which have retreated in a ring around the crown of his head leaving him with a crop of dark locks from temple to temple, but an island of staunch holdouts on the top of his noggin, have a habit of crazing out into odd tufts, and he seems very self-concious of this indeed.  He does, however, know his chemicals.

"The smell's part of the nature of the work.  For every person interested in some special chemical concoction, there's nineteen mercenaries looking to secure an order of powderkegs for their brotherhood, or unit, or regiment.  I make good powder now, but the process is a little boring; I like a good puzzle, and making powder that won't blow up someone's expensive rifle is a solved puzzle already.  I like this, though."

The little sample of stained white stone sits on his workbench; the chemist chips a corner off it, and drops that corner in a bubbling blue fluid whose nature is totally alien to you.  He commentates as he goes.   "Your instincts are right; it's white marble, and a kind that's common enough in pockets and seams throughout the hills of Verezzo.  Troll filth, you say?  Mm...  Part oil based, part organic.  I can probably work you up something.  I can't tell you what it'll cost just yet - I need some answers first - but if you're in the city for a couple of days, if you leave this sample with me and check back, I'll make an estimate for you.  This part, I'll do for free; just to solve the puzzle." 

While you're there, before you leave for your other errands, you have the presence of mind to ask the signore about physicians - they are related disciplines after all, and he might have learned peers.

 "Well, I suppose you've a few options.  The Shallyan sanitorium has the best long term care that money  can't  buy.  But unless your friend wants to come to Verezzo and stay in their facility, you're unlikely to get long-term help from them that isn't intermittent visitations and... welcome, but unhelpful prayers.  But Academy of Empirics has a number of very fine minds on very fine subjects; the Senate maintains it to call on their specialists when it's one of the merchant princelings who needs an alienist, or a doktor, or a mechanical solution to a problem.  You could spend as much money as you want, on a physician; but you'll get a very good one for that kind of sum.  For what it's worth, I recommend a younger one; they tend to pay more attention, and become more fascinated by their task.  Older doktors have seen so much; more experienced, but also more jaded, and more loaded with assumptions.  But I'll say a prayer for your friend, either way; Khaine take those wretched mutants, one and all. "  He gives a  so there  nod, and smoothes his hair again; then becomes wrapped up in the glacially slow chemical changes happening to your sample rock.  Best, then, to leave him to it.

Before you leave the Road of Excellence, you find your way to the Gunsmith's Guildhall, and ask about damaged goods.  They direct you to Leo Campeze, a prolific young smith currently in the business of trying (perhaps failing) to train four apprentices at once.  At the counter of his store, while his apprentices toil away boring, carving, polishing and casting, you speak to the gunsmith himself.  half of his face is scattered with radiating scars from what was probably a backfire from a poorly made gun, early in his career; it's a miracle he's kept both eyes.

 "Something broken..?  Hmm.  Well, weapons with small imperfections, I like to save for my lads to work up to salable.  Blunderbusses, I mean.  Rifles, even muskets, that take significant damage, well.. You're often better scrapping them entirely.  Too much at stake, you know? But I might be able to find something..." 
 
 Spoiler: An offer. 
Leo will sell you a  Broken Blunderbuss  for 28  duri .  With significant work, a gunsmith could turn it into merely a poor quality blunderbuss. With a significantly longer investment of time and effort, it could become a  normal quality  blunderbuss.
 

 Quarter of the Gods 

An acolyte of Shallya looks at the book, and tells you she isn't familiar with the work; but directs you to the Academy of Empirics - somewhere you had thought to go anyway, looking for a physician.  But on your way to the Academy, you spot an acolyte of one of the religious orders carrying so many books that she is nearly falling over - a dangerous feat both for her physical wellbeing, and because those books, if badly damaged, become worth much less, as you well know.  Stopping to help her, she thanks you profusely and ends up reaching her destination - the Temple of Clio.  Clio is a goddess you've never heard of; but the Initiate waiting for the acolyte you helped is happy to tell you, even as he takes the books from your arms.

 "Clio the mother of learning; the delver into the past, and what we might glean therefrom.  All knowledge is worth capturing, to her clergy; what doesn't seam useful now may prove crucial later.  As for this book... it's badly damaged.  But who knows when more of it may turn up?  It may take me some months of correspondance with my fellows to determine if there are more complete volumes of this work extant in other places; but considering its condition, and that you've come all this way...  I'd be willing to buy it off you presently for, say,  thirty duri .  You're unlikely to get a better offer - no one values knowledge conceptually, as much as Clio." 

When you delicate broach the subject of magical text, the Initiate, whose name you learn is Andruccio, smiles faintly.  "We do, infact.  Magical works are rare, of course.  Sought after; hoarded; controlled in many cases by both mages and those who don't appreciate them.  The temple of Clio in Altdorf has a massive library of text that predate the great -... Oh, well, I'm rambling again.  But I could, perhaps, procure such a text; though..."  He grimaces, and offers an apologetic smile.  "You do not have the look of the normal purchaser of such things, if you don't mind me saying.  At the low end, such a grimoire would cost in the range of   five hundred duri.  "

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Options! 
In addition to  all dat , you can spend a fifth endeavour for the day to seek out a physician at the Academy; but doing so, as you know, will mean you're hustling back to the Lucky Duck later at night, at the risk of some happenings.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia perked a single eyebrow at the two fellows, the combination of skinny and fat encasements in armour and the...slobbish way in which they ate their meal and stood to attention as guards...this wasn't exactly the highly disciplined, well-oiled mercenary fighting machine she had anticipated.

Her eyes tracked back and forth between B1 and B2 when they offered their mewling, clearly spontaneously thought up excuses or suggestions as to the supposed absence of Singore Viteriano. Did they think that she was... dangerous  to their sire? Her? Ms Unamored (though admittedly carrying a sword and shield), pretty, but scarred girl off the street in nice clothes as a physical  threat  to a mighty mercenary captain in his own den? What chook raffle was this?

 "I am here to see Singore Viteriano. He recently posted a bounty for a lost weapon, and I am here to inquire about it. Look at me, gentlemen,"  Taalia gestured to herself. Yes, she was unnaturally tall and athletic, but her sunny smile dispelled any imposing facade she might have had.

 "I have travelled from my home in the rural areas and I was attacked by bandits on the road - an assault my companions and I barely survived. That is why I carry these..."  she pointed with one hand to her sword and with her other to her shield.

 oOo 
Quarter of the Merchants

Signore Montaglio's Fine Substances was a wonderful time for the shepardess, as she found the chemical workshop oddly comforting. Perhaps it exhumed the warmest feelings (or closest approximation to 'warm' feelings one could have) to her recent childhood back in Rashabangs workshop - simply working at her own pace on some contraption or alchemical mixture and seeing success by following rudimentary protocols. Maybe that's why she found the craftsmen so agreeable, why she was able to  click  with them a little easier than most - the pursuit of knowledge by trial and error, the base scientific method and cataloguing of what worked and didn't work in the world. There was something beautiful about learning more about the mechanics that underlay the surrounding environment and devising and experimenting on methods to turn those mechanics to one advantage. Taalia could still recall a fond memory when she was approximately ten, and she was introduced to the idea of a 'fulcrum' and the ease with which torque could turn an immovable, heavy object into an article that could be hoisted with a simple downward movement of her young arm and shoulder.

Chemicals, meanwhile, were passable familiar to her - but not intimately. Taalia was still learning the apothecaries trade from Singora Madre, a complex and dizzying array of mixtures, solutions, temperatures, timings and ingredients that all needed to be applied in the correct combination to create a useable, workable potion. But this chemist took things in an alternate direction, and instead of creating liquids that could be imbibed, he crafted ones that could be applied...such as the cleaning detergent she sought.

While Singore Montalgio took Taalia about his shoppe, the shepardess had several questions lined up as she watched the process, her heterochromia eyes wide as she observed. How do you control exact temperature? How do you aspirate precise volumetric measurements? Does the source of fire, whether alcohol, peat, charcoal or even copper alter the final product? What is your process for new discoveries? Though Taalia lacked the formal training to fully grasp Singore Montalgio's ensuing explanation, her history in Rashabangs workshop and current tutelage under Singora Madre meant that she could at least appreciate the answer, rather than stare blankly with a simple smile and nod.

That Singore Montalgio wouldn't charge her for the initial consultation was also appreciated, as Taalia gave that winning smile and a little polite bow.  "Thank you Singore Montalgio!"  She silently pondered what the final product would be worth. Surely it couldn't be more than a few duro, she wondered. Or hoped, even.

She likewise thanked him for the suggestion of a Physician, her face losing its smile and becoming more sombre at the mention of Ernesto and his injury.

When Taalia departed the chemists workshop, she soon found herself within another small factory, but this time for guns - and Taalia felt like a kid in a candy store.

Perhaps the Skavens penchant for weaponry rubbed off on her when she was younger. Or maybe she knew what dangers lurked in the world that needed blasting from a safe distance. Or, perhaps as a woman and a human, she had a particular appreciation for guns as the great equaliser. A man could be much bigger and stronger than her, but a 10 gauge lead bullet to the belly would drop him as much as it would a huge greenskin. Taalia knew that firearms had given humans a fighting edge against the monsters of the world, and she could only see this technological advantage expanding in the centuries to come to ensure that there always remained a safe place for her kind within a violent world.

Thus, Taalia treated Leo Campeze with a noticeable degree of...awe? Appreciation? Whatever it was, she hung on his every word and listened intently. She observed the method of construction and quality control with a glean in her eye, as she wondered whether Cestie could teach her how to do this herself...which lead to the discovery of the broken blunderbuss.

 "28 duro?"  Taalia repeated sceptically, her prior prior fangirl-esque attention washing away a little.

Half price? For a  broken  gun? She could get a poor make of the same type of firearm for that price - and it'd at least be operable. She recalled how difficult it has been to sell her damaged book, half of its pages gone and its uses extremely limited. Singore Campeze was basically selling her a 30 duro club.

 "With respect, that seems a little pricey, Singore, for an inoperable weapon that I need to learn a profession to make suitable for use in the defence of my community. We recently endured a troll attack, and a pack of mutants on our roads that left a good young man as a potential cripple for life..." 
 Quarter of the Gods 


Taalia's eyes glazed over for a second as she seemed to zone out at the offer for her book. When she came to, the damaged tome was already in her hands and being offered up towards the initiates as if she were presenting a newborn babe for inspection by the village elders.

 "I accept your offer!" 

But the mention of the grimoire... five hundred duro ?! What, was it made of diamonds? Were the words inscribed with liquid gold? Though Taalia currently had an eye-watering amount of money resting within the protective walls of a bank, she could scarcely begin to wonder where five hundred duro would go...well she knew exactly where it would go: more land and livestock! Think of the enormous flock she could purchase! The sales from fleece alone would be...

Taalia came back to the present, offered a pleasant smile.

 "That is out of my budget for now, I am afraid,"  she laughed.
MrAbdiel
 The Alcatani Fellowship Chapterhouse 

At this confession of purpose, the men look at each other again, laugh lightly, and seem releived.   "Oh, certainly, certainly signorina.   Chiedo scusa , once again; you looked like you might be one of his bloody daughters come to find him, again.  Happens every now and then.  Here, come on through; he's the big chap at table in the main hall." 

The interior is clean and fair, though not incredibly sophisticated; hardwood surfaces, lightly varnished at most, kept and swept.  A few dozen men might live here, in collegial closeness; but at the moment of morning, too late for breakfast, too early for lunch, the main hall features one long table surrounded by chairs, with a tireless middle ages woman clearing off the last of the wooden plates at the far end; and at the end closest to you, a pair of men.  One is a wiry chap with a large backpack next to him to which is strapped a number of scabbards, holsters, holders and hafts; a sort of  weapon caddy  of a man, talking quietly to his companion. But his companion is the man you are looking for; the most plainly dangerous man you have ever seen, at least since your hazy memories of the towering warriors from the northlands who took so much from you.  Rodolfuccio might be your height, standing up; but his broad body is leaned forward to the table, propped up on his elbows; a face that is more appreciably sharp than handsome watching the woodgrain in melancholic detail.  Light brown hair matches light brown eyes, and loose light brown leathers hanging off his impressive frame, not yet fastened for engaging the day with any vigor.  A dash of stubble on his chin contrasts the sallowness of his skin, as he looks up to your entry, and that of the rounder mercenary who guided you in.

 "Who's this?"   He asks without trim or coyness; though his eyes and unmoved expression seem not to indicate genuine immediate interest as much as awareness that you wouldn't be here at all, without some kind of reason.  "A young signorina, Rodolfuccio;"  the guard replies, supplying no information at all; quickly adding,  "...here about your gun.  The stolen one." 

This does animate him a little; and he sits actually upright in his chair, watching you with expectation.

 Quarter of the Merchants 

Leo Campeze gives you a little shrug.   "I'm taking food our of these boy's mouths if I sell it to you for less.  I'd go down to  twenty six and a half , but that's as far as I can go.  But if you don't mind me asking, signorina... What made you think the best way to learn this trade was to buy a broken weapon and tinker with it yourself?  It's no joke."   He thumbs up at his own facial scars.   "Take it from me.  A gunsmith has to become a master of metal and wood, and to an extend, the chemicals of the powder.  If you want a blunderbuss, you're best to buy a good one.  If you want to learn the trade, you'd do best to invest the hours you need on the early end.  Carving wood; heating and hammering metal; importantly, learning the use of the swage block, and the bores, and making your own screws.  It's a lot to learn; and you need to be able to do that reliably if you ever want to make more compact weapons, or to think about putting rifling on something.  It's definately not a skill to learn from first principles by yourself; you'll just lose fingers.    But if you have a pile of spare  duro  lying around, you might find an old teacher who knows what he's doing and just pay him to tutor you for a year or two.  Then, once you know what you're doing, you can make a weapon that's not liable to kill you; and you'll have made it all yourself." 

You could probably hire a retired artisan to mentor you, for that kind of money.  But judging from what you know of Signore Cestié, old tinker probably knows how to make simple firearms, atleast; and has the tools to do so in his workshop.  In his younger years, he's been more fascinated by strange creations and mechanical marvels; in his older age, he has seemed possessed of no strong urge to crank out weapons to sell.  Making bells, and locks, and puzzles, and hinges has suited him fine.  But he likes you; it seems likely he'd be happy to teach you a thing or two, whether that begins with restoring this busted musket, or starting from scratch and working up, while the saved gold becomes more pigs in the interim.

 Quarter of the Gods 

The initiate laughs with you.   "It's out of almost everyone's budget.  That's the kind of money a bored merchant prince's scion will spend hoping to learn some mystical secret to give them an edge over their rivals.  Almost always it ends up sold on when they give up anyway.  Fair roads to you, signorina!" 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

One of his daughters? Plural? Coming to accost him?

When the men turned, Taalia smirked. She remembered Rocco...that sly, dirty dog. And when she came face to face with the man, she could see why. He was the first human that matched her height, his impressive physicality fluttering her heart a little as instincts whispered into her brain that he could produce strong children and was reliable to bring home food and provide shelter. The cobbler boy had been sweet, and she had appreciated his advances, but before her was a  man , a dangerous man, but one constrained by a degree of virtue. That he had sired daughters who were her own age range suggested to her that he had no problems in that avenue of adventure.

 "Singore Rodolfuccio,"  Taalia smiled and nodded, her sonorous and smoky voice the only thing audible in the hall as all fell silent.

 "You recently posted a bounty for the return of a firearm, yes? With a ravenheads hammer, Blue Berthilda imprinted upon it, yes?"  she started, confirming details that he would know, and which verified she had read his pamphlet. But then she went further in description with details that had  not  been on the pamphlet.

 "In a finely crafted, ornate box? Powder and shot enough for 19, which are contained in an oiled, leather bag?" 

She allowed a pregnant pause to linger in the air before continuing.

 "I am a Shepardess from a rural region. On my travel to Caesa di Silo I was accosted by a girl about yay tall,"  she gave an indication with her right hand,  "brown hair. She was carrying a box, claimed to have stolen it from someone in Verezzo and wanted my shelter from bounty hunters. I told her no, and she dropped in flight as she was hotly pursued by an elf on horseback, a bounty hunter. I retrieved the box, opened it, saw what was within it, and remembering the mention of bounty hunters, when I arrived here in Verezzo I checked at the Hall of Hired Blades. Low and behold: an advertisement fitting the description of the pistol, with your name attached to it Singore Rodolfuccio, and the assigned reward for its safe return." 

Once again another pause. Nothing she had said was a lie.

 "I have the item nearby, completely intact, not a shot fired nor piece disturbed. I wish to claim the bounty you had on offer, 200 duros." 
 oOo 

Taalia listened to Campeze's question, taking no offence at his inquiry as his reasoning was sound. Perhaps even persuasive.

Pursing her lips, Taalia couldn't help but smile in confession.

"I...had a troubled childhood. Many unpleasant events. But I was in a workshop, like this, beneath a...male," her choice was word was unusual, "who showed me the few instances of kindness I ever knew at the time. I worked on his creations, weapons, alchemy. Now that I am in the world at large, a man within my town, Singore Maso Cestié, has promised to educate me on these matters..." she gestured to the weaponry and general devices.

"And...this sounds somewhat romantic, I know...but I have an affinity for broken things that can be made new again. This sounds silly, singore, I admit, but I liked the idea of rescuing a once beautiful device from the scrap-heap and restoring it to former beauty and function. heh..."

She trails off, smiling, shaking her head.

"But what you say does make sense. What if, could I purchase off you general schematics for a firearm, pistol and blunderbuss? Not your own personal, intellectual property or secrets, but just general designs? Singore Cestie has promised to educate me in this craft, and with those schematics I could, as you say, make them myself one day. Would five duro work for you?
MrAbdiel
  The Alcatani Fellowship Chapterhouse 

The warrior listens, one eyebrow lifting slightly with acknowledgement of your forthcoming attitude with the details.  Most of them, anyway.

He turns to his companion, murmuring something to him; reaching into his half-laced doublet to produce a fat steel key on a chain.  Lifting the loop of the chain from around his neck, he hands it to the offsider who trots off into another room, from which you can hear the clinking of coin.

 "Do you have it with you?" 

His accent is a little unusual; still within the band of Tilean, but your ear tells you it's not native Verezzan, or Miraglean, or Trantian.
 But there are many city states, and you ought not be surprised that you can't tell them all by ear.  He asks his question plainly, without ever feeling the need to rise and address you with that level of formality  let alone  any of the shifty non-payment shenanigans Amelia warned you about.  Inside of a minute, his caddy is back; upending a wash of clinking gold coins onto the table with the minted denominational brands of several different states of Tilea; but in most cases, the lion of Verezzo.  He stacks then neatly with admirable swiftness - five columns, of four rows, of piles of ten; and when you are satisfied with the display, slides them off the table into a leather pouch that is left bulging and barely capable of closing.

 "If you see the elf again, on your way back... it would be polite to let her know the bounty has been filled." 

That was easy.  No attempt to defraud you at all; no hesitation in producing this huge sum of wealth, and even putting it on the table before you without standing to his feet or seeing the pistol's return, yet.  You could grab the pouch of gold and run, probably slipping past the two disinterested mercenaries on duty and out into the street - but your survival instinct, which has never failed you yet, tells you that this man Rodolfuccio is sitting not in a display of radical trust, but in supreme confidence that it is within his power to respond to such events even from this lax position.

 The Quarter of Merchants 

Leo Campeze, master gunsmith, frowns as your tale tugs at his sympathies.  It's hard not to feel for such a story, even with its worst parts excised; or hard, atleast, for a warm-spirited and emotional people, that Tileans seem to be.

"Well.  I'm afraid I don't know the Signore you speak of, so I'll trust your word he knows his business.  As for schematics... Most of my apprentices don't have letters.  They forge and file by comparison to the example pieces I leave them.  But I understand, I think.  Here."

He wanders away from the counter, touring his studio and grabbing some odds and ends, before returning to you and laying them out.  One is a roll of parchment just under four feet long which, when unrolled, has a clearly lined, but abstract outline of a gun - or part of it.  It is marked with some annotations about the straightness of woodgrain, and the depth of the barrel channel.   "This is a stock template for a standard shoulder-fired blunderbuss.  My advice is you cut a piece of wood to that length, and then in your travels, keep an eye out for maple trees with nice straight limbs and trunks that could fit the length and profile of your example stick.  You won't be able to use it - you need to let the wood dry for a year or so so you'll be buying material until then - but if you're serious about making your own things, that's a start.  Hopefully your signore will know about carving the stock itself."   The rest are tools - files, callipers, wooden measuring jigs; enough to occupy the small fabric bag he piles them into.  "I can't give you much of what you need, but for five  duri , these will get you started.  Most of the work is filing, and boring out the interior of the barrel to smooth it.  A blunderbuss doesn't need to be mirror-smooth, but if you want to make an accurate musket later, that's what you'll be looking for. But you're in for a world of minor adjustments, paper-thin alterations, to get everything to fit right.  I have all my boys start by making simple matchlocks, then we work on a serpentine-touch mechanism.  If your fella gets in over his head, well..."  He looks back at his shop, in which his apprentices file and bore and bore and file.   "Well, maybe I'll kick out the slowest learner and you can take his spot."  

This  zinger  goes unnoticed, all of the lads fitfully trying to accomplish their tasks; but Leo appreciates his own humor, anyway.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
This is sort of a grab-bag of gunsmithing tools.  You can buy it for 5 duri right now; and I'll consider it one tenth of a whole set of Gunsmith's Tools, which is what you need to do things like repair and service weapons on the road (50GC).  When you get around to buying that, you can get it at a 5 GC discount for already possessing these parts.

An actual tradesman needs facilities to make things, which requires a forge (1500GC) and atleast a set of tools (50GC).  Fortunately, you know a guy who has both of those; but getting some of your own tools is a fine step on the way to justifying your own competence and learning in that direction.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia watched with her best poker face as the money was collected, counted and siphoned into a little pouch and then pushed across the table to her.

At the request of the item, Taalia first reached out towards that sack of coins. She did so at a general pace, nothing swift and fast as if she had the idea of running, but just casually - collecting it up and holding it in her left hand.

Then, she slid her shield off her shoulder and, with her right hand, put it on the floor leaning against the table. Then she slid her backpack off her shoulders and gently lay it on the table. With her right hand, she opened it, reached inside, and withdrew the the ornately decorated box and lay it on the table. She then unclicked the little hook holding it shut and opened it to reveal the beautiful contents within: the pistol, the shots, the powder and the little oiled bag. The raven-head hammer was there, as was the unmistakable stamp 'Blue Berthilda' upon its side.

 "All present. As I said, not fired once." 

Taalia then put the money pouch into her backpack and slung it back over her shoulders, then retrieved her shield.

She was about to leave, but then hesitated as a thought caught in her mind.

 "Singore Rodolfuccio,"  she asked.

 "This was not premeditated, I assure you, but purely a spontaneous thought that I had. But is your company in need of a cartographer to accompany it for your next job?" 
 oOo 

Taalia looked over the tools and the schematic, listening to what the gunsmith had to say in regards to constructing just a single blunderbuss. Drying tree branches for an entire year? No wonder they were so costly, not to mention the precision required to make them. It was scarcely left to the imagination as to why the Skaven technology, though potentially powerful, was fraught with mishaps and catastrophes given their reliance on uncaring labour. Her present company excluded, of course!

 "Thank you Singore Campeze,"  Taalia spoke, holding the schematics and rolling them up to fit into the bag, before shuffling about in her own backpack to retrieve the 5 duro agreed upon and handing it over.

 "I have seen success as a shepardess, which, if I am not being too presumptuous, means I will be regularly visiting Verezzo once every six months. In a years time, I hope you show you finished products of a respectable quality,"  she beamed.

With her transaction completed and bidding the young Gunsmith a fond farewell, Taalia mounted her steed and clicked her tongue to summon Corvo's attention.

It was back to the  Lucky Duck  for another night of sleep. Tomorrow would be the last day of business in the city, by her estimation, complete with buying a few souvenirs for Gaulfredo, Ariana and Vitorio. Then on the morning after, she would depart once again, stopping by The Pigly, then Caesa and then home to Bella Collina. What an adventure!
MrAbdiel
 The champion does not, as you might have feared, interpret your reaching for the coins as the overture to theft, to hurl an axe into your chest.  Rather, he lets you place the box down; his eyes taking on recognition immediately, and some quiet, sadder aspect as he drags the box over infront of him; taking the pistol in hand, thumbing back the hammer, setting it forth again, holding the weapon on the platter of his open hands and regarding it with thought.

It's a few seconds after your parting thought that he emerges from his reverie, blinking as he realizes you're still here, and mentally reads over the stenographic record in his brain of the last few moments in which he was paying no attention.

 "...Don't know yet.  Our chapter here is quite small, so far; life's been good for a long time in Verezzo, so few displacements.  When the orcs make their way down from the mountains, or around the horn, or the pirates break inland, or Pavona starts something, then business will pick up again.  If we know where we're likely to fight, having it charted is a good way to start.  Until then..."   A detached shrug of broad, powerful shoulders; and his eyes go back to the returned weapon, and whatever melancholy is for him there.  The fat pikeman, who has watched you receive such a massive financial boon without comment, invites you back to the entrance with a directive hand; and off you go, two hundred  duri  the richer for the price of just a little dishonesty - and to an elf, so it hardly counts at all.

* * * * * 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia nods as she listens, clearly able to see that the man had a sentimental allure to that pistol.

 "Well, her name is Sapienza, a blonde girl, currently making maps for customers at the Lucky Duck. Good worker, just needs the chance,"  she states, her words and focus more on the champions Major-Domo whobhad gathered the money than the man himself.

Her message deliveted, Taalia departed, got onto her horse, drew Corvo to her side and headed back to the Lucky Duck. It'd be another night, then out again tomorrow. The days were full, but what stories she'd have to tell when she got home!
MrAbdiel
 The offsider/caddy/majordomo seems to know you're directing this recommendation his way. He gives you a nod, as one creature in the shadow of this gloomy destroyer to another; and seems not to be just  oh-sure ing you.  Time will tell if that recommendation bears fruit.  For now, you have  so much gold  that your ambitions have to keep resetting their boundaries; and a little work left, before you can return home.

* * * * *

Another evening, another morning, and a new day, and you strike out first towards the Academy of Empirics.

 En Route... 

Passing through the District of the Ox once more on your way to the Academy, you follow the circular, well patrolled road and glance to the side where the old timer on the skidboard hunkered in the shade previous.  But he is not there - now there is a group of five beggars, sitting together; one missing a foot on a crutch, one bent forward; the other three seemingly suffering a more general wretchedness.  And seeing you and Jezzebella coming down the road, they hustle to the roadside with their begging bowls; the man on the crutch pulling in last in the row.

 "Alms, kind signorina?"
"A coin of kindness?"
"Spare a chip of copper, please!" 

As one disharmonious chorus, they clamour for your attention, and a squib of your money.

 
 Spoiler: OOC! 
Discounts and shows paused before we resolve this little encounter!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia glared suspiciously at this little crowd that seemes to be waiting for her...

Eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, she nevertheless relented. She had money, and charity was a virtue.

Reaching into her penny purse as she trotted by, she tossed a few pennies to each, not even bothering to direct them to where they could better themselves.

Ooc:
Marking off 15 pennies, or 1 silver and 3 pennies.
MrAbdiel
  "Bless you, signorina!"
"Gods keep you, signorina!" 

The appreciative gabble dies off as you carry on your way.  Over your shoulder, a scuffle ensues with some disagreement over the ideal distribution of these gained pennies; but you cannot meticulously fix each of these poor individuals behaviours, and police their petty sins.  You put them out of your mind, and carry on your way.

* * * * *

 Quarter of the Gods - The Academy of Empirics 

The Academy would be more grand if it were not in the shadow, sometimes literally so, of the district temples.  Still, wide stone porch behind a smart colonnade of with hanging banners, mostly black with white lions rampant.  This black fabric seems a deliberate choice; a refusal to select one of the senatorial colors.  The colonade runs around a hollow square structure with a wealth of study rooms and laboratories, with the interior of the square hosting more sumptuous buildings in which, presumably, the most important teaching and study takes place.  You ask around for a while for help finding a physician; your decision to dress and present for the occasion seems to help, and most of these bustling book-carriers seem to take you seriously enough; and a sequence of them leads you (after one or two false starts) eventually to an ideal candidate.

Antonuccia de Venze is a woman in her early thirties from a small trade village called "Detrito" in southern Miragliano.  At five foot three, she's tiny beside you; but so is almost everyone, and this can hardly be held against the sensible woman before you.  Blonde hair frames her face in which brown eyes seem to be set, perhaps, a little too close together; but the circular spectacles perched on her nose seem to hide that fact and leave her looking studious, and deeply interested where she is looking.  From what she tells you over a little discussion, while sipping a boiled beverage called  al'qahua , apparently distilled from roasted beans from far Araby.  But the education radiates from her words; not obnoxious, necessarily; but heavy.

"I was a barber-surgeon here in Verezzo for several years while I studied here, at the Academy; and since I've enjoyed recognition as a learned physician, I've done medical consultations and procedures for six  rampollos  and one merchant prince; though I've resisted retainer because I've been afforded the chance to teach here.  But Verezzo has been long enough without war that new-monied parents aren't sending their children to study medicine hoping they'll get to pull the bullets from the legs of a great general, someday; they're directing them to more traditional novelties like trade and politics, which are both fine enough.  I could certainly come to see your friend, and perhaps help if help is to be had; or help him make the accommodations to his life he'll need to make, if not.  If you'll have me, I'd certainly take the offer - though I admit I've never had to ride such a distance.  Perhaps... we could charter a coach?"

* * * * *

 Quarter of the Ox - The Seven Signorine Theatre 

When you make your way back through the Quarter of the Ox, you take a chance to go by the  Seven Signorine  theatre; named for the carved wooden pillars holding up the timber veranda; each depicting a young maiden in an almost scandelously sheer dress; gasping in shock, or reeling with laughter, or wailing melodramatically, or another excessive emotional posture.  They are painted as tan-skinned brunettes; though they have clearly been defaced and repainted so many times that the current job has obscured what was likely beautiful detail and rendered many of the girls almost effigaic of their former selves.  A chirpy young stable hand minds your horse for a penny - and is willing to mind Corvo, too, for another.  If the folk here had a habit of stealing horses while people were at the theatre, they would not long be in business; but you don't feel bad taking the saddlebags and your quarterstaff and other things to a brown uniformed older man serving as a cloakroom warden.  He wears a flat leather cap that seems almost older than he is, and he drags his left foot as he walks; but many of the patrons seem to know him by name - Micci.  Instinct tells you Micci is a good man to be on the good side of - a decent tip for him to make sure your things are kept safe while you are in the theatre may be wise.

You buy a ticket to the now show, and take a seat near an isle where girls and boys scurry up and down the stairs selling plain but warm scones for a penny a pop, and settle in to see what a 'show' is about.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Thespian Considerations 
3p for a ticket, 1p for a scone, 2p to mind the animals, plus whatever you want to tip Micci for his troubles.

Also, it's worth considering - this is the first show of any kind Taalia has ever been to; even, the first acted-out story where people play 'parts'.  The closest she's probably seen are the pagan whoop-and-wriggle ceremonies around the Norscan fires where dancers would enact some kind of salutory movements for one of their frostbitten gods.  I wonder how the novelty of this all will effect someone as unworldly as Taalia!
 

 We Dons Of Bilbali  is the story of four young 'dons', which you gather are lords of some kind, in the Estalian Kingdom of Bilbali. They wear absurdly broad hats, and pants that are so baggy they seem almost to be skirts that are sewn at the bottom.  The four Dons are Ulises, Lalo, Gerado, and Carlos; and they are friends who have bonded as maritime guards of tradeships, gallantly fighting the pirates in the western ocean.  But the time has come that they are all being pressured by their mothers, all of them widows of the previous dons,  are nagging and pressuring them to find good wives to secure their positions and enhance their wealth.

The fun of the play is trying to figure out what, precisely, the story will be making fun of, because the field is so rich with targets.  Is it Estalians?  Often yes, but that's too easy.  Is it noble frippery?  Sometimes, yes; an agreeable target for these common crowds.  Perhaps sailors?  Verezzo has a coast to its Republic, but the city is quite landlocked, and the crowds are folks of the plains and hills who welcome every stereotype about sailors being mad with superstition and habitually drunk.  Sometimes the target is closer to home - disappointing sons or nagging mothers, or the hot-blooded mentality that both Tilean and Estalian men are know for.  Most often, the mockery is targeted at the instinctive lechery of men; which is a safe target for japes.  The four dons go on a grand tour looking for women to become their wives they find many cantidates: a damsel of Brionne, a buxom dairy maid, an amazon 'diplomat', a moustached Imperial duchess; and finally the most perfectly beautiful and virtuous signorina of Tilea (in this telling, from Verezzo).

At five points in the story, the dons come to blows over one or more of the women they fancy, and they have protracted silly sword duels while trying to downplay the qualities of the woman they most want, while trying to sell the virtues of one of the others they are trying to 'offload' to another of the dons, whose preferences and foibles become clear over the telling.  A recurring gag reveals the reason for the baggy pants - the actors are wearing some kind of devices under their pants that are activated to produce farcical, yard-long erections that tent their pants out in the most baboonish display of masculine interest.  The ultimate form of this joke comes when all four of the dons are dueling each other, both exchanging sword blows and fencing with their phalluses, when Ulises (the hero?) has the brainwave to start suggesting his friends to marry off to each other's mothers.  As Ulises describes in the most purple and romantic prose how each of their mothers deserves the affection of a young lover, his opponents' secondary weapons deflate as they recoil until Ulises stands surpreme over them all; having defeated his friends by the power to maintain sexual readiness in a conversation about his friends' aging mothers.  A small brass section plays this off as a moment of triumph; and the patrons in the stands seem to think it is the funniest thing in the world.

In the end, the dons confess to each other ultimately that each of them is just trying to eliminate the others so that he alone can pursue the beautiful Tilean girl, and they make a pact to confront her together, and then respect her choice from among them.  But it's too late, by then; when they come to meet her and confess their parallel loves, they blunder into her wedding to a dashing young mercenary captain, whose groomsmen (along with the matronly Verenan officiator) chase the Estalians all over the stage kicking them in the backside as they go.  Ulises' phallus fires up when the matron kicks him, causing a pause in the action as he fumbles to press it down against his leg, before they are finally thrown off the stage entirely at the end of the scene.  The dons go home; they pledge renewed friendship, and they swear off ever fighting over women again.

This, you are assured, is  art ; or a kind, thereof.

* * * * *

 Quarter of the Merchants 

With more shopping to do and your blood up for bargains, you navigate the market more naturally the second time and without a cart to manage as you go.

Shopping for your gifts, you spot a merchant of bottles who is particularly busy - and therefore, likely a seller of quality.  Muscling in for some of his time, you make a neat little saving when you buy your two bottles of brandy with five gold  duro  and can't find change to split the fifth for you, while his other customers clamour for his attention.  Cringing in apology trying to capture the tide of sales to come, he gives you back the fifth coin, and you come out  9  scellini  ahead. 

A quality bowyer is happy to supply you with a bow of ash wood, even taking some time to show you how to string it and unstring it when combat is not immanent.   "Pity I can't talk you into a longbow,"  he laments;  "with that height, it feels like a shame not to.  But it does take much practice with that harder drawer, regardless; so I cannot blame you."   Having enjoyed rambling about his craft to you, he gives you arrows with attractive red fletching instead of the plain tawny or white kinds; more distinctive, though perhaps no more deadly.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Good Quality Ammo 
Good Quality Ammunition does not normally convey any benefits, but I'm saying it does.  Normally after a fight arrows have a 50% chance to be recoverable or else they're broken or lost.
 These good arrows have a 66% chance to be recoverable.
 


Marco's advice was good, and you find a cobbler selling riding boots of just the kind you had hoped to find; though he has a little chuckle when he has to get you a man's size.  He does not, however, budge on the price; and neither do the clothiers and haberdashers you need to visit to complete your ensemble, though you do not come away feeling gouged.   Merely stylish, in your fancy muffin-cap.

You squeeze in time for a fitting at an armorer.  The man has lost two fingers in combat, which seems to have been the catalyst for his move to armouring rather that fighting; and fortunately, his craft doesn't suffer like his swordsmanship must.

 "If you'll beg my pardon, signorina, I pray you become afforded with the prosperity to order my custom wares.  You've a warrioress stature, which neither I nor any armorers I know stock in standard.  I can fit you out; but if you should ever desire to buy a fitted and personalized set, you come back to me - I'll buy back this array at the sale price when you trade it in!" 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
No discount here, exactly - but if you order a Good or Best quality set of Leather when you're in Verezzo, you can trade in your Normal leather without haggling for best price, and take that off the cost.

You might not think so now, but that encumbrance adds up; later on, you might be hurting for it, and Best Leather is my favorite way to cut back on it.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia snuck a look over her shoulder back at the bickering crowd of invalids and beggars that spat with each other over pennies. One of them had an excuse, his foot missing from some calamity in his past. But the others? Able bodied but still begging in the streets? One might think that Taalia would have an affinity and soft-spot for the downtrodden and dispossessed of the world, given her background. However, what her time of slavery had taught her was that able labour was a precious commodity, and what one did was what one earned. If someone was a victim of circumstances and just needed the chance to better themselves, Taalia would help in whatever way she could. But to resign oneself to living off the labour of others, indeed even feeling entitled to it, and doing so via the compulsion of guilt and heart-strings rather than the lash of a whip...well, Taalia had little sympathy there.

 oOo 
 Quarter of the Gods - The Academy of Empirics
 
The talk with Antonuccia de Venze was quite stimulating for Taalia. Much like the chemist and gunsmith, there was something in the profession that Taalia recognised and appreciated, but  this time  she had the adequate skill to probe and question and did so from a position of experience and knowledge. Though Taalia lacked the academic training that Antonuccia possessed, and was indeed a little jealous of, she was able to hold her own for the most part.

 "I don't know how to thank you in words, Singora Antonuccia,"  Taalia spoke with gratitude, reaching both her hands forward to hold Antonuccia's between them affectionately, almost like a hand-shake.

 "Ernesto and his brother were so brave to hold at bay that many bandits. If they had not held the line like that, Myrmidia forgive me for thinking so, but I don't think I would be here talking to you right now,"  she insisted gently, a clear little fear in her eyes but also admiration.

 "He deserves the best I can find him. They have granted me 25  duro  worth to secure a skilled physician, such as yourself. I have stored 20 duro of your pay with the Dwarves here in Verezzo, with an access token that ensures you can withdraw it on your return to this city. I can also offer you the other 5  duro  as an upfront. Does this work for you, Singora?" 

At the suggestion of a coach, Taalia nodded.

 "Of course, I think we could. I have a mount, borrowed from the brothers. We should stop at The Pigly along the way, it is a day out from Verezzo." 
 oOo 
If Taalia had seemed an educated and intelligent young lady with her discussion on the finer points of surgery with Antonuccia de Venze, she was an utter hollering guffaw whose chortling at the raucous play hardly ceased.

Though most of the more..."subtle" implications of the play were lost on Taalia, mostly because she wasn't as aware of the regional and ethnic rivalries between Tilea and its neighbours, she was laughing multiple times a minute nonetheless. Though the Norscan re-enactments of battles and ballads had been the last time she had seen a 'play', the nature of the even being a comedy was disarming of any mistaken beliefs for reality. At no point did Taalia yell out to an actor to 'look out behind you!' or some such, thankfully, as the absurdity of the play assured even someone as ignorant and unworldly as Taalia that this was all make-believe. If such a revelation had not dawned on her by the time the true purpose of those voluminous trousers was revealed, then maybe Taalia wasn't as mentally competent as some thought.

Thus, laughter, laughter and more laughter. By the end of the play, Taalia might even need a physician herself as her sides ached and her belly felt like it had been kicked by a horse she had been laughing so hard. Wiping tears from her eyes, clapping loudly with the crowd, Taalia threw up cheers and applause and praises with those around her, uncaring to the social graces she was normally so conscious of adhering to, as she simply gave her heart over to the play to chortle her body into aching pains and loving every second of it.

 oOo 

The market was as profitable as the day before, but rather than taking in money she had spent it in order to acquire goods - excellent goods. The bow was a wonderful ashwood design, feeling light and familiar to Taalia's hands as she recalled the weapon she had used for most of the time she had engaged the troll with Bella Collina's militia. What a difference a bow would have made during the battle with the mutants - getting to loose an arrow at that leader the moment he attempted his intimidation, or taking a shot at a mutant in the treeline and taking one down. It would have changed the entire psychological landscape. Taalia would prefer to keep most threats at range, and in lieu of a firearm, a bow was her next best bet.

Meanwhile, the boots she bought felt  fantastic ! Not only did they feel amazing, they looked incredible! They complimented her travelers outfit quite spectacularly, as the towering girl beheld herself in that polished metal mirror with her spiffy new boots, outfit, weapons and leather armor, and the black muffin-hat with the feather upon her white-haired crown - she cut quite the dashing figure! If she did say so herself.

But, Taalia had one more errand to run for the day, and then she would retire to the  Lucky Duck . Traveling back to the the  Quarter of the Merchants  and  Signore Montaglio's Fine Substances  to see if he had devised what she needed...
MrAbdiel
  Signore Montaglio's Fine Substances 

You watch as Signore Montaglio tips a few drops of the caustic smelling, yellowish gel onto the discolored stone chunk.  It doesn't hiss with acidic hunger, thankfully; but the chemical smell is strong, and nostril searing.  The signore holds up a brush: a U shaped curl of polished wood, with one end tapering into a grip for a fist, and the other presenting a flat face with a grid of bored holes, each flush with hard clusters of bristles.

 "This is the best scrubbing brush you'll find.  Most use horse hair or if you're lucky, badger or boar hair.  But there's an outfit of makers in Remas who source this incredibly glue from Nuln, and bristles from the giant, awful hogs the orcs use out in the Border Princes.  You don't have to use one of these - they cost five  duro , which is ten times more than a normal scrubbing brush - but for a job like this, you're likely to go through a few lower quality brushes anyway, so I'd consider it.   Bambino's Brushes ; Saliarmo sells them, in the grand market most days." 

He lets the gel settle on the stone for a full minute, and then puts his shoulder to scrubbing.  A minute of effort shows a significant decrease in the stone's staining.  Another five minutes, and it's a chalky, grey white after a rinse.

 "There's a big of drop of result for time invested, as you can see.  If you want to get it all the way back to the sharp white of the old marble, you'll be putting in an hour or so per square foot, more for corners and crevices.  But this'll do it.  It's a little acidic; but not madly so.  If you wash your hands in water within a few minutes of direct skin contact, you shouldn't see any blistering.  I've enough for a little of it to get you started now; if you wanted a larger batch, I'd have to get some large glazed vessels full made up for you.  Delivered, if you like." 

It certainly seems like this'll do the job.  At a guess, there may be five hundred square feet of wall and floor that needs scrubbing, with some allowance given to extra effort on the grimy floor and the tapering off of the staining as it goes up the wall.  That represents  five hundred hours  of labor for this project, not including time set aside to wash hands and breathe clean air. Signore Montaglio pops the wax stopper into the ceramic jug beside him; about three pints of sloppy yellow acrid gel within it.  "This jar would get you through about ten square feet of problem stone.  For the mixing it and sourcing the elements to compose it, this is a gold piece.  But if you're only out past Caesa di Silo, if you pay for a bulk order now, I'll see it shipped to you in batches at no extra charge, as I make it."

Fifty gold  duro  worth of cleaning chemical.  An astonishing investment, in the fane of an unknown god.   Is it worth it? , you wonder.

Is it?

 * * * * * 

That evening, you jot down a letter asking Polo's immediate response concerning your hopes to secure land; bidding that a swift reply might allow you to make purchases in Caesa di Silo on your way back to Bella Collina.  Sapienza, who has finished mapmaking her tourist-maps for now, and spends time meticulously copying the details of a jagged coastline for some rare custom order for now, gives you a recommendation of a good courier she trusts.  "There are pigeons that go from here to Caesa di Silo; but a letter with more than a small sentence will not go with them.  Best to  just pay a young man with a good horse enough to make it worth his while."

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Another Night In Verezzo! 
And another  13 silver, 2 copper for board and Good meal! 
 


And the following morning, as you tie up loose ends and prepare to go, you find just such a courier, as you are scouring the gate district for coaches bound southward.  A rosy cheeked young man, a little younger than yourself and just as bright eyed and world-hungry, trots in little circles on an energetic steed, calling his willingness to run letters ahead, or to go make arrangements for important persons at stops on their way.  "Trust not the Road Wardens to deliver your messages; for they are burdened enough, and oft distracted!  Trust me!  Bartomar, man of the roads!"  His Imperial accent is funny, curled around those Tilean words; but he seems honest enough to your best judgement.  To take your message, leave right away, and bring a response as fast as possible back hopefully catching you at Caesa di Silo, he'll require  2 Duro , since it represents a little under a week's work including the time he'll need to travel back to Verezzo for his next job.

Finding a coach heading south, and not being extorted for the pleasure, will require some devoted cunning...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Put me in the coach, game! 
Give me a flat gossip test to look for transport for your doctor companion, and a charm test while you're at it to try to schmooze discounted passage for her.  This is distinct from haggle, which is used in specific market negotiations.  Trying to convince a coach driver to let your hirling ride along while you trot alongside to provide a modicum of extra protection is charm!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia was genuinely impressed with the resulting detergent, her eyes widening at the resulting cleansing the chemists brew scoured across the marbled face of the sample she had brought.

 "Incredible, singore!"  the shepardess complimented, taking a step forward and peering at the chemical reaction with wide-eyed wonder.

But if there was something that could deflate her it was the mention of the cost... fifty duros!  It took the wind out of Taalia's sails as her mouth gaped slightly. She had not become so wealthy that such a princely sum was but mere pocket change to her, and so as that cost was spoken her eyes swivelled from the effects to the creator.

 "That is...quite a price, Singore!"  she smiled, quickly recovering to her usual sunny self.

 "I intend for this to be used in the cleansing of a former site of worship, one long forgotten and buried. If you will...consider a lower upfront cost, for helping cleanse and restore a former place of worship?" 
 oOo 
Taalia smiled at the young male close to her age, his moxie drawing up an endearment in her that she rarely felt for others. There was something about his keen spirit and willingness to ride across dangerous lands and at night to ensure her words got through that drew a thread of appreciation out of her, as she stood before him with a letter in her hand, already enclosed and sealed.

 "Two duro seems fair,"  Taalia smiled, her growing confidence in the past week emerging as she had her arms folded over her abdomen and her head tilted to one side as she wore that friendly grin. She had come a long way from the nervous, shy girl milling awkwardly on the perimeter of a town festival dance.

 "Though how do I know you won't take it and immediately ride your horse over to the cat houses or to buy a necklace for some pretty thing that's caught your eye, hmmm?"  she spoke, a clear coy and playful tease in her tone as she considered him.

 "I will give you 10 Scellini  now,"  she held up in her hand the 10 glittering coins, holding it over so that they could drop into his waiting hands.

 "And there'll be 1 Duri and 10 more Scellini waiting for you at the  Leaping Vixen House  in Caesa di Silo, where I will meet you in two days time. Agreeable?"  her hand presented the single gold coin and accompany 10 silver ones to show the proof of possessed payment.

Should he agree, Taalia would hand over her sealed document, the contents within reading thus...

 
 Spoiler 
  Dear Polo,
I hope this letter finds you well, and the young man who delivered it in good health.
I also wish to thank you again for all of your assistance in administrative matters of Bella Collina’s local authority.
By now you have doubtless heard of the event that took place on the road between Bella Collina and Caesa di Silo, the dire injury sustained by brave Ernesto and the troubling possibility that our dear Bertuccio has fallen beneath a foul influence. On the latter, you would by now know more than I, and I can only offer my prayers to Myrdimia and sincerest hope from my heart that the man in custody is just a doppleganger and not our brave Roadwarden.
I am sorry to open with grim discussion, but I offer a malady to one trouble. Ernesto, who valorously held back twice his number in bandits alongside his brother, may soon receive relief as I have secured the services of a skilled physician in Verezzo. She will be accompanying me back to Bella Collina, and we should be among you very soon.
This also brings me to the main proposition of this letter in that I recall several months ago in which you offered potential acreage for rent close to Bella Collina itself. I do not wish to brag nor impress the idea of flowing rivers of gold, but I have done well from the trade of fleece and lambs and I feel myself secure and able in ability to fully utilise your invitation. If you are so able, please set aside a single acre of land for my almost immediate employment, with potential expansion to a further fifteen early next year.
I have more to discuss with you on the matter, but my recent efforts have stirred the spirit of enterprise within me and I am fully seized of its direction and momentum. I must also foretell that I plan to establish a small lodging for workers, a sty for swine and a fenced area for livestock on the acre that you may so graciously allocate to my name. I adhere to the adage that one should not count all their chickens before they have hatched, but I grow excited with future ambitions for industrious work and the benefits it will bring to both myself and Bella Collina as a whole, the village that has been so good to me.

Thank you for your time and expertise in this matter Polo. Please give my warmest regards to your beautiful wife, Fenicia. I look forward to seeing you both again!

I have instructed the deliverer of this letter to carry your reply to the Leaping Vixen House in Caesa di Silo where I will supply him with the rest of his pay for services warranted.

Sincerely,
Taalia Giovanni  
 
MrAbdiel
  Signore Montaglio's Fine Substances 

Signore Montaglio smiles faintly; he's not unaware, it seems, of the significant heft of that sum.

 "Signorina Taalia, I beg your forgiveness; but I cannot lower the price.  Near to seventy percent of that sum goes straight to the purchase of the elements, their transport from afar and the tolls to get them here.  I do you the best kindness I can, which is offer to ship them to you at no cost; but with the trading drive for the year almost past, I shall be paying not only the wagoneers, but also the leg-tolls on each batch on each stretch of road, which undoubtedly will be in function again.  My skills, and network of contacts, are highly specialized; I must insist the profit margin here is..."   He opens his hands a little, as if opening a book of disappointing facts before you, to reveal its sad contents.   "...Is fair.  But you needn't order all you should need at once, if the money is a problem.  Here; I will pay the transport charges even if you order only half now, and again later.  There will just be a delay of a few additional weeks past each increment of pay." 
 Quarter of the South Gate 
 "In  two days , signorina, you would have me get to Bella Collina and back to  Caesa di Silo?  I shall have to change horses and ride all day.  If the road tolls were up, I should make no value at all on such a run.  Here; give me one  corona  now, and two at the Leaping Vixen House in two days, and I will accomplish this for you; or three days, at your initially proposed rate.  But with the changing of horses for such a hurry, it is the best I can offer." 

Strange, that he asks for 'crowns'; Imperial currency, no doubt, but you suspect that is just habit, and he is talking about  duri. 
 Quarter of the Ox 

Deep in the poor quarter are the worst smelling businesses; the tanneries, the dyehouses, the slaughterhouses.  You find some of the latter and, with some probing and moxie, find yourself speaking to Donaldo, a member of the guild of Slaughtermen and a purchaser for the large, unpleasantly fragrant building behind him; a great flat building in the shade of the massive exterior wall in which beasts are condemned to being butchered; then potted, or salted, or smoked; or in the cases of those that can afford it, purchased immediately for serving that night.

 "From Bella Collina?" 

He looks at you, a little puzzled.   "It seems a long way to bring swine.  All our suppliers for hogs come from farms immediately around Verezzo.  But I suppose I don't mind how far they come, so long as they get here.  Tell you what - you bring me ten hogs from Bella Collina, and if they pass muster, we can talk about some kind of long term deal.  I'll buy those ten at market rate; and we'll see how they come out after they're slit and drained."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia brought a gloved hand up to her chin, half covering her mouth, and exhaled in thought. Her blue-green eyes were clearly hiding the calculations going on within her mind as she pursed her lips.

Nodding,  "Very well, Singore,"  she spoke. Her tone was not that of dejected resignation, but rather that of one who had weighed the pro's and con's and just came out on the side of the 'pro' side, which was in Signore Montaglio's favour.

 "Twenty five duro now. In the future I will send an equal amount with a rider,"  she spoke, reaching over to her slingbag to retrieve a fat, fist-sized purse from which she counted the agreed upon currency down to the coin.

Placing the golden discs down on the bench before them in five neat little stacks of four, Taalia offered a sincere smile and extended her hand to shake that of the master chemist in a deal agreed.

 oOo 
Raising an eyebrow, unsure what the lad meant by crowns, Taalia decided to err on the side of caution.

 "Yes, three days, I will see you at the  Leaping Vixen Inn ..."  she nodded with an awkward smile that quickly melted away to be replaced by a confident one.

 "Ten silver now, one gold and ten silver then!" 
 oOo 
Just 10 pigs? Did this man not know how many squealing little piglets each sow produced?

Once again the cogs of Taalia's mind whirred to life as she head-mathed the possibilities and pitfalls. What if she invested in too many swine and this man rejected her produce for some reason - what would she do with potentially  hundreds  of pigs without a profitable destination? But what if she  under-invested  and this fellow demanded numbers that she could not satisfy and thus potential duro was lost due to inadequate supply on her behalf?

Inhaling slowly and exhaling, and then nodded, Taalia reached forward to grasp the mans hand and shake.

 "Thank you, Singore. I will send messengers should my farm produce adequate numbers for your enterprise. I will endeavour to do so at the earliest convenience so that appropriate preparations can be made,"  she smiled and nodded.

'My farm'. 'I will send messengers'.

One might think the lass, not even yet eighteen, as biting off more than she could chew, as she only  really  had 6 sheep to her name as the extent of her livestock experience, and from a certain point of view this was a reasonable apprehension of her ambition and ability to deliver. But on the other hand, she had defied greater odds before, so whether she was the real deal or another fake-it-till-one-made-it wannabe would be an image decided in the coming months.

OOC:
 
 Spoiler 
I think we can move to departure from Verezzo now and the return journey to Bella Collina. Farewell, Verezzo, you were a wonderful little adventure of wheeling and dealing!
 
MrAbdiel
 Jezzabella trots alongside the smart-looking, polished wooden coach.  Its owners are a quite well-to-do master mason named  Petruccio  and his wife  Mila .  Petruccio made a pretty penny years ago when the Duke of Verezzo was thrown down and the senate rose to take his place, riding high on the policy of building silos and stocking up on grains so never to face such a famine as that time had suffered again.  He tells you that he oversaw the construction of much of Caesa di Silo and additional 'silo towns' like it elsewhere in Verezzo; and now he travels from town to town meeting with the men who were once his apprentices and workers, checking to see if they need anything or if they need his advice for another project in the places they've settled.  You had successfully negotiated that you and Antonuccia would ride with them up to Caesa di Silo; Antonuccia first expecting to ride on the board at the front with the coachman and his lad, but soon cutting her own deal to ride inside the coach, away from the dust of the road, in exchange for being willing to  have a look at this thing on my ankle and tell me if I should be worried.   You chat with Antonnucia, Petruccio and Mila through the coach's windows sometimes, but more often you are in the laconic company of the coachman, Desmondo, and his nephew Graciano.  Graciano is just on the younger side of puberty, and rides with a crossbow in his lap and his eyes scanning the mountains and trees.  Desmondo, in one of his moments of talkativity, tells you that the boy was struck mute; when he was half his present age, he was trapped outside his home for one  Mystery Night , and has not spoken a word since.

As you wind through the narrow streets towards the South Gate, you are forced to pull over to permit an unusual procession to go past - a quartet of mercenaries escorting a pair of ragged looking men in clothes that might have been neat enough to be merchant class, before they'd been slept in for a week or so on the road.

 "Them's those two who was gluing white wood-chips to the teeth of old nags and selling them as young draughts, they are.  It ain't quite horse-stealing, but it's damn close."   Desmondo informs you of that fragment of gossip around them; Mila warmly warbles even more.   "Oh yes, I know the story of those two.  They say it's been going on for two years - who knows what they've made in fraud, so far?  Only caught because one of the beasts dropped dead and the young fellow who bought it happened to have his father on hand at the time; those rascals were careful only to sell to the kind of gleam-eyed young hands who wouldn't know to look hard for such fraud.  But I hear they managed to scrounge up a litigant, and that it's been elevated to a senatorial matter to give the Reds a chance to pontificate about being concerned for the state of the working farmers." 

It's clear that Mila and Petruccio, not being born to money but having made it themselves, are very suspicious of the merchant classes and their senate, despite technically being in that class themselves now.

The procession passes by to a slowly accruing assembly of hooting and shouting peasants, but you're past at that point; and you pass through the grand gate of the city for a modest toll, out to the South Road and beyond.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 

I presume you've crossed off the 25GC for the first half of the stone-cleaning gel.  You gain 1*Bottle of Stone Cleaning Solution, plus the promise of much more.  It's about 5lbs.

The gate fee is a leg tax again; 12p in total for you, Antonuccia, Corvo and Jezzabella.

Also... roll me a D1000.  That's right; a D1000.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia enjoyed the company of the strangers, and visibly too an interest and delight in talking to each of them - even Desmondo. Though wealth had come her way, the girl was still veritably a foreigner in these lands, her Tilean, though fluent and articulate, marked with an unique accent that few outside of former Skaven slaves developing with Queekish as their 'mother tongue' could muster.

But, despite her newly acquired material finery, Taalia was still at her heart a cheerful and affectionate girl, however much the bums of the Oxen quarter may have jaded her.

So if Desmond wanted a partner to babble on to, Taalia was it. Should Petruccio or Mila desire an young ear into which to espouse what was on their mind, Taalia was it. And if Antonuccia wanted to open the window and chatter out of its frame to a stranger whom she just met, Taalia was it.

When they encountered the procession of shamed charlatans, Taalia was at first mystified as to the procedure. Seeing two men publicly humiliated in such a way didn't sit right with the girl - but then she found out the reason  why  they endured such a communal ritual, and her visage hardened.

That lad whom they had fleeced (haha!) with flim-flam livestock goods? There but for the grace of Myrmidia goes I, Taalia thought. That could have been  her  who had been defrauded of her hard-earned money by scrubby, two-faced greedy little thieves. Even the mere thought of having just one fruit of her labour being stolen by another who lazily looked upon her works with covetous envy was enough to redden the girls face and tempt the dark recesses of her mind with vengeful fantasies.

Though but a second had passed since Taalia had been informed of the con artists deceptions, the girl pursed her lips and mimicked an action she had seen older Tilean men take when confronted by an object of disgust.

She mock spat onto the floor.

  "Pooh! You bastard..."   she uttered in their direction, eyes narrowed.

Paying the toll-men their due, Taalia remained alongside the coach and lent her ear and words to any who desired conversation.
MrAbdiel
 As the hours while away, as you near the crossroads where you know the familiar shape of the  Pigly  will soon rise, you pass the occasional cart driver or lone horseman.  Only one such encounter warrants detail, however.  Two young men with matching shortcropped beards - brothers? - share a saddle on a plodding horse heading back towards Verezzo.  The one with the reigns tips his hat to you as they approach, and you salute back; though it seems to you strange that they should be going that way, as it's certainly late enough in the day that they're going to be riding into the night before they get to the city.  As they come within a few yards of you, your eyes are drawn to Graciano, who reaches suddenly to grab and squeeze his father's knee.  Desmondo looks, and barks out an inarticulate  "AY!" , which is all the warning you need to validate your sense of suspicion - these men have gone for weapons on the side of their horse out of your eyeline, and they mean you harm; but the boy has spotted it, giving you a chance to prepare.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Initiative! 
  HighwaymanRider  - (1d10+4)[ 13 ] 
  HighwaymanPassenger  - (1d10+4)[ 5 ] .

Roll initiative!
 
 
MrAbdiel
 Suddenly, the rider reveals his intention; pivoting at the waist, he snaps his wrist into the air and slings a great hoop of rope up into the air, spinning it for a half-second before lashing it toward you, attempting to ensnare you and, perhaps shortly after, drag you from the saddle!

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Actions: Aim, and attack!

  Vs50  - (1d100)[ 25 ]  to ensnare poor Taalia!
 


The rope sails through the air, and you instinctively lift your arm to protect yourself - just as well, because the loop that snaps tight just above your elbow might have closed on your neck.  The rider doesn't appear to have the sadism in him to enjoy the victory; just desperation and determination in his eyes as he  kicks his heels into his horse's side.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You are lasso'd!  Make an agility test to pull free before it's too tight!  Then, on your turn, if you failed, you can spend your action taking an Agility or Strength test to try to get free as a Full Action.
 
  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


A breath caught in Taalia's throat as the warning was thrown out, her head spinning around to see the two dastardly brothers atop their horse reaching for weapons.

Her eyes widening and reactions kicking in, Taalia reached for her sword with one hand and slung her shield off her back to bring it about before her with the other - but her reactions were too slow. Instead, the lasso of the horse rider spiraled towards her like some flying snake, the rope coiling itself about her left arm as the girls eyes widened and she yanked back out of reflex.

Dropping her arm, shaking her shoulder, she managed to unsling the worst of it in time, as she pressed her heels against the sides of her horse to get the thing to move forward and get her out of range of the next lasso - while she instead drew her bow and let loose an arrow.

However, her aim was clearly off from the abrupt explosion of action, as the first arrow sliced through the air a foot away from her target.
MrAbdiel
 Jezzabella plonks along unaware of the severity of the action going on above her.  Your arrow whistles by one of the brigands; but in an impressive display of horsemanship, he wheels his steed around with his knees, trots it up to within five yards again, and both brothers fling their loops of rope at you - but this time, you're ready; and flattening yourself to the saddle you feel them slap loosely against your back -

 
 Spoiler: Instrusive Thoughts: 
 ...Her maternal instincts, and her resentment for her condition, were alternately vented upon you. And when you returned after your abortive flight into the freezing wilderness, she visited upon your back a fury transmuted from the sum of both... 
 


- before they are drawn back, with no prize for the rope slingers, and you close and ready for another shot.  Careful not to get in your way, Desmondo turns the coach off the road and fumbles for weapons of his own.

 
 Spoiler: Taalia's Turn! 
Both lassos miss this turn.  ;_; no road haul today.  Your turn!
 
 
MrAbdiel
 You knock and loose another arrow, your shot made wide by the move to dodge their snares.  That's enough failure for them - they are pulling their ropes up, preparing to cut their losses and run.  This is made complicated as the mute boy fires his crossbow at the pair; the passenger riding pillion leaning away, but horrified to see that by moving he has enabled the shaft to nail into his brother's shoulderblade.  Crying out in pain, bleeding, punished, the rider kicks his steed into action, turning around and racing back toward Verezzo.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Taalia's turn - the enemy is in flight, with a bolt in one's back.  They are now about 30 yards away, and carrying on!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia glares angrily, drawing her bow up once more, taking careful aim and loosing an arrow...

But of course she missed, like she had every shot she'd taken.

Swearing a litany under her breath, her face reddening as she notched her bow away and then  Punched!  her own palm in anger and frustration at her own utter incompetence, Taalia watched as the brothers fled before she spat onto the ground.

 "I hope you bleed out!"  she yelled at them, before slowly calming down, her nostrils flaring as her simmering rage boiled down from an 8 to about a 1 to 2.

Pursing her lips, turning and looking over at the coachman and his son, the girl nodded at the boy.

 "I'm lucky I've got you around to protect me,"  she nodded with a gentle, sincere smile of thanks to the lad, her disturbing anger clearly having been directed at the highwaymen and herself.
MrAbdiel
 The boy gives a faint smile in return, even as he continues to reload; but Desmondo stays his hand.   "Don't waste the bolt at this range, lad.  A good hit as you did, though.  Might likely have pulled the signorina off her saddle, and taken off with her horse.  Pay all these road tolls and there's no damn road wardens when you need them." 

All this commotion unfolding rather rapidly, the windows of the coach open and its refined occupants peer out to receive the update; but with no harm done, they join in congratulating the boy for his shot and you for your fortune.

Another hour on the road, and the sun dips low on the crossroads with the familiar porcine art display, and a refuge from the road's dangers.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Back at the Pigly 
A very mild ambush; but you may have 80XP for thwarting it.  And you can recover some arrows...

  Vs66  - (1d100)[ 13 ] 
  Vs66  - (1d100)[ 64 ] 
  Vs66  - (1d100)[ 97 ] 

Two!  Two arrows!  Ah, ah, ah!

Back at the Pigly!  10s for a private room as normal, and they'll throw in the stabling of Jezzabella for free.  Is there anything you were hoping to find/do at this coaching inn, or are you happy to zoom on to the next  ambush  stop, which is Caesa di Silo?
 
 
MrAbdiel
 Bolo Hempfire is happy to see you again; and happy to have Rumpold run you another bath, if you want.  At your story about the boy's shot, Bolo plays to the celebration of it; the halfling calling out to the crowd of half-soused mercenaries and travellers to give three cheers for Graciano, who must certainly become Verezzo's answer to Miragliano's marksmen.  And they are playful enough of a crowd to honor it, cheering thrice indeed.  Bolo makes the best treat he can for a lad of that age - a cool mug of cow's milk with honey and cinnamon, which the unspeaking boy seems pleased to receive (if no more verbose as a result.)

After another sleep in the very same room you rented once before (the mason and his wife in a superior suite in one of the other buildings, Antonuccia two doors down from you), your road party sets off again to Caesa di Silo; and gratifyingly, there are no additional ambushes or attacks.

As you approach the silo town, passing stone and wood towers containing grains stockpiled from the land around, like Gaulfredo's corn, you remember how a week ago this little town of several hundred people was the largest human settlement you'd ever seen.  Now it seems so small, compared to Verezzo's towering old walls and tight-packed many-floored buildings; the intricate shuffle of mercenaries and merchants having street food flung to them from balconies while reprobates scurry up ladders to meet their pay-for paramours.

 "Oof.  I'd not look out the windows, signoras; we pass a grisly thing, on the right."   Desmondo's warning inevitably draws your eyes directly there, while those inside the coach heed the warning.  A gibbet has been erected outside this northern gate, and swinging from it in the evening breeze is the body of some unfortunate fellow.  His body is pallid, except the bare feet which are purple and bloated from the sinking, unpumped blood; and the crows have gotten at his eyes, so he must have been there atleast the day's length.  A sheet of parchment is nailed to his sternum.  In big painted letters, the word "SPIA" declares his crime, and a warning to others.

 "Hope he deserved it."  Desmondo's remark is his last word on the subject.  You might hope he deserved it, too; it's Blasio, the shifty fellow who tried to glom onto you to get past the gate guards on your way through last time.  In the interim since you drew away from him and left him fleeing the militiamen, they must have caught him, decided he was a spy, and hanged him... perhaps with painful steps in between.  You imagine a spy might traditionally be more skilled than he seemed to be; but he's dead now.  Whatever secrets he carried are with him in Morr's garden; or else some worse place, if he indeed has earned this execution.

 
 Spoiler: Tolls and Agendas! 
Another 10cp gate fee, and you're back in Caesa di Silo!  What's your agenda for your time in the town?

1. Meet with the courier at the Leaping Vixen House, and get Polo's return correspondence.
2. ???

If there's any more things you'd like to do, I can set them up, too.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia was happy to partake in the wonderful luxury of  The Pigly  once again - a private room, another bath and one more of those amazing meat pies. After the hustle and bustle of Verezzo and the variety of characters she had met there, it felt cleansing and relaxing to the girl to sink her figure down into a hot bath, the warm waters enveloping her skin and the beautiful beef-stuffed pastry of another pie resting by her side. Corvo loved it too! Or at least she thought he did, as the growing, large dog rested quietly in against a wall, the warm bask of the charcoals enough to foster an easy relaxation within the young adult hound.

Seeing the young lad receiving his dues helped ease Taalia's nerves further, as she pictured herself at that age and where she had been. The kids smile was cute to her, even though his actions had wrought violence - possibly even killing a man - and when he was handed a mixture of milk and honey Taalia giggled gently into her hand as now  she  felt like the old adult next to the young babe who was receiving a warm glass of milk and a sweet for being a good boy. It was adorable, really, and peculiar juxtoposition that this kid was being celebrated and rewarded for putting a crossbow bolt into a mans shoulder.

But...Taalia shrugged. It wasn't some random fellow off the street whom he had shot while riding past. No no, he had acted with bravery against a pair of highwaymen that had deceived and ambushed them, and it had been his actions that had prevented further violence and seen the two miscreants off. Yes - he deserved every bit of praise he received, Taalia decided, as she raised her own glass and cheered along with the rest of the tavern.

This jovial mood was not to last for the rest of the journey, however. When the group had departed the warm cheer of  The Pigly , none of them had been expecting the grisly sight of Blasio's desecrated corpse hanging from a tree, his supposed crime for all to see as his clearly painful demise acted as a deterrent to any one else who would attempt such folly. As the group passed the grim spectacle, Taalia closed her eyes for a moment and looked away, exhaling and shaking her head. Though she had become far more desensitised to death than any one her age should, having seen dozens, maybe hundreds, of fellow slaves die in servitude to the vile rat-men, that did not remove the sting of witnessing such a display as the personalised touch of having spoken to him before his apprehension made such a disconnect rather difficult.

If she had acted along with his ruse, would this man have lived?

It's quite possible. But if really had been a spy, her kindness could have incurred terrible consequences that could have perhaps gotten other people killed. After all, assuming he  was  a spy, would he have been hung in such a swift manner if he had not been such a hidden danger to the community? Would he have received the death penalty if he had merely been spying on livestock numbers or crop yields for rival farmers? No, by virtue of the punishment the man had served some wicked motive that she would never know.

Some time later, and in more comfortable conditions, Taalia was seated in the public dining/drinking area of the  Leaping Vixen Tavern . To her right was a flagon of cold ale that she had been slowly enjoying as a side-drink, while before her were a few pieces of parchment upon which she had been compiling her notes from her first foray into the potentially lucrative world of livestock trading. To her left was a writing kit that she had learned to use thanks to the education of Singora Madre. In the different columns and rows she had designation such as the sex of her sheep, the number of lambs produced and whether they were rams or ewes, the 'quality' of the offspring and their parents (which she designated in an A-C grading range), the volume of milk produced by each ewe and any particular health concerns such as a difficult birth etc In other columns were numbers that denoted how much each individual sheep had been purchased for, while another was how much fleece they had produced, the price she had gained for said material at market and how much each sheep or lamb had been sold for, if anything, how much with a running total for how productive each sheep was. In general, she had bought each sheep for 2gc and received 9.5gc in return for the ensuing fleece and lamb, while the overall income had been  57gc , which was a return of 11.4gc for each of her 5 ewes. But, with the addition of the cottage cheese sales to Gaulfredo and Ariana brought that total up to  61.95gc , for an average per ewe of  12.39gc  per season, or a 6.2gc return per gold duro invested, or 4.43gc if one also considered the initial pen construction costs. Ah! But she had also gained an A-grade ram lamb that she had not sold. Another 6gc worth of stock. But...he was in the inventory. It was a valuable asset, but she had not made any income from that fellow yet. Next year she could potentially stud him out to others in need of a good rams services, with a potential flat sum payment plus a 10% commission for each successful lamb he produced.

That each sheep required almost no feeding 'costs' due to their grazing nature, and the transport of most of their produced goods was a relatively easy affair due to the inert and non-perishable nature of fleece, Taalia could see that her sheep flock had been an excellent choice for her initial investment and entry into livestock.

Taalia tapped the feather of her quill against her chin as she pondered the future. Of course there were taxes to pay, ten percent of her yearly revenue, but she had set aside that required allotment to give the authorities their due, however painful it was to part with funds that could secure a few more sheep.

Cattle had a soft spot with the girl, as she thought cows were rather adorable. Just the blank, dumb and trusting look they had and their affectionate nature when bonding with their human owners was endearing. Buuuuut, each unit was, as she observed in the Caesa di Silo livestock market, approximately  10gc , only had one calf a year and the secondary source of productivity, their milk, was perishable and needed to be sold quickly. Bella Collina had a carrying capacity for milk, as nutritious as it could be, while Taalia also lacked access to a cheese cave, natural or artificial, to fully exploit the potential transformation of milk into cheese, which had so frustrated her in the utilization of her sheeps milk. So if she spent 100gc on 9 cows and 1 bull, the following season she could expect an investment return of 90gc  at best , which would actually require 2 years to acquire because the calves would have to mature. Given the huge amount of acreage such an operation would require, it was simply a poor investment. Any males could be castrated early and be trained into oxen, but after talking with Ernesto and his brother about the procedure, Taalia could see that it was a huge time investment. Potentially very profitable, but required a bit under half a decade to mature. There were better options.

Pigs on the other hand...each sow could produce approximately 10 piglets twice a year, twenty in total. Each piglet could go for 1.5 to almost 4gc at market, Taalia had observed, creating a huge potential spread of 30gc to 80gc  per sow  a year. Even just a few pigs could be an incredible secondary income stream, though establishing a piggery with a sty and fencing, not to mention the enormous amounts of food she would have to acquire for  that many pigs , of which she had little experience, made such a venture uncertain to her.

Alternatively...Taalia tapped that feather against her chin again, lips pursed in thought as her eyes drifted down to the smaller entry she had made for her chickens.  6gc  they had so far made her from four dozen eggs sold at market per week, or predictably  12gc  a year. A nice little emergency income, a decent wage for a single person on their own, but that was purely sales of the eggs. It meant that each chicken produced about 16 silver worth of income each year. Howver, she knew that mature chickens could go for five pennies each, and even her small flock of 15 birds produced a dozen eggs a day...seven dozen a week...if she allowed them all to mature and sell those instead, in an expanded coop...Taalia shook her head. Chickens didn't graze, the amount of food to grow each one to maturity would out-weigh the costs for selling it, and she'd have bloody thousands of the things after six months. They'd eat her out of house and home. Shaking her head, she returned her thoughts to sheep and pigs.

Taalia started to write on her second parchment two ideas for her expansion, using her powers of prediction for both an expanded sheep flock or acquisition of a group of sows and a boar. Or both! If she truly was going to settle in this village that had been so good to her and become a long-term fixture of its social climate, this would be her legacy.

It all depended on Polo's words.



ooc:
 
 Spoiler 

1. That's about it. Her further agenda would depend upon the return correspondence. If Polo had gone ahead and secured the acre, she would start haggling the local market for pigs. If he shows apprehension, however, then she would meet him later in town.

So the length of stay really depends on Polo's response, which you've hinted at will be more counselling caution than thumbs-up full-speed-ahead.

Alternatively, Polo could rock up himself in person.
 
MrAbdiel
 The courier from the far lands of Sigmar's tribes has arrived at the Leaping Vixen House shortly before you did; cursing his luck mildly.  "Ah, if I had known we'd arrive so well timed, I would not have booked a room; just hit the road and tried my luck at one of the farmhouses.  Here you are, signorina."  He presents you a return slip of parchment, which turns out indeed to have been Polo's response.

 
 Spoiler: Polo Correspondo 
My young friend Taalia,

Fenicia and I are glad to hear from you.  The accounts we have received about the combat on the Silo Road were very fierce but the reports of your valor, and that of all the other Bella Collinans involved for that matter, do fill me with pride.  Ernesto is resting and we will all be glad when you have escorted this physician to his side.  Until then, the Madre Angeletta will continue to check on him, and the rest of us pray to Shallya.  I do not mind whether a miracle comes from the goddess, or the Madre's wisdom, or a Verezzan sophisticate's books.  Any miracle that does the job is fine, by me.

To the meat of your letter, so I do not over-delay your courier who even now struggles to restrain himself from touching every loose object in my home and talking about what they have instead back in the Empire: yes, there is still opportunity to rent land near to the north of Bella Collina.  Given your rise to local fame and service to the other Bella Collinans, I don't think the Rampollo will have difficulty approving your tenancy.  I do recall the last time we spoke, you seemed more partial to the land south, nearer to Gaulfredo's farm; and you must forgive my nature as a man averse to sharp changes and sudden movements.  I congratulate you on your earnings, but I wonder if you would permit Fenicia and I to have you at our home for dinner when you return, at which time we can discuss your business ambitions.  I might be able to help you mitigate some of the risks involved.

Affectionate yours,

Polo.
 


The tone of the letter, like the man itself, is a little tense and nervous, averse to adventurism; but what you notice sharply is the lack of any mention of Bertuccio despite you bringing him up directly in your last letter.  You can't imagine he simply forgot - he must be electing not to mention the matter, which leaves you wondering if there is any advance on that issue.. and how dire it might be.

 "You know, in the Empire, there are great, monsterously powerful and swift creatures called 'gryphons', half eagle, half great cat." 

You blink up at the courier, who gazes out the window of the Leaping Vixen House's common room at an eagle perched on the cone point of a silo; smiling in benign wonderment of his own, adventurous life.   "I wonder how many deliveries I could make, on such a soaring creature.  And no bandit in the world would try to rope me off; he'd need a mile of rope to even reach me, in the sky!" 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
It would be polite to pay this man!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia read the letter with the eagerness of a child who had written to Santa Claus and received a response, her eyes darting back and forth across the lines as her enthusiasm slowly drained. Perhaps she was just overly-keen, as her excitable youth had fostered in her mind a more conducive response from the foster-family friend. Instead his reply seemed tepid, perhaps even overly cautious yet gentle in his wait-and-see attitude.

Into this slight disappoint was, of course, her note that Bertuccio had not been mentioned.

Two worrying elements indeed.

Looking up from her letter as the messenger spoke, Taalia perked a slender, white eyebrow.

 "Hmmm?"  she asked softly, before realisation opened her mouth and eyes.

 "Oh, yes!"  Taalia said, nodding as she reached for one of her pouches to retrieve the designated  one duri and ten silver  she had promised the lad. Counting it out on the table before her, she gestured with her hand 'here it all is!' with a polite smile.

When that little business was conducted, Taalia read the letter again, almost in the fleeting hope that she had either missed a crucial sentence of acquiescence or mention of their Roadwarden, but alas, no such overlooked text existed. Sighing gently, leaning back in her seat and letting the parchment fall onto the table before her atop the home-made records and ledger she had been pouring her mind into, the girl exhaled once again in despondence before gingerly picking up her flagon and taking another sip.

No new pigs. No new sheep. No haggling with the local markets. It was a little bit of a disappointing conclusion to an otherwise fantastic run of luck and circumstance, but soon Taalia's optimism stirred from its sleep once more as she remembered something else: the bounty on the mutants!

ooc:

 
 Spoiler 
Alas, Polo urges caution.

Taalia will try and collect the bounty for the bandits that the Watch Marshal hinted at during her last time in the town, before heading back to Bella Collina with the lovely Antonuccia.
 
MrAbdiel
  
 Spoiler: OOC: Fees 'n Taxes 
If you haven't, another pile of coins for another night on the road is due -
5s for the Room
13p For Stable and Fodder
4p for a good meal!
 


The following morning, while Antonuccia talks her way onto the buckboard of a pedlar's cart bringing tanned leather goods to Bella Collina, you check in with the constabulary about the bounty.  Some of the men their remember you, but to your surprise, it seems the payout of that matter has already been settled - presumably, Gaulfredo and the others must have taken payment for the slain mutants after you took off north, but before they headed south.  There's no gate fee for those heading off down the Silo Road toward Bella Collina - removing the price to leave that way discourages unpleasant situations where paupers are 'trapped' in the town, and the city Verezzo pays the administrators of Caesa di Silo a small encouragement to make sure the poor are channeled 'away' from the city, as if that would stop them.

You pass a pair of road wardens, a man and a woman who seem young and also overly friendly with one another until they realize the amount of attention you are paying to them.  Then they straighten up and pass by you on their horses; young recruits who have not completely internalized the fact that they are even now travelling down the side of the road where their predecessor was jumped and killed.

With this open air ride for Antonuccia, and the cart driver particularly laconic, you pass the journey fielding questions from her about Bella Collina; what it is like, who is in charge, how do the people respond to crisis so far from the mercenary centres, and so on.  It might be the first time someone has relied on  you  to prepare them to feel welcome in  your home ; Bella Collina being only six months yours... but still, distinctly, yours in a way that it did not belong to a stranger.

You pass by the scraggly hops fields of Nogrom's home, off the east side of the road as you are almost back in the village; a few homesteads whose occupants you do not know, but with small gardens and fields of their own, with handfuls of livestock.  Their plants, like Nogroms, look somewhat frail and stringy, you notice; and the punishing summer sun is all there is to blame. But as that sun dips low, you arrive in Bella Collina once more, bidding your cart-driver farewell.  It's not quite dark enough that all sensible people are giving up and going to bed; but the dwarf Nogrom - vassilating at the north road's connection to the village as to whether he ought to hustle home by foot in the dark or get a room at Gherardino's, spots you walking Jezzabella into the village square, and hurries up to you to intercept you in the long evening shadow of the bronze Myrmdia.

 "Glad ye travelled safe, young Taalia; ye and ye're friend.  Polo's been having me keep an eye our for ye, to fill ye in as soon as ye arrived.  It's... it's a  pickled beet , is what it is; a real mess of a matter." 

At first, Antonuccia looks at you with concern, having concluded that the troublesome matter is the paralyzed Ernesto; but the situation is made more clear - and even Antonuccia, with all her city-slick medical education, cannot unravel it.

Sitting in the small brick jailcell build into the back of Gheradino's tavern is Bertuccio; his hair messy and scruffy, his face and body sporting the bruises and treated wounds from the hiding you and the others gave him on the Silo road.  He sits on the pallet of straw that serves as the cell's bed, forehead in his hands, elbows on his knees, rocking a little and occasionally mumbing and looking up at the assembled visitors with haunted, tired eyes.  You, Antonuccia, Nogrom and Gheradino look in at him through a door made of vertical iron bars too close together to permit more than a hand and some forearm to squeeze through.

It seems the Bella Collinans have not been able to solve this problem.  It is a complex problem, to be fair: ten minutes ago,  Nogrom had taken you to the Bella Collina stables to drop off Jezzabella - and also to show you that Bertuccio was there, also.  This Bertuccio is more familiar to you; his hair short and boring, his features blandly handsome and unbruised.  He sits in an unused stall of the stable with his ankles shacked to an iron ring in the floor usually employed for restraining horses for gelding; though fortunately for Bertuccio, no one has felt that things need to go so far for him.  He isn't very chatty - but then again, he never was; and his quiet self-counsel seems to be aiding in restraining his sanity in this scenario.

Of the two Bertuccios in camp, it is that one, back at the stable, and not this one here in the prison cell who is most like the one you know. That much is true.  The deeper complication remains.

 "But Bertuccio has been around Bella Collina for years,"  Gheradino confers quietly with the group of you on this side of the bars.   "We thought it was as simple as hanging the crazy one and being done with it, but Polo asked us if we could really tell much about the matter.  What if Bertuccio had been captured on the road, and replaced with the one we've known the last year - and what if the one you fished up from the road is the real man, driven to madness by the mutant company he has been forced to keep?  We can't get much sense out of this one, but the other one's never claimed a twin before or when we asked after.  Its clear there's a great, evil trick being played on us; but how in Verena's name can we tell we've done the right job when we hang one, and set the other free?  What if we turn out to be hanging a man who has had his whole life stolen from him - and we give that life back to the man who stole it?  A cursed affair to be in."   
 "A real pickled beet."   Nogrom summarizes.  Antonuccia, who has been in town for a whole twenty minutes before being exposed to these shenanigans, shakes her head.   "Well.  I can give each a thorough medical examination.  But if one - or both - have been given a... a new face by some evil magical means, I fear this may not be a matter I can offer consultation over; much as I would like to help.  This is a matter for priests." 

The consultation goes quiet; quiet enough that you can hear the prisoner nearby, muttering, almost prayerfully:

" I am Bertuccio... I am a Warden of the South Road... "

 
 Spoiler: Ber-Two-Ccio 
What a pickled beet!  Taalia isn't in charge in this scenario, but as normal, the humble townsfolk are open to suggestions from anyone who seems to have a good or clever idea.  Especially since this is a matter of law and hanging - something they might have deferred to Bertuccio on.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

The trip back from Caesa di Silo had been a surprisingly pleasant one, despite the absence of a coach. However, there was something calmly about behold the vast agricultural fields stretching out in all directions beneath the warm Tilean sun and the learned company of the physician that set Taalia at ease and allowed her to enjoy every moment.

The sight of Bella Collina was a happy one for Taalia, the quaint village resting upon the horizon and drawing closer as the days travel went on, the situation within was deeply troubling to her. Indeed, Taalia felt surprised at how much she enjoyed seeing Nogram again, given that she barely knew him, but a warm melange in her chest at speaking with Polo once more and standing in that town square spoke to something deeper and more abstract until the girl finally realised what it was: she was home.

The good times were not to last.

Seeing the disheveled, beaten up Bertuccio was disturbing, to say the least, but not something that Taalia had not been exposed to before. She could still remember the first slave she had seen go mad, a sane man one day, a gibbering lunatic the next who believed he was morphing into a Skaven as his mind crumbled within his skull. It gave the girl a stark reminder as to how mysterious but dominating ones mind was over ones life: her limbs may be injured, her body broken at times, but to suffer an affliction of the mind? To have oneself trapped away in the unreachable corridors of their own psyche while the outside world became little more than a projection? Taalia had to suppress a shudder. It was a frightful thought, and it made Bertuccio's state even more pitiful.

But...then there was the second Bertuccio. Or the first?

The  second  Bertuccio was even more troubling. Though he appeared normal, he appeared fine, Taalia found herself agreeing with Polo's reasoning for staying the execution. There was just something  off  about the way the man just sat there, barely saying a word, offering no professions of innocence. Taalia knew the man was not the most talkative before, but for Myrmidia's sake - he was on trial for his  life ! Some type of recognition upon seeing herself, some smile, however small, when he saw Taalia's image darkening that door with just a few words of relief or greeting at her appearance. But nothing. He just sat there, saying nothing. The shepardess knew that the Roadwarden was a man of few words, but his own town had just arrested him, and he couldn't seem to care less. He didn't even seem  mad  that he was, to his belief, being falsely accused, or that he had had some doppelganger running around wearing his image. Nothing.

When the group were together and from listening ears, Taalia leaned in and spoke softly as she shared these thoughts with the others. The Bertuccio they knew was indeed a man of few words, but was he  that  nonchalant over the possibility of being hung by his own town as a traitor?

Hearing Antonuccia's offer to inspect both, Taalia nodded before an idea hit her. It was not a pleasant idea, but it could offer a modicum of help.

 "There is another in this village, a beautiful girl: Bella. To my knowledge, she was receptive of Bertuccio's advances, they were not yet married, but he was courting her, yes?"  Taalia both stated and asked, her eyes moving to Polo for him to confirm.

 "Perhaps she might have recognised a... change  of any sort coming over Bertuccio, either recently or months ago, either in his personality or...physically. We should inquire with her, poor girl." 
MrAbdiel
 This seems wise; Gherardino sends his children running through the street to Bella's home, to bring her over while it's still light enough to do so.  Fifteen minutes later, Bella - her loveliness somewhat tarnished by sleeplessness about her eyes - attends your group; you introduce her to Antonuccia, and fill her in on your suggestion.  She has been aware of the situation, and distressed by it; but for now, she has been heeding invitations to keep  She blushes a little; glancing to Gheradino and Nogrom who decide to shuffle back and become interested in conversation about the dwarf's next round of ale production, so the ladies can discuss such a delicate matter with a modicum of appropriate gender division.

Bella shakes her head a little.   "We... Well, that is to say... I certainly... pursued him, hoping he would pursue back.  But we've never -... Nothing like that.  He never seemed like he really... understood I was waiting for it.  For him to pursue me, I mean."   Perhaps a surprising revelation.  But, after all, you'd seen Bella attract his eyes, and draw him to dance... but not much more, than that.  He embraced her with worry when the troll nearly got her; but you have witnessed no kisses, or hand-holding.  Could Bertuccio have simply... missed the signals she was sending him, and therefore neglected to respond in kind to what is, for a man of his status and place in the world, and very desirable partner indeed?  Thinking back to the stolid prisoner in the stables, with his alarming serenity in the face of this nightmare... Yes, yes he might well be the kind of man who misses something like that.

Bella does stay, for the evening's efforts.  While Nogrom and Gheradino remain with Antonuccia for her physical inspection of 'crazy' Bertuccio, you and Bella go to speak with 'sane' Bertuccio; swapping after half an hour or so and reconvening afterward.  'Sane' Bertuccio knows who Bella is; remembers where they met; just as he knows you, and recalls your shared experiences.  He remembers coming to Bella Collina five years ago from his hometown in the North of Verezzo to briefly apprentice, and then to become, the local roadwarden.  He has all the memories that you would expect him to have, being the man that you first met at Gaulfredo's farm, who made an effort to speak to you in what scraps he knew of queekish -  Rat-man?  Man-rat?  Rat Rat?  - and it is hard not to conclude that this is your  real  Bertuccio.  By contrast, 'crazy' Bertuccio seems to know only what he has been told; though he has grasped on to the facts he has picked up from conversations around him and the alarmed exposition by the Watch Sergeant back in Caesa di Silo like they were driftwood in a hungry, drowning sea.  He doesn't know who Bella is, but immediately seems soothed by her voice.  He remembers you, but only from the battle on the road; and even that event he has trouble communicating.  Perhaps it's the head trauma received at the time - perhaps, without a sense of who he was, his ability to remember things before he was  told  his name is... sketchy.  He seems remarkably untroubled by Antonuccia's physical checking - after being carried blindfolded and gagged on a cart (not to mention all the circumstances that preceeded that) for days, his sense of personal freedom is demolished if it existed at all.  'Sane' Bertuccio, Antonuccia and the lads report to you, was not at all happy to be exposed and especially infront of a woman, but his embarassment did not stop his pattern of dull compliance.  The only 'new' information you get is from 'crazy' Bertuccio, when you and Bella are leaving him to reconvene with the others after the examinations are done.

 "Wait, wait - ...The... the man with the broken back.  Will he... stand?  Walk, again?" 

It's a disarming flash of clarity, delivered in Bertuccio's familiar voice, though with more softness and empathy than you are used to from the one you know.

 "...We don't know, yet."  Antonuccia supplies, clinically; though gives him no more than that, suspicious as she remains.

In the assembled huddle, the five of you confer once more.  Antonuccia sighs.

 "They are physically identical.  More so than any twins I have ever seen.  They have matching scars, for those that seem older than a few years, too.  What I mean is, they are identical beyond any natural capacity for that to happen.  Even the most striking similar twins end up with different.. freckles, and thumbprints.  And there's nothing about the... unsettled one that marks him as a mutant.  Just.. damaged in the mind.  If he is a genuine mutant, it's nothing I've ever studied or heard of.  I think we should... keep them both incarcerated until a specialist can get here." 

You can't imagine what a  mutant specialist  is like.  It sounds like the job that comes with fire, and small, sharp knives kept in a leather roll.

Nogrom is predictably dour.   "Be that as it may, he is still a brigand; I've met plenty of madmen who wouldn't hurt a fly, and only this one who killed a road warden and would have killed us and all if he'd had but the chance.  This is no mystery for Verena; give it to Morr.  Brigands swing, and we do suffering and disservice to all the town every day we have the people fretting and chinscratching about this all." 

It's certainly the quickest solution - kill the man you know has done dark deeds, free the one you do not know has done so.  But the light of distrust this affair shines on 'original' Bertuccio might not be so easily dismissed; and perhaps answers, if they exist at all, would die with the hanged man. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Where Taalia had hoped her idea would bring further clarity, unfortunately it only seemed to direct them around back to square one. Bella's arrival elicited considerable sympathy from the Shepardess, as she met the girl with a warm, tight hug - easily wrapping her long arms around the shorter girl and drawing her in close. The directions life could go truly were unexpected. Four months ago Taalia hated her, secretly cursed her image as that of a little hussy and would've openly laughed if the troll had've gobbled her up. But now, she their hearts pressed together as the ex-slave couldn't image what the poor dear was going through, but knew she wanted to try and ease the trauma she was receiving by proxy.

However after the inspections and analysis, frustratingly they were no closer to discerning the truth. Was Bertuccio really  that  boring that he faced potential death with the mild irritation Taalia would feel if she dropped a delicious sandwich? At what point did one stop being stoic and simply become dense?

Listening to their suggestions, Taalia pursed her lips and gently shook her head to Nograms suggestion. The dwarf was a valuable ally in some areas, but he was often too hasty to make those decisions that could have big long-term consequences.

 "I think we should try to discern the truth as best as we are able,"  Taalia stated.

 "Should we simply hang the mad one and free our Bertuccio..."  she chose her phrasing carefully,  "then the specter of distrust will  always  hang over him. Who will trust being alone with him, or confiding in him about sensitive matters? Only irrefutable proof that he is our Bertuccio, untainted and true, will fully clear his name." 

She remembered then what Berutccio had said of his past: he was not a native to Bella Collina. He had moved here five years ago. What if, during that transition, he had been abducted from the road and replaced by a doppleganger? The Mad Bertuccio, as the physician had said, had no signs of mutation, only a mental affliction.

Meanwhile, he even knew some Queekish.

And the two were  exact  body doubles.

Taalia's eyes widened as a particularly dark and disturbing possibility bubbled up from deep within her memories and crawled through her mind.

 "Antonuccia is right,"  Taalia spoke, a look of grave concern suddenly across her face.

 "We should call for a priest or wizard who deals with the mind and whom can provide anodynes for a broken psyche. I will offer such a practicioner twenty gold to heal the mad one of his malady so he may speak the truth." 
MrAbdiel
 
 
 Spoiler: Rats and Rat Accessories 
Your mind casts back to your time in captivity to the Skaven, and the fleshy monstrosities they made.  How awful the products of their labor; you recall the giant rats made bloated and grotesque with surgery and chemical enhancement, and the rat-ogres... massive brutes constructed, not born, from flesh and bone wicked science.  Tales of even more strange and monstrous things pervaded, in those pits; though you never saw them yourself, you believed it.  Could this doppleganger be... a fabricated being?  A human made into an infiltrator, as a spy for the rats?

Maybe not.  From all you had seen, one thing Skaven science lacked above all else was subtlety.  To construct something so perfect, without scars or mutations or grotesquery, seems beyond them.

But still.. you can't shake the thought.  If they  could  do that... it's  exactly  the kind of thing that they  would  do.  The notion that anyone you meet could be a pawn for the rats... it's too terrible to contemplate.
 


Gherardino rubs the back of his head, and looks down at the floor between you all.  Then he nods a little.   "Right.  Right.  Not the easiest, but the least likely to leave anyone else with... blood on their hands." 

The tavernkeeper seems to be worn down by this doppleganger development almost as much as Bella.  You have spent less time with him than many of the others in town - the occasional visit to buy a bottle comes to mind - but you know he also fell into the roll as Bertuccio's second from time to time.  When the Troll of Bella Collina needed another competent horseman to bait it into the archer's sight, Gherardino was the man for the job.  Roadwardens typically have a good relationship with village innkeepers and coaching inn operators, who have facility to build jail cells when having a dedicated building and employing a full time warden is not feasible.  Gherardino, caring for his two young children alone, must have taken the time to monitor the occasional prisoner for Bertuccio in the course of his duty.  They might have been friends; perhaps even best friends.  Now, Gherardino was a jailor to  two  Bertuccio's; one mad, both trapped in a helpless nightmare of identity attack.  Perhaps it's fair for him to be worn down.

But he does what men often do, what especially men who have been fathers do; and compresses that exhaustion into the mettle of himself, so he can be what the people around him need him to be.  Like when the Troll came, he is a more than decent man to have around in crisis.

 "Well, that's all we can do for tonight.  Nogrom, it's too dark to strike out home; even if your dwarf-eyes are as good in moonlight as lanterns, you can ride back to your place with the fellow who brought your barrels.  He's staying in the common room; if you'd take your usual bed there, you'd be doing me a favor watching our prisoner.  I'll check in on the one in the stables a few times through the night, but he's not going anywhere.  Taalia, I expect you'll be staying with Polo and Fenicia tonight.  If you'd be so kind, can you ask him to write a letter about all this?  We'll have someone set off to run it to Verezzo, probably to the Shallyan Sanitorium, and see if they can bring some folks back with them.  Signorina Antonuccia, if you'll bear with us a moment, I'll get you a private room ready upstairs.  And you two-" 

He leans sideways out of the conversational huddle, and points an accusing finger at little Rubeus and Perusia, who lurk at the bottom of the staircase partially concealed behind the bannister, who look shocked,  shocked  to be discovered.

 "...Ought to get to bed, unless you want to stay up to help prepare the Signorina's room." 

Faced with a terrible choice - work, or bedtime - the children immediately elect the latter, and scamper up the stairs toward their quarters, the drumbeat of their little heels on the boards above somehow mischievously musical.

* * * * *

Polo and Fenicia are predictably happy to see you, having grown a little worried at the extra delay at your arrival to their door.  Fenicia has some now cooled stew and bread set aside for you; she stokes the oven's fire to heat it up for you, and takes the final bowl over to the tavern for Antonuccia.

Polo listens to your update about the Bertuccios, and fusses with his writing kit (he has a fine selection of ivory pens - carved from mammoth tusk from Norsca, he tells you) as you eat.   "I feel dreadful for Bertuccio - our Bertuccio, I mean.  But he seems to grasp the necessity of his isolation.  A lesser man would bitterly rage that he had done no crime and should not be incarcerated, and would not be precisely wrong; but our roadwarden knows that keeping people safe sometimes requires these... imperfect compromises, and sacrifices.  I'll write to the Shallyans, and ask them to take the liberty to sign on anyone they think helpful to the task.  Verenans have many orders for whom seeking truth is a high goal; perhaps they'll help, also.  It's very generous of you to put up those twenty  duri .  I'll match it, myself.  And perhaps put in a little time at the holy house, in prayer; not a well worn habit of mine, but worth taking up now."
 
He does get around to talking about your agrarian ambitions, and gives you an apologetic smile; thumbing at the side of his crooked nose as he explains.

"I've nothing but faith in you - Gaulfredo and Ariana are ever so fond of you, and we're fond of you too - we really enjoy having you stay here when you come to the village centre.  And you've proven so capable in commerce and combat, it's really so remarkable.  You must have been-"

He severs the ill fated remark.  Your mind tries to fill in the blank -  must have been a valuable slave, maybe?  - and you can see the aborted positive sentiment, wisely steered away from the ugly memories it would have to pass through.  He moves on.

 "-Well, I mean.  Anyway, if it had been a matter of a few more chickens or sheep, I'd have told you to go right for it.  But once we start dealing with these numbers - your letter suggested you were considering expanding up to sixteen acres in the next year or two - there's issues of scaling to consider.  There's a few big grazers and ranchers out here; but if a year from now you're starting an operation with a hundred new beasts and competing for the same buyers, there's going to be a fair few small farmers who are put out by that - folks who are supporting their children and parents, or whatnot; or paying off a loan they took to get their farm restarted after their last one was burned down the last time Pavona came to war with Verezzo.  Slow, smooth growth is the rule in provincial places like Bella Collina.  Sometimes there's other opportunities, but it's best, if possible, to take everyone with you, when those come up." 

A downer of a speech with a cryptic ending, and he holds up his hands,  shaking his depleted share of fingers side to side for a halting moment.   "Here, just... tomorrow morning, I'd like you to come with me to the Rampollo's home.  There's a meeting of some of the higher scaled farmers to talk about upcoming land partitioning; strictly, you don't quality, unlanded as you are right now; but the I suggested you be included, and the Rampollo had no objection.  Reserve your dreams for another day, and you might have a clearer view of the ways before you.  Will you do this for me?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Bertuccio's..."condition" was troubling in itself, but the direction in which her mind wandered in regards to Skaven flesh-crafting was too disturbing to further ponder.

Taalia, being brainy but still a relative youngster, had her thoughts and her concerns, but ultimately she had done the best she could today.

She wished all present a sincerely goodnight, even giving Bella another warm, tight hug and a kiss on her cheek with an offer to spend the night at her home to keep her company should she wish for a shoulder "to cry on" so to speak.

But soon it wasn't long until Taalia was heading off to her veritable foster Uncle and Auntie's house.

 oOo 
Seeing Fenicia again was oddly enjoyable for Taalia. Not that she didn't like the woman earlier, she had gotten along well enough. But there was something...homely, she was finding, familiar even, with those who inhabited Bella Collina that she had missed when she had travelled to and around Verezzo. perhaps once again it was just that she was feeling more 'at home' in Bella Collina, and those within it either her communal friends or, in Fenicia and Polo's case, adoptive family.

The stew was a lovely and hearty meal which Taalia greedily devoured - but obviously while exhibiting manners and decorum at the dinner table. When Polo offered to meet her offer of twenty duro to attract an experienced and skilled Priest or Wizard to mend the broken psyche of the madman so that they, as a town, could get to the bottom of this affair, it just dawned on Taalia how much money that was.  Twenty duro ....by Myrmidia's arse, was she throwing that type of money around  already ? Four months ago she would have fought an orc barehanded for that type of money, that was 10 sheep! Or 6 pigs! Now she had offered it so swiftly to help bring an anodyne to a bleak condition her village was ensuring.

But...speaking of acquiring more sheep...

Polo's words were...not ones that she had anticipated. In fact...Taalia didn't understand. This is what people on the surface did...wasn't it?

Once again Taalia's...ignorance? Naiviety? Newishness? To the reigon showed through as what she thought she could do ran up against what the community at large would approve of her doing. Sure she was the local hero...for now. A little celebrity - a strikingly tall, capable and valorous girl that had helped defend the town and had become surprisingly wealthy in a short amount of time using the rural wealth available to one who was able. But...

To Polo, Taalia's expression went through several different phases. The first was confusion. The second, perplexed calculation. The third, disbelief. The fourth, a hint of...resentment? The fifth, bargaining. The sixth, disbelief again. The seventh, acceptance?

 "But..."  she started, a wave of confusion washing over her face as it was visibly clear she was trying to calculate the different avenues before her, her ambition colliding with her inexperience and lack of cultural knowledge or finesse. Once again, it was easy to forget that she wasn't even twenty yet. Indeed, she wasn't some veteran lady farmer with a husband and several pups of her own yet - she was a young'un. A clearly very capable and energetic and ambitious one, but still of a rather tender and formative age.

Taalia pursed her lips and rallied her mind. She sat up straight, shoulders square.

 "Yes, I made contacts with a slaughter house in Verezzo to receive animals. I know that Bella Collina has a carrying capacity for produce, I learned that from the sale of my eggs"  she started with a smile.

 "I was pondering an expansion. I..."  she trails off,  "considered either pigs or sheep, and I..."   Taalia reached into her backpack and produced a document - the one she had been working on in the  Leaping Vixen Tavern  back at Caesa di Silo, the one that acted as both a ledger and veritable blue-print the girls next 2 year plan using formula's constructed from numbers that she had gathered with her experience at market. She presented the document forward, a stack of about 10 pages, all hand-written - though not with a set as exquisite as Polo's, which Taalia had looked upon with a slight degree of envy - with four holes punched into the further-most left of the pages with a long string woven through to bind them together into a makeshift, primitive book.

 "I formulated a plan for either, depending on what your response was going to be, based upon what I learned this year..."  she gestured to the columns, rows and calculations, gently drawing her index and middle finger across as a guide.

 "I spoke to other merchants and farmers at Caesa di Silo and Verezzo. That is what planted the idea of pigs within my mind for a first expansion. But they have considerable costs,"  she used both her hands to "open" her makeshift book, presenting the pages where she had taken notes and written thoughts and speculations and projections.

 "Sheep are what I know,"  she said, before smiling and blushing and then shrugging,  "well,  know best , as it were,"  Taalia giggled gently, showing a sign that she was at least aware of her own current limits as she even blushed a little.

 "But - "  she composed herself, gesturing once more to her projected plans.

 "I thought for the first year, twelve months from now, about six of the acres you said were free. That would be room enough to bring my flock up to fifty.  Hermes  can service that many ewes, while I could stud  Fabio , "  she paused briefly, realising Polo wouldn't know,  "Oh, that's the excellent quality ram lamb I kept. He will be a magnificent male in ten months or so! That's what I called him, Fabio! My boy!"  she beamed proudly. She had been there and had helped deliver that ram into the world - the pick of her first lambing season!

 "But I could stud Fabio out to those who needed a ram if they had ewes. I would have fifty sheep in total for the next twelve months, one of those boys I would hire full time to assist me, and I would build a barn and and..." 

Taalia took Polo through her estimations and projections - her medieval business plan, essentially - for her first year plan and second year plan, whether it was pigs, sheep or more of one with a side of the other, the costs and the projected income and profits. The girl had ambition and a head for work and numbers. But more than that, she had an advantage few of her rural competitors possessed: literacy and a solid grasp of mathematics.

Well, a huge pile of money that 99.5% of farmers would never singularly possess in their life as well, but literacy and math.

She could draw up plans, perform calculations, devise projections, discern costs and yields and more. Her average family competitor, even large time livestock rancher, knew what they were doing, they were no fools, but but it was clear that Taalia was merging an almost engineering or scientific quality to what she was doing and planning, economising in ways those who were unable to commit their costs, income and plans to parchment could not.

To those who knew, it was evident that Rashabang and Taalia's time in his workshop had had a bigger influence than one might have first thought. Always striving to maximise output from input.

But while Taalia thought this made her organised and anticipatory...perhaps others saw it more as a cause for concern.

 "Here, just... tomorrow morning, I'd like you to come with me to the Rampollo's home. There's a meeting of some of the higher scaled farmers to talk about upcoming land partitioning; strictly, you don't quality, unlanded as you are right now; but the I suggested you be included, and the Rampollo had no objection. Reserve your dreams for another day, and you might have a clearer view of the ways before you. Will you do this for me?" 

For one who had basically crawled out of a hole in the ground six months earlier to having seized life by the horns, being told to 'reserve your dreams for another day'. It was...unexpected.

But, Taalia could read between the lines by now, the mention of 'taking everyone with you' on the tide of success.

Pursing her lips, the girl nodded. She respected Polo as a learned and educated man, and she knew he had a far more sensitive hand on the pulse of both social and administrative realities of the town. Perhaps it would be better to heed him this time and see what the Rompollo had to say?

Nodding, Taalia offered that bright smile of hers.

 "Alright, thank you for getting me invited." 
MrAbdiel
 Bella declines your offer to stay over for comfort's sake; but enthusiastically takes the hug, and the sisterly kiss.  She is showing courage; she is certainly closer to Bertuccio than most, even if he has been too dunderheaded to understand she has been flinging herself at him; but even without being paramours, they are close.  So when Bella tells you she's alright, and you needn't worry for her in this, you don't believe her completely; and the discernible shiver that passes through her as you hug her, evidence of a state of weakness hidden at a distance but not so close, validates your worry.  She offers a concession.   "You are kind; but my home is just... not in a state to receive a visitor.  I would be mortified.  Oh, but I would see you before you head back to Gaulfredo's farm tomorrow, if you are not leaving too early.  I expect you will be escorting Antonuccia to Ernesto and Istuccio's home.  I will come with you!  I've some things for them, anyway."   With that, she takes her leave; and you go on to your meeting with Polo that evening.

During all of these events, Corvo has been especially good.  He spent plenty of time walking back from Caesa di Silo, and so is well tuckered out for the events of the evening to play out with him snoozing dopily to one side, gaining enough energy to give you a fair amount of torment getting him down again when it's time for  you  to sleep. By the time you've drawn enough of his energy away by yanking on one end of a knotted rope while he  gnaws and wriggles at the other, you're wiped out and have not as many hours infront of you as you'd like, such that the sunlight cutting through Polo's guestroom window is harsh and unwelcome instead of sweet and fresh.  Fenicia fixes you a  caffè  if you'll take it, black and bitter and softened a little with honey; but effective at muting the worst of your fatigue until your waking momentum pushes it from your mind entirely.

With a belly full of bread Fenicia has baked with cornflour milled from Gaulfredo's crop and topped with eggs from your hens, you follow Polo next door from his very fine home to the Rampollo's manse.  It's not as massive as some of the mansions you saw when passing through the Quarter of the Lion in Verezzo; spacially, it's positively restrained by that standard.  But it's definately the most luxurious building you have been permitted to enter in your short life.  The polished wooden floor of the foyer gives way to a drawing room.   There is a carpet of soft red wool under your feet there - and amazingly, not just a carpet that one might roll up and carry off, but a carpet that seems to be cut to the contours of the room itself; and must take a small team of men to roll up and take outside to be beaten free of dust.  And this must be done, because like everything else, it is clean as a whistle. From the gallant marble bust of Tyleus in one corner to the central table of gleaming red wood to the Rampollo himself in his white and yellow finery, the whole display has a perfection that feels like a performance more than a living space.  There are three others in the room, in addition to yourself, Polo, and Rampollo Damio.  Polo breifs you on them, before you enter the room; and you rapidly put names to faces.  Carlino Del Ponte, Umberto Minieri, and Giancarlo Corbi are the three most profitable farmers in the region of Bella Collina.  All of them have big cuts of land on the Silo Road; ideal placement for livestock since it cuts down on the number of tolls paid bringing their beasts in to market.  Carlino Del Ponte has mostly oxen; while Umberto and Giancarlo run sheep and goats, respectively.  They are all in the nebulous end ages of their lives; hovering around the fifties and sixties with enough pepper in their hair to suggest lift's oncoming dusk, but all of them thick bodied and strong limbed and with sun-browned skin like leather from working their farms.  Each of them seems a little sceptical of you being there; it doesn't appear to be a secret that you are here as much as a favour to you as anything else, but they all know you atleast from the troll slaying stories; and when they shake your hand there is some kind of tactile communion that permits you in this space more explicitly.  You think there was a test, in there; the quality of that handshake.  Tall as you are, they might have expected a less strong, more feminine grasp; and definitely not one with callouses so hard from your former life doing endless toil for your dark masters under the earth.  These are wealthy farmers; but not so wealthy they have lost touch with the realities of work.  That is a job for their sons and grandsons to do.

The Rampollo, by contrast, does not have their deep respect.  Even Polo has a little, you can see; they understand what he is: a man of letters, doing the work of a man of letters, under the respectable vow that members of the Clerk's Guild must take.  But the Rampollo is a politician; a softhanded young man of some trade prince's brother over in Verezzo, who has toiled for none of his wealth and indeed for very little at all.  He is to represent their interests to the wider state, but the skepticism they have for him vibrates in the air as he goes down the line giving each of them a much limper shake than you mustered; and giving you one as well.  Not a fool, maybe; but a deeply unproven man.

 "Well, then - I suppose you're all wondering why I've gathered you here.  I shan't waste your time getting to it.  There is a matter of opportunity arising, and if falls to us to seize upon it and make the most of it before someone else does so.  I've managed to keep it quiet for a little while now; but the clearing of land on the the south road out of Bella Collina has not been only a routine effort at development.  The truth of it is that a survey team has discovered salt in the foothills of Mount Ezio; and very shortly, a mine will open there.  That will require a village of its own to house and supply the miners - my friends in the Yellow Court are funding and placing names for the village planning even now, and our new sister-village, Piede di Ezio, will soon come to be.  That means work for our sons, a new market for goods and stock; but more than that, a great deal of opportunity.  Since Bella Collina is ideally situated, the established road will take salt to a new junction on the south road, not so far from Bella Collina.  A coaching inn will need to open there - there's plans underway for that too.  But for a long time now, you gentlemen have been running your stock into Caesa di Silo as the only reasonably close market, and paying the difference in leg-tolls to get them to slaughter in Verezzo.  But my personal plan, and not inconsiderable investment, is to construct Bella Collina's own slaughterhouse.  We don't have fifty thousand people hoping for a cut of fresh beef, no; but with a salt mine next door, we're perfectly positioned to build, right next to the slaughter house..."   Damio hovers excitedly on the next words; the part he finds most exciting coming, and his obvious passion for his idea mildly infectious.

 "Our smoke houses, and brinery!  There is much less of a toll on barrels of salted pork and jars of potted beef than there is on live beast, for a start; and there's no mercenary army in all of Tilea that doesn't fuel much of its march with imperishable meats.  We'll be selling to Verezzo, certainly; but also downroad to Luccini; and perhaps further afield, over time.  Much of this is going to require construction and recruitment of specialists that will take much of the next year; but it also hinges upon having suppliers of animals for slaughter.  I promise you, I can pay you a fairer fee for your stock than can Caesa di Silo; the brokers there, I'm sure you know, are gouging you for the leg-tolls they need to drove your flocks into Verezzo and resell them for profit.  I know you will require a little time to disentangle from your contracts to the brokers and the slaughtermen - but aren't you as excited by this, as I am?  We'll attract workers and their families - a boon to all trade - and ten years from now, we'll have a defensive network of two sister villages with interests defending their salt mine and meatworks respectively - and little Bella Collina may have grown into a town in its own right!" 

The old men begin to buzz.  They hadn't expected this.  Empires lived and died on salt access - and while there were some saltworks up in Remas and Trantio, the entire southern half of the Tilean peninsula including Verezzo and the great princedom of Luccini got their salt supply from coastal works drawing it from the sea - a process that had been disrupted very frequently indeed with the escalation of pirate violence in the last year.  Suddenly, this long necked, soft-handed city fellow didn't seem quite so odious after all.

You catch Polo offering you a faint little smile.  This, then, was what he was restraining you for: the chance to know this dramatic change in the conditions for the existing herdsmen, both positioning you to consider how best to take advantage, and also preventing you from casting your muffin hat into the ring just as the great scheme shifted around you. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

It felt...strange, sitting here at this meeting. Though she often thought of how far she had come in such a short amount of time, it truly was surreal for the girl to be seated here among three of the most senior of successful farmers in the region as if she were some equal. She had garnered at least the basal minimal of consideration due to responding to their handshakes with a firm one of her own, while she took note that their opinion of the Rompollo seemed low...until he laid out his plan.

Which is what made the girl take a second stock of her situation. Six months ago, seven even, she was a slave to a hideous race of vile rat-men living under ground. Today? She was well-dressed, thought of well and had been invited to an exclusive little talk and informed of the bountiful economic opportunities heading Bella Collina's way that she could take advantage of.

A salt mine! A big one too. And from that produce came the ability to preserve meats, such as mutton, pork and bacon. They wouldn't have to ferry herds of animals to Verezzo to make a profit or sell their animals, indeed, they could grow Bella Collina into the next Caesa di Silo. The village would go from a few hundred people to a few thousand, as the mine supported the labourers and administrative staff and logistics, while the flow on creation of more demand for services and the creation of a slaughter house...yes, Taalia could see the logic and direction of the venture.

From their reaction, the other farmers could as well. And when she looked over at Polo and saw his small, faint smile, Taalia returned it. Her earliest choice to 'be patient' having possibly been the better long-term choice. But then there was the question for her: how should she use that knowledge?

Should she go ahead and buy as many sheep as possible? Knowing that she could send the lambs into the slaughter house and sell the fleece in a market that had room for everyone? She certainly didn't have enough gold to  buy  any of the up-coming land...and if she rented it and the value increased, she'd just be paying more for rent.

Definitely the least experienced among those present, Taalia decided the best thing to do right now was to shut her trap and just listen. Perhaps by hearing the questions of the more experienced farmers and men of trade, she could learn a few things.
MrAbdiel
 You listen to them chat, and they don't see a reason to shelter you from their banter.  All of them are interested; some in buying land closer to the proposed road to Piede di Ezio, all in making use of this new meatworks.  Each of them has a good hand on their business; Umberto particularly of interest to you, being a fellow dealer in sheep.  He's able to talk casually about preferencing different breed lines to favour bulkier sheep instead of the balanced variety he normally runs, if they're going to be turning them over into the meatworks more regularly and with less of a droving expense - an efficiency of scale presently beyond your consideration.  But what catches your ear most is the mention of the opportunity to diversify into swine - piggery being none of their specialty since the animals can't be droved to market and taking them by cart hacks too deeply into the profits.  Pigs are left to farms closer to Verezzo, where the butchers are.  But with a local butcher, they might be able to start exploring that direction - once they disentangle from their complicated contracts with their brokers in Caesa di Silo and Slaughtermen in Verezzo, which seems like it will take between one and five years for most of them.

Here, you intuit a new principle of business - the big boys are resistant to risk and variation, but slow to maneuver.  With your pocket full of gold, if you can just get some land near to where this slaughterhouse is expecting to be... if you can indeed come to master this particular creature's habits and care, and have a few hands to help with it all... you might be better positioned even than these august gentlemen, atleast in respect to one thing: bacon.  You could be the Bacon Baroness of Bella Collina.

Obviously, radical over-extension into a market you have no experience working would be dangerous.  But if you can budget your risk smartly, use the time between now and when the whole operation is up and running to learn and plan and buy... How very fruitful things might be.

This is definitely a risk.  It involves spending, perhaps, most of your accumulated seed money on pigs, and pigfeed, and building both a piggery on the land you're renting (or buying if you're bold, but the land value is likely to go up, after all); and also building a house on that land in which you and anyone you intend to have working on the farm can hang their hats.  Depending on how much risk you dare to take, this might involve sleeping in unsecured tents; or taking a loan; or seeking money in some other way to make the difference.

As a side thought, this is also good news for Gaulfredo and Aliana; the small cereal farmers in the area are likely to find an increased local demand for their grain not just for siloing or milling, but to be fed directly to fatten stock for slaughter.  Welcome news for the pair, who just as you met them, were recovering from disaster so severe Gaulfredo sold his threshing flail to buy time for his off-season corn crop to recoup his losses with the failed grainharvest prior.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Risk! 
Much pig, such opportune.  On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being tight fisted tepid approach and 5 being flat out bet it all on black, how much risk is Taalia likely to take trying to position herself and her startup in this situation?  That'll inform my ability to be able to pitch expenses and so forth.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia listened intently, unable to deny that the general excitement of the room wasn't getting to her also. However, she did try to hide it, as back in the slave pits if any dreg wanted to keep what little he possessed then the best defence was keeping it a secret. No one could steal what they didn't know existed, after all.

Conversely, knowing was half the battle! And despite her towering height, the younger lass seemed to 'melt' into the scenery and simply observed and listened, her tactic paying off as she pieced together their potential angles she predicted they would go, which helped her discern her own possibilities.

Carlino Del Ponte's fortune was in oxen. Was he related to Ernesto and his brothers? Doubtful, as the two red-heads had sold their herd and planned to start making cheese. But after speaking with the brothers, Taalia had learned that castrated males  became  oxen, so it was likely Del Ponte owned a number of cattle as well.

Umberto dealt in sheep. Whether he was the farther of the girl she had bought her initial flock from was not yet known to her, but if he were, that would also mean that Taalia had been employing his son. Which also suggested that the man expected his offspring to make their own way in the world - no free hand-outs here. That would make him a stiff rival in the sheep business. Perhaps she could expand her flock to a modest, but good sized flock of 20? Handsomely profitably, and easiest to take to Caesa di Silo as not to step on Umberto's toes. This seemed doable if he was going to switch focus to a meat-producing breed of sheep in order to maximise mutton sales, while she purchased the ewes he no longer wanted and ran her flock for lambs and fleece.

Giancarlo managed goats. Taalia didn't know anything about goats. She thought the kids were cute. That was about it.

That left cattle and pigs.

The problem with cattle was one she had pondered earlier at the  Leaping Vixen Tavern . Though she could see that many miners needing milking for refreshments, and their families for purchase in order to supplement the diets of themselves and their children, that milk could...Taalia's mind trailed off. Once again she did the math in her head...thirty pints of milk from each milking cow a day...a herd of nine...that was 270 pints a day, almost 1,900 a week, selling for 2 pennies a pint, assuming she could sell  all  the milk during milking season...then sell the calves after they matured...it could be quite profitable... very  profitable. But the amount of acreage required for feasibility was excessive in its demands. Even a small herd of 10 animals would require 15 acres of pasture land, the cost for which was in the hundreds of duro to rent from the town authority. And each animal was such a huge percentage of the potential revenue, just losing a couple to unforeseen circumstances would be a disaster.

And that's assuming Del Ponte didn't head her off. She guessed he traded in oxen because it was the most profitable thing to do long-term, but would quickly shift his herd into dairy once the purchasing capacity of the town rapidly expanded in such a way.

No no, best leave that business to Del Ponte. Maybe she could acquire a single cow as a milking beast, but any dreams beyond that were prohibitively expensive and destined for direct competition with a man already far more experienced and established.

That left the pigs. Taalia had already pondered collecting swine. She had spoken to the slaughter houses in Verezzo and to some of the traders in Caesa di Silo. They were a different animal, yes, but she had learned some general habits from the baconer she had won by slaying the troll. She hadn't just taken it home and killed it straight away, after all. Plentiful, relatively sedentary, did not need much space...it was mostly the feed that would be the largest cost, particularly now as it was no longer needed to purchase armed escort to the slaughter-houses in Verezzo! Yes...Taalia could see it now: Giovanni Piggery! There was no competition in the town, she could entirely corner the market! She wouldn't be stepping on anyones toes - indeed, she'd be a  relief  for any farmers facing uncertainty, as her pigs would happily gobble up any chafe or off-season crop they grew. Gaulfredo and Ariana could rest easy knowing they'd always have a revenue potential if their main crops did not fare well. Taalia could become the Pig Lord of Bella Collina!

Of course, the proposed slaughterhouse would not be ready for  at least  a year from now, which meant she would have to endure two litter seasons of armed escort to hundreds of pigs to Caesa di Silo and Verezzo for sale. But those were just challenges, not deadends. Besides, a gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. Her first season would be the most difficult, but she would head into the second a far more experienced (and well-financed), swine trader.

Smiling to herself, the girl's mind returned entirely to the present as she remained seated, watching the others and listening, as the back of her mind started to further project and predict her future costs...
MrAbdiel
 A stretched morning of speculation permits these dreams to start to take shape.  Rampollo Damio spends most of his focus on the three monied gents who are suddenly much more eager to know him; but this frees Polo to speak to you more so.  Some critical details are yet to be nailed down - where precisely will this road to Piede di Ezio go, so that one could chart their land ambitions around it?  Where on that road was this coaching inn going to land?  When should we expect the smoke houses and brineries up and running - but you make your interest known, and Polo hears it, and respects it.

 "I'll make sure the land along the plotted road isn't swallowed up immediately after it becomes available.  I'm anticipating the coaching inn a third of the way down the road, as one starts from its intersection six miles south of the Madre Angeletta's home, on the south road.  So the  salt road  will branch, shoot about ten miles to the coaching in, and then run another twenty to Piede di Ezio.  Ideally, the various salt-dependant businesses will be halfway between the coaching inn and the salt mine itself.  I'll earmark a parcel of land for you that's between the coaching inn, and the brineries - maybe five miles from either. That way, it's a short journey of five miles for your stock to their destination; and you're only five miles from the coaching inn, where I expect we'll have a new post of road wardens." 

Casting your mind back to when you walked that way with Signore Cestié over a couple of days, the land in that area is hilly; green, but scrubby.  A less than ideal place to grow crops; not perfect grazing land; but fine enough for your small flock of sheep, and it hardly matters how much fauna sprouts up when your pigs will be mostly fed grain.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Land Ambitions 
Alright, basically the salt mine and all that jazz won't be in shape to run and this operation start for another six months or so - which gives you six months to get anything built that you want to get built - your piggery, house on that property, barn, etc, etc.  It's also good time aside to learn pig handling from practice with your practice pig, and also gossiping with other swine-experienced hands; to make your deals with one or more of the troublemaker boys to work on your farm, to continue your work with the Madre Angeletta (strictly speaking you've finished your career there but spending narrative time completing your rounded skillset there seems appropriate), and to start learning new skills with Signore Cestié.  All that will come soon.

Polo can rent you 3 Acres of land off of the presently forming Salt Road, which I'm gonna say is enough for your modest 20 sheep ambition and the piggery.  It's 'common' land right now, though it's likely to escalate in value as the business proceeds.  Polo will do you the best deal he can do without violating his oath of integrity as part of the Clerk's guild.

It's 30 gc per year to rent this block of land (slightly more than the 27, but far less than the 'Good Quality' fee it'd likely accrue over that time.)  He can nail down that rate for two years, payable at the beginning of each year (with the first 30gc immediately).  And if you can muster 400GC by the end of two years, before the reassessment of the land value happens, he will sell you that parcel of three acres outright, on the assumption that you intend to see it worked and the business there developed in a continuing fashion.  If you can't get that 400gc by that time (or if you're deeply leveraged so he has reason to worry about your ability to retain and service the land), he'll be forced to submit the land to its normal reassessment, at which point its value is likely to shoot up considerably; rent and all.

It'll cost you a cool 150gc to get all the construction done on that land that you need done.  That involved fencing the grazing land; building a barn and partition pens for the sheep; modest accommodation for two farm hands (or spartan accommodation for 4); a small, comfortable and reasonably secure house for yourself and possible rotation of guests; and importantly, a large and carefully planned enclosure for the care and maintenance of approximately a hundred adult sows, their proud and territorial boars, and their squealing manifold offspring.  The cost covers the labour for the many hands to make this happen, the non-trivial consultation for the layout from someone who knows, the resources which are suddenly in great demand as there's all this building going on, and the transport of those resources to the property.

You can spend less than this!  We can work out a cost reduction as necessary.  But this means elements of the property will be poor quality, unfinished, or in some way unreliable until they've been completely invested in.  Meanwhile, there's things to wrap up on this trip to town...
 


This meeting, exciting as it is, runs well overtime.  When you emerge, the sun is high and hot and racing towards its noon fullness.  The fact that Corvo, tied up outside, hasn't been howling his bored brains out is a mystery quickly solved - Bella and Antonuccia wait not at the shrine to Myrmidia, but on a blanket spread on the small lawn at the front of the Rampollo's house.  Antonuccia is a refined woman of city habits, but not so sheltered or classist that such a primitive joy of rubbing a dog's belly with one's foot is beyond her.  Bella, who radiates a wholesome purity that is the rural life's answer to city refinement, chats amiably with the doctor while applying the necessary scritches to Corvo's chin.  The pup lies on his back, delerious with attention; silent and groggy in his waking dream of pampering such that he doesn't even fire up from where he lies to meet you.  He just lies there, served and kingly, under the shade of a cover of linen held up by practical wooden posts over the blanket outpost; an efficiently little ward against the rising sun that you imagine Bella must have erected.

Once the farming barons have done their round of handshakes and farewells - including you in the mix, you may be chuffed to once more acknowledge - you bid farewell to Polo and Rampollo Damio, and reunite with the ladies.

 "Taalia, you live!  I feared your breakfast meeting had claimed you forever, and so I have adopted Corvo, orphaned as he would have been."   Bella gives the inverted dog's head an extra scruffling of the cheeks.  The treasonous hound releases an inarticulate, complicit wheeze-whine of paralytic relaxation.

With little time to waste, you retrieve Jezzabella (Gherardino declines to charge you for her stabling) and set off west from town towards Ernesto and Istuccio's plot, following Bella's direction.  She has secured the service of the cart driver who has spend his morning dropping of Norgrom's barrels, and is eager enough for a small, easy job.  His name is Tessio; you manage to eek out of him that his father lets him use the cart to make money when he does not need it himself; but that's about all. The young man struggles to muster himself coherantly in the company of young women; and between you and Bella (Antonuccia herself being only in her thirties, too) it quickly begins to seem like drawing your collective attention to him at once runs the real risk of him bursting into flames.  This would alarm the horses and slow you down; so you avoid it.

It's only a few miles to the brother's farm.  The fences around the land enclose maybe a forty acres of land and just as many oxen - which seems, from what you know, to be too few; though two big silos on their property suggest a not-inconsiderable amount of supplementary feed.  Three young workers and an old but apparently tireless dog work rounding up a small herd of a dozen of the beasts, driving them from  one gated paddock to another.  The whole operation seems peaceful, and fair; offering now outward indication of the ongoing tragedy inside the farmhouse.  Istuccio meets you at the steps of a home that is halfway between 'homestead' and 'small estate'.  He gives Jezzabella's muzzle an affectionate rub.

 "Back safe, and sound.  Has she caused you any trouble?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

The morning had been a wonderful time for the girl and a very educational experience. Setting her own ambition aside for a moment, she had taken the time to watch and listen to the older and most successful livestock farmers in the region - their decades of wisdom and hard-earned knowledge shining like little nuggets to a prospector shifting through the pay dirt. They spoke among each other and with Pollo and the discussion ranged from actually caring for the animals themselves, but the way they considered the seasons and their effect on available feed, restrictions on the roads and the potential for particularly bad weather events to stir up the locals and neighbours....the list went on. And that was just the seasons. Then there was experience with transports, who were the more reliable mercenaries to hire and which were known for doing  a half-arsed job, which were the best months at the markets because of population flows and demands etc

Simple raising and selling animals or their produce might seem easy, but there was a network of moving parts that conspired to both throw obstacles and offer boons that one had to endure every year.

And that was without even getting into the quagmire of local administrative hurdles one had to bound!

Speaking of...

Polo and Taalia spoke about available lands. Her knew her plans, having been updated on them last night, and that had doubtless filtered through his calculations in what he presented.

Three acres.

The quality was normal...for now. When the salt mine was up and running, when the Slaughter House was drawing in live animals and pushing out delicious salted meats, when the coaching inn and new housing had to be build and parcelled to workers who migrated to the town, the value would increase considerably. And Polo was going to help her buy some at the pre-increase price on the condition that she remained and operated the land for her livestock.

That was reasonable. Heck, it was downright generous. The stipulation was, of course, protection against speculation and a degree of assurance for himself. For how would it look for Polo if he had given his foster niece top quality land for cheap and then she sold it once the price had gone up? He'd be liable to draw a target on his back during hard times, that's for sure.

But! The discussion was nothing short of exciting. Three acres, with the potential to hire more in the future and even  buy  the original three, fenced paddocks for her sheep, a sty, a home for herself, a hovel for her workers -  her  workers! - her own pigs...

Polo could easily see that Taalia was in an euphoric state of mind, the opportunity before her something that few people ever had the chance to seize - and she clearly grabbed it with both hands.

Taalia had left with meetings with smiles and hand shakes. She couldn't  wait  to tell Gaulfredo and Ariana! Though it saddened her a little to move out of their beautiful home, she wasn't far away, just a few hours, and from what she had learned about surface customs it was inevitable that some of the kids would leave the house to seek their own fortunes. It looked like Taalia would get to participate in a normal coming of age rite of passage after all!

 oOo 
Taalia had grinned at the sight of Corvo lounging back, belly rubbed by foot and hand by two of Bella Collina's most fair maidens. When Taalia and Bella made eye contact, the shepardess gave her friend an enveloping, tight hug and kiss on the cheek, along with requests of how she was holding up under the trying times.

Turning her head to look at Corvo's hedonistic lounging, the girl snickered and said that she was glad to see someone was having a fair time.

The travel to the Ernesto brothers oxen farm was a peaceable and quite one, and it allowed for Taalia to talk quietly with Antonuccia while Bella was present. Taalia mostly pointed out the beauty of the region and the welcoming nature of the locals, hoping to make the working professional, doubtlessly used to the cities comforts and conveniences, to feel welcome to a rural setting.

 "Back safe, and sound. Has she caused you any trouble?" 

Taalia to Istuccio and shook her head gently, giving the beautiful horse an affectionate stroke across her head with her gloved hand.

 "None at all, Istuccio,"  Taalia returned,  "I can only say good things about her!" 
 "Istuccio, this is Antonuccia,"  the girl started introductions, turning and gesturing to the well-dressed woman.

 "Antonuccia, this is Istuccio, the brother of Ernesto, your patient." 

When the time was available and discrete, Taalia would inform Istuccio of the method of payment - handing over the dwarven token and providing the details for how he was to pay the physician and what bank in Verezzo she could claim her well-earned pay.
MrAbdiel
 Antonuccia's and Istuccio's meeting is another of those micro-moments where you learn something you didn't know you didn't know, about the way Tileans communicate.  Istuccio is a gentleman; rural, but not rough.  He looks over Antonuccia and makes some unspoken assessment, and approaches to formalize this first meeting.  Antonuccia precedes him some, projecting her own hand, fingers together and open to shake between them.  You watch as Istuccio is forced to pause slightly on his approach.  His own hand was coming up, but looser and with the palm up, anticipating Antonuccia's palm to be laid inside his so he could enclose it in both his hands in a horizontal clasp or, if he was feeling particularly cultural, kissing her on the knuckles in the Bretonnian fashion.  This is the way a man greets a woman; he presents his larger, stronger hand; she rests her delicate one within it; he encloses it with his second hand, and within the whole gesture is a picture of... something.  Depending on one's cynicism, it might be the imposed duty men have to subordinate their strength for the protection of women, or the need for men to encircle and capture women, or the slavish nature in which people mimic gestures whose implications they don't think out.  Less cynically, it is the way a man and a woman greet each other with the foremost recognition that that is what each of them are, with all the considerations and inferences one cares to make.

By contrast, women who meet each other for the first time, you've learned, will reach out with both hands and gently clasp both hands of the other; as if preparing to dance, or creating for the first time a defined and delineated shared space between one and the other.  Men greet each other initially with a clasp of right hands - perhaps, an assessment of each other's grip strength tied to some old martial custom, or a recognition of the primary hand as both the key to war and work, or  something.   If one man is senior to the other, or is trying to imply seniority, he might raise his left hand to place on the other's bicep during the shake.  This must have some kind of paternal root; a deeper inspection of the strength of the youngster than even the grasp of the hand, maybe.

When the livestock barons shook your hand, you could tell they had an idiosyncrasy to the grasp of their own; feeling for the softness of the hand particularly, which is why they had no trouble adjusting to regard you with some measure of respect with those slave-hard mitts of yours.  So that primal gesture, the right-to-right grasp and shake, seems to be both the standard of men, and also perhaps the 'basic' gesture from which other specialized expectations arise.  And Antonuccia throws her hand out, upright, expecting such a grasp; and caught in a moment of uncertainty, Istuccio abandons his initial plan to reach out in the gentlemanly fashion and adapts to her insistence for this more neutral gesture.   Take me seriously , it seems to imply; as if she has a history of not being taken seriously in relations preceded by a less serious grip.

Aside from that moment's adaptation, the introduction goes off without a hitch.  Istuccio takes you to see Ernesto, who is laid up in bed; laying on his front in a complicated lumpen piling of pillows to make him comfortable as much as possible; a blanket drawn up over him.  It's a warm day; the blanket must not be particularly pleasant; but it's a minimum gesture to hide some measure of his infirmity from you, and Bella.  He looks thin faced, and sad, with a valiant smile attempting not to burden you too much with his misery.  You all politely ignore the salty tang of urine, in the room; such matters, as so many others, have become remarkably less simple for him.  He smells it; everyone else smells it; everyone knows everyone smells it; and human decency assures no one remarks upon it.

When Antonuccia reaches for Ernesto's hand, she sets her hand into his upturned palm and lets him close his second hand on top of it.  Perhaps not a hard rule for the city-born doctor, then; perhaps she has decided, with a patient like this, it is not so important to dictate such a gesture.

You leave Antonuccia and the brothers in the room, and Bella dragoons you into helping her produce lunch in the brother's kitchen; which is larger than any kitchen you've been in, but poorly stocked and with serving dishes and cutlery piling up to be washed.  The care package of food Bella has brought is much required, then; and you spend a pleasant hour in the kitchen adding  gnocchi  to the list of things you know how to make.  Since potatoes are so challenging to come by this far from the city, Ariana did not make much with them; but Bella has found her way to a few, and you master the brothers' kitchen with her to make the dish and, if you can be compelled into delaying long enough to help, washing the piled up dishes with her as a further unspoken act of kindness.

Strictly speaking, Antonuccia has entered the lads' employ; but she still feels compelled to give you a quiet update after lunch.

 "I can't say the initial prognosis is good.  He has no feeling or movement at all below the waist.  In most cases, there is no way back from that.  But... not all.  There will be swelling in the area of the impact that we are still waiting to recede.  Possible spine fractures we must wait to heal before we try our options.  At the very least, I can teach them how to adapt their lives around the situation; help them find a good nurse to take some of the care burden on, long term.  But I'll do all I can.  Thank you, again, for seeing me here." 

She bids Corvo farewell, too; giving him a gift he didn't know he wanted - the right to lick the oil and sauce off a plate that once held gnocchi bolognaise.

Istuccio takes a moment to speak to you, too, as the middle of the day has come and gone and your likelihood of getting back to Gaulfredos vanishes further and further.

 "It's very good of you to have found her for us, Taalia.  She seems very... professional.  I'm glad we're in good hands; and that we have good friends.  I wondered... Since it will be some time before Ernesto and I can ride again, if you'd have any use to take Jezzabella with you?  I've got Ernesto's horse to do my work here with; but I won't have the time any longer to devote to the care of two horses, nor use for both.  Sort of a... long term loan, if you like.  Just until things are better; if she's going to be use to you.  Spare your feet a little pain, going back and forth to Bella Collina as you do." 

He gives you a little smile.  It is a remarkable, short conversation; having a discussion with a man who is in open denial of the likely permeance of his brother's condition, having nailed his soul to optimism about the future... but sufficiently aware of his own denial to make this kind of semi-permenant arrangement, functionally gifting you Jezzabella for your heroism saving their lives in the Battle of Silo road, and kindness is securing Antonuccia for them.  And if Shallya should be especially kind, and Ernesto  would  ride again... Well.  Then you will only have had a horse for a while, which is better than no horse at all.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Having completed this extra objective to get the doctor to the brothers' house, you receive...  60xp .  And the semi-permeant acquisition of this riding horse, saddle and tack, and saddlebags.

With that done, you're likely to be back at Bella Collina by early afternoon - not enough time to get to Gaulfredo's without travelling in the dark, which is a bad idea dark vision or not.  You could push it!
 Or you could resolve more business in Bella Collina and stay in the village another night.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia took note of the different forms of greetings, and did so with a curious eye. The mannerisms of the surface world were...complex, to say the least, with multi-layered protocols of decorum and intricate means of etiquette that could change based upon social class, profession, age and gender, to name just a few.

It was interesting to the girl as an outsider being brought into the mix, as these were customs that were not 'natural' to her due to reasons of upbringing. Instead these were traditions that she needed to at least understand and consent to so that she could partake in them. The different gendered greetings sat fine with her, as she had long noticed a division of labour based upon whether one was male and female, with a slice of over-lapping for those who desired the extra workload - like she had been, if she did say so herself. It was a division of labour that seemed to suit the common house-hold, so it only made sense to her that different greetings extended from this partition of roles and work. In a way, Taalia even felt a slight blush from it - being treated so gentlemanly in a way.

However, Taalia then remembered what that older lady had said, the one who had bought her telescope, about her homeland of Bretonnia and how the gender roles had gone beyond simple practicality and had morphed into something quite constricting.

Yet it manifested once again as Taalia and Bella cleaned the kitchen of the boys, after being the ones to cook a lovely lunch. Or at least, Bella cooked a lovely lunch - Taalia assisted and learned. Besides, the lads had just undergone a relatively traumatic incident, the possibility of Ernesto's permanent disability looming over them - Taalia could be forgiving of some mess and clutter. Plus it allowed her to spend more time with Bella and just...talk. Though the issue of Bertuccio's possible doppleganger loomed over their conversation, the shepardess directed the flow to ulterior topics, from local gossip, to how Madre was doing etc. Taalia knew that the poor girl would be under recent stress, and so she paid attention and showed her usual affection, helping to clean and being a diligent and observant learner of the mysterious art of gnocci cuisine.


 "I can't say the initial prognosis is good. He has no feeling or movement at all below the waist. In most cases, there is no way back from that. But... not all. There will be swelling in the area of the impact that we are still waiting to recede. Possible spine fractures we must wait to heal before we try our options. At the very least, I can teach them how to adapt their lives around the situation; help them find a good nurse to take some of the care burden on, long term. But I'll do all I can. Thank you, again, for seeing me here." 

Taalia listened to the other woman speak, her expression sombre and a seed of guilt in the back of her mind. Could she have changed the outcome for Ernesto?

A rational part of her told her that it was unlikely. She had done what Singora Madre had shown her. Indeed, had she not helped hold the centre the boy would probably be dead. But...there was that nagging part of her brain that wandered and explored the terrible possibility that if her hands had been a little more skilled, or her actions more swift, Ernesto's future ability to walk would not be in doubt.

 "Thank you, Singora Antonuccia,"  Taalia spoke softly, her concern sincere and genuine.

 "Please do as best as you are able. That is all that we can ask." 

 "It's very good of you to have found her for us, Taalia. She seems very... professional. I'm glad we're in good hands; and that we have good friends. I wondered... Since it will be some time before Ernesto and I can ride again, if you'd have any use to take Jezzabella with you? I've got Ernesto's horse to do my work here with; but I won't have the time any longer to devote to the care of two horses, nor use for both. Sort of a... long term loan, if you like. Just until things are better; if she's going to be use to you. Spare your feet a little pain, going back and forth to Bella Collina as you do." 

In the first half, Taalia was preparing her socially required refusals of praise or thanks, readying her words to insist that she was just doing the honest thing for the brothers - which she was. They had fought and bled together, and had held each others fates in their hands. If either of them had've fallen completely during that encounter...one shuddered to think.

But then temporary ownership of Jezebelle emerged and Taalia visibly stood with her mouth partially open.

 "Oh...no no, I could not, Singore..."  she insisted, putting a hand affectionately on Istuccio's shoulder to reassure him, her decorum playing through. But the outcome had already been decided - the lad had no need for the horse, and taking care of it would only be a drain. Meanwhile, Taalia would become much more mobile and active over the next six months, and had particular use of such a beast, especially one she had already ridden and grown accustomed to.

And so, Taalia insisted against it, Istuccio insisted for it. The Tilean gift-giving ceremony went 'round and round until Taalia found herself biting her bottom lip, unable to conjure the right words before giving the older boy - a young adult of the same age as Gaulfredo - a large, warm hug.

 "Thank you, Istuccio - I will make sure to take good care of her!" 

OOC:
 
 Spoiler 
Once business is concluded and the dwarven bank runes are handed over, Taalia will return to Bella Collina with Corvo at her side, and also possibly with Bella (who'll she offer to ride atop her horse with her).

She'll stay at the inn over-night, renting a private room as has become her custom. And then the next day, she'll meet/find the  Trappers Daughter , give her her 100gc, and then Onwards to Gaulfredos!
 
MrAbdiel
 With the cart-driver paid and dismissed before lunch, Bella is grateful to take your offer to ride pillion.  She spends the journey with her legs dangling off one side of Jezzebella, her boots poking from under the hem of her skirt; one arm around your waist to keep stable as you clop along the path back to Bella Collina with Corvo dutifully zooming about with mid afternoon energy.  Riding in these conditions is simple enough, even if it doesn't feel completely natural to you yet; and having a passenger is not remarkably more trouble.  Naturally, your conversation gravitates back to Bertuccio; though time has not created new solutions.  She describes the hollow ache in her gut, not dissimilar to yours, at being unable to offer direct help to either Ernesto or Bertuccio.  All she can offer them is a little food she can spare herself, and prayers offered to Shallya in Bella Collina's small prayer hall with its shrines to several divines including that healing goddess.  You pass by her house just as you are coming into town; it's a small cottage with a swept path that leads between two of the larger buildings and then into the main square of the town.  The cottage sits back there, invisible except for those seeking it, like the smallest child in a gathered family, peeking through the gaps in the adults and the older kids' crowding to get an idea of what is going on beyond them.  Bella has always seemed well dressed and well kept; she might have been expected to dwell somewhere fancier.  But the cottage is not fancy at all; it has a little garden of colorful posies at the front, and enough space as a footprint to host perhaps one and a half rooms.  She gives you a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek when you drop her off, and slides from the saddle as one practised in the pillion dismount.  When she gets to her door, no one opens it for her; she takes a key from a lanyard of woven ribbons around her neck, and lets herself in, shutting it behind her.

Gherardino charges you a single silver piece for the private room, and none for Jezzabella or Corvo - it's  not as though the town is overflowing with visitors right now, and he hopes to impose on you to help him deal with one of the two Bertuccios in the night if something goes wrong. But nothing goes wrong, fortunately enough; and you are free the next day to snag a bowl of porridge from Gherardino's generosity, then follow the directions provided by the spinster sisters at the trading post to Bellina da Isolome's home.  Off the very start of the Silo road, on a track you would have otherwise missed that spirals off into a mess of odd and roughly pruned trees, is a modest shack, with modest occupants, who have a great deal to be modest about.  Three young boys, in the range of ten to thirteen, scramble around in the branches of one a big unfruitful fig tree; hushing and peering down at you as you approach.  They do not seem closely acquainted with bathes, or scissors; and their clothes are worn thin and ratty, though not quite as ragged as those you see on slaves and beggars. Watching them from the doorway is a young woman you don't know, perhaps your age, nursing a baby that cannot be long from the womb; her condition, and that of the baby, is a little cleaner, though trending in that direction.  She has fair hair, given over to tangle and tied back in a rough ponytail rather than confront it; and might be pretty, if she were not framed by such ... well.  Modesty of fortune.

What you don't see is either Bellina, the thief; or Gianessa, whom Gaulfredo said was her mother.  But the location seems right, and the presence of the three boys seems to clinch it.  The woman - elevated to that title only by the fact of her motherhood, since she is as young as you - calls to you in a worried voice afflicted with a stutter she bears through with as much dignity as she can muster in her condition.

 "L-lost, r-rider?  W-which way are you g-going, t-town or village?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia approached the ragged, out-of-the-way den with an air of careful scepticism. She had no reason to fear anyone here, but the fact that even the environment was...out of sorts, surrounded by a gaggle of children, while a girl her own age was cradling her own offspring - where was the father?! - struck Taalia as one of the weirdest settings she had yet come across in her short tenure on the surface.

 "Your older sister, Bellina,"  Taalia said, assuming the relation and edging Jezebella forward gently, the horse bringing the tall shepardess within 5-10 meters of the house and its youthful occupants.

 "We had business to discuss and I could not find her within the town. Do you know where she is?" 
MrAbdiel
“I have n-not a sister; you are mistaken s-s-s-signorina.  Neither does a B-Bellina dwell herein.”

This is a lie, at least in part; so your instinct tells you, confirmed as Bellina, the thief you recall in detail, emerged from behind the girl in the doorway and touches her shoulders as if delicately releasing her of the charge to obfuscate.  Having recognised your voice, she takes the chance on your good will; though she stands arms folded and near to the young mother in the doorway, regarding you skeptically.

“…I remember you.  What are you doing here?”
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia considered the front-girl with a sceptical eye before the truth was revealed and Bellina stepped forward, her air one of a girl her age who had risen to face the challenges mounted upon her by the cruel and capricious hand of fate. Where on that road-way the shepardess had seen a distressed and desperate girl, here in the midst of her home she was greeted by one that wore her charge with a stoic dignity, even if the taint of thievery might have brought her spirit low.

The gruff tone with which she took to Taalia's presence was only barely tolerable, given the good tidings the girl brought.

 "A deal made..."  Taalia said flatly, reaching a gloved hand to her hip to retrieve a  very  fat pouch of coins to gently toss in Bellina's direction - counting on the girls proven reflexes to catch the leathery prize so that its precious contents were not spilt upon the ground.

 "...a deal kept." 

Taalia reached her now-free hand up to press her index and middle finger against where her forehead met her muffin-hat in the gesture of a gentle salute as she gave a nod. Though she didn't like to admit it, she had profited from the girls thievery. However, the knowledge that she  could  have acquired greater spoils but turned such gains down in the spirit of honesty tempered any guilt that might have seeded itself into the back of her mind.

Holding the reigns of Jezebelle, Taalia turned her steed about to set her course back to Bellina Collina, unless the trappers daughter of its name-sake saw reason to halt her. Should she be free of causes to stay and converse, Taalia returned to the Inn where she would spend the night in her room, before returning to her foster family the follow day.
MrAbdiel
 Bellina snatches the pouch from the air; but keeps her eyes fixed on you with distrust and even suppressed anger as you salute, and wheel away on Jezzabella.  It's only when you glance over your shoulder, almost out of sight, that you notice her opening the pouch and apparently undermining her assumption the bag would be full of rocks.  You see her eyes go wide with amazement; maybe even fear.  The girl with her shrieks and grasps at Bellina's arm in excitement; the shriek disturbs the baby, and you leave the scene with the distant mingled clamor of wailing infant and brewing excitement in this impoverished bunch suddenly washed with more wealth than they dreamed of.

The first to greet you when you arrive back at the farm is Elmo; Corvo's brother as large and energetic as him coming bounding down the path from the barn and almost colliding with Corvo charging up at him before they dissolve into flurry of communicative whines and sniffs.  Rocco is not far behind; the dogs' father visibly smaller than both now, and world weary enough to not be insensate with joy at the reunion.  He does give an inspecting sniff to Jezzabella; and your own foot in the stirrup.  You seem to pass his test, and he looks up at you with a pant that looks like a smile; and then takes off back up the path to the farmhouse.

What might you be, to him?  Are you a best and bosom friend to him, as he seems to be with Gaulfredo?  Or perhaps, in those early nights where you slept in the barn with Rocco curled up against you, did he adopt you - making you a sort of older sister to whom he trusts Corvo, just as Ariana and Gaulfredo trust you with their Vittorio.  Perhaps dogs have categories of affection that are beyond those humans have - purer, maybe.

Gaulfredo is up past the barn bringing your sheep in with Vittorio; Ariana is first to meet you, though by the time you have Jezzabella settled in the barn, they all flock to you.  While you left Gaulfredo in Caesa di Silo, you haven't been back to the farm in twelve days.  And Ariana, particularly, has heard the harrowing account of the dangers on the road, without seeing you in the interval.  Her hug, predictably, is tightest.

 "Ah!  I am so glad you are home!  I had begun to worry, even though Gaulfredo tells me not to!  Did you find what you needed, in Verezzo?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia couldn't supress the small smile that crept across her lips when she saw Bellina's expression turn from sour and expectant of betrayal, to positively elevated, her own little clan about her erupting into astonished gawks and wailing that the shepardess could hear all the way down the road as she headed home. If the girl really  was  a very young mother to a whole little group like...well, maybe fate had offered her a kind reprieve that could change her life, just the way it had for Taalia herself.

Seeing gaulfredo's farm emerge on the horizon swelled a lamentation within the shepardess she didn't know existed. It reminded her of the sensation she had felt warm her soul when she had spotted Bella Collina itself drawing closer, only more wholesome and down to earth. As she spotted Elmo dash excitedly forward to gently collide with her own hound, only to be followed by the older, more paternal Rocco, Taalia realised that this was the longest she had ever been away from "home". Since emerging from that cave and ingratiating herself into the local community, not a day had gone by in her six months where she was not in the company of her adoptive family, or within the warm embrace of their idyllic farm. The sight of that barn and home, the welcoming flank of crops, the scent of freshly hewn grass in the air, the gentle emanations of her sheep...

Hoping off from Jezebelle before being swarmed, Taalia locked her long arms around each member, with Ariana receiving a kiss on her cheek and Vitorrio a peck on his forehead and ruffle of his hair.

 "I missed you all so much!"  she beamed with that bright smile of hers, Taalia's heterochromia eyes wide and alive with a sincere love and affetion as she stood before them dressed quite finely for an absence of a little under two weeks. Her dealings in Verezzo must have gone quite well indeed...

 "The roads were dangerous but beautiful, and I can't wait to tell you all about it!" 

To be honest, Taalia had no experience with "returning home" so to speak. Was she supposed to give out presents now? Or later? Fill them all in on her travels at this instant in the barn, or over a beautiful meal? She honestly didn't know. But if she could hazard a guess she couldn't see the Tileans enjoyment of great food and hospitality being dispensed in a barn...

Taalia gave another round of tight and warm hugs before promising to tell them everything before tending to Jezebelle - drawing the saddle off, the bit and bridle aside, before heading inside to help Ariana cook something beautiful: gnocci!

And of course, Taalia stopped to kneel and give Rocco and Elmo their deserved 'round-the-shoulder tight hugs.

Once they were inside the house and dinner was being prepared, Taalia had taken her hat and little cape off so that she could help Ariana with the cooking. To this end, she demonstrated the recipe that she had learned from Bella, the lovely gnocci, but her efforts were doubtlessly cute to one such as Ariana whose mastery of Tilean cuisine gave her considerable power over many who thought with their stomach. The scent of basil and oregano, spiced chicken, spahgetti and manicot, gnocchi, peas, garlic bread...Taalia drifted away to her slice of heaven on earth as they were all assembled around that table.

 "...they almost got a rope around my arm!"  Taalia announced in the retelling of a story, holding up her left hand as a prop in service of her tale of the two highwaymen who had attempted to abduct her for whatever foul or cutthroat end.

 "I ducked forward, drew my bow - but I missed!"  she kept their attention, using her arms to gesture out to draw and releasing an arrow, only for the suspense of having missed her deadly targets at such a dangerous distance.

 "They threw the lasso again - and only by Myrmidia's graces! I leaned forward, with Ernesto's shield covering my back so that the rope slide off harmlessly! But an inch either way, or without that covering...I might have ended up in someones sausages!"  she bloviates for Vitorrio's amusement, her astonishment morphing into hyperbolic fear over the prospect in the hope her physical actions would provide some humor and distraction from what had potentially been a grim outcome.

 "But...here I am! Returned to you all in one piece!" 

Taalia reached over and picked up her glass and held it above the table in the gesture of a toast to her adoptive family.

 "Salute!"  she offered in thanks to both company and gods.

Once the toast was completed and Taalia had placed her glass back down, she gestured upwards with her right hand in a 'I almost forgot!' pose, as she reached over to her backpack that had been resting against the leg of the table.

 "Vitorrio, dear boy,"  the shepardess started gently, reaching into the bag.

 "Though your kind mother may not like it, and I share in her apprehension, the world has taught me that it is not a kind place, and those who do not know how to defend themselves are prey for those who do. You're never too young to start learning, and so..." 

Taalia gripped something and withdrew - the good quality wooden sword! She held the 'blade' on an open palm while her other hand tended to the hilt, as she brought it about as if presenting it to a knight.

 "This is yours...."  she gestured forward to hand it over to him, before quickly pulling it back.

 "IF! You show me the finished writing practice I assigned you before I departed! After all, a knight has to know how to read so that he may sign his own name!"  she smiled with an upturned eyebrow, having faith that the boy had done his diligence in his education but holding an expression that was fitting to glower playfully if he had not.

Next, Taalia reached into the bag and produced a well-crafted wooden box about the size of two stacked books.

 "Ariana,"  Taalia started, her tone gentle and warm where as it had been playful and banterous with Vittorio.

 "Gaulfredo knows how lucky he is to have a woman as capable and beautiful as you,"  she smiled, bringing the box up onto the table and opening it in such a way as to reveal its contents to her adoptive mother: it was the good quality cosmetics kit. All sorts of affections were contained within and not just items to accentuate ones feature with color, shading and shadow. No no, the quality of this kit also ensured that Ariana would find newly devised soaps, oils and creams that could be applied to restore and bring out her natural beauty.

Finally came Gaulfredo's gift, as once more Taalia displayed a modicum of showmanship by hiding the true nature of her present in such a way that allowed her to reveal it by opening her fingers from its dimensions: the good quality bottle of Bretonnian spirits.
MrAbdiel
 Vittorio is very pleased with his sword - or hopes to be.  He reaches for it, and when you place an extra condition on it, his eyes shine with fear before he bolts off to his room.  He's gone for a little longer than the transit should require, and when he returns, he has the rows of letters inked out on the vellum sheet he uses for practice.  Most of it seems to have been done in good time.  About ten percent have, clearly, been hastilly filled out in the last minute or two such that the ink is still a little runny; and he strains credulity with a less than cunning effort to casually angle that part of the page away from you, hoping your inspection is quick and cursory.  It's a late completion, but it's complete, and mostly good enough; and so with conditions satisfied, he claims the sword and a legend is born.  He  immediately  begins swinging it around with wide arcs that are unlikely to cut anyone, on account of being wood; but would probably be painful to be clocked by.

The reactions from his parents are dichotomous.  Gaulfredo, who reaches into to this solitary melee to seize the whirling blade and commend to his son the virtues of playing with this outside and to be careful not to swing a sword at anything he does not intend to kill and eat, is warmly amused by the turn and likely is remembering his first wooden weapon of note.  Ariana's face blanches some; maybe a little at the immediate harm he could do such a weapon, maybe a little more at the tableaux of her son with weapon in hand.  He is eleven, now; the next few years he will spend growing like a weed, and in five or so turns of the wheel he will be expected to wield a  real  weapon if the orcs or  bloody Pavonians  come over the hill.  Mercenary scouts, called  cucchiaio  derisively for their eagerness to scoop up young men and shovel them into the teeth of battle, will be permitted to offer him work.  And for every ten young men scooped up into that life, only four would come home some day; only two uncloven.  But Ariana has confronted this thought before; and you witness it wash through her and past her, and her composure come back in the form of a snowflake-fragile smile at Vittorio's enthusiasm.

She is glad for the distraction of your gift; the powders and pigments, the carefully mixed skin-paints made both to even out complexions and, seasonally, to make temporary alluring patterns and marks on the necks and cheeks (or, scandalously, the décolletage) of a woman.  With less than fine brushes and pigments, this tends to look rough and worse than nothing; with the right tools and skills, it marks a woman with mystery.  Ariana tells you all this, as she paints a dark line-art sketch of a rose in bloom on the side of your neck; just because she wants to.  The coin-sized steel mirror in the cosmetics kit lets you see it - it's pretty good, and is the kind of extra ornamentation that might work well with a matching flower behind the ear, and similar floral themes.  She kisses your cheek and hugs you tightly; rests her forehead against your temple, and tells you again how fine it has been having you around; how proud they are of your determination and effort.

If Gaulfredo had been a rich man in his youth, he might be an alcoholic now.  But poverty and responsibility forbade it; now he is just a recreational enjoyer of spirits, and he lets out a long, salutory whistle as he takes the brandy from your hand-ies. You're already toasting with a sniff of  pretty good  wine; cracking this open now would be excessive, but more than that Gaulfredo seems to think it almost inappropriate to do so.  He rises, cups your cheek in one hand to kisses the crown of your head in an undeniably paternal fashion, and carries the brandy with sacremental reverence, where it is placed on a high shelf for the finest of occasions yet to reveal itself.

The tales of your exploits go over well; no one deserves a few good luck breaks more than you, in their eyes.  They may be right. 
MrAbdiel
That evening, after Vittorio has gone to bed and while you are joining Gaulfredo and Ariana for a nightcap, you tell them about your plans - the opportunity Polo secured for you, the fortune that came of returning the pistol in Verezzo, the meeting with the Rampollo and the livestock barons.  Opportunities for them, and Vittorio, and changes coming to Bella Collina entire.

Ariana engages this revelation in a highly emotional sequence.  First she is frosty and critical, asking about angles and expenses you have already thought about as the tries to pick up the corners of your projected future.  When that doesn't work, she congratulates you with her arms crossed; though several rounds of congratulation are all appended with reminders of how they took you in, and she taught you to cook and dance, and an accruing list of things that, by implication, you understand that  maybe you ought to demonstrate your gratitude for by not leaving but this isn't a prison it's a home are you too good for your home  and then Gaulfredo, who is a savant at managing this woman's idiosyncrasies as much as she is at managing his, puts his cup down, and puts his arm around her, and pulls her halfway into his lap to wrap his arms around her.  And then the whole edifice of her objection shatters and she bursts into tears and apologizes for what she was saying a moment ago, and then she hugs you, and everyone is hugging everyone, and it's a whole mess.  Ariana is a very maternal woman, and the fact that she and Gaulfredo have but one child in such a time and place is a suggestion the option of having more did not manifest for them.  In one sense, you have been there only for a short time and Ariana may not have much of a right to feel so distressed at your leaving.  In another, you represent something that has not been there  nearly long enough , and her distress is the most natural in the world.  But she understands; she's just upset, at the same time.  Tomorrow, she will be a little emotional still; the day after and henceforth, she will just be happy for you; and the rest of her feeling will be safely housed within her chest where it cannot make her cry.

Gaulfredo is not an unemotional man himself - you remember vividly the scene of him weeping over his slain draft horse Bartolemi - but this is all excitement, for him. The prospect of having a pocket arrangement for his grain sales is just a bonus; he seems genuinely just to be happy at how well you're doing and to hear that you'll be striking out on your own, like that.  It's welcome good news, after all the sad matters with Bertuccio and Ernesto.
 
"We'll crack open that brandy when we're roasting your first home-grown pig,"  he pronounces, squeezing your shoulder;  "but until then, I ought to get the use out of you I can around here!  Still plenty of stalks and husks to be cleared tomorrow, if you're interested."   Almost nostalgically, you help him tomorrow for a day of hard toil under the hot and high sun, clearing the remnants of the corn crop from some rows of his land, permitting the land to recover for a couple of months before he returns to the grain farming he knows best.  But soon, your responsibilities will be so spread out across Bella Collina's surrounds, your ambitions so demanding, you will not be able to offer such help at all.

 * * * * * 
Signore Cestié is more than happy to have you in his workshop - and he does indeed have the tools required for gunmaking, though he has not done so in some time and you spend an afternoon helping him bring out old tools, and benches; long bores and dyes; and so, so many files.  They all come out of a store room at the back of the shop, where you see another door to what must be Signore Cestié's living quarters beyond.  The old man is as energetic and delighted as you have seen him; positively capering about the shop as he introduces you to technical aspects of his craft which reframe some of the principles you learned in Rashabangs' in a more sensical way.

 "All craft is about patience, Taalia; the gunsmith's craft being no exception.  There's hundreds of small skills to learn before you can do the big stuff; but we'll start on them right away!  First, you need to know your steel.  There's all kinds - and you'll need a few kinds to make a firearm.  But the humble blunderbuss is a fine place to start!  Here, have a look at these ingots; tell me which are of a kind..." 
 * * * * * 
Ten days after your return to Bella Collina, as you are finishing up an afternoon of apprenticeship at Signore Cestié's shop, you are crossing the village square back to Polo's home for some more land discussion and dinner, when you happen to see a coach roll into town.  Its wood is deep dark polished brown, nicked and pitted here and there where it has received apparently insufficiently powerful blows or  strikes from projectiles.  The coachman and his offsider are much more finely dressed than those you've previously seen; serious young men with hard eyes, one holding the reigns of the four dark horses drawing the coach; the other holding a fine blunderbuss at his side.

They open the coach door, and place a demountable wooden step at its side to facilitate the descent of the occupants: a man, and a woman.  The man is unpleasant to behold; a bony face with a hooked nose, a tightness of skin that makes him look like he is staring into the force of a hurricane every moment of his life. Prematurely grey hair is almost painted back thinly over his scalp and the hilts of two long fighting knives rise up either side of his hips.  He wears a regalia of dark leathers and a long coat, soon capped with a broad brimmed, shallow-topped hat.  He turns to offer a hand to the woman who follows him; a lady just barely young enough to avoid being called an elder, who possesses the correct combination of cosmetics, corsetry, physical integrity and good genetics to startle and confuse the carnal instinct of younger men who are not used to being drawn to grey haired ladies.  Her expression is also severe, though less frightful.  On a gold chain falling past her bust to swing at navel height is an icon of a downward pointing longsword, with a pair of bowls hanging from the ends of the cruciform hilt like a set of scales, and an owl's face  grooved into the pommel - the symbol of Verena, goddess of learning, truth, wisdom, and investigation.  They confer with each other and their drivers, consulting a document between them - but it's clear to you that these must be the specialists from Verezzo, here to see about the Bertuccios.  One is definitely a senior looking priestess of Verena... the other has no obvious icons of affiliation at all.

One of the coachmen - the driver - spots you as one of the few locals still out and about.  He crosses to you with a wave that is... not quite friendly, but certainly non-hostile.

 "Signorina - forgive the imposition.  Can you point the way to the house of the clerk, Polo?  My master has immediate business." 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

The after-hours talk with Ariana and Gaulfredo went about as well as one could hope for, as Taalia had never been a very emotional person. Either by virtue of her ethnicity, or the bleak and exploitative conditions of her upbringing, the girl had observed from a young age that being emotional got one punished. Being sentimental got one exploited by others. Being open to guilt and pity got one manipulated. And under the cruel eye of the Skaven taskmasters, the weak were abused even further while the slaves that wished to retain what little they had learned how to spot protect what was theirs and siphon away from others what they wanted.

But the past half a year had been different. Long gone were the days of brutal toil and jealous guardianship of ones meagre belongings, including their own body and sanity. Now she was in a veritable paradise by comparison, a community where genuine affection and love was shared within family units and between households, where infirmity was cared for and the less fortunate could find some sympathy and assistance if they were trying to at least prove helpful. Gaulfredo and Ariana, by taking Taalia in, had forever altered the course of her life. As she had pondered numerous times before, where would she have landed in this world were she not taken in by their kindness and assisted by their enterprise? The cat houses of Verezzo? Waiting in a room for the next anonymous man to deliriously ascend that rope for his chance to spend his money on the young giantess? Hardly. From her natural inclinations and her time in the slave pits, any one who would have attempted to touch her in such a way would have been in for a fight. No, it was more likely Taalia would have ended up as an enforcer of whatever proprietor ran those houses, the cruel reality of harsh street living aligning with her prior experience beneath the Skaven to solidfy the girls belief that this was just how life was: big ****ed small, and she could either remain small or claw her way into becoming big. It was a dark and frightful mental image to conjure of what she would have become had she not been taken in by her adoptive parents, as her path in the world could have been a far nastier, more brutish one to tread.

And so when Ariana's protective nature came through with her admonishing tears one moment and lamenting affection the other. It was bifurcated, but Taalia joined her adoptive mother with tears of her own, the two close and all arms as the hearts just spoke to each other through a tangled web of emotions, tears and proximity. She would just be a couple of hours travel down the road - she wouldn't be fare, promise!

Gaulfredo, thankfully, was more stoic, even more encouraging. Perhaps there was something to the more atypical risk-taking nature of men that he saw her move as something to be encouraged, while Ariana would fear for her chick leaving the nest. The offer to crack open that bottle was met with wide-grinned thank you and hugs.

 oOo 
Being back in a workshop beneath the spritely grandfather like Cestié was like being a kid in a candy store. In many ways it was a mirror image of her earlier years, with an aged tutor now guiding her through the process of mechanical creation. Indeed, Taalia fell back into the habit of the workshop like a fish to water, demonstrating a familiarity with the toil and labour that spoke of her years of enslavement, only this time she was learning and building for herself. Her labour was her own. Her skills would be her own. And from the eagerness and spry mobilisation of Cestie's spirit, Taalia silently thought that the older gentleman saw one last opportunity to impart upon the younger generations a little bit of his skill and knowledge, a kind of immortality, in a way.

 oOo 
Taalia watched with growing interest as the unique and expensive-looking carriage arrived with its humourless attendants, rows of black horses and the disgorgement of its... colorful  occupants. The man looked like some sort of twitchy, paranoid knife fighter whose age only stood as a testimony that he was a man of skill in both the use of weapons but also of spotting dangers and being prepared to face or evade them when they arose. After all, one did not dismiss an old man who still played in a young mans game.

The woman stood in contrast, as where he looked like a suit of twitchy skin wrapped around a nimble skeleton, she was well-preserved even towards the end of what could generously be called 'middle aged'. With a plume of beautifully manicured, silvery hair - almost like Taalia's - her clothing...certainly fine in creation, but the style. Taalia had seen her fair share of unusual in Verezzo, but this woman encased herself in a striking mixture of dark materials that contrasted with her grey hair to create a memorable image, indeed. She clearly had no intention of ingratiating herself into whatever locale she visited, no no, she was herself where-ever and when-ever.

 "Signorina - forgive the imposition. Can you point the way to the house of the clerk, Polo? My master has immediate business." 

Taalia was atop Jezebelle when she was addressed, wearing her muffin-hat and decent clothing that made her look somewhat of a tomboy.

 "It is no trouble at all, Singore,"  she responded, her smoky, smooth and sonorous voice easily audible as she motioned for Jezebelle to slowly approach.

 "Signore Polo is my uncle, I am due to meet him this evening. I am guessing that you are here about the request for aid?" 
MrAbdiel
  "That's right, yes."   The coachman nods.   "A most serious matter requiring a great deal of discretion.  Can you guide us to your uncle's house?  I am certain my master intends to begin his work right away." 

No reaction to your claim to be Polo's niece, which is true in a sentimental sense, but might be confusing to someone who knows him.  It could be an elaborate ruse - shake down the clerk, take the town coffer and run - but they're pretty well dressed and styled compared to the ruffians you're used to.  The Verenan matron, in her finely tailored gown with all the coverage of a demure and modest priestess's robe but a certain sheerness that attempts to squeeze her out of that category, has wandered her gaze to your interaction with the coachman, now; and the man with her, the 'master', looks to you now too.  For some reason, making eye contact with him is like looking side-on at a sharp blade, where all its danger is pointed toward you by flattened almost invisibly to the backdrop of the world. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia nodded slowly, her eyes moving back and forward between the two out-of-towners.

 "Si, Singore. I was going there myself. But where are my manners?"  Taalia piped up towards the end with that bright smile of hers.

 "I am Taalia Giovanni,"  she gave a little bow from atop her horse.

 "To whom do I have the privilege of speaking?"  she asked, her body language clear that she would continue in the direction of Polo's house while engaging the others in conversation.
MrAbdiel
  "My name is Galeotto."   The coachman explains, turning to flag the other coachman to park the coach while the other two strangers follow on.  The coachman appears to be running interference, doing the interaction with you to spare a doubling or tripling of such from the two walking a few yards behind you.

 "I work for  Padrone Simonuccio .  His guest is the  Matrona Armilia da Motiano , Anointed Priestess of Verena the Wise."   Having furnished you with the names of the important people, he feels cleared to resume recognizing your introduction.   "I am charmed to meet you, Taalia.  It is a lovely village that you have." 

He seems at least partially engaged in such small talk as you learn them to Polo's house, where you are able to fetch the clerk while Fenicia watches the meeting from the hallway.  Polo looks somewhat intimidated by the pair, but he is easily intimidated, so that means.  He throws on a coat, and steps out to finish the conversation in the air of the square, not inviting them in and in fact closing the door to create a physical divide between his home and the strangers.  He has mostly explained the situation in his letters, but he does indicate you when telling about those responsible for capturing the 'other' Bertuccio.

The  Padrone  addresses you directly for the first time, then.   "Is that so?  Then I might ask, signorina, that you come along for the evening's activities.  My partner and I may need to ask you for clarifications and notes about the circumstances surrounding this unpleasant matter." 
 "Do not worry,  mia cara ;"  the  Matrona  offers, giving you a smile that seems genuine, but not particularly reassuring;  "You will not be required to do anything.  You have done the right thing, asking for help.  Mutants are no small business to be overlooking." 

Polo begins leading the pair over to Gherardino's tavern, but he first turns to you.

 "Do you mind, Taalia, fetching Nogrom from the gods' house?  It would be good to have his capable hand ready, along with your own and Gherardino's." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Nogrom won't be trouble to round up; he is sitting by himself infront of a little corner given over to him in the shared house of shrines in the town.  But if you wanted to rouse anyone else to be alert and on hand for this happening, now is the time to do so.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia considered the pair a rather bizzare and discombobulated duo. The emaciated but swift-footed man, the madame-like graces of the woman...

The shepardess nodded to Polo's suggestion,  "Si, I'll go get him..."  as she risked one last inquisitive glance to the odd pair and their coachmen escorts, before turning and seeking out the dwarf to gather his helping hand, such as it was.

ooc:
Taalia can't think of anyone else who would be needed. As far as she can see, the experts are here to do what experts do, while herself, Nogram and Gherardino are on hand to assist.
MrAbdiel
 Nogrom, Polo, and Gherardino stand with you in the tavern proper, along with the coachman Galeotto as the Padrone and Matrona speak with 'new' Bertuccio in the lockup cell a door away.  You hear the muffled, now familiar cadence of the prisoner; desperate assertions ramping up to hysterical confusion and wailing.  It's a good thing Gherardino chose to send his children to wait over with Fenicia at Polo's house.  The sound is one of a man deeply in the throws of his waking nightmare.

Periodically, the Matrona emerges and asks you a question -
 " Mia cara , what is his horse's name?" 
"[/I]Mia cara , can you describe to me the other mutant highwaymen who were with him, when you fought?"
" Mia cara[I], what is the name of the fellow who was badly injured in the attack?  The poor fellow with the broken back?"

Each time you supply answers as full and complete as you can, and she vanishes into the back room; and after an hour or so of this, she emerges with a sign and some finality.

 "Well.  As Verena is my witness, this man is not a spy or infiltrator or something like that.  But it remains to be seen what he is.  Padrone Simonuccio will proceed here, for the moment - but can you show me to the other one?  In the stables, I understand?" 

Waiting outside the stables is a quieter experience.  'Old' Bertuccio is frustrated, and sick of being imprisoned; but still possessed of that enduring phlegmatism and baseline sanity that means he does not call out or shout while he takes questions from the Matrona.  As before, she comes to you periodically to ask for a clarification or additional thing.
 " Mia cara , how long ago did you meet Bertuccio?"
" Mia cara , has Bertuccio ever talked to you about the matters of the gods?"
" Mia cara , how often has Bertuccio visited you, at your home?" 

And armed with the answers, she spends another hour speaking to Bertuccio before finally emerging from the stable looking just as unflustered and darkly noble as she did going in.   "Neither a cunning infiltrator here, I venture to say; just a despondent young man caught up in a dreadful affair, or so it seems.  But we will know the full truth soon enough, I think." 

And back you go, you and Polo and Nogrom and Gherardino with the Matrona and the coachman escorting her, back to the tavern where the Matrona and Padrone confer quietly.  Then the Padrone sets off for the stables with just the coachman Galeotto at his side, leaving you waiting in the tavern as the Matrona begins scribbling on a sheet of parchment with a fine, gilded writing kit.

Your allies confer with you.

Nogrom is anxious, but content that there is finally movement on the issue.   "Atleast we'll know, soon enough.  Soon we can put all this nonsense behind us." 
Gherardino is much more worried.   "I hate this.  I thought they would have just... holy water, or something, they could splash on them both and make the mutant burst into flame and the man revealed to be just a man.  But they're just asking questions, like we all did.  How sure can they possibly be?" 
Polo grimaces.   "As sure as anyone can be.  An anointed priestess of Verena an investigator beyond reproach; the goddess herself permits them to see between truth and lies.  And the Patrone.... Well.  His kind are not pleasant, but we know we can't be imprecise in this.  We can't allow there to be any question after the fact; Bertuccio deserves to be above suspicion, even if there is a price." 

Glancing into the cell where the unusually quiet 'new' Bertuccio is imprisoned, you see the price.

You know a tortured man when you see one.  Not needless sadism, like the Skaven often employed; the Padrone has not cut off his fingers or put out his eyes or anything so gruesome.  But this prisoner, whom previously you could barely shut up, sits crouched in the back of his cell with his eyes squeezed shut, his face a pained parody of the road warden all striped with dirt and tearlines; his bare chest striped now with narrow burn lines and clean bleeding cuts, and rapidly forming bruises from navel to chin.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
A chance for Taalia to voice objections, or ask questions, or intervene exists; but is not mandatory!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

There was little Taalia could do as Matrona and Padrone set about their mystical work. Indeed, Taalia shared Nogroms comment about finally resolving this affair, as she nodded and snorted lightly in agreement as she stood around with the other men of the gathering, her arms folded and jaw squared over the events unfolding around them.

Gherardino had worthwhile comments and Taalia could agree with the sentiment. As a town they had sent out a call for help, but those who answered were not... exactly  what they had expected. The solemn, elder and wisened veneer of a knowledgeable priest in his 60s who wore his signs of office as gracefully as he did the expensive robes upon him, was what Taalia had at least imagined in her mind would ride to their rescue. Not... this , a pair of pantomime show characters.

As the time unfolded, Taalia mingled with the other men as best she could while waiting. That she, not even a full adult yet but proven in character and vigour, stood with them was a testimony to her involvement in the situation as she often helped to answer the questions of either Matrona or Padrone. However, with their in-group talk, Taalia found herself coming down mostly on Polo's description: Bertruccio must be beyond suspicion. The damage that a lack of trust within the community for the local authorities could be devastating, and so any means must be taken to ensure that their Bertruccio was  the  Bertruccio.

In a way, though, the reactions of the assembled gentlemen reflected a segment of thought for an average town. Nogrom, decisive and quick to act but potentially rash and reckless. Gherardino, a touch more thoughtful but struggling to reconcile with what he expected and what was. And finally, Polo, the more intellectually minded and prone to thought that, though usually resulting in a more accurate estimation, did risk the possibility of sinking into over-analysis and inaction.

However, Taalia kept that assessment in mind when she circumstances afforded her a sliver of insight into the situation of 'fake Bertruccio' and the post-interrogation stance that seized him. Taalia wasn't dumb nor clueless. She knew what those carefully managed cuts meant. She was fully aware of the persuasive powers of pain and the threat of further stress or amplified agony. Enough slaves had been beaten before her eyes in order to derive from them precious information by brutal Skaven foremen that she would be a liar if she shrugged and suggested that 'fake Bertruccio' had always had those wounds...

But, as Taalia had pondered before: any means must be taken to ensure that their Bertruccio was  the  Bertruccio, however uncomfortable the journey was. The sherpardess knew she had to cast aside any squeamish castigations and stare right ahead at that ultimate goal and singular prize.
MrAbdiel
 Another hour later, and the assembly of guests and locals reconvene in the hall of Gherardino's tavern.

 "The man in the stables is a normal man - the man you have known for some time.  Just a man; with parents, and regrets, and hopes, like all others."   This is Padrone Simonuccio's pronouncement, mostly directed at Polo.  The Matrona stands beside him, lending her air of validation as a priestess to the verdict; the coachman Galeotto stands off to one side, working his way through a series of glittering metal instruments which he is wiping off and putting away in their leather roll, for his master.

 "The one you have locked in the cell at the back there was  once  a man.  Now he is a mutant - and a brigand to boot - and must die in accordance with this deviation and crime." 

This had been the group's lay-diagnosis, but it's Nogrom - who first wanted to kill the fellow on the road and then hang him before the investigation got even this far - who asks.   "How are ye to know?  We asked him many questions - how shall ye say he's not a... mad lost brother, or something such?" 
 "First, the Matrona sought lies, and found none.  Both men believed truly they are the man Bertuccio; though only one had knowledge of much of Bertuccio's life.  Since there cannot be two Bertuccios, we must determine that one or both of them are insane, and the investiture of their confidence in this identity is a result of hysterical need for it, rather than genuine experience.  The real Bertuccio however, under duress, remains who he is; even suffering, the best he can do is lie to give the answers he thinks you want. But the false Bertuccio, this mutant, is different; when pressed, he reverts to the basic truth of it - that he doesn't know anything about who he is or what he is, and that he beleives he is Bertuccio only because the name was supplied to him when he desperately needed an identity to match his face.  His earliest memories go back to waking up under the twin moons - the Night of Mystery, when most mutations and evil mischief is afoot.  No doubt, he was once another man with another life, before the dark gods selected him to burn away his memory and change his face and body to cause exactly this mayhem.  It is not the first time such a mutation has been documented - often, it a high ranking or esteemed member of a society, and they must work hard indeed to repair a reputation soiled by the actions of a lunatic imposter.  A local road warden is the lowest station I have seen this trick pulled to subvert - but there is no misery too small for the dark gods to desire it inflicted upon men."   The hard-faced man explains all this, even the parts about suffering, with no sense of deep regret.

The Matrona, atleast, looks slightly moved.  "I wish it were easier to know the truth of things, in matters of the dark gods.  But tragically, there is a need for this kind of.. explication, from time to time, when those powers have chosen to be particularly wicked.  Your friend will need you, soon; though this is very nearly over, and life can begin to return to normal for him." 

Alas; it would not.

The following morning, the village is gathered to the square by a clanging bell swung by the coachman.  Gherardino, Signore Cestié, Polo and Fenicia, the Spinster Sisters Amalia and Amadea, Emio the Violist, Nogrom, the Madre Angeletta, the Rampollo Damio, two of the troublemaker boys Enrico and Tesifonte, and Bella join you and another dozen members of the village and its near surrounds in the village square.  Overnight, the coachmen have run an extending post from the steepled entry of the House of Gods, bracing it with a single upright wooden beam, hanging a rope from it and setting a stool beneath it.  Padrone Simonuccio stands on the roof of his coach, and addresses the assembled crowd.

 "All of you, by now, are aware of the dark and distressing happening that has happened on the Silo Road - the mutants struck down by your brave local men and women, only to discover one of their number had the familiar face of a man known to you all.  Permit me here, under the eyes of the gods, to confirm what you have all suspected - this is a trick of the Dark Gods, seeking to sow distrust and terror in your midst!  But men have gods too-" 
 
 Spoiler: Unbidden Thoughts 
 "-and they will not permit their children to suffer like this forever." 
 

 "And I tell you now by Verena the Wise and by the Light of Solkan, that this man -"  he points to the door to the nearby tavern.  The two coachmen, at this dramatic invocation, shuffle the bewildered and unkempt looking 'new Bertuccio' out and down the steps, leaving him squinting in the sun and stumbling as they drag him toward the gibbet.  "- is the mutant who fought to draw the blood of your people, seeking to steal their goods, breaking poor Ernesto's back."   This is an accusation the villagers know, but seeing Bertuccio dragged to be hanged is still distressing and sad.  There is unrest, the undercurrent of confusion and panic.

 "And this man..."  The Matrona opens the door of the coach beneath the witch hunter, and reaches up her hand; and Bertuccio - who has been afforded an opportunity to shave, and change into clean clothes, so he doesn't look absolutely like death warmed up - steps out, blinking into the bright sun just like his doppleganger.   "...is the road warden Bertuccio, who has fought to keep your roads and village safe for years, led the defense of your town against the menacing troll, and is known to you as friend.  He has done no wrong, and deserves no scorn or suspicion; he is the victim of a dark trick, which today we put right!" 

The crowd calms.  Being able to see 'real' Bertuccio helps convey that the execution they are watching is not of their friend.  They are left with only the naked uncanniness of it all; the weird, unsafeness that comes with knowing that, at least theoretically, if this face-theft could be done to Bertuccio, what stops it from happening to anyone else?

In such a small village, there is no facility for regular execution, so there is no set of steps to walk up for the gibbet.  They simply thread the loop of the noose around his neck, and tension it to force him up on the stool.  The doppleganger fights the whole way, crying and flailing; he is gagged, so no one can hear what he is is trying to scream, but you know by exposure to him that it is his mad repetition -  I am Bertuccio!  I am Bertuccio! 

Padrone Simonuccio commends his soul to the judgemeng of Solkan - a god you have heard no one talk about, incidentally - and kicks away the stool.  The drop is too short to break the prisoner's neck, and so he dangles there for a full wretched minute, kicking and struggling, swinging, trying to get leverage with his toes against the frame of the door behind him they can barely touch.  Then he stops, and goes silent, and only the creak of the rope persists.

 "Thus always to bandits, and mutants."   The witch hunter makes this final pronouncement; and in sobre distress, the people begin to file away back to their houses.  Bertuccio, who has watched himself be hanged, receives a quiet word from the Matrona.  She touched his lightly on the arm, and he nods a little; and then the strangers begin packing up into their coach to go.

The Madre Angeletta, Gherardino, Nogrom, and Polo all remain as the crowd sift away; eager to get back to 'normal' now that the contention of identities is over; but how does one get from here to there, exactly?  Bella catches your eye - hers are big and fearful and shining with tears at the weight of it all and moves to Bertuccio too, so there is a semicircle of friendly faces looking at him with worry, everyone standing just around the corner of the tavern, out of eyeshot of the hanging body.

 "It's, ah... good to have ye back, lad."   Nogrom tries, though everyone hears the problem with it as soon as it leaves the dwarf's lips.  Bertuccio has been here the whole time - pliant, cooperative, locked in a stable for nearly two weeks, finally to be tortured and exonerated.

Bertuccio has never been the most expressive fellow, but the smile he gives does not convince of even its own shallow depth.  Especially unaccompanied by any verbal reply.

 "Here - here, everything's going to be better now.  Let the Madre look over you and we'll get you back save to your own bed for some rest, and I'll make you something to eat."   This is Bella's plea; she closes a little to his side as she tries, but everyone watches as he flinches back sharply, almost violently, from her gentle approach, and she startles from the flinch.

 "No, no.  No, it's alright.  I think I just... want to be alone for a while." 

And who can deny him?  Politely, unfailingly turning aside any pleas to accept care or concern, he makes his way back around the tavern, past the swinging corpse of his doppleganger, through the alley between buildings and the path to the stables where he had been imprisoned to set loose his horse; whom he saddles, and takes for a ride out the west road from town.  He would not be back for hours; not until into the afternoon.  Even then, it would only be long enough to gather his things from Gherardino's keeping, to visit the Madre briefly, and then to strike out west again.

This time, he does not come back.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: One Head Is Better Than Two 
You gain 100XP from untangling the mystery of the dual Bertuccios.

You also gain 2 Insanity points from the whole twisted saga. Make a Willpower Test (with +10 because you have a good support network) or gain an extra  (1d3)[ 3 ]  as well.  Hooray!  By Warhammer standards, this is a 'good' ending!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia could only watch as the ceremony unfolded, her brow furrowed by a heavy burden of knowing what was coming next. Though the shepardess had seen specatacles of even more grotesque display in the halls of the vile Ratmen, this event cut far closer to home due to knowing the man in question.

 When  did the mutants acquire Bertuccio? Was what Taalia wondered. On the Witches Night? When she and Gaulfredo, Ariana and Vitorrio were huddled in a barn with their animals? While they flinched away from the black sorcery permeating the atmosphere of that macabre night, Bertuccio was unprotected and in the wild...his duties taking him to distant places across the region that sometimes fouled his attempts to make it to cover before the witching hour took to the sky...

The shepardess shuddered as she pondered the consequenes, remembering that boy with the crossbow who had saved her life but had also been rendered mute by that unholy evening.

The tall girl had sought out Bella during the process, and when the 'fake' Bertuccio was led to the impromtu dais and had that rope fastened around his neck, Taalia had turned away holding Bella close to her, perhaps the other woman pressing her own face against her shoulder-chest connection as she hugged her deeply. Taalia  shouldn't  feel this personal of a connection, but she did. Bertuccio had been the first "real man" she had encountered on the surface, her high school girl crush of him stemming from his image as a ruggedly handsome, stoic and reliable man who could handle himself against the dangers of the world. But though her girlish infatuation with him had rapidly faded due to both a lack of reciprocation and discovery of what a boring conversationalist he was, Taalia felt the pain in her heart that Bella was doubtlessly enduring.

Thus it was with a heavy heart that the shepardess spent most of her time with the other woman as emotional support.
MrAbdiel
 A few days later, as you put in an hour with the Madre, she tells you of her meeting with Bertuccio before he left, which offers a bare modicum of closure.

"The poor boy.  I don't think he holds a grudge - it's not in him.  I don't think he even blames anyone.  Has a heart an inch deep and a mile wide.  But he's a road warden by heart; they're travellers by nature.  When they have a 'home' it's only a little so; and Bella Collina is just... not that, anymore.  It's a place where he endured something so... frightful and confusing.  He needs to roam.  He'll be alright."

You are grinding some herbs into paste to make poultice for the Madre's supply when she puts a hand on your back - a soft touch over the crosshatching scars hidden under your tunic.

"Pain is a strange thing.  It can bring out the best, and the worst in people; you can let it embitter you or you can use it to make you stronger.  I think you know that better than anyone."

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You can gain 5 * Poultice just for your long term investment helping out the Madre Angeletta.  Also gain... 1 * Nebulous reassurance about the nature of pain.
 

 * * * * * 
Over the coming weeks, you spend a lot of time going back and forth between Signore Cestié's workshop, and Gaulfredo's farm, with some judicious checking around the village, especially on Bella.  She has a small but helpful reserve of emotional toughness she taps into, as she copes with Bertuccio's suffering and departure.  You visit her home, after all; it's as small as it looks, almost entirely given over to a couple of tailoring dummies and supplies for her to practise her craft as a journeyman seamstress - though without a master to learn under.  She has a small cabinet at the back of the cottage which she opens to drop out a straw mattress she uses to sleep on the floor, putting it away to give her the space to work in the morning.  Her cooking is done in a brick fireplace that opens to the exterior of the house; there is no room inside to maintain an open fire without risking catching fire to things.  She is financially lean with an appearance of comfort due to her ability to make and maintain her own clothes to a higher than normal standard.  When the topic comes to where her parents are, she shrugs, and offers a faint smile that has a smoothed quality to it; like a stone, once jagged, rounded by a long running river of reflection.

 "Well, I last saw them in Massassano, back in Luccini.  It's a tiny little place, like Bella Collina.  Mama and papa and my brothers and I had the second biggest house in town, though small compared to something like Polo's.  But we lived well, I thought.  But a few days after my sixteenth birthday, they gave me the cart and out family donkey, Landuin, and sent me to the next town over to buy potatoes, since we didn't grow them in Massassano.  I thought they were... trusting me more, having become a woman at that age.  I had never been on my own; it was exciting.  I got to stay in a new place in a room by myself, and brought back a few bags of potatoes to cook into dishes at home and perhaps trade for other things back in Massassano.  But when I got home, there was no one there.  All portable and valuable things were gone from the house; only some of the furniture remained.  I... thought they had been kidnapped, and the house robbed.  I maintained that fear, or hope, even when the others in town told me they had just drawn up two wagons shortly after I had left, loaded up, and left town the other way.  I was sure they would come back; but the rent came due on the house shortly after, and I couldn't nearly afford it at all.  So I loaded the handful of things I had, and Landuin and I headed out of town hoping to find them.  We kept going until I ran out of coins, and potatoes, and hope, and ended up in a village that shared my name, which seemed maybe like a sign from the gods that I should try to make the best of what I had.  Polo let me rent this cottage for a very fair rate.  I had to sell Landuin and the cart to keep my head above water, but I got the hang of being alone, and now... Three years on, I'm still here."   That rough-worn-smooth smile there, again; though her eyes are a little red, from all the talk of people pulling up stakes and leaving.   "And if I'm lucky and smart, at the end of the year, I'll have enough saved to buy back Landuin, too." 
 * * * * * 
You learn in Signore Cestié's workshop, filling out the blanks in your understanding of much of the artisan process.  For a long time, it's about the materials.  This is steel.  This is also steel.  These are not the same steels.  If you leave this steel in the fire too long, you 'burn' it, making it brittle so that it will blow apart under the forced involved in firearm usage.  If you don't heat it enough, it is exhausting and difficult to beat it into shape on the swage block you use to work the long, flat blank of steel into a U shape, and then a closed pile, that you will later need to bore out with painstaking precision to create a mirror-smooth interior surface, so that no matter blasted out of the blunderbuss will snag and, gods forbid, jam the weapon.  And all of this is just to get the barrel halfway to done.  You are an amateur learning this craft; but a master would still likely have to invest scores and scores of hours into making simple fire arms; and hundreds into complex ones.  Most of it the dull work - boring, and filing.

On many such occasions, as Cestié pops out for one errand or another, you are left to your own devices in his workshop to bore, and file.  He has your acquired design for the blunderbuss pinned to the wall for inspiration, and a plaster wall marked up with charcoal scrawl and diagrams all over featuring the highlights of the lessons you've taken from him.  But aside from those things, his workshop is still a wonderland of neat little tools you don't know the purpose for, many you do, books and bits and things - all the kinds of things you remember from Rashabang's workshop, without the flagrant disregard for the quality and potential harm to helpers all those things feature.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: A Decision 
How curious a cat is Taalia?  Over this, say, six months or so of initial apprenticeship, is she utterly devoted to her task, or does she, from time to time, avail herself of her freedom to explore the workshop and the things within it?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia heeds Madre's words with the fascination and attention a child would show an elder retelling a suspense-filled and exciting story. Perhaps it was her background and lack of older figures, or Madre being the one who came along and plucked the thorn from her paw, so to speak, and whom took her on as a semi-apprentice in both apothecarial and written duties, but Singora Madre had always occupied the highest levels of respect in Taalia's world.

Each of the members of Bella Collina that Taalia had grown particularly attached to occupied a certain niche. Gaulfredo and Ariana were her foster parents, and teachers. Gaulfredo, though not a learned scholar, had taught her much about the agricultural profession and had demonstrated salt-of-the-earth sincerity and bravery, as had Ariana with her home-bound education. Vitorrio had attempted to teach Taalia a few things, and he had - mela, apple! - but he was like the little brother she had never had, but had realised she wanted, and she would happily be a presence during his development. Singore Cestie, meanwhile, was the grandfather she never had - encouraging, paternal and very knowledgeable about 'how things worked'. And finally Polo was the foster uncle to whom she could discuss matters of potential personal enterprise.

And then there was Singora Madre. Much like Cestie, she  knew things  via the skills fostered over decades of experience with life. The older woman had taught Taalia how to read, brew a potion and perform the life-saving surgery that she had used in the wake of the mutants ambush. Taken on their own, each of their skills could singularly furnish the average life with a comfortable living, but together? They were a gift that transcended material quantification, and Taalia adored Madre for it.

When the older woman gently touched an area on Taalia's back that was covered with those scars, the shepardess inhaled softly, visibly flinching - but not away. Her touch was oddly reassuring, like the consultation of a grandmother to their generational descendants.

 "I hope he finds peace in the world..."  Taalia would reply, her eyes looking off in thought, pursing her lips.

 "I have often wondered where I would have landed in this world had I not encountered Gaulfredo on that awful night and been taken into his home and this community..."  she admitted, turning to face the older woman.

She struggled to find the words at first, the events of Bertuccio and several physical attacks clearly coming back all at once.

 "I cannot fathom any avenue where my future was not brutish and bleak, except here. Seven months ago I was receiving the task-masters lash, and today, here I am,"  she gestured around to not just Madre's abode, but the community beyond the walls and the future fortunes of her piggery.

 "Seeing what happened to Berutccio, how quickly life can take unexpected turns for the better, or the worse..."  Taalia pursed her lips, then abruptly put her arms around the older woman and held her tight, a slight tear gathering on a closed lid of her eyes.

 "Thank you for everything Singora..." 
 oOo 
Taalia listened to the other young womans tale, and she couldn't help but remember the heated jealously she once felt for the former rival. Like Bella, Taalia had once been cast out into the world at a young age, but where she had been deliberately dispensed of for material gain and at the behest of arbitrary convenience, Bella had been passively abandoned, her parents going to rather elaborate lengths to ensure she would have to find her own way in the world. At least they hadn't  sold  her to malicious beings. Indeed, Bella's determination not to give in to despair and throw herself at the nearest house that would take her in was admirable, and that she'd made it this far and become the beauty of the town was impressive still.

When Bella finished, Taalia was waiting with the sympathetic look and big, warm tight hug. As the pair spent the evening together the shepardess happily played her role as both neutron rod to absorb any spiteful emotional discharge and the giant teddy bear to dispense hugs and reassurances when circumstances required it. At the same time, Taalia would open up about her own past, her earliest memories of an apple Orchard, the Norscan raids, the Thanes wife, sale to the rat-men and the ten most miserable years she could imagine, before pure chance had seen her return to the surface and prosper.

If Gaulfredo, Ariana, Vitorrio, Singore Cestie and Singora Madre were like an adoptive family, Bella was her first genuine friend whom she opened up to, and it showed.

 oOo 
For most the repetitive action of boring and filing would have been, well, boring. But for Taalia, they were the motions of discovery. Though it would have sounded pretentious if she had stated as such outloud, the girl was doing what she loved:  learning . And she was learning for her own use, not for anyone elses. Knowledge was a valuable resource, perhaps  the  most valuable resource. And since acquiring her freedom the girl had gobbled up knowledge of dancing, home-making, cuisine preparation, animal husbandry, literacy, commerce and the gift of the gab - and now she was going to learn how to make  guns ! Those great equalisers and force multipliers. As a young woman, the limit of Taalia's strength was compressed by the biology of her frame. That was just fact. Though she was frighteningly strong for a girl, she would not reach the apex of human strength held by the strongest of men. And for 99% of her life, that was fine. But yet she could wield one of these gunpowder-based weapons and all of that strength wouldn't matter for naught: a lead bullet to the belly at half a kilometer a second would drop just about anyone, or anything.

Plus, with her piggery and expanded flock on the horizon, Taalia was learning how to develop her time. 4 days a week full time with her piggery. 2 days learning from Cestie. 1 day at Gaulfredo's and Ariana's. Her staff helping to fill in during her absence with a couple of evenings spent with Singora Madre. Indeed...after speaking to the Priestess and the Witch Hunter...the idea of magic being accessible...learnable...Taalia wondered how she could divine such knowledge from Madre, or from someone she might knew of...

But! When Cestie would depart for hours at a time, Taalia's curious and inquisitive mind  did  wander. She was smarter than most people, and most intelligence had a degree of curiosity driving its engine. Thus, when given the opportunity and waiting for automated machines to perform their work, furnaces to heat up or steel to cool, Taalia would...wander, about the candy-shop workplace.
MrAbdiel
 One such day, you are waiting for some steel to finish annealing to the right ductile band, and have a moment to yourself.  You sip a cup of water from the keg that Cestié keeps filled in his workshop for just such a reason (he has told you two different storied of passing out from heat exhaustion, and hydration is a learned passion for him).  You stretch out your arms and legs from the mild but rewarding aches of hard work, and wander back into the storeroom behind the workshop/storefront room.  You pass by the door that leads to the craftsman's private quarters, and weave between the crates and cabinets of the storeroom.  Some you know already; you've been sent scurrying about the piles back here for one specific tool or another, and usually finding them... only on one occasion being forced to make a replacement tool instead.  Cestie's 'Number 3' engraving tool now has a replacement that you and he made together in the set, but the obvious disruption in an otherwise matching set of tools is a visual irritant; and you have found yourself looking for the original from time to time in the places you have already checked, and beyond; even though the signore has been consistent in assuring you it doesn't bother him.

It is in one such forlorn pursuit for lost things that you open a tall cabinet at the back of the storeroom that is not in the scope of the tool storage areas; but lost things can 'wander', and you consider maybe that it has.  But the cabinet does not contain tools; it contains a bed that folds out on clever little deployable legs.   The cabinet next to it contains a small but obviously recently used set of crockery and some of the signore's clothes.  You close the cabinets when it becomes obvious you are invading a personal space; but the mystery that arises is now a nagging one.  It had been your assumption - a reasonable one, one based on a standard expectation and a familiarity with the way houses are built around here - that the room behind the storeroom was where the old gent would live and store his personal effects.  It now seems certain that he has infact crammed his personal life, like Bella has, into a corner of this otherwise used room.  But unlike Bella, Cestié doesn't have a very limited space.  The workshop/storefront and storage rooms are both quite comfortably large with high ceilings; more than enough room to store all these tools and things and run his shop at the front.  Why so uncomfortably compact his life into a corner in here, if there's another room beyond?  Why add labor to his morning packing away his living space?

You might ask him, when he gets back.  On the other hand, there is something... small, almost embarassed about the cramped squash of personal life into the corner of his storage room that it feels like it might be a mild faux pas to bring it up at all.  He hasn't  forbidden  you from checking that room beyond.  Indeed, he's trusted you to mind the place entirely while he is gone.  Perhaps, just a peek...

 
 Spoiler: Satisfaction Brought It Back 
How will Taalia deal with the Mystery of the Secret Room?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

That nagging sensation at the back of Taalia's head was  curiosity . Endless, boundless curiosity. Chances are good that such a place would be just a boring little enclave housing some items of mundanity that didn't warren such inquisitive exploration...

... but what if they weren't? 

The imagination could run wild and foster all sorts of alluring speculations that were tailor designed to whet the appetite of discovery. After all, such fantasies sprung from ones own mind - and who knew you better?

Gauging roughly how long she'd have until Cestie returned and knowing that it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, hoping that Cestie would be lenient in the unlikely event that he uncovered her snooping, Taalia went ahead. She made extra sure that she didn't touch or disturb anything in a way that she could not correct on her departure.
MrAbdiel
 The door is locked.

But then, you've had keys to the building for weeks now; and when you instictively check, the lock on this door is the same to the front.  You were trusted with this key - surely, then, to all it unlocks.  It turns, it clicks; and the door swings gently open on silent hinges made by the house's eccentric occupant.

At the far end of this room, the rear of the house terminates in two barred and bolted barn doors that must open to the rear of the property wide enough to drive a wagon in or out.    There are a number of benches and boxes in here, too; some storage cluttered around the edges; but the dominant feature rests starkly and undeniably in the middle of the room.

A wagon-sized construction; a frame of light wooden slats and dowels that seems like a skeleton of some wooden beast.  Where feet ought to be, it has instead a set of three narrow wheels connected to two sets of pedals and altogether connected by a complex interlocking set of chains and gears.  A primary oval shaped frame of laminated wood encircles the wheeled assembly, and hosts bundles of incomplete light chain links and rope tethers to pulley assemblies.  You have seen this thing before - or close enough.  It is the flying machine from the design Signore Cestié showed you when you saw the apprentice birdmen training.  He told you he bough the design off the mercenary captain and inventor Daedallo, who had attempted to build the contraption and crashed it when it turned out its principles of flight did not comport with reality.  It was a fake, so the story goes; and thus he was willing to sell it on, going on himself to continue to experiment with the idea until finally making his much slimmer, lighter, one-man-glider designs that garnered him glory.  Cestié's machine deviates too - but instead of being stripped down to a pair of wings and pedals to pump them, it seems to have expanded to accommodate a second rider and a more complex wing assembly.

Around the edges of the room you see bolts of canvas and long, straight wooden lengths likely intended to make wings that cannot be affixed inside this space.  You cannot for the life of you imagine if it could fly - the engineering principles of flight are so fantastical that it barely seems possible to have seen the men flying that you have.  But what you can definitely imagine is an old man riding this machine off the ramp on Mount Ezio, crashing down its plunging face; without the hardiness of body of a young man to get away with such an event if it went wrong in anything less than the most forgiving possible way.

Then your keen ears hear the old man fumbling with his keys at the front door; giving you more than sufficient warning to retreat to the storeroom and relock the door as though you had never gone through... or leave it open, and confront the old tinker about this strange and perhaps dangerous design... and his intentions for it. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia furrowed her brow as she spied and snooped around the hidden area with curiosity as her only guide. A part of her wondered how much this all must  cost , and where the gentle older man had gotten all the resources to acquire this across the span of his life - the first quarter of which he apparently spent in penniless ignominy. But these practical, wandering thoughts were pushed aside when Taalia laid eyes on the flying contraption - her immediate recognition causing her to exhale and cover her mouth with her right hand.

It looked almost exactly like the ones those crazy bastards had entrusted their lives to when they had strapped them to their bodies and hurled themselves off the ramp of that cliff, to be born aloft and only permitted continued life if their skills were sufficient.

Surely...Cestie wasn't planning on using this, was he?

It had two seats, so it seemed unlikely - not unless he found someone else crazy enough to take the plunge with him. Though...a creepy sensation came and went across Taalia's shoulders at the very thought that  she  might be extended the honour of such an invitation...

The girl was brought back to reality when she heard the fumbling of those keys. Snapping her head about in the direction of that front door, she quickly hurried back through the portal through which she had came, making sure to lock the door after her passing.

Swiftly moving back to her alloted work station, Taalia was waiting with a bright, warm smile for the older gentleman once he had finally defeated the locking mechanism on his own door.

 "Afternoon, Singore!"  she waved with that infectiously cheery disposition of hers she often had around the grandfatherly like Cestie.

For now, Taalia would keep quiet. But she would keep an eye out for any hints that the man was considering taking such a gamble.
MrAbdiel
   The Power of One 
  Part 1 - "In Sterquiliniis Invenitur" 
 
 Chapter 5 - Ricorsione   

The months begin to whip by; and with each of them slipping past, you grow a little wealthy, a little wiser, a little stronger.

Your learning with Signore Cestié proceeds apace.  Though he has not presented to you with a spontaneous show of trust about the machine in the other room, he  has  imparted on to you a wealth of skills.  Boring, filing, hammerwork, forgewelding, sanding, grinding - even some principles of engraving, woodburning and carving for weapons stocks.


 
 Originally Posted by The Irrepressible Signore Cestié on Firearms 
  "A man will spend a little more on a more reliable gun.  But he'll spend much, much more on a more reliable gun that is a beautiful piece, too.  And given how much time you spend of making a single firearm, it can afford a little more time to make it a looker.  Here, look at this..."  
 

 
 Spoiler: Blunderbussin' 
To manufacture an blunderbuss, you'll need to purchase materials equal to 1/3 the purchase cost of the item - 70gc going down to  23gc , 6s, 8p. 

The guidelines for crafting in 2e are pretty loose and often bad, so I'm gonna spitball it and try to insulate it from a 'whoops you rolled bad you lost tons of gold' or a 'whoops you rolled well I guess you made a gun worth 700gc by accident'.

For a complex or expensive project, we're gonna chunk it.  We're gonna divide it into an arbitrary number of components.

1. Lock (Unattempted)
2. Stock (Unattempted)
3. Barrel (Unattempted)

You can make a roll for each of them, over this downtime.

Here's your success grid:

  Degrees of Success/Failure	Result 
-6	Disaster
-5	Materials Ruined
-4	Materials Ruined
-3	Tool Broken
-2	Poor
-1	Poor
Down to -1	Poor
0 Up to +1	-
+1	-
+2	-
+3	-
+4	Good
+5	Good
+6	Best 

So say you roll and get -4 degrees, -1 degree, and +4 degrees.   You'd have a good quality barrel, a poor quality stock, and a have lost 1/3 of your investment in materials with a wasted product.  At that point, you could select which ones to reroll with FP - perhaps the Poor Stock, and the Ruined Lock.

Say they both come back at -2, poor quality, after the reroll.  You could, at that point, choose one to reroll with your last FP for the sequence; or you might decide you'd rather come out of this with a complete, if poor quality weapon than risk rolling badly and losing the materials again.

At a later date, you can buy materials for one of the parts (for 1/9th of the total item sale value) and try to make a better component to swap out.  Within reason!

The barrel is the most important part, for a gun. You do not make a replacement barrel for a stock or firing mechanism you like; but you can replace all those parts around a well made barrel, so the  barrel  is the most important part even if the gun is limited to the quality of its weakest component, both for performance in combat and sale value.
 


You spend another night indoors with your family, with similar defensive postures as you did on the Night of Mystery.  This night - Witching Night, the last night of the year - has a full green moon too.  Gaulfredo tells you there is less mischief on Witching night the Mystery night; but there is no event on this one for you, either.  You can only hope there is no follow-up horror as there was on Silo Road.  But you do dream, that night; of dark caves, and deep pits, and the smell, the  smell  of the rats in their impossible manifold of writhing life.  Of a dungeon you were never locked in, but feels like a composite of your miserable life: a dark, awful stone room with manacles sprouting from the stone.  In the dream, you walk into the room driven by morbid curiosity, finding no prisoner tethered here... but the chains snap into the air and attack you like vipers, and you fear they will choke and kill you, or worse, imprison you here in the dark again, this time never to escape.  But you awaken in Gaulfredo's house, where you had dozed off.  You were sleeping in sitting position, back to back with Gaulfredo on the rug in the living room still warm with the embers of the night's hearthfire.  Rocco, Elmo and Corvo sleep in a furry cluster just to your right; Vittorio sleeps over there with them, his legs draped over the dog's backs and one arm slung goofily over his own face as he dozes.  In the kitchen, you hear the sizzle of Ariana cooking something.  A strange night, but a normal morning - one of many now, with more to come.

You make some sales and some purchases, and six months after your meeting with the honchos and the Rampollo, your property is ready - manifesting just as you had imagined in your mind, perhaps with some adjustments to your vision.  It doesn't have the palisade or stone walls of a true walled homestead as one would have in a more hostile area; one that wasn't in the midst of a golden age of relative peace and safety.  Your acres are penned in with wooden fences, so the sheep can graze both in the small green portion of land you have and also roam over the lesser grounds and pull up the nettles and milkweed as they see fit.  The sty is up, and ready for porcine occupation.  There is no water table beneath the land right here; a project to cut  irrigation channels out from the stream back by the far road proceed, but they will not be complete for years.  But you have two large, sealed cisterns which have received a fair share of rain as the summer dry broke into autumn cool, so both are half full which is enough for your purposes.  There's also a small tank on the roof of your house, allowing for a gravity-fed tap which is a luxury for occasions when that roof tank is full.  And the shack for Enrico and Tesifonte is up, too; you've left it up to them to keep it clean and furnished.

 
 Spoiler: Oink! 
Time to pull the trigger.  How many piggy-piggy-piggies are you buying?

Oh, and while I'm asking - are you completing your shrine-cleaning project right away, or forestalling your purchase of the necessary detergent until after you have your pig business set up and rolling?
 


Sitting at the table in your home - in  your  home, in  your home  - you turn over a slip of parchment in your fingertips.  It's an invitation you didn't think you'd receive.

 
 Spoiler: A letter. 
 Signorina Taalia Giovanni,

I would request an opportunity to speak with you.  I have been informed of a problem in Verezzo which you are uniquely equipped to help solve.  It involves the Skaven.

I am presently staying at the coaching inn nearest to you; I shall expect you within two days.

- Padrone Simonuccio. 
 


It is a small presumption that he has undertaken that you would certainly go and meet him; or else he knows your schedule.   You are scheduled to head up the road to work with Signore Cestié again shortly, which will involved heading down the newly dubbed Salt Road toward Bella Collina, which will involved staying at the newly erected coaching inn.  But do you  want  to see this man again - regardless of what good you might purportedly do? 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 
  
 

It really was quite an experience to grow something from the ground up, as like a wise man once said: very large things can have tiny little beginnings.

That was the sentiment that swept Taalia through the next six month of labouring activity. Plans were drawn. Livestock were bartered for. Agreements made. Names signed to parchment. Hands shaken. Construction started and dreams grew. That three acres adjacent to a one-day busy roadway was transformed from just an unused but arable patch of land to Taalia's piece of the world. The initial perimeter fence had gone up first, the solid, pointed logs that composed it having been derived from the lumber created by the workmen clearing ways for the saltmines. That's also where the materials for her house and hovel, barn and sty came from, and from those fell tree's came a, to Taalia's eyes, the most beautiful three acre constructions in all of Bella Collina!

Just walking through the foundations of what would become her home filled Taalia with a warm anticipation deep within her chest as her imagination tossed her mind into that future where property and lodgings were  hers . From a beaten down, mistreated slave sleeping across whatever two by three square foot of pen-floor she could muscle her way into, to  this . In the worst days of her past Taalia could not have imagined that such a future awaited her, nor saw how life could be anything but the pitiless day to day grind of miserable servitude. But as she soon stood before her completed house, hands on her hips, the symbolism of what that building  meant  to her rather than just its function, the girl had to hold back tears at how things really could get better.

Naturally, once her house was completed and furnished, she had invited over Gaulfredo, Ariana and Vitorrio to 'christen' the kitchen/eating area, this time Taalia preparing a large meal that left her guests contently stuffed and happy. Her culinary skills were not yet on par with Ariana's of course, but this time there was a secret ingredient that bridged any chasm in ability: love.

It wasn't long until the first batch of her animals arrived, and those two boys moved in completely to the hovel she had build for their accommodations. When it came to her employment, she gave them relatively free rein on their domicile arrangements, and was even generous enough not to charge them rent - quite a saving! But they were to furnish it themselves and maintain a level of cleanliness she expected. Her rules were few, but they would be obeyed. Naturally, she would cook both for and with them in her larger house, so that was one more hefty barrier between their situation and the need to complaint. Not that they had such grounds, mind you. Tending to farm animals, saving a considerable fare by not paying rent, nice cooked meals each evening, steady employment, improving skills. They had it better than most their age, and older! Sure, Taalia turned out to be rather...stringent in her requirements. Bossy wasn't the right word, more like 'expectant'. She had a level of standards that she  expected  them to meet, though any friction was smoothed over by the fact that she was working right along side them. This wasn't some parvenu rich girl barking orders from her recliner on the porch.

She even bought bought of them, and herself, a pair of work gloves to keep their hands clean.

What Taalia was  not  expecting was a letter from the witch hunter, nor its contents...

What did he have to do with the Skaven? Did she even want to know?

For a moment when she sat at her table and clasping her fingers against the parchment of the letter, Taalia read, read and re-read it several times as if by chance she had misinterpreted a letter or word or perhaps even a phrase. But there was no mistaking the grim portents of the mans message.

In several days time, Taalia would tell Enricho that she would be gone for an evening and to manage in her absence.

Dressed well for the road, her new firearm tucked away on a side-saddle holster, sword on her hip, shield on her back, hat on her head, the tall shepardess set off to the coaching inn.
MrAbdiel
 'Up' the road from Giovanni farms, toward the mountain, were the big constructions upon which the Rampollo and his yellow faction backers had bet for success.  A slaughterhouse, a tannery, smoking houses and brineries were erupting from the soil and forming a kind of tiny industrial thorp down the road from the salt mine in construction and the attendant hamlet coalescing there.  In another half a year, Taalia would be selling her product up the road to these business and reaping the reward.

'Down' the road, halfway between Giovanni farms and the south road junction to Bella Collina proper, is the new coaching in.  Not as big or flash as the Pigly, and unlikely to receive the traffic it would need to justify even approaching that size for some time to come; but a construction that you are likely to spend much time at going back and forth to the village and to Gaulfredo and Ariana's farm, and so is possessed of a wholesome ' yours -ness'.  You settle Jezzabella in the stables on the opposite side of the road, and head back across to front door.  Above that door is a stripped and polished troll's skull, with a distinctive bullet hole over the right brow ridge.  A fresh sawn timbre plank has been nailed above the doorframe since your last visit, featuring the inn's name for those who have letters in straight-chiselled, black-stained font:

 TROLLSLAYER'S REST 

The proprietor is a familiar face - Gherardino has taken a significant loan just as you have, for his own hopes of prosperity.  Having made some deal of his own with Damio and Polo, he has thrown himself into the establishment of the Trollslayer's Rest while Nogrom, with some reluctance, accepts the responsibility of manning the tavern in Bella Collina.  The Trollslayer's Rest is much bigger than that little village watering hole; but right now it only has a few patrons sipping their ale, waiting on their thoroughly average meals being cooked in the kitchen by Gherardino's kids.  Your money is no good here - you're responsible for the skull over the door that attracts a small amount of tourism from the farms around the area, anyway - so you know better than to bother reaching for your purse.  He calls to the kids to ladle you out a bowl of stew, and indicates with his eyes the table nearest the corner of the mostly empty common room - and the blade-faced individual resting there, arms folded, eyes having tracked you from the time you came in.

"He's been waiting for you.  Had a few other meetings too, but he's real interested in talking to you, Taalia.  Be careful.  He's..."

He lets the comment fade out.  You know exactly the radiating unease he's trying to warn you about. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia rolled her eyes and snorted lightly when she saw the name of the inn and that polished, hideous skull brandishing its face to welcome any newcomers. When Gherardino had mentioned the idea to her, Taalia had at first resisted, thinking that the intent was solely to honour or flatter her in some way. But, as the man explained, a catchy name with a physical souvenir of history was  endearing , it was authentic. And people liked authenticity. The creature to whom that skull once belonged at wrought panic and economic damage in this town. Perhaps now in death it could furnish it with a bit of prosperity, and Taalia had been just fine with that.

Going through the motions when she arrived at the inn, smiling warmly to Gherardino's children and kneeling down to hug both of them, Taalia listened to what the barkeep had to say. Business was slow now, but they had expected that. When the thorp of mines, slaughter house and tanneries were up and operational, Taalia knew this place was well positioned to make Gherardino's financial life very comfortable.

Turning her head to look over her shoulder at Padrone Simonuccio, the shepardess gave him an initial small nod of acknowledgement before turning back to Gherardino.

 "Hopefully he just wants some insight to something, nothing more,"  she offered a smile, before turning and making her way over to the knife-faced man.

 "Singore Simonuccio,"  Taalia nodded in greeting. She unslung her blunderbuss and leaned it against the wall, before making the polite 'may I?' gesture to the chair across from him and pulling it out to seat herself down if he acquiesced.

 "You wanted to see me?"  she asked, figuring a man like this wasn't one for small-talk or niceties.
MrAbdiel
 Your instincts appear to be right - he isn't one for small talk or niceties.  This is a man composed of grand, strident oratory and clandestine deeds done in the name of his unusual god.  Even the offhanded gesture making polite your choice of seat is left unanswered by expression.

An empty bowl of stew sits to one side of his folded, gloved hands on the table before him; flanked on the other side by the orderly scatter of a writing kit paused in its operation since your arrival.

 "Signorina Giovanni.  I am given to understand you have uncommon expertise in the matters of rat-men.  Your friend Bertuccio was of the understanding that you had previously lived a portion of your life, perhaps the greater part of it, as a thrall in their tunnels; and further than you, like only a very select few individuals, are conversant - even fluent - in the rat-speech." 

He doesn't ask if this is true; he seems to know it is true, by virtue of the duress under which that information was attained.

 "A certain matter has arisen in which certain Skaven information has come into the possession of the governance of Verezzo.  But the translative capacity of the senate's agent is mediocre.  They had instincts to reach out to Miragliano or Remas, where such experts might be gleaned; but they are hesitant to engage external agents for sensitive internal matter.  They asked the Verenans; my companion the Matrone with whom you are already acquainted reached out to me and asked if we ought to engage you, given your unique experiences.  I understand that you learned to read long after you learned their language, and so you may not grasp their written form - but given your obvious affinity for language, I expect you will be able to bridge that gap with an opportunity to grow and certain resources put at your disposal.  You have the attention of First Citizen Grocollo presently, Taalia; or atleast his notice.  Extending yourself to serve the senate, and therefor the nation in this way might be fortifying to your long term industrial ambitions... and perhaps, immediately remunerative.  I would expect, if you come to Verezzo and are able to produce a reliable translation key which works for the documents in our possession, you would be furnished with no less than  five hundred duri .  Or atleast, you would be a fool to ask for less, if money is important to you." 

His sharklike, unblinking eyes watch you for reaction at every element of his speech. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia listened, and as she did so her face visibly hardened. It was obvious to anyone observant that the topic of the Skaven was not one she had any particular desire to revisit.

 "Yes, it is true,"  she answered, her tone noticeably colder. Not as a rebuff, but as a funnel through which unpleasant memories arrived.

 "I was the property of a clan, and I served most of my time either in manual labour in mines or the workshop of what they called Warplock-Engineers,"  she paused, thinking how best to explain it,  "it's like a mix between a wizard and an engineer. He...I don't know if 'liking' is the best term, but he did not show me cruelty, and I am actually alive today and free because of him...I say this not out of seeking pity, but to give explanation for knowing a few of their glyphs, just a smattering. But if the realm is immediately threatened by the Skaven..."  Taalia nodded her head,  "Yes, absolutely I will help, Singore." 

The money amount did not even cross Taalia's mind. It was nice, for sure. But her thoughts were too wrapped up in what this matter could be, and the potentially enormous intelligence-gathering benefit a translatable key to the Skaven language would be.

If she could strike back a long-term blow against those vile ratman through this method, then Taalia would consider her legacy of vengeance against the ratmen almost complete.
MrAbdiel
  "Excellent.  Then make your arrangements for your flocks and holdings, and make your way to the Senate House in Quartiere del Leone.  I would anticipate a stay of no less than a week, initially; and after that, if you prove to have what is required, some longer arrangement may be in order."   He takes a scrolled up letter with a black wax seal of a fiery sunburst, and extends it to you.   "A letter of introduction to present to the clerks there; they will put you in touch shortly with Signora Lilli Citti, who is First Citizen Groccolo's woman of note, in this matter." 

He pulls a slip of parchment in front of himself from his writing kit, dips a quill, and begins writing something else. Initially it seems like it's for you - but after a line of what is apparently some kind of cyphered text, he glances up to you, and disabuses you of the notion.

 "That is all." 

Apparently, he's done with you; and has so little use for sentiment or protocol he doesn't even muster the substance to say 'farewell'. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


And just like that, the deal had been made.

It would have been easy to feel dejected by the witch hunters terse and abrupt mannerisms, but Taalia had experienced far, worse. She was not so far from the slave pens that the lack of pleasant decorum was offensive to her.

Pursing her lips, nodding her head, "Buon pomeriggio, Singore," she spoke, collecting her gun from its position and slinging it back over her shoulder.

 oOo 
The preparation for the journey was better suited this time around than last, as Taalia knew what she needed and where to go.

The first task was, of course, to ensure that her two workers were fine in her absence for a week or two, the lack of full operational animals assisting in this matter. Indeed, Taalia could use her travel to secure more sheep and pigs to fulfil the initial numbers she had planned, so that was another useful layer on the trip.

But, just to make sure, she visited the ever reliable Gaulfredo and explained the situation to him. She knew that he wasn't  that  busy during this time of year, due to the nature of seasonal growth in his crops. Meanwhile, a drawback of livestock was that they needed constant, year-round care. Plants didn't.

She told both him and Ariana that she was going back to Verezzo, but more importantly she told them  why . If she could help produce a rubric which could be copied and used by almost anyone to decypher the Skaven language, well then the intelligence value of such a tool would be phenomenal in securing mankinds survival against the malevolent rat-men far below.

Naturally, Taalia would "pay" Gaulfredo. Not like an employee, no no, they were too close and familiar for such an arrangement. It was a favour to come. In the future when he was ill, or Vitorrio needed something or some other event arrived in which Taalia's assistance dramatically increased the chance of success, then she would repay the kindness. They were too familial with each other to "employ each other" in the traditional sense of the word, though monetary compensation instead was always an option if it was preferred.

Confident that her farm would be looked after for two to four weeks in her absence, Taalia next visited Singora Madre and told her of her course of action, and why. She also wanted to see her former teacher over at her own house and cook a meal for her, so that the two could share a nice wine and talk, almost like a grandmother and her grand-daughter in the younger ones new house. Naturally, Taalia extended a similar invitation to Bella for another night, so her friend and her could share the evening with cooking and art. Singore Cestie, also, received an invitation, alongside the mention that she would be gone for several weeks due to a matter she revealed to him.

With her affairs in order, Taalia took with her twenty gold duro in numerous demoninations in the same paranoid way as before - stored in numerous pouches across her person. She had her shield, her sword, her bow, her wonderful new blunderbuss with 10 shots, and Jezebella was saddled up and ready to go.

If able, Taalia would travel with a coach, remembering how useful the prior 'safety in numbers' proved last time.
MrAbdiel
 Gaulfredo understands, even if he does worry.  He had not been in the village proper when the Bertuccio drama unfolded, and so has not met the mysterious Padrone Simonuccio.  When he and the rest of the Bella Collinans had come back from Paesa de Silo, they had encountered to mingled relief and confusion the  real  Bertuccio in the town in addition to his doppleganger in the back of their cart.  Bertuccio himself had suggested the only proper thing to do was secure both until they were sure which was which, and Gaulfredo had headed home with unease in his stomach while you were making your way towards the great city of Verezzo unaware.  When you got back, you told him about the plan to get specialists from the city.  And you were able to forwarn him about the outcome: on a normal weekly trip into the city with Tomasso pulling the cart, he saw Gherardino and a couple of villagers cutting down the stiff and crow-pecked body of  a  Bertuccio, and his blood froze in his veins for only a moment as he reminded himself that man was a mutant; not his friend.

But he knows how dangerous the roads can be; moreso now without Bertuccio patrolling them.  Yet Taalia-Trollslayer was the person he should worry about the least, he told himself; though thinking on the matter does remind him...

 "Oh, before you go... Here." 

He dashes back into the house, emerges with a coin purse, and pours some coins out into his palm.

 "It was, ah.. what was it?  It was five silver for each of the mutants.. and there was eight we took payment for them.  That was forty silver, and we split it nine ways, which is -" 

- without missing a beat on the math -

 "-four  scellini  and eight bits, with the spares going to Ernesto."  A little extra money to furnish you in your travels; and a little extra besides as he puts another four in your palm. 
 "And while I was there, I got two  scellini  for each of the four goblin ears, so that's yours.  Most towns will pay for goblin ears; always take the left, so they know you're not trying to double-deal them." 

Gaulfredo had indeed milked the reward for the battle of Silo Road from the watch sergeant - pitifully small as it seems now, compared to the cost - but had just plum forgot about his duty to hand on your share.  He's a little sheepish over it, without being self flaggelating.

 "Travel safe, Taalia.  We'll take care of things while you're gone; don't you worry about that."
 
You take a round of hugs from this adopted farm family - and one from Bella, and Madre Angeletta, and Signore Cestié as you check in with each of them and make plans to have each over to your new home - and strike out with your faithful companions: the dutiful and restrained Jezzabella, and the still irrepressible and energetic Corvo.  The latter has continued to grow over these last months, now a formidable creature in addition to being a big boofhead.  He has most of the mass of his mother and her powerful jaw, but his father's long tail and pronounced degree of floof particularly around the ruff.  He has responded reasonably well to training, too - though he has a way to go.

 
 Spoiler: OOC 
Corvo now has the stat block of a Wardog.  He also knows  Trade: Sheepdog .  He knows the simple tricks a dog can learn: Sit, Stay, Come.  He also knows two advanced tricks: Fetch, and Restrain.  Ariana (with advice from Adolpho and Viletta) has elected to teach him to attack last of all - better, the wisdom goes, to have a companion animal whose base instinct is trained toward restraint than killing.  He will still defend himself, and may elect to attack your enemies if he feels you are sufficiently threatened - but he hasn't learned how to interpret a command from you to lethally assault a particular designated foe; only to chomp on its ankle and try to restrain it.

Also, gain 8s and 8cp from bounties.

...And while you're here, mark off a bunch of silver for road tolls, now the toll booths are active again:

Each stretch of road (Bella Collina-&gt;Caesa de Silo, Caesa de Silo-&gt;The Pigly, The Pigly-&gt;Verezzo) will cost you 10 s to pass, with a gate fee in Verezzo of 2s and two interior gate fees to get to the Senate House in the Lion Quarter for 4cp.  And another 3 nights of travel in private rooms with your horse stabled is another 30s20p (with the Pigly offering you free baths and stabling).

That's... 3gc3sp, by my reckoning, just for the trip.  As you can see, getting gouged for carting your pigs three times all the way to the city would have sucked a butt.
 


You are stung with tolls and fees the whole way.  You ride alone to Caesa de Silo, and in the company of a coach uneventfully the rest of the way; but on each of three stretches of road there is a toll keeper's booth set up with an enclosed cart in which the keeper sleep.  Each one charges you  leg fees  - four silver for Corvo, four for Jezzabella, two for you.  Logical protestations that your feet are not touching the road, or that Corvo spent much of his time on the grass beside the road, find no sympathy with these tollmasters; you are their crop, and they are quick to threaten trouble with the road wardens (three new instances of which you see patrolling the stretch of road, thankfully, keeping them safe).

But with an uneventful traversal to the city behind you, weaving your way carefully in the saddle through the streets once more, you make your way to the grand columnade of the Senate House.  The closer you get to it, the more self-conscious you feel.  The riot of the coloured factions are strongest here, and the cashed-up nobility swan about in their finery here that, unlike almost everywhere else in the city and beyond it, puts your fine clothing and your fine, fine muffin hat to shame.  Senators in their coloured and gold-threaded robes styled after old Tylesian togas strut about, often accompanied by magnificent and mysterious courtesans in their matching coloration and dramatic plaster masks.  Striking of stature as you are, the eyes of the wealthy and stationed slip over you as they do over the many liveried servants and functionaries that form the backdrop to their comings and goings.  You find your way up the marble steps, and present your letter; and in short order, are ushered through plush and fabulously furnished halls to a relatively small office, across the table from a new face.

Signora Lilli Citti turns out to be a quite petite woman in the middle of her life; a member of the Clerk's Guild who strikes you as a typical bookish pen-shuffler except for a few features.  All of the fingertips on her left hand are missing nails, and prints; and the little finger is gone entirely.  What dominates the tips instead are ugly messes of scar tissue.  You have seen its like before; a punishment the ratmen deal out sometimes against slaves who strike at their drivers.  They have their hand locked in a brass bracket with the fingertips in a cage of rats.  They rarely strike twice.

And when you're looking for it, you see more; the way her hair is brushed to one side her head to cover a scarred patch where it no longer grows.  Clawmarks that just peek up past her clavicle on the right side.  And distinctly, the  squashedness , the inward, space-saving folding of limbs and body at rest common to older slaves who had to adapt to lives in the caves, and who did not have a saving grace such as a benefactor who found them useful in their relatively high-ceilinged workshop.  She looks over the letter given to you by the Padrone, and gives you a thin smile; though it does not quite reach her soft, almost fearful blue eyes.

 "I see.  Thank you for coming this way, Signorina.  The work we're hoping you will do is actually over in the Tower by the North Gate; but if you'll indulge me... the Padrone was, perhaps, needlessly vague about your particulars, only expressing that you are 'particularly suited'.  I wonder... if you could tell me a little about your history with these creatures..?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia looked at the womans deformities, having a fairly good guess at where they had arisen.

 "It is a pleasure to meet you, Singora..."  Taalia spoke, in perfectly fluent  Queeikish .

 "Do we both share a history with the debased rat-men that have left their marks on us, body, mind and soul?"  once again using the rat-mens language.

If the lady shows confusion at her words, revealing that she did not indeed know their language, Taalia would offer a more sympathetic look.

 "I was their prisoner for 10 years of my life I will never get back." 
MrAbdiel
 Signora Citti visibly flinches at the clarity of the rat-language from your lips.  You see real, quantifiable fear fly through her eyes as the sound of it triggers her body's danger response, and she jerks in her chair before composing herself.

As it turns out, her grasp of the language is very basic.  She understands only a handful of directive phrases, and then only as full constructions and not according to their verbal elements.  She is horrified at the length of your tenure, when you explain it to her; visibly paling when you list the duration without requiring you to specify the conditions, as you often have for others who simply don't understand.

 "Ten-... That's... You must have been just a little girl!  Oh, that's awful; awful.  I was taken for just two, and I was a grown woman; and it took every corner of my strength and a small miracle to survive and escape.  Oh, gods alive Taalia; I can't imagine it.  Ten years - you ought to be dead, or mad out of your skull." 

The rapport is immediate.  You have made many wonderful friends and the folks of Bella Collina have been empathetic and accommodating since your arrival, but none of them really  know  what you're talking about when you say you were a slave to those monsters.  But Lilli knows.  She sketches out her story for you, as some resonant feature of your shared trauma conjures it forth from her.  She is from Miragliano; a state that is both mighty and plagued by the ravages of the ratmen frequently.  She married late, rescued from impending spinsterhood by the affections of a simple man who had made enough as a mercenary to retire in his youth - having been forced to retire by an old chest wound that impaired the flow of his humors, causing him to black out when his blood ran high.  But the skaven had other plans; a war-party had surged out of the swamps and attacked the wedding celebration, killing many, seizing many, and dragging Lilli off wailing in her wedding dress while her poor husband of all of  ninety minutes fought, ran after her, but then succumbed to his injury and the cowardly execution of the Skaven who would never hesitate against a foe so vulnerable.

After two years of misery and toil, she prayed to die; and the gods almost obliged.  A cave in killed her work party and their slave driver, and sealed her off from the primary tunnels in which she had been imprisoned.  They afforded her a chance to scramble through the dark, following the wetness of earth and the smell of swamp water, eventually to emerge alone in the foetid marshes and follow the sun the next day back towards civilization.  After some time with the understanding mercies of the Shallyans, she moved inland and south to Verezzo.  But ten years working her way in the markets as an intermediary merchant selling glass from Miragliano to Verezzans did not soothe the outrage in her soul.

 "I decided I need to... cause them to hurt, somehow.  And that's hard, because they don't care about anything, or each other.  I can't... kill their loved ones, or anything like that.  The only thing they have is ambition, and I thought... if I can hurt their ambitions, then maybe that will be enough.  So I started agitating the city for a dispensation to study and work against the ratmen, and Groccolo saw it as an opportunity to rally his faction around a common hatred and maybe open some channels to Miragliano.  But we're far from where the rats actually act, and hit, and hurt and take people; so I wasn't ever given money for much of a team or project.  Until recently."   Now she smiles; and this smile does indeed reach her eyes.   "I hope you can help us hurt them, Taalia.  Myrmidia knows how badly they deserve it."
 
She walks with you to the North Gate district, with Corvo and Jezzabella following your gait as you talk together.  She seems genuinely enchanted by your story after your escape; everything about how you learned to speak, and read, and farm, and trade, and now are employing people - it's a heartwarming tale for most listeners, but a bonafide resurrection story for a fellow survivor.  But eventually your wandering leads you to the Tower.

There are several towers like it ' Leaning Towers ' they are called, build with a deliberate incline as an architectural exercise is straining building principles which first began with Leonardo di Miragliano, and was carried on long after his departure from Tilea and eventual death.  Some are artistic; but  The  Tower in Verezzo is a fort, prison, and military strongpoint in the tightly packed city.  You leave Jezzabella and Corvo with the hands at the stable incorporated into it, and pass the mailed guards at the gate to the fort component with Signora Citti's clearance.  As you pass from room to room, some of the folk you go by stop talking and watch you go.  At first you think it's just your height, but it seems like some are expecting you.  Some mailed guards; some mercenary gentlemen with their brass-chased breastplates and shortswords on their hips; some toga sporting politicians.  Padrone Simonuccio is there, in the room before you reach the tower proper; fixing you with his bugged-out eyes and nodding just once in recognition.  After that comes stairs in flights from corner to corner on the exterior of the square tower; strange to ascend because of the varied lengths of the flights caused by the angle of the lean.  Finally, you come out to a floor somewhere near the top into a busy looking room without the people needed to make it busy.  A wide meeting room with bare, unpolished wooden floors; blackwashed wooden panels hanging on the walls scrawled over with chalk symbols and spidering text speculating on their meaning; and a single bolted and locked door at the back of the oblong room leading to what must be the other half of this upper floor. You recognize many of the marks - skaven letters or icons, for sure.  But having only ever spoken that language, long before you were able to read any language, you do not yet possess the connective learning to intuit their meaning.  That will take time and research - which is what you came here to do.

The Signora heads over to a locked trunk, takes out a ring of keys, and opens it; and inside there are a handful of tatty old scrolls, and books marked with claws from their handling.  "It's not much, but it's a start.    There's a few others involved in the project, but we're hoping you're the key - a fluent speaker of the language.  But first - forgive the formality - we need some assurance of that skill."  She leads you next to the door, and flicks through her keys to undo the locks and bolts.   "I'd tell you to brace yourself, but you're braver than I am.  I'll be here, just outside the door, listening in.  I just need you to get him talking, to prove you're speaking the same language." 

The natural next question,  who is this 'him' , is forestalled as the Signora opens the door and the hallway beyond bombards you with  musk ; the sweaty, wretchy, ratty smell that you first smelled when you were led away through the snows in Norsca, and which became so integral to your world you didn't know you were smelling it until ten years later when you breathed fresh air.  This, it seems, is the  certain resources  Simonuccio mentioned that you would access.  Gut tightening with old instinct, you approach the hard wood cell door at the other end of the short hallway, and peer through its barred, dark window.

 
 Spoiler: Intrustive Thoughts. 
  But you do dream, that night; of dark caves, and deep pits, and the smell, the smell of the rats in their impossible manifold of writhing life. Of a dungeon you were never locked in, but feels like a composite of your miserable life: a dark, awful stone room with manacles sprouting from the stone. In the dream, you walk into the room driven by morbid curiosity, finding no prisoner tethered here... but the chains snap into the air and attack you like vipers, and you fear they will choke and kill you, or worse, imprison you here in the dark again, this time never to escape.  
 


You dreamed about this room.  The dark, awful stone and the manacles on the wall; the smell... Though the chains here are not unoccupied.  They hold their prisoner already; a miserable lump of man-sized rodent, emaciated and shivering and ruined.  A patchy pelt of grey with flecks of brown.  A stub where the tail has been amputated.  One eye is a scabby mess where the orb has been cut out; the other rolls deliriously in the skull.  His body is covered in cuts, burns, blisters and brands.  His is missing knuckles of digits on every paw.  The pointy nose looks to have been smashed and left to set at a tilt to one side.  But even with all of this, you recognize him.  Here is Rashabang; the rat who was the closest thing to kind you knew for most of your life; who was instrumental in your flight to freedom, even if you were only incidental in his; who seemed to die of his wounds but crawled from the grave you dug for him when you weren't looking and fled away into day.  If only he had indeed died there; or if you had followed your instinct to draw his pistol and blow his brains out while his old eyes strained to adjust to the daylight.  How much more dignified either of those ends, than this? 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

To say that Lilli and Taalia got along, or at least shared accord, would be an understatement. Here was the first person on the surface who didn't just hear about and display pity for Taalia's prior incarceration - this was someone who had  experienced  it. Like two former prisoners of war or brothers-in-arms who had developed a bond that only the most traumatic environmnents could foster, Taalia opened up completely to the other woman and showed her every sympathy and affectionate motion as befitting their station. The shepardess did not shy away from tears that formed in her eyes (and wiping them away), nor from putting her long arms around the other woman to hold her tight and hug her firmly. The two connected on an emotional level that could only be forged with blood and shared experience.

However, such a close proximity did not cloud Taalia's instincts at the mention of 'proving ones skill'.

Perhaps it was an unknown seed of magical ability whispering portents in her ear. Maybe it was just simple survival sixth sense smacking her arse. Whatever it was, as soon as the implication hung in the air that there was someone, or some  thing , that she could converse with in Queekish in the vicinity, Taalia had a creeping suspicion who it was. She remembered that grave she had dug, the weapons she had claimed - all gone, all unfurled and discontinued in their use. Had Rashabangs corpse simply grown a spirit and ran off? Had his weapons sprouted legs and disappeared into the forest? No, he had been alive.

No, he  was  alive, as Taalia was greeted with when she entered that room, that unmistakable scent assaulting her nostrils as she was brought face to face with the only Skaven who perhaps  didn't  deserve to be in this position.

Or did he?

Just because a murderer showed you kindness did not remove the fact that he was a murderer. Sifting through the not-terrible memories beneath him, Taalia remembered his giddy excitement in the wake of the black festival that had summoned that... thing  into the world, his borderline delirious joy in the wake of half a dozen of her fellow humans having their throats cut and corpses tossed into that summoning pit.

 "Rashabang?"  Taalia asked in Queekish, approaching slowly, eyes set, coming to rest several feet from the....thing that was once an icon of comfort for her developing life, but in hindsight she recognised as just the lesser of two evils that could have befallen her.

 "Do you recognise me?" 
MrAbdiel
 'Papa Rat' jerks and recoils into the crease where wall meets floor when you open the cell door and step slowly in; his delirium focusing into foggy, fearful focus when he is not alone.  The musk of fear in the air intensifies, and he flinches at the mention of his name, and again at the question.

Here, closer than the door, you can see he looks worse than even you initially thought.  His busted nose is try; his eye is watery and the skin showing through his patchy fur is pale.  He is in the throes of some fever, likely caused by his many infected wounds; but his rodent physiology, so used to disease, refuses to let him die.  You see on his chest a wound radiating black, infected veinage - the blow he took fleeing with you to the surface, still not fully healed, still not fatal... even here, eighteen months after he sustained it.

He takes a long time to process your words; his usually keen kind sluggish with sickness, striving to haul up the answer to your question from the sludge of memory where, ironically, he was free, and you were the prisoner.
 "Nee-Ruh-Kaha..?" 

It's a voice almost unrecognizable; his throat raked and ulcerated from, you assume, impotent outcry against his torture.  He seems to recognize you - though you wonder if he can tell real from unreal in this state. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


If this had been any other Skaven, Taalia would not have given a damn. Indeed, she probably would have just supplied only a middle finger and departed the room. But this was  Rashabang . If any figure from her wretched, desolute childhood possessed a modicum of 'fatherliness' upon which to hang that exalted drape, it was he.

Semtimentality pushed his crimes out of her mind and replaced the with the more positive images. The way he had cauterised her wound, even going so far as to warn her of the impending pain. The patience he had displayed to her directly when instructing her on use of the manufacturing machines within his workshop. The little  shove  in the right direction during that ambush that had doubtlessly kept her on this side of honourable ancestor.

Taalia was not a Tilean by ethnicity, but she was slowly imbibing their cultural edifices for open displays of emotion. She pursed her lips, she swallowed, the knot in her heart dichotomous in its desire to abandon and to comfort, as the best she could do was exhale and reach up to wipe a few tears from her eyes.

 "Nee-Ruh-Kaha,"  she repeated.

 "That is what you called me not less than half a year ago. We were together when the assassins struck your workshop. They brought a rat-ogre with them. I hurled the poison wind-globe that scattered their number. Years later, I was with you when you travelled to *insert city name* for advancement, but they set their assassins on us instead. We both escaped. I buried you, but you survived." 

How else could she address him? Should she reach forward to tend to his wounds, to offer a physical anodyne. An instinctive, long-buried fragment of her psyche beckoned her to take action, to fetch water and bandage the wounds of the master, for all Skaven were to be obeyed if one wanted to spare themselves the touch of the rod.

But another internal voice halted such obsequious behaviour.  She  was Taalia Giovanni. She was  not  Nee-Kaha. Not any longer. That girl had passed on long ago, dead in those caves and looking on at the life she had created with unfathomable approval at what her sacrifice had bought. In the underempire Ragahash had been king, or closest to it. But here, on the surface, Taalia reined supreme.

 "If you could call this survival..."  she spoke sympathetically. She did not have to grovel. But she did not have to turn her heart to stone either. Even if he recovered his strength, his fingers were gone, his tail amputated, his body mauled and mutilated beyond threat. Though the irony of her surviving ten years as a child beneath their torture while he barely managed six months under theirs as an adult did not escape her, Taalia was not the gloating type.

But, she reached down to the tools available to her - a pane filled with water and nearby cloths. She brought them close and started to clean his face, at least, as best she could.
MrAbdiel
There were cloths and water indeed - and also a tray covered in jagged and hooked instruments like you had seen in Simonuccio's tool roll; some tools you've never seen before, but whose sadistic purpose you can imagine only by their shape.  There is a jar, in which is floating Rashabang's other eye in some faint green solution.  There are several knives, and a sharpening stele.  But there are rags, reasonably clean; and water of a similar quality; and your compassion drives you to use them, and try to clean the snout of the decrepit rat-man.

He does not know how to receive kindness.  He has received in his life even less of it than you have.  He hisses pitifully first when you try to clean his face, interpreting your moves as some kind of attack; long stalled vengeance of slave over master.  When he stops squirming and permits you to wipe the crusted blood and spittle and flecks of whatever slop they have been feeding him (and slop it must be, because they have pulled out all his teeth), his breath remains quick and fearful and all the way through your compassionate gesture he seems to be waiting for something else to happen; some betrayal behind this, or some other piece of him to be removed and stored for science.  He has made a calculation that he is less likely to suffer if he holds still, than if he struggles; the only decision he has been able to make in his life for a long time, and which he has made over and over.  When you are done, his countenance is still deformed with injury, but less filthy; and he looks more like the old rat who was at least as clean as he could make himself by licking his paws and rubbing them on his face.

You have spent ten years around these monsters.  Never have you had one at your mercy, like this; not even when you killed your nemesis in a desperate struggle in the dark.  You remember the Signora's confession earlier, about her captivity; how after two years, she prayed for death.  You wonder if Papa Rat is capable of prayer; or more specifically, of praying for death.  But it strikes you as unlikely.  The rats do not have human minds.  Their language does not have a word that frames mercy as anything other than a trap, or an alien concept.  Their highest principle is survival.  They have no Morr's Garden to rest in after they die; only the displeasure of their evil god if they serve him insufficiently.  More likely, Rashabang will remain here, cringing and complying and compromising and suffering, seeing any pain and indignity as better than death until his captors kill him by accident or decision.  All the evils he was complicit in are behind him, now; all the good he did, he has done, and done by accident.

...But he  did  do those good things, accidental or no.

 "Why you here, Nee-Ruh-Kaha..?"  He croaks, shivering with fever and fear of overstepping; his racial predilection for obsequiousness warring with physical exhaustion for primacy in that thin and wasted voice.
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia fought in her mind between compassion and realism. Rashabang would  never  love her. He would  never  feel 'compassion' for her. The Skaven mind didn't work like that. Indeed, his lack of cruelty towards her  was  the anomaly. That was the best it was going to get: a lack of cruelty. It was passive, not active, kindness at best.

Still, she cleaned him up gently, showing some degree of mercy she had never been afforded by his kind. Using her knowledge of medical healing, she cleaned this, swabbed that and disabused most of the unsanitary conditions forced upon him.

 "Why you here, Nee-Ruh-Kaha..?" 

Taalia put the pane down, its red-pink water sloshing about for a second as she dumped the cloth inside. Seating herself on a chair across from him, Taalia's voice was even and tempered.

 "I have started a new life here on the surface. I don't know if you led me away from those assassins because you cared about me, or because you thought I would be useful later. Either way, thank you,"  her statement was clear and even-toned.

 "I am here because I want to offer a proposition: help me read Queekish, and I will make your living conditions much more comfortable." 

How long did Rashabang have? Not long. He was old and decrepit even just 12 months ago, and that certainly wasn't helped by the almost year of torture on the surface. Making his last few years comfortable in exchange for learning how to read his language seemed fair to her.
MrAbdiel
  "Teach you read?  Why you need read?  No-no, I show, I show.  Come-come..." 

With this incoherent declaration he steps toward the nearby table of implements, casually enough; and immediately hits the extent of his chains.  The jolt of the stop tugs him back and he loses his footing on paws partialy denuded of toes, and falls; though his manacles do not extend far enough to permit to him to fall all the way, and so he merely enters a pain-spurred coughing fit and struggles back upright; his watery eye wide with confusion and alarm at the turn of events.

Where is he now, in his fever-delirious mind, you wonder?  Back in the workshop, working on some design - unwilling to teach you to read the symbols on the scrawled parchment, but willing to show you the assembly of some armature of needlessly bladed wheel assembly, instead?  The stumble and reminder of his incarceration seems to bring some clarity to where he really is again; and his posture, which had almost dared to show a little of the cunning and self-assuredness it once had within his own technological domain, melts away to a despairing, prisoner stoop once more.  Then he looks at you again.

 "Why you here, Nee-Ruh-Kaha..?" 

He is delirious; but you think, pliable enough.  Given time, and a modicum of freedom to improve his conditions so he can develop the physical health to allow him to think clearly, the old rat would probably accept your offer.  He has no alternative than to endlessly suffer, after all.

Unfortunately, you do not get that chance.

Outside, down the corridor by which you entered, you hear a clamor of raised voices - Signora Lilli's, pitched up to argue heatedly, ardently, with no less than four male voices shouting her down. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia furrowed her brow as her head snapped around to the door.

 "Wait here..."  she stated in Queekish, moving over to the door, opening it and walking through to see what was going on.
MrAbdiel
 When the door opens, the scene is one of confusion.  Four powerful tower guards, mailed and tabarded with the faction-neutral white of Verezzo united, have spilled into the room.  None have drawn their short swords; but one restrains the furious Lilli Citti with one hand around her small wrist, while the other three are moving through the room toward the door from which you have emerged - lead by a fifth figure, whom you know well.

 "That one.  Detain her."   Padrone Simonuccio pronounces flatly, with one dark leather glove extended toward you with the finger of accusation outstretched.

 "Gods damn you, Simonuccio!  You used me!"   The older woman's face is flushed red with anger, and guilt as her eyes turn to you.  With three guards preparing to arrest you, a veteran witch hunter and the most famous prison in all of Verezzo between you and escape, the Signora is right to fear.

 "I did; but only for the purpose to which you have dedicated yourself to be used - rooting out the vermin, and their collaborators.  You might have escaped their clutches, Citti - but this one was with them for ten years.  She speaks their language, she coddles and cares for them.  And soon enough, she will face the same divine judgement they do." 

One of the three guards approaching you, who features a chevron marking on one pauldron suggesting seniority, tracks his eyes to your blunderbuss at your side, and back to your face.  He gives you a little shake of the head, and a look that is almost compassionate.  He has orders; he will carry them out; but if possible, he will do so without a stomach full of shot.   "Easy, signorina.  Don't want to hurt you.  Will if I have to."   He gives you a few seconds to see wisdom in his plea.  The accusation is madness - there is nothing in the world you hate more than the vermin who made you suffer so.  And the idea of being incarcerated on that accusation roils in your stomach like a gut full of molten lead.  But right now, you have not done anything precisely wrong or objectionable - not that anyone should be able to prove, you think.  Have you?  But if you fight here, and kill one or more of these men (forbearing the assumption that is within your power, as you have fought several times in your life but never men so obviously trained), then you will certainly have done something that could be seen as objectionable - even lethally punishable...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: The Chains Leap... 
What will you do, Taalia Giovanni?
 

 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia's eyes widened in legitimate shock, her astonishment at the situation registered on her face as she stood there dumbfounded for several seconds, before instinct took over.

 "You son of a pig! You have the golden opportunity to gather intelligence on these debased creatures and you pull this stunt?!"  

That blunderbuss was in her hands and pointed at Simonuccio specifically, but in this tight corridor it would blast all of them indiscriminately.

 "I want to  destroy  the Skaven not  join them ! Are you out of your fvcking mind?! Did you hit your bald head getting out of your fancy carriage?!" 

This was the first time Taalia felt genuine fury, a roiling storm of rage boiling to the surface of her face and ignite a fire in her eyes that gave credence to the saying to beware the anger of a gentle man.
 
"Go and get Armilia da Motiano! I won't speak to a two-faced, treacherous dog like you!" 

Taalia gestured to Lilli Citti.

 "Let her to my side. She and I are waiting here until Armilia da Motiano, a priestess of truth and knowledge, will come here and speak to us! I will surrender to  her , not this no-good, lying snake in the grass!" 

Taalia wore a mask of stormy fury, but even through that tempestuous visage her eyes widened with disbelief, of pain from memories past, the wet dew of tears gathering in the corners of her eyes and trembling through her raised voice.

 "I spent my childhood whipped and beaten by these monsters and you accuse me of  sympathies  for them?! You bastard mongrel! How  dare  you!"  

As Taalia brandished her weapon in Simonuccio's direction, Corvo had stirred next to her. The young adult canine had grown considerably since his lanky, goofy years and though he was still an affectionate boofhead, his countenance could take on a much more intimidating form when aroused to protect his master.

Initially, the canine was confused as men came up the stairs and apprehended Citti, not knowing what to do. But when they stepped towards Taalia with clear malign intent, his guard instincts animated his ears to flatten, his lips to curl, his shoulders to puff up and forward as his short fur bristled and that baritone guttural growl rumbled up from within that deep, muscular chest. Sure, four armored men with swords could kill such an animal...but it'd latch those huge jaws around  someones  arm. Or ankle. Even if slain, that fanged maw would remain fixed and latched. Broken bones were a very real possibility, as was an infection. What fighting man wanted that for his sword arm while its owner was pointing a blunderbuss in their direction?
MrAbdiel
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
We'll call that a half-action draw and, if you like, a half-action Aim at Simonuccio (though technically you don't 'aim' a blunderbuss but I'll allow it, certainly in these close quarters and for the purpose of menacing people).
 


The witch hunter... appears remarkably unfazed by the barrel between the two of you; his wild eyes boring into your mismatched pair.  The prison guards shift a little away from the blunderbuss' potential arc, happy to let the Solkanite be the sole attractor of its wrath; but no one moves yet to assault you, or draw weapons of their own.


 "I spent my childhood whipped and beaten by these monsters and you accuse me of sympathies for them?! You bastard mongrel! How dare you!" 

You dare not look away from his eyes - those longknives you know are on his hips speak of a man swift and vicious when left unwatched for a moment - but your peripheral vision registers that his posture shifts, incrementally; his weight moving from one foot to the other, and settling again.

 "Precisely the braying sentimentality the enemies of mankind rely upon to twist and wound us.  You are not the first captive of wicked beasts to find comfort in service instead of the dignity of defiant death.  The Matrone, I am sure, will visit if she feels it worth her time; but no, I will not send for anything on behalf of one in league with these monsters.  Signora Lilli Citti, I am sure, does not share your depraved affections;  she  is in no danger from anyone but  you.   Put the weapon down, Taalia.  If you are so strident and confident about your innocence, then you have nothing to fear." 

Signora Citti struggles fruitlessly in the grip of the guard restraining her.   "You lunatic, you're crazy!  I invited her here by your recommendation, but on First Citizen Groccolo's behalf!  You're just going to drag her out into the street and burn her on your moonstruck suspicions?  We're not Solkanites here, you knucklehead!  They'll pike you outside the gate for this!" 

Again, without looking away from your eyes or even blinking as far as you can see, the agent of the sun-god ripostes -  "Nothing so dramatic, Signora; I have made sure the cell above this one is vacant for just this purpose.  After a short trial, and some necessary explications, Verezzo will agree with my findings.  Unless, of course, I am wrong; in which case they will certainly see so, and emancipate this rat-speaker."

"Of course, all of this can be avoided if you simply pull that trigger, - if you are ready to prove yourself an ally to the Ones Who Crawl Below, in that way - but superior heretics to yourself have tried, and failed,  Nee-Ruh-Kaha ." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The guards move slowly away from the line of fire; Simonuccio takes no visible action other than pontificating.

Your turn!
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia returned the witch hunters stare with an intensity that only the emancipated could match. For several long moments it seemed like she might even pull the trigger and blast the man in his self-righteous face, forever eradicating his treachery from the world but assuredly condemning her to the gallows.
 
"Nee-Ruh-Kaha translates to female-proven-purchased: it means I was their slave. Their abused property that escaped to freedom. You don't even know that, you ignorant, stupid bastard,"  Taalia hissed, showing a deliberate contempt for the mans thin knowledge of Queekish and the ramifications of the words he used.

 "You are made of the stuff I feed my pigs, Simonucci,"  Taalia spoke, her Wastelander returning to hiss at him with barely restrained, furious anger.

 "You're an honourless dog that has handed over future thousands to the knives of the Skaven,"  she continued.

 "I ask you sergeant,"  Taalia spoke, her eyes remaining on the Witch Hunter.

 "Who do you trust more? The man who you  know  has deceived and condemned solely by his own abritration,"  the teenage shepardess spoke.

 "Or one who has not told a lie and came here in good faith because she believed she would help this nation that took her in develop an intelligence weapon against those who abused her, to preserve thousands of human lives in the future?" 

She allowed a pregnant pause to linger in the air.

 "This swine has over-stepped his boundaries. He does not wish for the Priestess to be summone dbecause he knows she would condemn his actions, isn't that so, Singore Simonucci?"  Taalia stated rather than asked, though her address to him was clearly mocking.

 "You worked with her in our village to root out mutation. Why don't you have her here with you now if you are so sure of my guilt?" 

Taalia narrowed her eyes.

 "You  know  your actions would be condemned by a woman of knowledge and justice, don't you?" 
 "Isn't that right, sergeant?"  Taalia once more addressed, though her gaze never left Simonucci.

 "Were I so clearly guilty, why is the Priestess absent? I do not ask for your release, Sergeant. If I wanted you harmed I could have pulled this trigger a minute ago. I ask only that you spare thirty minutes to send one of your men to retrieve the Priestess and bring her here to bare witness to this. She has a connection to the gods of our lands; if I am guilty, she will clearly see it, I will bear the judgement and you will return to your sons and daughters knowing you have done the gods work. But if she does not see guilt within me, then today you would have done nothing but help a madman send an innocent girl to the gallows."  She deliberately used the word 'girl' and not 'woman'. For the first time Taalia used her age to her advantage. If the sergeant had a teenager daughter, even better for her.
MrAbdiel
 "You see how such torrents of invective fly from her, at the moment of testing?  It is the same with the possessed, and the damned - vulgarities like this are the bitter wine; and  Chaos  the wicked vine on which the dark fruit grows."   It's not quite smugness on his face - but a cousin expression to it, with the self-satisfaction carved out and the space refilled with endless zeal.

 "Signorina..." , the sergeant pleads,  "Padrone Simonuccio is a hunter of witches in good standing in the city - he has summary arrest powers, not summary power to execute.  You will be detained until you are proven innocent, or guilty of something worth the gallows - but that proof will be made before a senate-appointed magistrate.  If you want a priestess to visit you, we can dispatch a summons - but you cannot wave that weapon around in here and make these demands.  You must submit - or we will have to fight you.  No one wants that, except perhaps the Padrone." 
 "Oh, please."   The Padrone scoffs.   "That would be the quickest end to this, but the least vindicating.  Here, an olive branch, rat-speaker: once you are incarcerated, I will go at once and see if the Matrone de Montiano will see you at her earliest convenience.  Will that satisfy your demand - or will you, given an inch, begin demanding all kinds of other things on account of a new fear that the Matrone will only confirm what I have deduced about you?" 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 
 "No one wants that, except perhaps the Padrone." 

A flare shot up in Taalia's brain.

He knew.

The sergeant  knew .

The man with the  actual  power in this situation - 4 other armed men -  knew  that Padrone was a bloodthirsty bastard. Sure, he had arrest powers, but who would everyone in this room back up  this instant  if the Padrone complained to the sergeants superior?

 "So you  know ,"  Taalia said, her tone abruptly diminishing. Her eyes remained on Simonucci, but her address was clearly to the sergeant.

 "You  know  this man would enjoy seeing my death, before a magistrate has even heard any evidence to my innocence or reasonable explanation that cancelled his evidence." 

The pregnant pause lingered in the air.

 "You just admitted it: you know he wants to see me die, he has already made up his mind. What justice am I going to get from him? I trusted him once before and he betrayed me. I trust him again - and you admit you believe he wants to see me die - when he claims he'll personally see the Matrone, he will feed me lies that she was too busy because that will ensure I go to the gallows. Signora Citti trusted him and he betrayed her too!"
 
Another pause, allowing it all to sink in.

 "Just thirty minutes, Sergeant. Thirty minutes and I will surrender and you and your men live with a clear conscience. I swear on my eyes I came here in good faith believing I would be helping this beautiful land and its people that took me in.  This  man would kill me right here if he could, he wants  you  to do his dirty work for him! Thirty minutes Sergeant, that is all I ask for." 
MrAbdiel
 "Do your job, sergeant." 

The weight of this simple phrase is palpable in the room; a devestating rebuttal to all your reasonable pleas for marginal mercy and assurance of good faith.  What you are saying is true; you are not a collaborator with the ratmen; you came here to cause them pain; and any divine gift capable of discerning lies will not detect one when you confess these things out loud.  But these men are not the goodly folk of Bella Collina, who know you and trust you; they are guards and former mercenaries, who routinely manhandle killers and traitors, who do not know you from the Tsarina of Kislev.  All they know of you is a woman accused of terrible crimes, holding a blunderbuss they are forced to assume is loaded.  And Simonuccio, even if he does not carry the carte blanche authority he may in another state where Solkan has temples, appears to have enough standing to dictate the proceeding - atleast, from here to the whatever magistrate gets to decide the ultimate outcome.

 "I'm begging you, Signorina..."   The sergeant continues.  Your peripheral vision shows him approach, carefully, with one hand outstretched - perhaps to grab you, but in such a measured way, more likely to receive your weapon.   "The only way you die here is if you make yourself the kind of threat that warrants it.  Give me the weapon.  Please." 
 "I will go!"   Signora Citti pipes up, her voice almost uncontrollably shrill as the bloodier outcomes in the tensioning moment start to seem larger and more likely that the bloodless ones.   "I will go and call on the Matrone!" 
 "You see?  The Signora will go, for your sake; but no one is going anywhere until you are contained.  I will  not  ask again." 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia wanted to blow that ********s head off of his shoulders. If she survived this, the girl promised herself, she would do  something , however minor, to humiliate him in private or public.

She had once promised herself that she would never enter bondage again. Not when the rat-men had held her so. And  definitely  not when she would be placed in the mercies of that loathesome filth Simonucci.

Hearing Citti's assurance that she would go was a good start. Very good. At the sergeants behest, and Simonucci's assurance, Taalia still held that gun upright and pointed at the crowd...but she waited.

Waited.

Waited.

Until finally Citti had disappeared from sight and was assuredly off to receive the matron.

 "You see? The Signora will go, for your sake; but no one is going anywhere until you are contained. I will not ask again." 
 "Stick it up your arse! I didn't walk out of the Skavens cage to walk into yours, you pigfvcking ball of dog****! Pooh you bastard!"  Taalia spat on the ground before Simonucci, as she  took a step backwards .

 "You want me contained? You all bear witness to my surrender to containment! I cannot escape - I am contained until Matrone's arrival!" 

With that she stepped back into that room with Rashabang and closed the door before her, bracing up against it her body, tables, chairs, anything.

She had only to await the arrival of the priestess.
MrAbdiel
 The barricading is a cautious game of cat and mouse - the door into Rashabang's cell proper opens outward, but the one in the short corridor from this research room to the cell opens in; and you block it with your body, daring someone to try to knock it in and risk being blown away.  You hear muted discussion on the other side, taking small windows of opportunity afforded to you by your tunnel-honed senses to detect moments when you can dash into the cell, spill the torture tools off a table, then haul that table back into the corridor to enhance your blockade.  After mumbled negotiation on the other side of the door, you hear Simonuccio's voice pitched up for your benefit.

 "You have your way, Taalia - the Signora is on her way now.  Go ahead, Signora - assure her." 
 "I'm going to the temple of Verena now!  Oh, Taalia - I didn't know!  Do not hate me!" 

It's hard to tell, but you think you hear her footsteps leave the room beyond.  This dividing door doesn't have a handy barred window to peek past (they contain the smell this way, it seems to you) like on the cell's immediate entrance does.. But you don't hear any sounds of struggle, and those you are quite familiar with; so it's unlikely they've done anything to the Signora and lied to you.  Further, you don't think the guards here are slavishly loyal to Simonuccio - they clearly bear discomfort with his strange religion, and aren't likely to push this poor woman down the stairs for his sake.

You can hear them still, shuffling about in the room beyond; the occasional twang of Simonuccio's pronouncements, and the sergeant's lower, evener tones.  You hear the squeaking and rumbling of the room beyond being ransacked, while you wait - looking for evidence on you, perhaps? Or something else? - before that slows and ceases.

Time passes slowly in such terrible, isolated moment; your blood up, your fortunes reversing so jaggedly from freedom to absolute peril again; and no way to run.

 
 Spoiler: Intrustive Thoughts. 
 "Stop talking or you'll suffocate!"

It was then that Nameless felt the slightest of breezes against her face, like a little puff of wind emitted by someone drawing their face close to another and puffing softly as an annoyance.

Where could that have come from? Nameless' minds raced to think and then she was reminded of the weight around her ankle. Her shackles! The end of the chain was still in the clear and open part of the cave, where the work crews and foremen were stationed. That chain was literally their life-line, as Nameless managed to struggle against the weight of dirt against her body to reach up and grip the closest part of the chain. And then she twisted it. Just slightly, as much as she could, gyrating it in a circular motion, as if she were stirring a tiny little cauldron and then she felt it - the little puff of air again.

It wasn't enough to burrow their way out or see anything, but the rotational movement of the chain loosened enough dirt and pebbles around it to create small, thin little vents from which air could enter Nameless' position, allowing her to continue breathing. She would be here for hours until they were dug out, but at least this way, the Skaven would be retrieving slaves and not corpses.

Maintaining her breathing, Nameless passed the knowledge down to the kids, telling them what to do: stay calm, don't panic, breathing slowly, turn the chains just slightly, creating those thin little air passages and be patient. 
 


And then, after what must have been half an hour or more, the sounds beyond the door have ceased entirely.  You hear no speaking, or shuffling.  All you hear is Rashabang behind, his wheezing little breaths and coughing snuffles as he tries to inhale through his crumpled nose; the jingle of his chains as he tries to find some comfortable position even as their lengths prevent him from laying, or sitting; these sounds, and his delirious, miserable mumbles to himself - the nonsense murmurs of a fever-rattled mind.

And then more time passes.  How long?  Has it been an hour?  Surely, or close to.

And no sound from beyond the door.  Not Signora Citti; not the Matrone de Montiano; not Padrone Simonuccio.

Nothing at all. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia's heart-rate slowly descended as singular minutes turned to scores. Her breathing rescinding, her heaving chest calming down and her blood-pressure returning to something resembling normal. Had she made the right move?

Absolutely. She didn't doubt herself for a second. Giving up her weapon and entrusting her safety to that soulless dog was a sure-fire way to walk to the gallows.

But did she have the ideal environment to make it in?

Looking around her situation and taking stock of the room, Taalia had to concede that it was...less than ideal. They controlled the points of entry and she had barricaded herself in, all-but guaranteeing that the first unwanted man to stick his head through the door would lose it. She had ten shots on her, and she imagined that the barricade would last long enough for her to reload, so two men at least would need to agree to end their time on this world if they wanted to storm the place.

Or they could just let her starve. That was a possibility.

Checking the wineskin on her hip that she brought for drinking during the day-long gaps between cities and towns when she had travelled here, Taalia felt it was about three quarters full. She could go for about three days without water. She knew that. After that, two hundred and fifty milliliters a day. She had about a week. Ten days at most. The lack of food was no problem. She'd endured far worse.

There was also the fact that she was being watched right now. She knew that much. But where?

With the barricade in place, Taalia slung her gun over her shoulder. Ignoring Rashabang for now - knowing that any talk towards him would be taken as incriminating evidence of her collusion - the shepardess set about trying to find the means of spying and eavesdropping. She took her gloves off and slowly walked around the room, hands against walls, her sharply keen eyes having no problem spotting things in the dim light, as she felt for any signs of a draught while she waited.
MrAbdiel
 It's a well founded instinct.

Inside Rashabang's room, there is a single high window - though it is no larger than a single brick, with metal rods splitting it up so only unlucky pigeons could (and do, by the feathers and leavings) use it for entry.  But in the wall, either side of the door frame, are a pair of small openings, neither larger than the circle you can make with your thumb and middle finger.  One is a pipe of copper, when you scatch its rim; the other lead.  And peering into each you see nothing, but a tiny wink of light from two inches into the lead one.  Some kind of elaborate play of mirrors, like those theives use to peek around corners, for watching prisoners and their visitors?  And the other - perhaps for earing?  You can imagine Simonuccio down below somwhere, with his eye pressed to one outlet and his ear to another, witnessing your earlier conversation; though if your suspicion is correct then the mirror-pipe must be capped at the other end, presently.  There is only darkness within. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia pursed her lips and wished for a moment that she could shoot down one of those holes, just to put a shot into the pigs head.

But alas.

Suddenly a light-bulb went off in Taalia's mind. It was quite clear by now that the Matrone was not arriving any time soon. The church district was close and were the journey made with haste, an hour was all that was needed. Obviously, Simonucci had devilishly subverted his assurance that "she was on her way" and allowing Citti to retrieve her. That wicked bastard was going to starve her out.

Moving over to the chair, the girl dragged it back and placed it so that its back was in front of that hole, blocking Simonucci's ability to spy into the room.

Next, she looked up at that barred window. It was high, but so was she. The table was wedged against the door as a barricade. The chair was against the hole in the wall so that pervert couldn't view her anymore. That left other assortments she could stand on. Then, she gathered what cloths she could and fashioned them into a rope.

Getting her kit out, Taalia gathered 8 of her ten shots, pouring all of the powder into one large bag, along with the blasting caps. Then, standing on the available improvised footstool, Taalia jumped and grabbed onto the bars with one hand, using her impressive strength to pull herself up and wedge that fat bag of blackpowder and blasting caps into the corner of the window.

Dropping back down and unshouldered her blunderbuss, Taalia yelled out.

 "Alas, Simonucci, my pig-faced friend, this is the day you will always remember as the day you  almost  caught Taalia Giovanni!" 

Looking back up at that sack, she aimed the blunderbuss and  Ka-BooM!! .

ooc:
__________________________

Yes, the mad-lass is doing it, and she's climbing through that new ventilation system and ride her shield down the leaning tower onto the ramparts where she can dive off into a conveniently placed mound of hay, and run to the  real  authorities.
MrAbdiel
 There is precious little cloth in the room to make anything in the way of ropes out of - at the end, you have about six feet of linen covered in sweat and skaven bloodstains; but you're confident it's strong enough to hold your weight.  Hopefully, the length will be enough to get you to another room, or window, or something.

You have to stand with one tow on the pitons holding Rashabang's shackles deep in the wall, and stuff your powder-pouch in the window.  Then you back up, and take aim.

 "What you doing,  Nee-Ruh-Kaha? You just going to shoot bag out window.  Waste of good powder!" 

For a moment, long enough to watch your operation in the room and your plan in action, Rashabang comes back to himself; his one good eye tracking you as you rush about in this makeshift workshop constructing your makeshift charge.  Perhaps it's something about building a device for a purpose that narrows his fever-thoughts to a concentrated edge for now; but one way or another, he chides you, and you immediately see what he's talking about.  You're hoping the shot from the blunderbuss will cook off the powder sufficiently to blow open the window wide enough for you to make an escape - but when you simmer down enough, and stop murdering Simonuccio in your mind in such a way that occludes your attention, it doesn't seem likely to work.  More likely the shot will knock the bag clear of the window without igniting the powder inside it; or igniting it after it has been blown back away from where it needs to be.  You haven't made a bomb, before; you know about the principles to make a blunderbuss, but not something like this.

But Rashabang has; and one more time, for his own strange reasons or else lost in a haze in which he thinks he back in the workshop directing you, he corrects your errors.

A few minutes later, you have something a little more precise - using a couple of the tin trays used to hold idle torture impliments, beating them into shape with a hammer used to break fingers; using the resultant construction to shape the charge and brace the coming explosion against one of the bars deeply set into the bricks.  There is a flint and tinder in the persuasion devices, too - and lighting a small coal brazier with them, you make a liquid fuse with a chemical that Rashabang assures you is flammable.  It smells it - and when you touch it off with a hot branding iron in the shape of a sunburst, it proves to be so.  The resulting blast does not blow the window open - but it does what you designed it to do, which is crack the mortar of a few of the bricks to the left of the window which are not braced with the metal bars.  One of them shatters, its chunks tumbling out into North Gate Quarter below; and you pull another three into the cell to make a large enough hole to escape.

You tie off your limited improvised rope to one of the pitons holding Rashabang - they hold prisoners, they should be able to hold you - and scramble out to freedom.

...Or atleast, to outside.  Gripping the 'rope' for dear life, you dangle out and your legs  hunt for a foothold - but your fine riding boots scuff and kick off a few rows of brick and a wooden beam almost perfectly flush to them, then open air below.  This cell is one of a few in the uppermost squared potion of the tower - and immediately below it is the underside of the tower's lean, out of sight.  Below you, it seems to your eyes like the prison hangs in open air, with nowhere for you to go.  Two hundred feet below, the people of Verezzo are stopping in the street to point up at you, shouting to each other and calling indistinctly in excitement.  A trio of bronze armored mercenaries stand at ease watching you, while a well dressed woman complains bitterly, pointing to the fragments of brick that lie scattered around and have not hit her, but perhaps  might  have, if things had been different.

You brace your feet against the outside wall, steady your breath, and look around.  Below you is the overhang of the tower - an impossible climb.  To your left there is twenty feet of neat, tight brickwork with barely any room for grip.  To your right, there is the same - except weakened by the blast to make the hole.   And up above, there is another ten feet of perilous wall and another tiny window like the one you just widened to escape.  Your options are few - all of them bad.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You are considering free hand climbing the exterior of a secure prison facility. To shimmy left or right to the corners of the building to another face of it, you're looking at a -20% Scale Sheer Surface test.

To attempt to descend down to the overhang, it's -30%.  Failing by less than two degrees means you try, but can't find a way to proceed.  Three to four, and you freeze up mid-climb, unable to go forward or back right away with any sense of security in your grip.  Five or more, and you fall.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


The wind whipped at Taalia's hair as the vast city of Verazzo spread out before her as she enjoyed arguably the best view in the land. But that view came at a price - she really was trapped. She pondered for a split second the idea of using a rope with an improvised claw to throw up to that window above and climb to it, and then onto the roof. But one misstep, and she was dead. Shimmy around the sides? Even more precarious. And straight down underneath? She might as well jump off right now and save herself the trouble.

But as her heterocrhomia eyes looked down at the gathering crowds below, many of them shouting excitedly, pointing up at her in astonishment, something  else  clicked in Taalia's head. Maybe she didn't  need  to escape the prison. Doing so could only make her look guilty. Plus, Simonucci's power over her and ability to starve her out was predicated on  no one else knowing  she was there.

But now they did. Oh boy did they all now. From those staring up in astonishment below as she sat there in the cragged mouth of the wrecked wall...an explosion in the top of  The  Tower, the most famous tower in the city from which no one escaped, and from that broken hole emerged Taalia, with her white hair and striking looks. Who was she? Why was she there? If she was a prisoner how did she explode the wall?  Why  did she blow up part of the wall? What stupid bastard let a  prisoner  have access to gunpowder in a prison? If she were a prisoner, why was she dressed so well?

Taalia remembered how her image as The Trollslayer spread throughout Bella Collina and adjacent regions, how people knew of her before she even personally met them. The girl with legs so long they could strangle a troll!

And now, she was the only person to so dramatically escape  The  Tower, if only to sit upon the cragged wall, grin and wave down to the people. To cover the ~70 meter distance between herself and onlookers, she performed gesticulated 'blowing kisses' to the crowd and her hands moved back and forth in greeting while her mouth beamed that beautiful smile of hers. If she were trapped in body, she was free in spirit.

Simonucci couldn't hide her now. She'd be the talk of the town.
MrAbdiel
 You look down on the world around you.  It's never been heights that frightened you - living in the deep dark places of the earth makes them feel even closer to heaven than the common man might feel - and this perch surveying the great city around renders you for the moment both a queen on an exalted throne, and a prisoner at the same time.  You grin, and wave; and some of the folks below even wave back.  Your keen eyes make out some faces you think are familiar to you, from the markets last time you were here; passers by who strain to remember you in the same way.  But down below, there are two faces that you do know, for sure.

The first is Padrone Simonuccio, who peers up at you without any satisfaction in his expression; briefly diverting to have a quick, angry conversation with one of the mercenaries who looks up and you, and back to him, with a shake of his head.  He is trying to convince them that you are a threat worth shooting, with their crossbows; but the mercenaries are not convinced, and the witch hunter is foiled in at least this much of his desire.  You are a little bit free; he is a little bit constrained; and that is enough to keep your situation from spiralling.

The other face is once you had not necessarilly expected to see again - Bellina, the thief girl who you both saved from seizure by the elven bounty hunter and reimbursed with more gold that she had ever seen.  She wears a boyish doublet and breeches combination that seems just a few degrees off being in style; topped with a green muffin cap.  She does not 'clean up' miraculously, but seems to be making an effort to learn.  You see her expression tighten as she recognizes you; then she turns, and hurries back into the crowd and away into the city.

Within minutes, there is a response at your door - thumping at it first, then you hear axes hacking at the wood.  You've made their lives more difficult, now; the debacle makes them look foolish or incompetent, and they can hardly let you persist in this state of informal incarceration given that you've blown a hole in the wall and made the spectacle.  There is no stopping them getting through, given the time they have on their side.

 
 Spoiler: The Questions that Remain: 
1. The guards are going to break through.  The barricade won't hold them forever.  Do you intend to fight this and make them pay as dearly as possible, or will you surrender to them now that you've made this happening known to the world beyond the tower, hoping and trusting that this will be enough to ultimately deliver you?

2. Rashabang is still there - whether you intend to go out in a blaze of glory or submit to these captors, this may well be the last chance you have to see him, or do anything for him - a chance you didn't expect to have.  Do you avail yourself of this, in some way?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

For several long moments Taalia was free. She had turned a cage into a throne to which the people waved and cheered for her. Whether she really would go to the gallows or not, she would always be remembered as that crazy girl that blew up  The Tower  of Verezzo and used the view to wave at the crowds and let them know she existed.

When those axe-swings started to break down the door, Taalia knew she didn't have much longer. The violent option was, of course, out of the question. She'd  won . She  felt  it. She waved some more, blew more kisses, and then made a dramatic, look over her shoulder as if something were sneaking up on her, before turning back to the crowd and grabbing her collar-shirt and yanking it back and forth with a look of  'they're here to get me!'  played up for comical effect, before gesturing over her shoulder once more that she had to go, before waving her good-bye waves. Then she drew up her long legs, swung them back inside the cell and hopped off from the broken window to land on her feet.

Those axes were splintered the armoured door, but she knew they'd get through. Taalia unslung her blunderbuss and lay it on the ground, along with her shield and sword. Standing up straight, she turned her head to that smashed wall, smiling as she heard the crowds still cheering and laughing, before turning back to the door and then to Rashabang.

Would this be the last time she saw him? She had felt that way before, and yet here he was as she lived and breathed. He represented a people she despised, whom she would gladly all toss into the fire to rid the world of their influence. But she couldn't hate him. In a way, he had helped her gain this social victory. His knowledge and guidance had helped make Simonucci look like an utter arse-head. Would that vengeance be enough?

 "Thank you Rashabang,"  she said in Queekish.

 "I despise your kind, but I thank you. If I am able, I will help you live the remainder of your years with a degree of dignity in exchange for you teaching me how to read your language. If we do not see each other again: thank you." 

The bellowing noise from the axes would have masked her soft words from any prying ears that would have been listening through that hole in the wall, not to mention the wooden barrier already in its way in the form of that chair-back - but given the rush to attention, it was doubtful anyone was.

When the men finally made it through, they would find Taalia standing there, hands on her hips, smile bright and defiant, the light peering through the wall behind her to silhouette her figure.
MrAbdiel
 Rashabang listens, squinting his eye.  He gives a sceptical nod; but the words you have said, you did not say expecting he would fully understand.  Neither the expression of genuine gratitude, or the genuine promise you are making, nor how much of this situation relates to whatever hazy construction of reality his is operating in.  But it's not about him; it's about you, and your need to discharge an obligation.  Good, even done by accident, even done by monsters, perhaps deserves some manner of recognition.  Whether or not the gods turn out to be invested in such things, you certainly are.

The guards take you away.  As you are led out of this room, you see the 'research' room you were in before has been run through - stripped of information, sharp objects, tools.. .anything you might have used if you had emerged.  Seemingly, they had locked the door to the stairwell and surrendered the whole stretch to you in your rage - though they had left nothing behind to make your plan easier, so nothing lost.

They take your weapons, your possessions, your money.  They have a female guard take you to a room where you change into a dull white prisoner's smock and pants.  Then they take you a cell in one of the slightly lower rooms in the tower, where the rear wall is sloped at the lean of the tower; and they lock it; and then you are free no more.

Wherever Signora Citti went, she does not return that day.  The light outside your window diminishes, and then goes away; and only the wan light of the white moon shines through.  Sometimes, other prisoners in the tower shout out through their small windows; they are quickly silenced by guards.

Somewhere, far below, a mournful, lonesome cry rings out - a familiar  roorooroowooroowooroo  of canine abandonment, joined periodically by other dogs in the city.  Corvo howls in distress for three hours into the deep of night, before he goes quiet.

* * * * *

The second night is much the same.  By the third night, however, he does not howl.  You try not to think about what this means.

* * * * *

Twice a day, food is slid through a slim hatch at the bottom of your door.  It is bad food; mostly sloppy gruel, and you are surprised to find your food standards have lifted so much over the past year that you can no longer rely upon your long history of eating the worst food imaginable to insulate you from the despairing quality of such things.  Your mouth and stomach know what it means to be served real, good food now; and eating human food at a low standard consistently feels like sliding back down the mountain of fortune you had struggled to climb.

* * * * *

Eleven days pass before you are permitted a visitor.

Signora Lilli Citti is beside herself as she kneels infront of you, holding your hands in hers.   "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!  I didn't know, I... I just thought I was suddenly getting interest in my project, I've worked so hard - ... I went to the Temple of Verena, and by the time I got a straight answer, they told me the Matrone is answering a summons to Pavona, and won't be back for weeks.  But when I got back to the tower, it was all locked down; they told me you set off some kind of bomb trying to free the prisoner, and I knew it wasn't true and I've been petitioning senators but I keep getting blocked.  I didn't know at all what to do except keep trying.  There's something political happening that I don't quite understand; I tried the Clerk's Guild, hoping they could help in a non-political capacity; but I'm an open member of the Yellow Faction, so they see me as trying to leverage them.  That is, until Signore de Merici found me, and helped navigate the mess..." 

After a little negotiation with the guards, the Signore is permitted into your cell also.  Polo de Merici, with his gawky, country-clerk self, kneels down with you getting his nicest pants mucky on the prison floor, and gives you a folded handkerchief containing one of the hollowed out potato-cube filled street-meals from the Gate district.

 "I was surprised when Bellina came to me - I didn't know you knew her, but she must have been running on and off for three days.  I was afraid you'd have vanished to some other discrete prison by now, but it seems you made quite a spectacle.  What happened up there, Taalia?  They're saying you're in league with the rat-men; but that's nonsense - anyone who knows you knows that."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

At first sight, Taalia gave Polo a big, tight hug. But she remained stoic, her prior slave instincts taking over as she lingered in the cell. She had to project strength.

 "It was Simonucci,"  Taalia answered flatly.

Almost two weeks in this cell? She bore it. She had endured far worse. With the rays of sunshine through her window and her thoughts to occupy her, Talia had spent the days quiet and reminiscent.

 "He had me meet him at the Trollslayer,"  she started, mentioning the new Coaching Inn that had opened on the road.

 "He told me that he was in contact with people who were soon able to create a key for decphyering and understanding the Skaven language. Can you imagine what a break-through would mean for the security of these lands and people?"  Taalia spoke, her passion brewing up for a second, hinting at why she had been so eager to take the bait.

 "He said that my unique background and fluency in their language was what they needed, and he offered me 500 duro's to travel here to Verezzo to begin the translation project. Believing I was helping secure the land that had taken me in, I eagerly accepted. He could have offered me nothing and I would have accepted." 

The shepardess allowed a pause to linger as she visibly thought.

 "When I arrived, I met Singora Citti here,"  she gestured to the other woman, but her tone was gentle. Though she had been burned by being so trusting of others, Taalia believed the woman.

 "She led me to the prisoners chamber, and the prisoner was..."  she trailed off.

Taalia exhaled and bit her bottom lip, before shaking her head and closing her eyes.

 "Do you remember how I mentioned one of the Skaven had been my owner? Had shown me the only absence of cruelty? Who looked on me as a favoured slave? It was him. That is who they had captured,"  she stated.

 "Yes, I have a personal connection to the Skaven they are holding. If it were not for his actions when assassins fell upon us, I would have died before meeting any of you. I admit as such. But I never mistook his  absence of cruelty  as kindness. I knew he never loved me, never liked me, only viewed me as a favourite toy, nothing more. And so, I gathered the pane of water and a cloth and I cleaned him. He was in a terrible state, mutilated, tortured, blood and pus crusted over his fur. I showed him a kindness his people had never shown me. For that, Simonucci accused me of being in league with them." 

Taalia gave a 'what-are-you-gunna-do' shrug.

 "There was a confrontation in the tower. Simonucci came with four guards, and they seized Citti first. But I reacted quickly; I drew my blunderbuss and pointed it at them. I tried to reason with them. I told them to retrieve the Matrone, who had discerned the true Bertruccio, that her divine powers would prove my innocence if they would only wait and hour. Buuut I see now that Simonucci timed his betrayal well: she is absent from this city for weeks, so they he could finish this business and no one would know," 

Now Taalia grinned, gesturing a finger around the cell - but really around Verezzo itself.

 "But now  everyone  knows,"  her grin widened.

 "I refused to surrender to a man who had betrayed me and betrayed Citti, and whom even his own men distrusted. So I barricaded myself in the prison cell. I intended to wait it out, but after an hour past, I knew Simonucci had deployed some underhanded scheme. I was going to starve there, so I acted. I gathered 8 of my 10 spare shots, amalgamated the powder. But Rashabang...he saw I was crafting something, he made suggestions. He told me how to make it work - and it did. Then when I got out onto the fresh air, I saw the crowd staring up in confusion, but waiting for something...so I waved to them all..."  Taalia shrugged with a smile.

 "I willingly surrendered. I have been here ever since." 
MrAbdiel
 Polo returns the hug naturally with only the smallest chuckle for his own awkwardness.  He listens, but grimaces through the whole telling of the awful betrayal.  Once you've told the whole tail, he sighs, and rubs his temple with two fingers.

 "Solkanites.  They're worse than Sigmarites.  I should have..."   He flaps a hand, hoping to conjure an answer.  Polo had, after all, sent the letters that summoned Simonuccio to town, and first put you in his crosshairs.  But he had written to the Shallyans, empowering them to dispatch who they thought worthy; it was hardly a personal selection, even if he feels personally responsible.   "Well.  While there is no shrine to Solkan in Verezzo, Simonuccio still has recognition as a witch hunter.  He has done such work all over Tilea and some parts beyond - though I wonder now how many innocents he may have made suffer just on the off chance they were adjacent to some dark thing."   He shakes his head.  "We're doing what we can, for now.  And your stunt in the tower might have made a critical difference - you might have easily been sent off to a Magistrate who would care little for another case on his pile, and sentence you on principle that a witch hunter charged you.  But the Rampollo Damio is at the Senate House right now, making his motion to escalate the case to the level of a Senatorial Matter - where the drama and novelty of it will be of such infinite interest that they will leave no corner of it unexamined.  Since you are innocent, more thoroughness investigating and debating the matter works for us.

You remember the colorful, toga-wearing senators and their courtesan mistresses.  You remember, too, the two 'thieves' you saw paraded through the street on the way to their own Senatorial Matter.  How strange a city, where justice is either a quiet perfunctory matter or else a gladiatorial interaction between dueling factions of fops.  But this way, the evidence or lack thereof would be looked at.  And after all... what evidence could he possibly have to make his accusation credible?

 "Gaulfredo is here, too.  He's trying to find where they've sent Jezzabella and Corvo.  Verezzo is bigger of a town than he is used to, but he's a persuasive and capable fellow; I expect he'll find them.  For now, there's nothing for you to do but pray, and wait.  If Damio is successful, then we'll have to be ready to make a convincing case that you're just a citizen of Verezzo; and not a rats' paw or anything like it.  The boys are minding your farm just fine.  Signore Cestié and the Madre Angeletta are both worried sick for you.  But stay strong - we'll get you out of this.  Is there any message to send, that I can compose and dispatch for you?  Or anyone you can think of who can speak most convincingly of your character?  The accusation is that you're a spy - the more testimony we can line up of folk telling of your manifestly non-spy behaviour, the better."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia listened intently to all that was said, nodding her head as the words sunk into her mind.

 "The Matrone, for one,"  she started, mentioning that woman who had arrived with the slime Simonucci.

 "Ohh, Signore Montaglio's of Signore Montaglio's Fine Substances. I had a custom made detergent from him to clean and rehabilitate the shrine I found. He will testify that I was buying products from him for a noble cause," 
 "Also, Singora Madre and Singore Cestie, of course,"  she said, her eyes both tearing a little but looking stoic and thoughtful as a reminder of what a position impact her adoptive grandmother and grandfather had had on her life.

 "Anyone from Bella Collina who wants to speak on my behalf,"  she continued, trying to think further.

Her eyes widened slightly in recognition,"  Lagubrio, at Merchant's Trust!"  she said, waving her finger,  "I set up a long term account with him worth hundreds of duro, and I borrowed sixty more. It is in his interest to see me free and repaying him." 

Which reminded her,  "Eustace, the dwarven banker. I told him that I was placing money with him for a future employee, with aim to store more money for workers with him in the future. Why else would I have money with him for safe-keeping for such a manner if I did not intend to put down roots?" 

That one was a stretch, but it was easy to see the line of logic behind it.

 "Antonuccia, the local surgeon!"  Taalia recalled.

 "I went to such trouble, secured her money with the dwarves, endured attacks on the road so that she could help a boy walk again and take care of him,"  she gestured.

Though the total list seemed thin, Taalia had only been on the surface for a year. She was probably 18 now. Outside of passing acquaintances, these were the ones she could think of that could speak about her character and plans for long-term settlement into a community.

 "Oh..."  Taalia uttered, smiling and shaking her head in a moment of levity,  "Nogram,"  she stated with  that look . The idea of Nogram on the stand and infused with his dwarven stubbornness defending her honour was in-joke hilarity. But the dwarves weren't known for tolerating chaos-worshipers or traitors and she had fought side-by-side with him  twice , so one speaking well of her should go down quite well, particularly in the wake of Eustace's predictably clinical but honest account of their honest dealings, even if said speaking would go on for quite a while...
MrAbdiel
 Polo takes down the list, then beholds it, and thumbs at the bend of his crooked nose in thought.   "Well, if we can get even half of these, it will be quite a showing.  Some, I think... will be reticent to get involved.  A matter involving a terrible enemy like the rat-men is somewhat toxic; there are those who will think their wisest move is not to be associated with the matter at all; or to bet that the Senate will make a precautionary judgement against you since... Well.  They stand to lose more if you happened to be guilty and alive, than... otherwise."   Signora Lilli Citti grimaces at this grim assessment, but can't counterspeak it.   "That is... one of the vices of the political class.  Pragmatism.  Nothing matters more than being elected.  And given that Groccolo is in his frail leadership position, and that Bella Collina is a yellow ward, the yellow faction might make the internal judgement to try to 'get ahead' of the scandal and call for a summary judgement.  It's as likely as them choosing to fight it out the whole way.  It's a wretched political climate to be on the hook; the kind where justice and truth might come second to political triage.  I'm not saying this for any reason other than to help steel you, Taalia; it's going to be long, and difficult.  Polo and I are going to try to find you an experienced litigant; theoretically anyone can represent an  accusata , but naturally someone trained and well experienced is best.  But for now... try to stay strong." 

The prison guards call them out again; and once more you are alone.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Taalia is spending quite a few days incarcerated here with not much stimulus except the mutter of activity from the distant street and the light peeking through that one window; and the twice a day prison slop meals.  How does she cope?  How does isolation in these conditions compare to slavery in which you were never alone at all?  What does she do to pass the time?
 

 * * * * * 
You can, at least, mark the passage of days with the light.  Occasionally, you test yourself by springing up and, with your natural reach and strength and the assisting slope of the leaning tower's wall, you can pull yourself up to peer our the window and see some of the street below until your arms give out and you have to rest.  The fallen scatter of rubble from your escapade has been cleared; and sometimes you spy someone peering up at the blown out upper window, pointing and questioning other Verezzans before moving on.

It's after the passage of four more days that the first happening of note occurs on the street below; and you hear it, before you see it.  And before you hear it, you don't hear it, for a while.  Music; and music is not wildly uncommon in the streets below, kicked up in one place or another when some crowd of evening drunkards cackle into song on their way home or a passing minstrel tries their luck in these sparse North Gate streets; not nearly as crowded or trafficked as the southern gate and merchant districts.  But faint tune resolves in your ears and digs up a memory - the jaunty festival music you first heard at Flicker-Tide, rendered now as then primarilly on a single viola.  You stretch your aching arms, jump and pull your eyes up to the window so your forehead is scraping against the ceiling and you can see as much of the street as the slope of the wall and your straining eyes allow.

Below on the street is a small spectacle; nothing of the scale of yours two weeks ago but worthy of attention and particularly yours.  Seated on a light wooden crate beside the road is Bella Collina's laconic violist, Emio.  The slim, round-faced musician is known to you, even if he has never been very chatty; and he took up a bow along side you in the fight against the troll.  Here, he saws out a familiar Bella Collinan tune with a some kind of hinged sign board beside him; its written content too far from you to discern and available only to the educated eyes of passers by.  Emio's performance alone is not remarkable; the open case for his instrument attracts the occasional coin, as he is quite good at his instrument.  But the spectacle is with him.

Gaulfredo stands in the middle of the street, jigging energetically to the music.  When a horse or coach comes by and requires the street, he jigs off to the side and takes off his hat in salute of the right of way before jigging right back out there.  He wears his best clothes which nonetheless are obviously rural in style even if they weren't topped with the worn and floppy straw hat.  Rocco and Corvo - Corvo, there he is, alive and well - are with him, darting about him periodically and striving, desperately, to understand the nature of the game that is obviously being played that they are dying to be invited to play also.  Every hour or so, he and Emio take a break and converse with the locals drawn to the spectacle.  But after that, they are back at it again; jigging and sawing, sawing and jigging.  At one point, another local musician spots this happening, takes off to his home, and returns with his mandolin which really fills out the melody; at times, more playful passers by get involved in the dance and it ceases to be a solo performance and graduates to an imperfect but organic dance of three or four which in turn attracts small clusters of watchers to clap, and ask about the reason.  They are too far away for you to communicate with over the din of the town; and if you started yelling the likelihood that you would be taken and placed in a less troublesome cell facing another part of the town is high - but they seem to know you are there, by where they have chosen to position themselves.  They carry on until night falls; and then Gaulfredo commands Rocco to speak and his familiar  roowooroo  howl sets of Corvo's own, and they pack up for the night.  And tomorrow morning they are back; and this repeats relentlessly for the remainder of your incarceration.  On the third day of this performance, the troupe has expanded; you spy Nogrom down there stomping to keep (admittedly sloppy) time, and to clap, and keep the others company; and Bella is there too, tamborine in hand, adding a wealth of feminine charm to it all as she wheels and skips in her skirts.  She and Gaulfredo dancing together destroys the "funny country man dancing alone" novelty of the show, but a pretty young woman dancing her heart out, partner or no, is probably a more powerful lure over all; and the sum of their tireless terpischoric display is ultimately greater still.  It never stops the city, or attracts a large persistent mob sufficient to storm the tower; but it has regular attention and repeat visitation of the curious burghers of Verezzo.  The tower guards on the ground floor seem to find it harmless, even entertaining, and do nothing to stop it - even when Simonuccio stops by and has what appears to be a stern, threatening word with them.  Emio and Gaulfredo try to ignore him, even pretending he doesn't exist; Bella tries to reason with him before becoming frustrated and backing off.  At the crescendo of the interaction, Simonuccio grabs the sign with obvious intent to haul it away, and Nogrom grabs the other end of it and pulls back, beginning a ranting stream of invective sufficiently that the prisoners on the lower floors, who might have heard it clearly, remember elements of it for their own bank of insults in future; and the tower guards have to rush over to break up the burgeoning fight and, you are pleased to see, tell  Simonuccio  to depart, and not your friends.  This is a small victory.  Hopefully, a sign of larger ones to come.

 * * * * * 
An additional six days later, and the guards come to collect you.  They do not take you to wash or change you; your present condition is considered sufficient for what is to come.  They march you down the tower's many steps, and then they hustle you into a coach for transport to the senate house.  As the music behind you fades, you remember seeing those thieves paraded through the streets to their trial and the fact that they received no coach - what does it mean, they they want your transport as discreet and quick as possible?  Are you in danger - or is it something else?  Your escorts are not forthcoming.  But you are taken to side entrance to the senate house, and shuffled through a series of doors and passageways that seem far less attended and decorated than those you passed the first time you came here to meet Signora Citti, before finally you are ushered into a room and releases into the custody of companions, while the guards who escorted you remain outside the door.

In this meeting room - beyond which you can hear the murmur and thrum of a considerable crowd - is a table at which sits Polo, Signora Citti, and the Rampollo Damio.  There is a scattering of lists and documentation before them; and the Rampollo, who at the best of times is somewhat awkward to look at with his retreating chin and surfeit of neck, looks pale and sweaty, even if he does give you a smile and a limp hand shake when you arrive.  Polo and Citti each have a hug for you; and some buttered bread, and milk for you also.

 "I wish we were permitted more time to confer with you before all this, Taalia.  But the Senate granted the escalation of the trial to this venue with the provision that the matter was serious enough that it needed to be treated as a possible threat to Verezzo - which means no contact with the accused from the granting of the escalation to the trial itself.  Today's the day, Taalia."  Polo breaks this news to you, and squeezes your shoulders.  "The first of the days, anyway.  But we're going to get you out of here.  The Rampollo is going to represent you, before the Senators.  Signora Citti and I will assist him as best we can.  Here is what you can expect to happen:"
 
 "The litigant who has adopted Simonuccio's accusation as a matter of law is Signore Tordemondo.  He is a very good litigant, I'm afraid; but he must contend with the truth that you are no one's spy or traitor; and that is no small obstacle for him.  Signore Tordemondo will make his opening statement, in which he will lay out the nature of the accusation against you; Damio will offer a statement of defense; and then it will come time to introduce evidence, including witnesses.  We will call forth our battery of character witnesses; I expect Signore Tordemondo will call Simonuccio, at least.  But before we go out there... is there anyone, or anything, you can imagine that Simonuccio might know about to use against you - even if it is twisted and mischaracterised to do so?  Beyond your, ah... pre-existing understanding, with the rat-man prisoner, I mean."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


When Polo and Citti had left, it was once more just Taalia on her own. Again.

The teenage inhaled as she watched them leave, her body tight and mind seized by her situation. It was not her immediately surroundings that concerned her, but rather what would happen if things did not go her way.

As time passed on, she caught wind of and watched the spectacle that unfolded across days on her behalf. Just seeing Gaulfredo so animated and Emio so practiced made her smile and grin. She wanted to yell down at them, to cheer and join their singing and dancing, but she knew such efforts would be for naught. And so in the early days Taalia resigned herself to simply leaning against the wall, drowning out all distractions and focusing her senses on the detection of that beautiful melody arising from Emio's violin as he played below for the city crowd on behalf of her innocence. Even hearing her beautiful dog again drew a rise from the girl, as she mentally assured herself that  when , not if, she got out of this place, she would treat him to something wonderful, whatever it was.

And then Bella and Nogram soon joined the party, and Taalia felt her heart fluttering. What she wouldn't give to be able to reach down through the bars and hug them, either of them, to thank them in person and join in their efforts to raise awareness for the unjust circumstances that had seized her and held her captive. While watching, Taalia was permitted a moment of comedy when she watched that drippy creep Simonucci attempt to steal a sign from Nogram, the dwarf having none of it. The shepardess chortled heartily over the scrap, offering a little  "Haha! Take that you son of a bitch"  with one raised fist as the witch hunter was forced to give ground.

But when it was over, she would slide back down onto her thin mattress and spend the rest of her time alone, with nary but her thoughts. From the slave pits, to here, she pondered to herself.

In a way it was easy to give in to despair, after all her situation was grim. In the area of her 18th birthday Taalia spent her time the target of a political faction that would happily see her sent to the pyre. The depth of ruthleness required to send someone like her to the gallows for merely being an unwitting obstacle was nothing short of psychopathic. What beasts was she dealing with that they were willing to send a girl her age to be hanged or burned if it ensured even a minor advancement of their political goals? It was frightful to think, but not unexpected. Taalia had developed amidst the Skaven. To claim that the average rat-man only cared about himself would be an understatement, there were Skaven leaders willing to sacrifice thousands of their own kind, and more even, if it either secured or advanced their own station.

But, as cruel as the Rat-men were, they had taught her the meaning of  patience .

Patience was what Taalia had in that tower.

The food was bad? She'd endured worse, and for longer.

The space was confined? She'd endured worse, and for longer.

The guards were impolite? She'd endured far, far worse, and for longer.

Being in that tower prison cell, Taalia mentally returned to a more primitive and base state of her life where nothing short of physical torture could touch her mind.

She remembered the cheering crowd, and her spirit was free


 oOo
 
The carriage ride drew nothing but suspicion from the shepardess as she both watched Verezzo pass by outside and measured up the guards. Could she kill either one of them if they were taking her out to an abandoned cornfield? Could she at least take one of them with her?

The question would never need answering as she was soon brought to the Senate house and in through a hidden entrance, only to meet the Rompolo, Polo and Citti.

The surprise, but relief, was worn across Taalia's visage like a mantle. After almost two weeks alone in a cell with nary but her thoughts, even she did not look her usual glowing self, as she embraced any who offered it, whether in hand shake or hug, as the compression of her situation extended her affectionate to anyone that stood at her side.

But then she was hit with the big news: today was day one of the trial.

No ifs, no buts, no preparatory regimes that could allow her to get ready to face the mailed fist of a legal system of which she knew nothing. No, just BAM, get ready sweetie.

Swallowing, exhaling, taking the offer of buttered bread and trying her best to eat it politely and not just scoff it down like one of her pigs, Marcella started.

 "Well, this all started when we were attacked by mutants outside of Bella Collina. I hit a mutant in the head, who turned out to be Bertuccio. He was wearing a mask so his identity was hidden until we revealed it, at which point Nogram believed it was the work of Chaos and we should terminate it right there. But I intervened, I was unsure. I did not know for certain and so I did not want to condemn a potentially innocent man to death. And look where that got me...

So we confined him to a prison. It was  my  idea to summon outside experts to delineate on the truth between the matter of two Bertuccio's. If I were a spy, why would I invite those two 'specialists', one of whom was Simonucci, to our town?" 

Taalia exhaled and shook her head, thinking further as she was put on the spot.

 "He might try to spin my attempt to put down roots with my own farm as some sort of deranged, long term plot to poison the nation, or some insane slop like that." 

Thinking further, pursing her lips.

 "I have spent my own funds and time rehabilitating a shrine that was once occupied by the troll. Perhaps he will claim that it has had some influence over me? Ohhh that troll..."  Taalia rolled her eyes.

 "Maybe he will attempt to link my arrival to the town with the sudden aggression of the troll, that I controlled it some how or that it was sent by my Skaven masters to provide cover for my ingratiation into the community." 

Even just saying that out-loud sounded crazy to her. But then again, the accusations laid against her were crazy.

Pursing her lips, thinking, but coming up with nothing, Taalia shrugged.

 "That is as far as I can speculate in the topsy turvy world of Simonucci...." 
MrAbdiel
 Your legal counsel listens, and the Rampollo and Signora Citti remain nervous and troubled for the duration.  But Polo's energy grades to warm by the end of your list.

 "...Well, those are all very flimsy reasons - unless the shrine features a frightful rat god, I can't imagine anyone being swayed by those.  This is good news.  Very good.  If you had been dishonest or... even somewhat criminal since you returned to the surface, you could be forgiven for having to relearn what it is to be human - but you never forgot, even under such conditions.  The Senate is often pragmatic, but it's more  dramatic , and your story is very compelling.  I think we have good reason to hope."   Signora Citti looks less troubled; Rampollo Damio still seems mostly consumed by the rapid escalation of the events and their ramifications.  But Polo's confidence is infectious - these Senators were people, just like those in Bella Collina who had adopted you.  Perhaps they would see reason in the same way.

 * * * * * 
The interior senate chamber is an amphitheatre of marble and fine light coloured woods; with an elevated, curved array of stadium seating to sit up to two hundred - a hundred senators and their select companions.  At the rear of the chamber is a gallery of another four hundred seats for other interested parties, allocated according to some arcane process of distribution to family of the accused, potentially impacted merchants, and bright eyed looky-loos. In the central hardwood floor of this circle of observers are two long benches facing the senators with a mild incline towards each other.  On the left sit five individuals, the only one of which you recognise is a deeply irritated Padrone Simonuccio who seems quietly incandescent with outrage that he is being subjected to this process at all.  The other four are slick haired, thin moustached signores who run the gamut from  well-fed  to straight up  fat ; the fattest featuring an admittedly stylish peppery streak in his hair and distinguished dark rings under the eyes.  This, you would soon learn is Signore Tordemondo - clerk, gourmand, mercenary litigant.

At your bench, flanking you, are Signora Citti and Polo; with the Rampollo Damio closest to the centre of the room, restlessly shuffling legal parchments infront of him; sweating all over them.

Behind you, in the gallery, the seats are packed with Verezzans, most of whom you do not know.  But some you do; more than you might have expected to see.  Signore Cestié, the Madre Angeletta, the Spinster Sisters Amalia and Amadea, Gheradino, Adolpho; more from Bella Collina whom you know less well - but well enough for them to feel compelled to be here to witness this.  Alberto is there - the owner of the field in which you ambushed the Troll.  Antonuccia and Istuccio are there with Ernesto between them; a folded wooden and canvas stretcher resting idle against the gallery wall on which the latter was carried in.  Signore Montaglio, the chemist you befriended.  Sapienza, the aspiring cartographer.  Even Bolo Hempfire, the halfling proprietor of the  Pigly , has made the journey; looking uncomfortable as he strains to see over the head of the person infront of him, the wee man sporting a vest that he has obviously outgrown and can no longer button.  Those who have good clothes are dressed as well as they can manage; those without just resign to looking like what they are: a collection of bumpkins crowded into the finest and most storied building in their nation, sitting on chairs which they could not afford with a year's wage.  Setting aside those from the city and its surrounds, those here for you must represent almost two thirds of the the entire population of Bella Collina and its adjacent farms.  The place must be a ghost town, right now.

In front of you, the senate seats are well attended, but not so filled out as the observer rows.  The senators - mostly men, but not exclusively - are picked out in their colorful togas, most of which have some partner or offsider who is dressed less ceremonially, and simply in applaudable Tilean style.  Wives, assistants, aspiring Rampollos; but most common of all beside the senators are courtesans in their sumptuous dresses, with fascinating masks and feathered fascinators, long gloves and cultivated auras of mystery.  Each present is color-matched to a senator beside them, each of which seems unreasonably proud to have a courtesan with them and spends time glancing judgementally at the others present.  All in all, there are eighty two of the city's hundred senators present.  A managing clerk in white regalia performs the headcount, takes names, runs through a number of formal procedures as the room buzzes with excited surrussus.

 "The Senate has a minimum quorum of sixty six,"  Polo explains in whispers,  "and we're clear of that, easily.  For the trial to end, one way or the other, the prosecution or defence requires a two-thirds majority at any called vote.  The litigants can call for a vote at any time; but Senators can be punitive with excessive calls and more than one trial has been reversed after an over-eager litigant tried to bully the last vote they needed, only to lose it all.  So fifty-five, to round up to above two thirds." 

Of the senators in the seats, the distribution is theoretically in your favor.

Thirty are Yellow.
Twenty nine are Red.
Twelve are Green.
Eleven are Blue.

From what you know, you and your situation are loosely associated with the  Yellow faction , given Rampollo Damio's regional responsibility.  You can expect them to pulling  for  your success.

But the  Red faction  is gunning to take the plurality and First Citizen Grocollo, one of the Yellows present, is vulnerable; and a scandal like yours could be what they require to cause a political cascade of lost faith in the Yellow faction.  You can expect them to be erring on the side of your damnation.

The  Green faction  has not been one of the two major players in many decades and has been struggling for relevance for just as long.  The represent tradition and over represent with older senators, and perhaps an older school of adhesion to values including fidelity to the older classical godsm Verena and Morr.  Given that piety, they are likely to be swayed in the direction of their genuine convictions and less vulnerable to political spiking between the Yellow and Red.

The  Blue faction  collapsed a hundred years ago and was reborn thirty years ago as a force of new ideals and social change.  More than half of their senators are women; and one of those women is half Estalian.  Despite being theoretically conflicting with the stodgy Greens, they frequently form alliances of convenience with them to create a threatening coalition before flaking off to whichever of the major factions promises them some concession.  They are a wildcard.

The clerk in white calls the assembly to order, and Signore Tordemondo rises from his chair, tugs on the frogging of his vest, and paces to the middle of the floor as the crowd winds down to silence...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: To Be Continued 
There's no reason for me to be colorcoding and going nuts with this detail, this isn't like a legal minigame with a bunch of skillchecks to determine whether or not Taalia gets found guilty; but I'm having fun fleshing out the Verezzan government and the scene so forgive me, lol.

Feel free to post if you want Taalia to react to any of this stuff, but don't feel oblidged; scene will continue hopefully tomorrow after work!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 
  Back in the Cell:  
 
 Spoiler 
For a long period of one particular day, Taalia sat in the corner of her cell, staring up at the bared rectangle running horizontally across the near-top of the wall. Through it came the light of the day, the moon of the night and temperature changes within. When the stars came out, she would shiver and hug herself close. When the dawn rose, she could simply sit and ponder with all attention drawn to that half a foot by five feet window into the outside world and beyond.

Periodically, she would remember the promise she had made to herself when she had first escaped that tunnel with the supposedly dead Rashabang slung over her shoulders, when she was taken in by the beauty of the natural world. Standing in the emerald pyres of the forest, the gentle sound of a river to her side, the birds in their nests and the sway of leaves in the wind, she had promised herself she would never be apprehended and placed in bondage ever again.

Taalia smiled to herself. Such an insurance was made under different circumstances. She was a malnourished, terrified child let loose into the world with no compass or bearing as to her future and driven solely by the one overwhelming truth - that she would never go back in that hole again. Now, however, she had been placed in a similar situation, arrested and thrown in a brig for reasons outside of her control. As the Thane and his wife had sold her to the Skaven, Simonucci and his shadowy backers had offered her as political expediency to whatever ends suited them and though the idea she was once again a pawn in some scheme was infuriating, Taalia didn't allow it to prey on her mind. No, instead, she kept remembering back to that stand-off and the power of her gun and resolve. For that's what it was, really,  power . Weapons were power. The better the weapon, the more power. And what was power? It was the ability to change things. The power of Taalia's firearm and the menace it posed to authority and its agents allowed her to delay her apprehension, which then permitted the opportunity for her spectacle. The girl grinned. A spectacle no one would soon be forgetting. Without that power, that gun, she would have been easily apprehended, detained and shoved into whatever dank prison that slimy creep deemed fit, and no one outside of the stone walls of The Tower would even know she existed at all.

Worse, it was Bellina who had witnessed the event and raced back to Bella Collina to inform the others of what had happened. Without that gun there'd be no spectacle, without the spectacle there would be no community support. To those who had come to love her, it was as if she went to the city and simply disappeared off the face of the planet, fed whatever bull**** line from Simonucci that suited him to explain her permanent absence. The girl smiled to herself. Not this time, stronzo.

With that blunderbuss in her grip, Taalia had been given the chance to shape her own future, as much as one could. But that brought her mind back to the promise she had once made herself, that she would never be a slave again, and contrasted it against her current situation. Had she failed herself? In the most strictest sense of the word, possibly, yes. But it was a failure she was happy to shoulder, because she realized why she had not pulled that trigger and killed Simonucci right there: she had too much to lose. As an escaped slave she had nothing but trauma to travel with, her dreams shared with the ghosts of countless slaves that had come and gone alongside her. But here on the surface, she had made a new life for herself. She  owned property , she had her lovely rural house, she had her own workers, her farm, her adoptive family and community, she had Corvo and Jezebella and one day she wanted her own husband and brood. In short, she had a future that she welcomed with gleeful anticipation. All that would have been assuredly lost if she had she pulled that trigger. And so, yes, she may have broken that promise to herself, but when held in context, it was an infidelity she was content with.

But then Taalia’s mind wandered somewhere else, the nature of power and slavery in the Skaven world contrasting with the political situation here on the surface. Rashabang had fallen prey to Skaven politics. They did not haul him before a tribunal with trumped up charges, of course, they just sent goons around to his abode to try and murder him, twice. The old rat was wealthy and prominent, but now that she thought about it, she didn’t know if he was  powerful  in their society. He certainly wasn’t feared. Someone who was feared would not have such offenses openly occur against him. Fear, as Taalia had long learned, was a deterrent, the art of putting into the mind of your enemies the fear to attack, that the consequences outweighed the immediate danger. Now, fear could be overcome by hatred. One must be restrained in their wielding of fear, lest they become hated. But if a few examples were made and the aura of terrible reprisals was maintained, then power and fear kept one safe, while love and those closest to you made being safe worthwhile.

The Grey Seers, Taalia remembered. The Grey Seers were  the  most feared caste the Skaven. Not even the Warplock engineers commanded as much respect, awe and abject terror in the heart of the average Skaven as the mystical Grey Seers. She had been just a girl-slave, but even Taalia knew of the black magic wielding white rats whose foul energies prompted horns to sprout from their heads as they guided the great rat-ship of state in pursuit of its hideous purpose. No one messed with the Grey Seers except another Grey Seer, such was the towering heights of fear that their powers commanded. There was that word again, power. But the power of the Grey Seers lay not in the barrel of a gun, theirs was in the malignant arcane wizardry each one had mastered. To die was one thing. Once the trauma had occurred, it was all over, the curtain of the world pulled back and you entered the afterlife. But to have your soul plucked from your body and used for whatever evil ends the Grey Seer had in store for you…well, that was quite another. For a race as obsessed with survival and as fearfully anxious as the Skaven were, it was easy to see why the Grey Seers were so dreaded. Death was not a guaranteed release from their clutches.

Then Taalia thought more about the surface, here. Her mind considered the priestess, Matrone. Would  she  ever be insulted with such an indignity as Taalia now faced? Hardly. Who would dare make such accusations and treat the representatives of the gods in such a way? To do so would risk bringing down the…Taalia smiled. Power and Fear is a deterrent within which was safety. Thank you, Simonucci, for teaching me a great lesson in life, the shepardess said to herself.

And who in the surface society occupied such lofty heights? The Priests. The senators. The particularly wealthy and powerful. Who were the Grey Seers? There was an arcane college in Verezzo…why couldn’t she? Her farms growing and riding that development wave to a sustainable yearly income that gave her a senatorial vote. The love of a community that appreciated her. The mystique of commanding a spell or two…

She could be unassailable.

Taalia leaned her head back against the cool masonry of her cell wall and smiled.

Stick me in a prison, Simonucci? No, I’ll stick  you  in a cage, along with the rest of your shadowy conspirators, and then I’ll throw the lot of you into the sea.
 



The inside of the senatorial hearing room was a beautiful example of Tilean architecture, as Taalia lost herself for a moment admiring the creation that clearly reflected the love and craftsmanship that had gone into its construction. Sure, man could be a ruthless, political animal like the Skaven and treat his fellow in the worst ways one could imagine. But so too was he inclined and capable of creating vast works of beauty such as this, building desirable things on the world for which the evil, greedy little minds of the Skaven had no response, nor would they ever.

When her mind returned to the present, Taalia peered around the assemblage and suddenly felt a self-conscious sting at what she had been forced to wear before her first public presentation. Barely given the barest of washes, the shepardess wanted some time in a bath with some oils and soaps to perfectly clean her features, scrub her skin and groom her white-silvery hair to its natural beauty. But alas, the indignations of her current situation continued.

Nevertheless, Taalia cut a striking figure, if not for how unusual her appearance was. Out of all assembled only a couple of the men could match her in sheer height, while her athletic physique was clear even beneath the less-than-favorable prison clothes she had been forced to endure. Making the effort to at least draw her hair back into a loose pony-tail that framed her pleasing features, Taalia’s heterochromia eyes peered across the room and stopped once she saw all those from home who had assembled here on her behalf.

Her first smile was small, one of disbelief. Then a tear from her right eye and that smile again, as she wiped it away and raised her hand to wave at them all, wearing the brightest, most sincere smile one could picture.

She also spotted Simonucci, whose discomfort brought a degree of satisfaction to Taalia's heart as she watched the bastard squirm like the worm he was.

The red faction of Tilean politics wanted a political spectacle? Fine. She'd give them one. She had already made history with her stunt in the tower, the strikingly tall girl with white hair who blew a hole in the wall of the infamous prison only to sit upon her broken works and wave down to the people in defiance of hated authority, if only for a moment. Here would be no different. She wasn't the whipped slave of the Skaven, not anymore. She might not be a master politician or experienced and seasoned manipulator, but from her time on the surface, Taalia wasn't emotionally dumb, she had been observing how to create a show. The Tileans respected passion and sincerity, they enjoyed a streak of defiance, hotness of blood and spirited dignity. Not only that, but Taalia wasn't unaware of how actual human society looked upon women of her age range, and the inclination towards protection of such youthful ladies rather than the offering to the pyre of political ambition. She believed if she could play both the spirited youth and the sympathetic ex-slave girl, she could win over the heart, and the head would follow. And if any of the uncertain senators had a daughter her age, even better for her.

Was the shepardess forming a particularly manipulative streak? Maybe. But arguably, it was always there. The Skaven were sycophants by nature, and one did not survive as she had by simply doing what she was told all the time.
MrAbdiel
 "Noble Senators..." 

You are immediately struck by how deep Signore Tordemondo's voice is; sonorous and powerful.  It's natural that he would be one of the most successful in this speaking profession.

  "We are, I think indisputably, the most blessed nation in the world.  Enough coast to trade from without being to harsh a lure to pirates; walled from the orcs by mountains and allies beyond them; and reasonably secure with out neighbours for the past few years.  All men and women of ambition are prospering under this circumstance and so we should - may we all prosper.  We have threaded the needle of fate without famine or flood and, as it stands, we see our state excel in many regards because of our lack of adversaries.  But our esteemed cousins in Miragliano cannot say the same thing - they are  never  without adversaries.  The marshes make it so; and the sunken layers beneath their city are forever replenishing their repulsive enemy.  Only constant vigilance permits them to persist at all, and may Myrmidia keep and bless those sons of Miragliano who make it their mission to descent and slay the awful rat folk.  There can be no more sacred duty than to make safe the toil and life of their countrymen.  And so it is with grim purpose, and not professional glee, that I intend to demonstrate to you over the coming days that the  accusata  is, in fact, an agent of those same rat folk; a girl perhaps like any other at the beginning of her life but now so baked-through with their wicked intentions that she has become a weapon against all mankind and, particularly, against Verezzo.  It is a grave and disquieting matter, but I ask your indulgence and courage - today, we do this so that a hundred years from now, our great grand children are not talking about how their ancestors lived in  old Verezzo , now sunken and infested with monsters because of their failure to show a first vigilance." 
 
He carries on like this.  The thrust of his movement is, then, that you are a weapon of the Skaven.  He proposes they are using you to infiltrate, gather and give information, position yourself well, and at a later time, inevitably make clear the way for their rise.  But he was expected to make some claim like this; whether he has moved the senate or not is unclear.  Damio, rises from his own chair once Tordemondo sits; the Rampollo's seat releasing a flinchable squeak against the floor and immediately undermining what he intends to say with that audial discomfort.  When he speaks, it is not with that power or stentorian bullishness of his counterpart, but the same  nervous but not unappealing sincerity which he used when selling the stock barons on his idea for the brineries.

  "Noble Senators, I must really say first, what a pleasure and honor it is to address you here.  I myself am just a country Rampollo; I hadn't thought to speak to such an assembly except many years later in my wild ambitions."    He chuckles a little; the ambiguity of the joke preventing it from spreading.    "But how I wish it might have been for some more sanguine reason.  Almost two years ago, the  accusata  wandered into the sunlight after a small lifetime of unspeakable suffering with only rags and scars to call her own.  Not a penny to her name - not even a name, to speak of.  A good man in my rampolloture, Gaulfredo, gave her the name Taalia and she chose the family name Giovanni for herself.  And then she worked, and studied, and fought as hard as anyone you can imagine to make herself useful and learned and valued and understood.  She risked life and limb, has prospered under the winds of fortune that my esteemed counterpart mentioned, and has been generous with which she has been blessed.  And she has not, in these past years, done a single think that can be construed as criminal or conspiratorial or even suspicious.  Only the most wildly cynical mind could twist the human desire to improve one's lot into something amounting to evidence.  And if seeking and earning a better life is suspect because one  might , with no evidence at all, be doing so on behalf of an enemy of the people, then at the conclusion of our trial we shall need to hang everyone with a drop of credability or coin to their name and leave Verezzo to only the most despairing beggars.  This young woman  escaped  the claws of this enemy and came to Verezzo with the expectation she would be offering herself as a weapon against  them.   I trust you will come to see the truth of it, as plainly as her countrymen do."
  

Damio, too, goes on for a while outlining his position.  In his casting, your nature is so self evidently innocent that to lower legal standards of suspicion to include your case would make almost every Verezzan guilty of being  suspiciously  ambitious or fortunate.  Lack of proof cannot be taken as proof of a high-quality cover-up; and you cannot be called a Skaven Spy on the force of how awful it would be, if it were so, and you weren't hanged for it. This is obviously true to you; but the Senators take it in with chattering and mumbling to one another, and no great show of impressedness.

After this come the battery of witnesses.

 * * * * * 
  "...And would you describe her as an eager student, Madre?"  
 "Oh, yes, certainly.  After she brought that poor one-legged rooster to me and we managed to save it, she was very driven to learn.  Very eager indeed; and capable, too.  To learn letters, and medicine.  I'm very proud of her." 
 * * * * * 
  "...After which you judged her honest enough to follow back to Bella Collina, Signora Antonnucia?"  
 "I did; she had established an account with proposed pay, and escorted me to her village where we spent some time trying to unravel the matter with the prisoner.  She was so concerned with finding the truth, and not seeing an innocent punished, that she put up tweny of her own  duri  if someone could soothe his madness so we could get to the bottom of it all. 
 * * * * * 
  "...With no weapon at all?"  
 "With none at all.  Well - she pulled one of the arrows from the beast's skin and used it to stab it moreso, until it went down and the dogs got into it.  Bertuccio and I were trying to get there, but our horses were skittish to the troll's size.  If Taalia hadn't jumped in when she did, I've no doubt in my mind that the troll would have killed at least a few of us.  When it came to putting herself in danger for the sake of others, she didn't even hesitate." 

Testimonies from your friends from Bella Collina, to your character's quality, go on like this for some time.  Polo and Damio really are loading up the positive regard as best they can, here.  Half the town gives testimony, whether for something as gentle and anodyne as the Spinster Sisters telling how friendly you strove to be even when you could barely speak Tilean, or as directly heroic and harrowing as Istuccio recounting the battle of Silo Road and how sure he was that he would die, bleeding out on his knees in front of his broken brother with his shield over him while a five-armed mutant pummeled him until you (and Rocco and Corvo) turned the tide.  Bella, Nogrom, and Gaulfredo arrive and slip into seats partway through, having not travelled with the priveledge of wheels as you have to arrive; and each of them is called to speak, also.  In almost all these cases, Signore Tordemondo has nothing to say.  But not in all cases.  In some, he rises after Damio has sat, and plies his own questions.

 * * * * * 
 "Isn't it a burden, for a gentleman of your years to have to teach a barely literate former slave such a technical craft, Signore?" 
Signore Cestié is naturally offended on your behalf.   "It's not a burden at all - she's excellent.  Very smart.  Very quick to learn.  Wonderful company.  I'm lucky to have her around." 
 "Oh, well - forgive me.  She sounds like a very talented and technically minded student." 
Cestié frowns.  He  feels , visibly, that he is being maneuvered, but can't see how; and therefore can't summon a useful rejoinder before he is dismissed from the witness chair.

 * * * * * 
 "Are you telling me, on your dwarven honor, that this girl outshone you in the heat of this battle and felled more of the mutants than anyone else?" 
Nogrum huffs.   "Tis just so, and ye'll not rile me up to say it - she's a strong fighter, and if ye had a lick of sense ye'd be pinning a medal on her for it." 
 "As you say, then.  So you might say she was responsible for slaying, perhaps, four, of the nine mutants killed that day?" 
 "More like five of the  ten  we killed!" He corrects, his voice booming with infringed pride. 
 "Oh - was it ten?  You see, I'm given to believe it was nine, on account of the fact that, we've heard, you brought one back alive." 
 "...Aye... Aye, nine and one captive, then." 
 "A captive that you would have preferred killed on the road, isn't it so?" 
He shifts with discomfort.   "...Maybe, but she- ... we thought he best brought back to be sure there was no mischeif afoot.  He had the face of our friend Bertuccio." 
 "Even so, it was obvious to you that he was a mutant, given that he was part of a mutant gang. And if you hadn't deferred to her, you would have killed the captive and never brought it back to Bella Collina, isn't that so?" 
Nogrom doesn't respond.  He glowers at the fat man, seeing himself driven and not wishing to participate in it.  But Tordemondo is happy to go the rest of the way.
 "Of course, ultimately, it was revealed that this fellow whom you had all so sympathetically drawn back to your village was a mutant indeed.  Do you recall who it was that ultimately determined that instance of guilt..?" 
Nogrom looks to Polo, for a way out.  Polo can only offer him a little shrug, and a gesture.
 "...Padrone Bloody Simonuccio, but-" 
 "That will be all, master dwarf." 

At the end of the day's proceedings, it has been largely positive framing of who you are with a few cases of such undermining.  Signore Tordemondo calls for a senatorial vote for guilty at the end of the day as a matter of course.

Twenty five reds, six green, two blue are currently of the mind that you are guilty as charged, right now.  Given that this leaves no room for a critical majority if the opposite vote was called, Damio does not call for it; and you are sent back to your cell for another uncomfortable night.

 * * * * * 
On the second day, Damio calls the Matrone Armilia da Motiano, and asks for special dispensation for her to ask you a question, given her special Verenean expertise on this matter.  Tordemondo can marshall no adequate objection, and so the elegant Matrone in her near-to-scandelously svelte robes sits herself in the witness chair between the two benches, facing the defense's bench which has called her, with her hands folded neatly in her lap.  She gives you that same warn, maternal smile on a face that has endured five decades with more grace than anyone should be capable of.

 "Place your hands over your heart, Taalia.  I will invoke Verena's blessing, and the mistress of Truth will show me the between truth, and falsehood; so you need only speak truly."   She raises her left hand ring finger bowed at the firs knuckle, and intones something in the priestly tongue that you do not understand.  There is no mirculous flash of light, but you feel a warm focus upon yourself that soothes your nerves; like a welcome mantle has been laid on your shoulders as a burden has been taken off.

 "Tell me, Taalia; tell me true, and as simply as you can: Did you escape the skaven who held you captive, or did you come to serve them of your own accord, even now?" 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia watched the proceedings with a curious eye. For her it was an interesting angle - which was more important? The law, or the show?

The fat lawyer had the deepest voice she'd ever heard. She herself had a smoky timbre, but he was the male of that and then some. Despite his corpulent state, it was obvious why and how he could seize the attention of a room and mould it to best suit his purposes. Even the way he asked questions were funnelling the responses that he wanted. After all, you got the answer you wanted if you asked the right question.

It did touch her though when her communal members lined up to speak on her behalf. Several times she had to wipe a tear away, her hand clasped before her, that warm and sincere smile she wore that of someone watching people ride to her rescue, because in many ways they were. Even Nogram, though clearly having his dwarven pride picked at and prodded, did as best he could, and better than she imagined he would.

At the end of the first day, she felt hopeful, but knew that such a sensation could be fleeting.

 oOo 
Taalia felt a hint of relief when the Matrone returned. She wondered how the tower events would have unfolded had she been there to be called upon to defuse the situation? In another life-time.

 "Tell me, Taalia; tell me true, and as simply as you can: Did you escape the skaven who held you captive, or did you come to serve them of your own accord, even now?" 
 "Yes, I escaped the Skaven,"  she answered truthfully, standing and chin held high.

 "The Skaven who owned me, he and I were ambushed by his rivals and we escaped to the surface but he had been wounded. I believed that he was dead and so I buried him. When I walked through the forest, it was beauty I didn't know existed. I was so happy to escape their evil, I promised myself I would never let myself be taken as a slave again. I was prepared to die fighting if their agents tried to take me back. I do  not  serve the Skaven. I  despise  them." 
MrAbdiel
The Matrone da Motiano's smile carries through your response; she mouths 'gratzi' and looks back to Damio.  The room is silent as the assembled notables and non-notables wait for this divine revelation.

Damio has been gathering a little more confidence, as the trial has gone on; perhaps fear of beginning is wearing off, and now he is finding something of a stride - the stumbling locomotion of a baby giraffe would come to mind, if you had ever heard of such a beast.  He lets the pause hang in the air a bit, and then asks the obvious question.

  "Matrone da Motiano - as a revered priestess of Verena, this senate entrusts you with a certain abundance of authority in matters of truth.  Is young Taalia telling the truth, about her allegiances?"  
 "She is, yes.  She is not lying about her nature." 

A murmur ripples through the assembly.

  "There is absolutely  no  possibility she is what the good man Signore Tordemondo claims, then?"  
 "That is not a matter of lies and spoken truth; that is a matter of falsehood or fact.  A woman or man might heartily believe something to be the case and say so without lying, when in fact they are mistaken.  But is hard to imagine how young Taalia Giovanni might be an effective spy for the skaven if she is so obviously full of resentment for them - and good reasons for that resentment." 

Damio finishes his questioning, and returns to the defense bench.   "Wonderful, wonderful!"  Signora Citti whispers to you, and the others; "I am so glad we were able to bring her to bear.  It is a very convincing testimony - perhaps we ought to call for a tally right away?" 

Yet the opposing litigant is afforded a right of reply before such a thing can be considered; and after conference with his understudies and the axe-faced witch hunter, the portly Tordemondo rises and crosses the floor to address the unflappably serene Matrone.

  "Good Matrona da Motiano; for the benefit of the gallery, who may be less conversant with legal and divine matters as you or I, indulge me in the answering of some questions which may seem otherwise obvious.  You are a priestess of Verena, yes?"  
 "Yes.  An anointed priestess, in the general clerical parlance.  That is to say I am inducted into many of the higher mysteries not made apparent to young initiates.  At a given major temple like ours in Verezzo, there is one High Priest or Priestess, and a handful of Anointed clergy beneath them, in turn above the many priests and initiates who perform typical duties." 
  "And Verena, as the mother of justice and truth, gives her blessed clergy like yourself some... miraculous insight into spoken truths and falsehoods, which we saw just a moment ago when you questioned the  accusata .  Is it so?"  
 "It is so, yes." 
  "Of course, of course.  So we can trust the  accusata's  word on a matter because you can tell its quality, and we can trust your word on its quality because..."  

He trails off.  You can feel some of the air get sucked from the room; mostly into people's lungs with sharp intakes of breath, especially in the senatorial rows.  Tordemondo is a respected litigator, but he is moving remarkably close to questioning the theological authority of Verena and her clerics.

 "...Because the blessed mother Verena has been respected and honored in all of the civilized world since before Verezzo laid one stone upon another; and to insinuate her servitors were liars would be an extremely grievous charge." 
  "Certainly; gods help the man who makes such a charge.  I am given to understand telling deliberate lies may be grounds for excommunication within your temple - if you were a liar, I can't imagine you would make it to the position you are in now.  Have you... been involved in the excommunication of any less-than-truthful Verenan clergy before, Matrona?"  

The serenity in her expression begins to crack slightly.

 "...I have, yes.  For the very reasons you are dancing about, Signore Tordemondo - if we did not police truth-telling vigorously we would lose authority in our realms of ministry and, worse, blaspheme our mistress.  We do not tolerate liars in our church's clergy - though fortunately for litigants like yourself, Signore, we develop patience for them." 

A polite chuckle from the gallery; even from the Signore.

  "Ahah!  Aha, very good, Matrona.  Well, you have told us Taalia is telling the truth, and we would not insinuate falseness about you; much less the divine Verena.  But... Again, for the uninitiated gallery... We are to understand that since Verena has spoken on the matter through a priestess, and Verena cannot be wrong, and her priestesses cannot be wrong, the matter is closed and we ought to consider the matter closed, then.  Isn't it so?"  

A very long three seconds follow.  You can detect the discomfort in the stoic Matrona; Tordemondo has put her in a position with that  isn't it so  that to fail to expose any objectionable flaw in his statement now was functionally lying, which she has been very clear to say she cannot do or tolerate.

 "...Verena's wisdom is deep and miraculous and cannot be wrong; though her priestesses can, like anyone else.  This is the reason we train to understand the nature of truth and falsehood, to detect lies, and to employ her divine gifts to reduce the possibility of error.  But I am extremely confident in Taalia's innocence of the charge." 

The portly man, wandering back towards his bench, pauses and pivots back, the tails of his coat flaring as he spins as if he has been struck by new information; as if he hadn't anticipated this conversational run, which he certainly had.

  "Oh - forgive me, perhaps I have been mistaken.  So a priestess, even with divine blessings, is  not  afforded supernatural insight into what is true or false?"  
 "No; she is given such insight; that is the nature of the blessing about which we are speaking." 
  "And how does that insight manifest to you?  As a radiant marker showing liars and truthtellers, in your sight or something else?"  
 "...As a sharply increased instinct about a person's or statement's truthfulness.  I notice more immediately the way eyes move with shame, or dryness of mouth - markers of guilt.  Coupled with extensive training and a life of devotion to the craft, I am able to wield extreme confidence in my judgements about these matters." 
  "I see.  And so with such blessings at hand, you have never been wrong in a judgement; is it not so?"  

She frowns.

 "...The gifts of Verena are not given as an alternative to human judgement and justice.  They are tools to enhance it.  There have been times when, even confident as I am, I have made a judgement that turned out to be false.  I make many hundreds of these judgements each year.  Judgements like mine and those of my order are extremely valuable but not flawless.  Yes, I have made such errors in rare instances; for such reasons, we can not afford to grow lax in our pursuit of skills and other techniques of justice." 
  "Did you, in recent memory, make a judgement about a girl named Mariana de Fialo, in which you declared her to be no servant of the evil at all?  Perhaps, with the same confidence that you are judging the  accusata  now?"  

The warmth in her expression had long drained, but now the neutrality falls and a façade of pain and anger comes over her face.  Her eyes snap to Simonuccio, and she addresses him, with quiet betrayal and disgust, and not the question.

 "Oh, Simonuccio.  What are you doing?" 

Tordemondo pushes on.

  "And isn't it so that Mariana de Fialo did turn out to be a witch and summoner of daemons, whose subsequent actions cost the lives of most of the inhabitants of the sleepy town of La Dumo, in Trantio?  Would you answer, Matrona?"  

Her eyes snap back to the litigant, her gaze now flashing with venom.

 "...Yes.  That was an error." 
  "I see.  The only error you have made, since your annointing?"  
 "...No." 
  "There have been more?"  
 "...Yes.  Three, to count." 
  "Three  of which you know? "  
 "...Of which I know, yes." 
  "Given your admitted capacity for error, is it  possible  that you are making such an error with the  accusata  now, confident though you may be?"  

Bound to truth, unable to so skillfully dissemble, the Matrona is forced to reply to her chagrin.

 "It... is possible." 
 * * * * * 
A short recess follows; the spectators and senators file out to lunch, while you are herded back into your counsel chambers with your advisors and afforded more buttered bread.

  "Damn.  Damn, damn."    The Rampollo paces, pressing the heeps of his palms to his temples.    "He cut her to ribbons.  A Matrona of Verena!  She might have been more damaging to us than helpful over all."  

Polo objects.   "That's not true; the whole room heard her pronounce Taalia's innocence and repeatedly insist on her confidence and divine mandate.  That's much more compelling than  knowing she has made - what - three errors in thousands, over her years." 

They argue over this, though not heatedly; colleagues for a long time, capable of receiving each other's criticisms and objections without personal distress.  But you see the Damio's fear.  Polo is a clerk; a prisoner of numerical fact.  But all your wheeling and dealing in recent years have taught you that numerical fact is not all it is cracked up to be. You can sell a telescope for a hundred gold coins to a woman who needs it right away for her adventures, or for half that to a less interested merchant, and neither is interested in the invested cost of the brass, and glass, and labor invested in making it.  The Matrona's gifts are excellent and statistically marvellous, but Signore Tordemondo has done such a masterful job in forcing her to hesitantly focus and confess on their limitations that the net introduction of her testimony might be an increase in uncertainty, not certainty, in the senators.  Damio's arguements have been based on the inherent unfairness of punishing someone on suspicion alone; but people make self-protecting judgements on suspicions alone all the time.  The Rampollo Damio certainly feels the case is getting pulled from under him, though Signora Citti and Polo keep the faith.

 * * * * * 
When you return, it's Tordemondo's turn to call witnesses.  He takes an inordinate amount of time organizing his papers with his underlings, affording the Senate time to stew on the things they have heard.  You watch them, from you seat.  The green and blue factions.  The blue faction is on one end end of the senate seating, and is fenced in by the green; who are needling them relentlessly with chatter, senator to senator, in extensive and sometimes heated looking negotiation while their hangers on entertain themselves.  The red faction, next across, seems almost unbothered; social, chatty.  In the middle of their mass, an older gentleman with a distractingly shiny bald head holds court and with those around and behind his seat.  There are too many smiles in there, for you to have confidence.  On the back edge of their seating block, a few younger senators populate the fringe hoping to get a look in.  Some don't have guests at all; one, a lad of perhaps twenty, seems to have wrangled the attendance of a courtesan who holds herself behind her mask and attire like a more sophisticated and mature woman who regrets being here at all, and he struggles to maintain her attention, let alone her interest.  But the yellow faction, the largest faction and the one whose integrity you are relying on holding fast, is in consternation and conference.  First Citizen Groccolo, the most powerful but not unembattled man in Verezzo, conducts a more muted series of discussions with his others than does his red faction counterpart; the man's dark turned silver beard and curls, and thick fighter's body turning slowly to chub, give him the cast of a once great lion melting with age while younger males circle and wait for their moment.

Ultimately, Damio does not elect to call for a vote; and neither does Tordemondo.  Simonuccio is first to the stand.  He gives a flat, factual account of who he is, and how he came to know you.  He is a Seeker of the Church of Solkan, whose heart is in Remas.  His work is to seek out and destroys mutants, heretics, daemons and witches anywhere from Remas to the ends of the earth.  In Remas, he has enormous authority.  In most provinces of Tilea, including Verezzo, he has a limited but active legitimacy backed by other churches.  Polo's letter about Bertuccio went to the Shallyans, who reached out to the Verenans; and the Matrona reached out to him, since they had long worked together on matters like this.  In interrogating Bertuccio, he learned about your skaven-bound origins, and maintained a strong suspicion of your corruption from that point onward.

  "One does not walk through a bog and emerge with a diamond in their teeth; one does not endure ten formative years of torment and toil and emerge a normal, healthy human girl.  I arranged for Signora Lilli Citti's project to gain a flash of interest and I suggested Taalia be selected; I delivered the invitation personally, and then waited to behold her interactions with the captured Skaven.  My knowledge of the skaven language is adequate, though not complete; but I spied upon her treating the captured rat-man with care and affection when she thought she was alone.  That was enough confirmation for me that she is insufficiently disgusted by their nature; and it ought to be enough for anyone else."  
  "Indeed; very troubling. But we have just heard from the Matrona of Verena that her judgements are not infallible - are yours any more reliable?  Have you made... mistakes, in the course of pursuing justice?"  

About this, Simonuccio is direct, and not lacking confidence.

  "Absolutely.  The Matrona's help has made it easier to be more discerning, but in reality one can never really be completely sure.  There have been occasions when I have condemned to die a man or woman who would later prove to be innocent - and vice versa."  
  "Were you involved with the matter around Mariana de Fialo?"  
  "I was.  In that case, I denied my instinct and trusted someone else's; and much blood and damnation resulted.  My conviction is stronger for it.  In matters of adultery and political squabbles, let the parties fumble their way to truth with their rapiers.  In the case of theft, or vandalism, or other petty crimes, perhaps it is better to withold the lash than risk striping an innocent back.  But it matters of heresy, and damnation, and great enemies like the rats below, it is foolishness and culpable failure to err away from caution.  An innocent woman burned is known to Morr and welcomed to rest after a painful interval.  A guilty woman let loose under the pretense of compassion might kill, undermine a town, or damage nations.  The gods may forgive error of haste; but not of indolence."  

Polo and Lilli confer as the chance to ask respondent questions comes.

 "Alas, still no word from Bertuccio; now that Simonuccio has mentioned him as his source for suspicion, he might be able to clarify and help us frame Simonuccio as an unthinking zealot.  But if our couriers have found him, he has given no sign.  What else can we do?" 
 "Tordemondo is making the senators scared - or atleast, scared their their constituents will be scared and expect them to act in their protective interest.  Is there no one we can put up who can show Taalia to be so... gentle and good, as she is?" 
Polo frowns.   "We have done so at the outset; but I fear... perhaps insufficiently.  Perhaps the troublemaker boys, back in Bella Collina.. But it will do nothing to assure against the empty suspicions.  Tordemondo will just make them seem small and confused and the senators will be inclined to contain a possible threat, still.  We just need to make it through the day - get to the end without a passing vote.  Sleep may produce cooler heads and room to reason, tomorrow." 

Damio does his best, with Simonuccio.

  "And just how many innocent men and women, in your estimation, can be justified as worth slaying to ensure a true enemy is rooted out?"  

Simonuccio doesn't blink.

  "Any number.  An enemy who can use a thousand women as a shield against judgement can do it over and over again until someone destroys him.  I would send a thousand innocents to Morr's garden today rather than let a mutant or witch send a thousand to perdition tomorrow." 
 
  "There is no blood you wouldn't spill for your suspicions, then.  If a senator's son or daughter, or a senator herself was thus accused, would you afford them more grace than Taalia?"  

This is a calculated ask; the hope is that a positive response will make him seem hypocritical, but a negative response, which is more likely, will make him seem dangerous and unhinged, threatening even to the Senators. It doesn't work out that way.

  "No.  I do not respect rank or riches.  Men and women of good conduct have nothing to fear; but if I found every senator in Verezzo to be having quiet, meaningful conversations with rat-men I would attempt to see them all burned."  

Damio retreats, after this.  His opponents have presented no weakness to exploit, and none, therefore, have been exploited.  Tordemondo's next witness is surprising to all - Signora Citti takes the witness seat, with distrust and displeasure.

  "...And so you, too, were a prisoner of the Skaven for years.  How would you say that has... impacted your life, following your escape?"  

Citti is cunning enough to see the direction of the question, and heads it off.

 "It has ultimately led me here to be part of this project to create weapons of intelligence against the Skaven.  As it had for Taalia, in fact.  But before that, I tried to live a normal life and return to simple living.  It took me much longer than Taalia, in fact, to eventually muster myself to devote my interest to even thinking about the rats and their destruction." 
  "You haven't worried that, if these charges are true, then this may be an effort by those ratmen to undermine your operation?"  
 "How could it be?  Taalia didn't know about our project until Simonuccio told her.  If she's their puppet, so is he!" 

Her forcefulness, and forthrightness, actually draws a ripple of laughter from the gallery.  That part, atleast, seems to be going your way; and Tordemondo backs off with his palms raised and a 'Woah, okay lady' expression on his face, controlling the damage with humor.  But after Lilli's turn, it's yours; and the fat man looms before your chair in the middle of the room.

He gives you a genuine, faint smile like he regrets this has to be the way it is.  It almost fools you; but this man wields such expressions as easily as he does words.
 
 "Hello, Taalia.  We heard your short explanation when the Matrona asked - the skaven prisoner in the Tower is the one who owned you, and who escaped with you.  So perhaps it is no coincidence that you know him, then - he and you escaped at the same time, parted ways when you thought he was dead; you went on to find some succour and fortune with our remarkable citizens, while he was captured.  So it isn't inherant suspicious that you should speak their language, or know the captive.  But I must ask - if he was your owner, why wouldn't you immediately announce that to Signora Citti once you saw him?  Or refuse to work with a prisoner who had caused you such misery?  I'm sure we could all understand if you had simply murdered the prisoner - who could blame you?  But you sought to show care to this creature - or so Simonuccio has testified. Why?"  

He waits for your response. As he does, the door at the side of the chamber opens, and a pair of guards begin carrying in a stretcher, under which is an indistinct, man-sized lump; unmoving.  It draws the attention of the gallery on that side and some of the senators, but Tordemondo is focused on you, awaiting your answer.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: DUN DUN 
Feel free to give a short lil' response, we might go back and forth with some questions here!
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


When Taalia took to the stand, she had pondered on a strategy. If Tordemondo could make a woman with magical truth discerning powers seem questionable, while a man who admitted he'd kill thousands to score one with guilt, then she would be a fool to try and match wits with him. He was a man in his legal prime with decades of experience, and she was just a spirited ex-slave and current shepardess. Though it was a seemingly hopeless situation, again Taalia thought back to her prior state of mind: maybe she didn't need to  beat  him. Much the way Simonucci would've easily defeated her stand off by starving her out, Taalia had defeated him by appealing to the masses. Perhaps that was her off-ramp here?

People could kill a monster without hesitation. They could condemn an anonymous nobody to the gallows. But to kill another human being whom they got to know and humanise with even a little bit? That was much more difficult. As Polo had underestimated, but Damio feared and Taalia knew, people may make overtures to cold-minded rationality, but the emotional core of an individual had an ability to over-ride it, and regularly did.

So Taalia took to the stand. Her grey-white hair framing her youthful, if scarred features. Her hetereochromia eyes looked at the lawyer with a neutral expression, even if deep down she wanted to kick him in that fake head of his.

 "Hello, Taalia." 
 "Buon pomeriggio, Singore Tordemondo." 
 "We heard your short explanation when the Matrona asked - the skaven prisoner in the Tower is the one who owned you, and who escaped with you. So perhaps it is no coincidence that you know him, then - he and you escaped at the same time, parted ways when you thought he was dead; you went on to find some succour and fortune with our remarkable citizens, while he was captured. So it isn't inherant suspicious that you should speak their language, or know the captive." 
 "He didn't escape  with me ,"  Taalia interjected softly.
 
"We both fled assassins that were sent by his rivals. He used me as a shield, right here..." 

Taalia then did something...a little salacious in high society. She reached up, held the collar of her clothes and drew it down and to the side, showing the skin of her collar bone and the right trap muscle and shoulder, upon which was a visible scar where that knife had left its mark.

She tapped that scar with her free hand.

 "One of the assassins knives almost got me on the way out,"  her tone softer, swallowing gently as anyone who 'wanted to see' from the distances they had would need to lean forward.

 "A few inches to the left, and I wouldn't be here under the accusation of being in league with them,"  she said with a soft, but matter-of-fact tone, drawing her clothing back up to its former position.

 "But I must ask - if he was your owner, why wouldn't you immediately announce that to Signora Citti once you saw him?" 

Taalia furrowed her brow but wore a confused expression as if someone had made a questionable joke.

 "Because I didn't know it was him until I opened the door and entered the room, Singore Tordemondo. That's how prison cells work. The moment I left the cell I was being accused of being a spy by Simonucci." 
 "Or refuse to work with a prisoner who had caused you such misery?" 
 "Because translating their language for use by our brave men could save thousands of lives. I'd be willing to even work with Simonucci again if that was the prize."
 
 "I'm sure we could all understand if you had simply murdered the prisoner - who could blame you? But you sought to show care to this creature - or so Simonuccio has testified. Why?" 

That confused look returned to Taalia's face as she seemed genuinely puzzled.

 "What would be the point of that?"  she asked with a 'please explain' shrug.

 "Beat the prisoner some more? Simonucci had already removed one of his eyes. He had cut off his tail. He had torn his nails out. Singore Simonucci, blunt instrument that he is, had already beaten the hell out of the Skaven - and where had that gotten him? What had been achieved? He wasn't any closer to translating their language for practical purposes. All he'd done is carve off pieces of the single best intelligence source in years, and throw the second best source in prison to try and hang her as a witch!" 

Taalia now looked genuinely disgusted at the Witch Hunters stupidity as her human emotions boiled up.

 "This, this sadistic lunatic!"  she pointed at Simonucci,  "didn't you just hear his own words?,"  and she put on an accent to mock and mimic Simonucci's own, rising both closed fists up and down slowly in front of her to caricature Simonucci's movements,   "'Ohh I would happily slaughter thousands of innocent people!'"   she spat the sentence out in disgust.

 "Maybe you should go underground to be among them, Simonucci, because that's exactly how the Skaven think - they'd welcome a kindred spirit!" 

She turned her head back to Tordemondo, her eyes fill of sincere passion.

 "Want to know why I showed just a modicum of kindness to a former slaver? Because  I'm not them !"  she stated.

It was then that the distraction occurred, Taalia's eyes swiveling in her sockets to gaze upon the new arrival.

Immediately a sinking feeling hit her stomach. If she had to bet her last duro as to who, or what, was underneath those sheets, she wouldn't hesitate to do so.


OOC:
I feel bad offering a smaller response after the cracking good read you produced!
MrAbdiel
 The men with the stretcher remain to the side just outside of the open floor, awaiting a signal.  From the accuser's bench, Simonuccio watches you with his cold, killer's eyes.

Tordemondo continues.

 "A very noble sentiment, in many cases, to have compassion for an enemy - if the enemy were not such a race of hideous mutants.  I suppose if they were  not  able to twist your remnant human loyalties, you would have been little use to them at all.  Did your special affection extend to only this one particular rat because of the close nature of your relationship, or was it generalized to all of their kind?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia shook her head.

 "I did not say I have compassion for  our  enemy, Singore. You have not seen what I have seen of their society. I pray to Myrmidia that their kind goes extinct within our lifetimes," 

Taalia answered assertively.

 "I applied a wet cloth to the filth that crusted the prisoner. That is it. That is all I did. That simple little act is why Simonucci wishes to burn me alive, if you help him," 

Taalia looked again at the lawyer, deep into his eyes.

 "I believed I was there for months to learn his written language. So what was the point of further torture?

You do  not  understand, Singore Tordemondo,"  Taalia stated sincerely, that intensity in her eyes as she spoke from experience of one who knows trying to warn the ignorant.

 "The Skaven do not  feel  compassion or affection or love. They are incapable of it. They no more think of such a thing than you do a colony of ants that you pass on the road. The best you can hope for with the Skaven is the  absence  of cruelty.

Until I saw him in that prison, I had not thought of that Skaven since my freedom, since my new life. With the goal of learning the Skaven written language in mind, I used the strategy of catching more flies with honey than vinegar, Singore Tordemondo. Simonucci had beaten the hell out of the Skaven and gotten nowhere. I intended to succeed where he had failed." 

In the back of Taalia's mind, she noted that the men carrying that stretcher were awaiting a signal. That only confirmed who believed was laying there beneath that linen. They were going to try and elicit an emotional response of distress from her by revealing the corpse.

Well, Taalia steeled herself. She had felt her pity, her sadness in those first few hours of her freedom. She had no more woe to give.
MrAbdiel
   "Yes, you are quite right Taalia; you have seen more of their society than I.  Indeed, you have seen more of their society than any human I or anyone else I have spoken to has ever heard of.  People do not survive such brutal enslavement.  Or rather - humans do not survive for ten years with the rats, as slaves.  Your continued existence is a sort of dark miracle.   This is much of the source of our suspicion about you; a suspicion so far your litigant has not been able to defend with more than the kind of twee stories that one would expect precisely about an agent attempting to ingratiate themselves into a host society."
  
The crowd, noble and otherwise, are indeed focused very much on this dramatic exchange.  Tordemonde flags the men with the stretcher in; the stand a few feet infront of you with the lumpen cargo under its sheet.

  "But to be clear - is it your position that you are  not  emotionally invested in these creatures and their success?"  

The litigant himself seems, if not unmoved, unwilling to display any movement on his features.  This must serve him well, legally terrorizing the guilty and innocent alike. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia looked across to the corpulent lawyer. There were motes of hatred within her, primordial and savage instincts that loathed this fat, pampered man of letters for down-talking her situation. She was sleeping on cold floors and fighting for scraps while he was enjoying fine wine, food and clothing in an arena of words and he felt he had the position to judge  her ?!

But it couldn't register on her face. She knew it. Mentally she reminded herself of what she had dwelled on earlier: she would not win this crowd over with logic, but with humanising herself. Only the blackest of souls would send an eighteen year old girl with her background to be burned alive to satiate the paranoia of a man like Simonucci.

 "My continued existence is not a 'dark miracle',"  Taalia returned quickly.

 "The only thing 'dark' about me is the circumstances that were forced upon me until two years ago when I emerged into these beautiful lands and were shown mercy by its citizens. My new life is testimony to the mercy of the gods and the persistence of human will." 
 "Damio has tried within the boundaries of the law to defend me. But I ask  you  Singore - you! What is the evidence against me? The hard evidence that I deserve to be burned alive to please the paranoia of a man who had admitted under oath, not merely a few hours ago, that he would slaughter thousands of innocent people to get what he wants. What is the hard evidence against me? You have heard from my community who took me in and  know  me. A high priestess of a noble Goddess of justice speaks on my behalf. My own words. And all that apparently, stands naught compared to the paranoia of a man who admits he would kill thousands to satisfy his suspicions! I wiped away the crusted bodily humours from a prisoner? That's it?! That's what I would be burned alive for?!" 
 "But to be clear - is it your position that you are not emotionally invested in these creatures and their success?" 

Taalia steeled herself. She was almost standing at this point, as if she were locked in a stand-over shouting match with the man her senior. Him with his word-craft, her with her passion and sincerity. But then the stretcher was brought in, and the grey-white haired youth peered down upon it. She knew what was in there.
MrAbdiel
 "You would be burned alive for being a spy doing work for the rat men, whom you simultaneously claim a desire to see wiped from the world, and also a compulsion to soothe in captivity and seek to ward against unnecessary suffering.  Skaven, who are responsible for such plagues and pestilence upon all mankind that we owe every one of them suffering beyond imagining.  Who snatch up the loved ones of our far countrymen and take them to be slaves - just as you were a slave, before against all odds surviving their wicked machinations and emerging fresh and eager into the world looking for a new home and community, not crawling and maddened by your suffering but, quite obviously, straight of back and trained to fight and kill with your bare hands.  Signore Simonuccio has been very transparent about his creed - one that does not play well in Verezzo, and if he had sought to kill a thousand innocents he might find very stiff opposition. But he is not contending to do so - he is accusing  you  and you alone, you the only one on trial, you who has tried repeatedly in the last minutes to avoid answering my questions and instead to indict a man  not on trial  for crimes he  has not committed .  So no , Nee-Ruh-Kaha, as the skaven know you; you are not being tried for wiping filth from the face of a filthy rat; but it does lend you some suspicion, would you not agree?  And however keenly you protest, saying you are one of us and not one of them, I wonder if you can really hide when confronted with the truth..."   He snaps away the sheet from the stretcher.  An anticipatory gasp rolls through the crowd.

A heap of lumpen pillows there; nothing more.

Tordemondo leans a little forward, as if trying to stare past your eyes into your soul.

  "...Are you surprised, signorina?  What did  your mind  think you were about to see?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia secretly thanked Myrmidia that she had fortified her outward expressions in preparation for viewing a dead Skaven - one that she knew and, regrettably, had an emotional connection with.

But it was not so.

It was a trick.

Another deception. Another underhanded lie.

Simonuccui and his disgusting creed had deliberately erected a façade, one intended to draw a deep emotional reaction from her.

Well, they got one.

Taalia erupted in laughter.

She doubled over forward, eyes winced shut, chortling heartily as Tordemondo stood before her wearing the guise of a serious man.

 "Hah hah hah hah! That's it?! That's your evidence that I am in league with the Skaven?!"  Taalia laughed when she had recovered, her hand gesturing to that collection of pillows.

 "I am lured to Verezzo under  false pretenses!  I am accused of being a spy with NO evidence other than I washed away filth from a valuable intelligence asset,"  Taalia made a physical motion of wiping with her right hand.

 "Only to be seized by a man who admits he'd kill innocents, held in a prison for a fortnight, and then brought to a courtroom where the evidence against me....is a pillow?!" 

Taalia laughed hard, her hands on her tummy as her eyes winced and she doubled over before she corrected herself, wiping a tear away from her eye.

 "What, Singore Tordemondo? You brought some pillows here hoping I would go take a nap when you bore everyone to sleep with your bull sh!t?" 
MrAbdiel
 You cannot be certain how the Senate is taking your defense.  The mocking dismissiveness of the stretcher ploy - which enough of the Senate understood just as you did was just as likely to have the body of Rashabang on it - might be received as exhausted good humor, or an irreverent failure to stay gripped to the gravity of the proceedings.  Your efforts to be relatable might be enhanced with the common folk in the gallery by your swerves to vulgarity, but perhaps hampered by it in the Senate - it's just hard to tell.  You are set in your chair facing the accuser's table, which gives you a view of most of the gallery, the bickering blues and greens, and the edge of the red senator block with the young floundering senator and his elegant mature courtesan.  Behind you, out of your sight, is Groccolo and the yellows, whose votes are most critical; and if you were to look back at them, it would not be obvious if they were greatly moved.  But you have not buckled, or fallen into any traps that you can see - you do not think you have damaged your case for innocence, and if enough of them have souls not to throw your life away on such a spurious charge right now, you might live till tomorrow.

Tordemondo gives you the kind of dry smile that is unsettling in a subtle way; the kind you might imagine on the face of a pirate who has fired two pistols, missing a target who grows bold enough to then charge - not knowing a third pistol hides in his coat.

  "A fascinating response.  I've never known a sane woman in fear for her life to laugh so heartilly.  But I suppose you have answered some of my questions - those you have not writhed away from with your appeals.  I have no further questions for you."  

This is a lie.  As you are rising, as the stretcher and its ruse is removed from the room, as he is walking back to his bench, he pauses and turns, snapping his fingers as if he had just remembered.

  "Oh - oh, there was one more question, mia scusi... You said you and the skaven who was with you emerged from the underground tunnels in the woods near Bella Collina - you remarked on their beauty quite poetically.  I would have asked Signora Lilli Citti this question also, but I felt the answer was obvious.  She escaped her captors in the stinking swamp and could hardly be expected to venture back in to such a dangerous realm, even if it were mapped.  But, given that you hate and loathe the ratmen, and that you wish only good and not ill for your new village, you must certainly have gone back to that exit tunnel and seen it demolished or collapsed, yes?"  

Silence in the chamber.  As the question resolves in your forebrain and you marshall a response, he continues redoubled before you can speak.

  "Or, failing that and forgiving you for being in pain and shock from your ordeal, you must have gone back to do so in the weeks following.  Or enlisted the help of a demolitionist in Verezzo when you were here previously, or gone back and searched and failed tragically to find that opening.  You must certainly have done  something  to insulate your new home from this opening into the earth which you  knew  exposed the people of Bella Collina to considerable threat.  Because it would be hard to imagine someone who hated and feared these monsters ignoring such an obvious threat for two years while she enriches herself on the kindness of those same men and women under threat.  You certainly did  something ... didn't you?"  

Ah, there it is - the third pistol, and a very good question.  It forces a dramatic constrast - from a question you elected not to take seriously at all, to one deathly serious indeed.

In the gallery, you see Gaulfredo glance to Nogrom, and then to his other side to Bella, and then back to you with blank faced confusion.  It's something he had never thought to ask, and you see guilt in his face for not asking it.  And it troubles him, because he doesn't know the answer.

 Do you?  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 
 "A fascinating response. I've never known a sane woman in fear for her life to laugh so heartilly. But I suppose you have answered some of my questions - those you have not writhed away from with your appeals. I have no further questions for you." 

Taalia was in her recovery phase, wiping away a tear and shaking her head.

 "No no, Singore Tordemondo..."  she gestured with a waving hand.

Some might think it to be a plea for a moment to explain, but things quickly showed otherwise.

 "I don't know where I am from: the Norscans burned my village and pressumably killed my family..."  she started, 'sobering' up, the tragedy of her words more than enough for one life time.

 "I was then kept by Norscan thanes who beat me, abused me and used me..."  from the lips of a girl her age, a very uncomfortable set of words to consider,  "...before they sold me to the Skaven..."  as if things could not get any worse.

 "I then endured ten years of..."  Taalia physically struggled to come up with a fitting word,  " horror . A  nightmare  I pray no one endures. I spent my tenth birthday, if it even was that day, escaping a fellow slave who had gone mad from his indenture and tried to...." 

Again, another awful insintuation hung in that pregnant pause.

 "I finally receive Myrmidia's blessing; freedom!"  she looks hopeful.

 "Two years of beautiful freedom amojng a people I could not  ask  for better company!" 

She chuckled again, shaking her head.

 "Only to be hauled before the court on trial for being a spy...and the evidence against me...is a pillow!"
 
She snickered again, shaking her head and wiping a tear away from her face.

 "And no, Singore Tordemondo, I told our Road Warden, Singore Bertuccio, about the tunnels exit. I had to learn Tilean, this beautiful, human language I now speak. Once I became fluent, I told Singore Bertuccio about the tunnel, and he assured me that he would investigate it." 

The girl allowed a pregnant pause to linger in the air as she shrugged.

 "This was before the Witches Moon took him. I escaped from a decade of servitude. I survived a battle with four goblins, I met my adoptive family,"  Taalia looked to Gaulfredo in the stands where she smiled and did a little head gesture, a tear forming in the corner of her eye.

 "I stumbled around barely knowing the language, only able to discern what people wanted by their body language before I could became fluent. Then once I had become able to express myself, I told our protective authority about the tunnel from which I escape, and he assured me he would investiate it. I told him this before I put my life on the line defending my new community against a troll, which I threw myself at with not even a weapon in my hands..." 

Another pregnant pause to linger.

 "Have you ever fought a  troll  before, Singore? With nothing but your bare hands?" 

Another pause, allowing the sheer insane ballsiness of such a move to sink in.

 "I have. And I did it for Bella Collina, the town that took me in when no one else would, and whom showed me nothing but love and affection I put my life on the line to protect the only people in this world that have shown me kindness!"  she insisted, her tone having grown more severe.

 "You want to see, Singore Tordemondo?"  Taalia asked.

Once again, the girl entered salacious territory - a move that no prisoner had likely dared on the stand, nor so dramatic example. It was one thing to hear about the cruelty of the Skaven, it was another to  see  it in person, and inflicted on a  child .

 "This..."  Taalia reached up and started to undo the front of her clothes while also slowly turning around. She timed it all so that by the time she had turned around, she revealed her back to Tordemondo and the crowd of senators and onlookers - those who would decide her fate - the awful, sympathy-inducing network of scar tissue and whipped-in scars across the her back, shoulders and lumbar spine.

It was an ugly, horrifying image, and imagined so inflicted on a child.

 " This  is to whom you argue I owe allegiance!" 

And Singore lumbar Tordemondo received a front-row seat to what he was sending to be burned alive.
MrAbdiel
 Your compelling plea, you must hope, moves the hearts of some senators; it does not seem to move Tordemondo.

 "Please, signorina, cover yourself again for decency's sake!  No one has made the charge that you have not suffered - suffering is one of the chief midwives to the birth of many great traitors and monsters.  But I am pleased to hear that you told Signore Bertuccio about this serious breach in our land's security - shortly before bringing a mutant back to town, forever undermining any confidence people might have had in him against the advice of your dwarven friend, ruining his life and driving him off to obscurity.  We have searched for the former road warden, eager to hear his opinion of you - but he is nowhere that we can find, which might be convenient indeed as the only person in the world whom you thought to warn about the rat tunnel in the years you have been no one's slave!  Now, Signorina Giovanni, I have no more questions for you." 

This is a much more devastating blow than anything else you have been asked.  Given the build up you have given the skaven - the weight you have laid on their evil and cruelty, even showing your own scars - you look over the Senators and can  see  a caving in their collective confidence; as if a response to an enemy so brutal should be nothing short of frantic, and constant, and desperate; more than alerting a warden and then moving on, which is the manner Signore Tordemondo has cleverly arranged the facts to be viewed.  He has done good work with you as he has with the Matrona; undermining the strong and clear messages you have offered with a bamboozling, dramatic indictment which, being more inflammatory and recent to their ears, carries more weight.  The Green seem to be pulling away from the negotiations with the Blue, now; the Red seem to be calcifying in their position (except the young cassonova who, apparently having offended his courtesan in some way, has lost interest in the trial entirely trying to convince her not to leave).  The yellow around Groccolo are fractious and argumentative; some, perhaps, breaking ranks.

Damio follows Tordemondo, but the fact is you have acquitted yourself well enough, and exposing the truth of your condition and case, that he does not have questions much to ask; though he has you return to, and underlike pertinent facts hoping to take the edge of Tordemondo's damage.  You told the only authority figure you knew about the hazard, and trusted it to be taken care of.  You do not consider the rat prisoner a person to whom you might show loyalty, but merely the least bad of an infinitely bad species given that he played an part in incidentally saving your life - and being human, you cannot ignore that, vermin though he is.  You have fought and bled for Bella Collina, and not had a moment's contact or engagement with the skaven since your freedom, up until you were invited to Lilli Citti's project.  As Damio leads you back to the bench, you can see he is pale and sweating again.  He gives your shoulder an awkward, limp wristed pat that is intended to be reassuring.    "I think that we might have held on, for the day.  You were very courageous."  

And then Tordemondo calls for a summary vote, given the end of the day's proceedings; and the clerk in white calls for those who consider you guilty of the charges to raise hands, and counts them.  A disheartening many hands go up, and the clerk gives his summary.

Twenty Nine Reds; the whole block.
Eight of the Blue.
Eleven of the Green; all but one.
And seven of the Yellow faction have broken faith.

Fifty five of eighty two votes.  Just above two thirds.

Four of the senatorial guard begin filing past the gallery as the crowd stirs in bewilderment and slowbuilding uproar.  The clerk in white begins scribbling a formal record, in preparation to announce your guild formally.  Senators begin to rise from their seats, the matter all but dealt with.

Signora Citti covers her mouth with her hands, her eyes fearful and fixed on you in horror and despair.  Damio sits with his face in his hands, elbows on the bench infront of him.  Polo is unable to look at you; so he is ready for the distraction when he hears Gaulfredo calling to him above the hubbub.  When he looks back, and you follow his gaze, you see your friend, and defacto father Gaulfredo flagging to Polo with his hands, frantically; holding up the digits of one hand, knocking them down with the other, pointing at the senators' seats.  Gaulfredo is illiterate, but you know him to be extremely numerate; Polo elbows Damio, they share a word, and Damio fires to his feet calling with his cracking voice:

  "I call for a recount of votes, given the margin and the gravity of the matter!"  

Tordemondo and his confederates seem to suspect something, but can hardly object; and the senate hall quiets again as the clerk counts more meticulously.

Only twenty  eight  red.  The whole of their block; but the young romantic is absent, apparently having chased his departing paramour our of the senate during Damio's respondant questions of you.  Fifty  four  votes.  Just shy of two thirds.

  "I move for an adjustment of the quorum numbers and an immediate new vote!"  

The clerk in white scoffs.   "You ought to have done so before your vote, Signore Tordemondo.  The session is already recessing; if the Reds can't keep their senators in their seats, that's hardly the problem of the  accusata .  Try again tomorrow."   He tears up the parchment record he was preparing to sign, and the dramatic reversal of fortune sends the senators into a buzzing tizzy and the gallery into jubilation.  Polo gives you a shaking hug.

 "Close!  Very close.   Oh, my.  Oh, my.  Well, that's the worst they have.  If even one of the yellow faction gets back on track tomorrow, I think we're back from the brink." 
 * * * * * 
Spared the pyre by a narrow margin that might have been ruined by a little less passion on your part, or a little more guile on Tordemondo's, or a young red Senator who was a little more interesting to his date, you are sent back to your cell for another evening - though you are only just inside the lowest floor of the tower with the doors locked behind you when your handlers, the same sergeant from your arrest and two other guards, spot just as you do that something is wrong.  This low floor is usually guarded; but no one is at their post here; and a clatter mischief echoes from up the steps.  "I don't like this," the sergeant says, giving you an uneasy look and then leading your small party of wardens and prisoner up the stairs at  double-time.  The man has been reasonable enough to you since you arrived here; stolid, obedient to his task, if not as movable to your pleas as you might have liked; but he seems atleast to take his task of protecting the world from prisoners seriously; and also to keep his prisoners alive.  He is cautious to keep you between guards as you move, which seems as much for your protection as to prevent you from trying to escape through a locked door with your hands in manacles.

You don't quite make it to your floor before you run into the chaos of it all. In the antechamber of a cell just like yours, in a room with a now overturned wooden table and broken wooden furniture, a skirmish plays out between two forces - the tower guards, and the masked and black-clad runner rats whom you last remember from your nightmares, and before that hewing through the rat-slaves of Rashabang behind you, nailing you in the shoulder with a thrown blade as a parting gift from the Under-Empire.  The guards are better armored; but these rats are killers all, with poisoned blades and breathtakingly smooth killing movements.  Of the six guards engaged in the room, one is already staggering back to the wall and sliding town,clutching his throat; the six gutter runners have taken no casualties to speak of.

 "Damn!  Get in there!  Go!"   The sergeant barks to his two men, who draw their short swords and charge into the mess of it all. With one fist, he holds the chain leading to your manacles; the other hand is on his own sword, and he locks eyes with you.  He desperately wants to aid the others in the fight - but dares not release you to your own recognisance, let alone arm you...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Oh, Rats 
It's all happening agaaaain!

Roll initiative.  Also, before combat begins, you can take one action.  You might wish to try to charm the sergeant into trusting you to join the fight under this unusual circumstance. You might wish to do so, but lie, and take off back down the stairs as soon as he releases your chain.  You might wish to try to wrestle his sword away from him so you have the power, and he doesn't.  But there's rat-assassins present in the room, so decide what you'd like to do before we enter initiative and then we will jump in!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Few things shocked Taalia these days, given that what she had gone through in life. Hell, she had witnessed the summoning of the Great Horned Rat in person and the throat-slit pile of corpses required to conjure it forth into the mortal world.

Yet, when the senators votes came in they were  even more  in favour of declaring her guilty, the white-grey haired girl look visibly punched in the stomach.

What was the evidence against her?

Eh....Simonucci said so.

What was the evidence  for  her?

Everything else.

What was the verdict of almost 2/3 of the senators?

Guilty. Totally guilty.

If ever Taalia had looked utterly defeated, eyes wide and demoralised, mouth agape in shock, it was when she was standing in that booth and hearing the decisions of the senators.

The rest was just white noise, really. Gaulfredo's observation, the technicality. All of it, just a whine in Taalia's ear as her mind went over the situation, how utterly apathetic, hell  antagonistic  the senators were to her situation. So willing to send her to get burned alive because...what? The words of Simonucci? A man who openly before them said he'd willingly kill as many innocent people as necessary to get what he wanted?

Even the yellow faction.  Her  faction. The faction that drew its domains over her own region. Did they stick up for her? Nope. They were too worried about  maybe ,  possibly , having this used against them in a campaign trail... perhaps . So best let her burn to death, just in case.

And the blue faction? The 'forward thinking progressives' of the era? Boasting so pridefully about the number of women in their ranks, including one who was half-Tilean, half-Estelian. They had witnessed everything about her. Where she had come from. How she had been treated. The adversity she had overcome. What she had made for herself in a still-male world at her tender age.

Their thoughts? Nah, burn her. Just to be sure. Eight of them wanted to see her burn alive for the great crime of being suspected by a homicidal maniac with no evidence outside 'he felt like it'.

The words of a  divine priestess , with a success rate of 99.97%? Nah, burn her.

A witch hunter with a success rate nowhere near that? Yeah, he must be right, burn her.

Taalia was in a daze as she was led away from the stand, just a dumb-struck daze. Anyones voice would have been little more than white noise as the otherworldly zone out was clear on her face and eyes.

But, the attack by the assassins shook her out of it. Immediately survival cast aside any longterm thoughts to her situation or the philosophical bewilderment of the authorities that reigned over her.

Where could she go?

If she fled, she'd be held up as a traitor either way. Either the guards prevailed in which case they were  obviously  coming to rescue her. Or she fled, in which case she was  obviously  given her opening.

The only path she had before her was death. Nothing else. She was either burned alive or died on the assassins blade.

Everything she'd accomplished, everything she'd dragged herself up from hell to achieve, was all for naught. Nothing meant anything. The Tileans and Skaven could butcher each other as far as she was concerned.

But survival pushed her, it rose up in the back of her brain and seized control of her body when reason told her that all hope was lost.

 "Look out!!"  She screamed to a guard who was momentarily distracted, an assassin drawing up closer on a sword-arm without a protective shield, her warning hopefully what made the difference between life and death.

She ran back towards the stairs...but paused at the top. She didn't run down them any further, she stayed. If she was unable to move, then she turned to face them.

 "SKAVEN! ASSASSINS! TO ARMS!"  she  screamed  down those stairs towards the guards through the veritable echo-chamber of the stairwell below at the top of her lungs.
MrAbdiel
 Your voice rings down the squared spiral of the tower, as the combat rages on nearby. You cry out a warning to one guard who startles from your shout just enough that he avoids a fatal dagger strike which scrapes off his boiled leather breastplate, permitting him to land a slashing blow on the squealing assailant's forearm.  The guards largely hold their own where they face off against the enemy; but where they seem to be perhaps superior face to face combatants, the gutter runners are not beyond leaping away from their engagements to strike at the backs of enemies engaged in what seem otherwise to be duels between rats and men.  One such assassin launches away, avoiding his opposite number's stabbing blow, only to land on the back of another guard and send him stumbling and reeling, blood flying as the dagger rams into the back of his shoulder.

The sergeant looks at you - impressive as you are, and reported to be quite fierce - but can't bring himself to arm you, even if he cannot afford to let you go.

 "Prisoner!  Hold this!"   He commands, scooping up a shield knocked away from the fallen guard and pushing it into your hands.  You can't strap it to your arms in the shackles, but you can hold it infront of you for a modicum of protection, atleast.   "Stay behind me!"   And then he moves into the room, dragging on your shackle chain, compelling you into the bedlam of the room...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Unless... 
Unless Taalia is going to dig in her heels and refuse to enter this zone of danger, if she's really willing to let the rats go their deeds here without striking against them while she can.  She may be that embittered about the world right now, in which case we'll need to do some opposed strength checks as he tries to drag you in.  But I'm trusting Taalia will, reluctantly, join the fight against the rats; or at least not impede the sergeant trying to save his men, full defending while they do the killing!
 


The sergeant hacks out with his sword and nicks the shoulder of one of the black-clad Skaven; it turns to square off against you... and its beady red eyes glare balefully at you as it chitters its loathing.

 
 Spoiler: Queekish. 
 "Ah!  Rashabang's pet-slave!  Come back to die-die, like him?" 
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

A charge of satisfaction shot through Taalia's body as she watched the guard she had warned with her startling sudden yell, evade the stab of an assassin thanks to her capture of his notice. That he then brought his weapon around and hacked a piece off the rats forearm only exhilarated the shepardess further. She actually smiled.

But, with little but her grey jumpsuit, she was in no real fit position to fight anything. Particularly not trained Skaven assassins dual-wielding daggers. But what other choice did she have?

If she fled, she'd either die with a blade in her back or the authorities would catch her and hold it as evidence that she was in league with them, and burn her.

If she stayed and fought, she might at least take one of the disgusting rat-men down, however insignificant its loss would be to the greater whole of the Skaven people.

 "Prisoner! Hold this! Stay behind me!" 

Taalia didn't have to be told twice - she wasn't stupid.

Receiving that shield, she grasped its straps with her shackled hands and drew herself close to the Sergeant - using her new item/weapon to shield from incoming attacks against both herself and him. If the Skaven focused on her, that was one less attacking the men.

But then she noticed something about the melee. She spotted how the men in armor were, toe-to-toe, better fighters, but the Gutter Runners were using their agility to dart back and forth.

Brandishing that shield up and covering the sergeant, Taalia moved behind him.

 "Look!"  she said,  "Your men are better fighters, but the Skaven are darting about - try and form ranks and pin them down!"  she said, right as one of the assassins drew its black-hooded, beady-eyed muzzled face in her direction.

&lt;"Ah! Rashabang's pet-slave! Come back to die-die, like him?"&gt;

Taalia narrowed her eyes - and  Hock-Spat!  at the Skaven.

OOC:

Taalia is using that shield and going Full Defence this turn, to inflict 20% WS penalty on attackers, like the one she doubtless just aggravated.
MrAbdiel
 Mad with the insult of your expectoration, the night runner launches toward you, dagger in one hand, fighting claw in the other; and you reel back as the claw sparks off the rim of the borrowed shield and rakes down the face of it.  The sergeant grunts and chops down, missing with his first swing but catching another runner closing in from the side with the backswing and lacerating its chest with a satisfying verminous mewl out of the beast.  Throughout the melee, the guard's mail armor and defensive play seems to be likely to carry the day; the rats score odd blows hither and thither, but they fight a losing battle.  Which begs the question what they are doing here, precisely.

This is a question answered a moment later when an explosion shatters the roof above, raining smoking debris down into the melee below but fortunately not near to the door where you stand.  Guards reel and stumble; night runners cover their noses and squint tightly through the haze as the deafening sound rings its way out of everyone's ears.  In the muddy, muted follow through to the explosion, you see two fingers come crashing down through the new cavity in the ceiling from the room above; both known to you and well hated in your heart.  The first is The Assassin; his face wrapped in black cloth like the others but immediately recognizable to you by the blinded eye on the left and the drool soaking through where your opportunistic toss of the poison globe melted away much of that cheek long ago.  He sails backward through the air in a reverse sommersault, using the torque of the spin to whip a slim black dagger back at his pursuer.  Simonuccio plunges after him; not as acrobatic, but impressively driven and skillful as his rapier swipe clips the thrown dart in the air and sends it tumbling askew to one side.  The both hit the ground and continue their contest uninteruped; the assassin's long knives oozing neon green venom, sparking off the witchhunter's rapier and small axe.

You know how deadly the assassin is.  On your first encounter, you scarred and wounded him with an opportunity strike with a strange and deadly weapon; on your second, you escaped only because of his need to hew through numerous mangy rat-slaves to get toward you and Rashabang.  You might have doubted any human could keep up with the violence of such a creature; but Simonuccio, for all his failings, possesses a deep well of violence of his own.  They move through the combat as if the other combatants are almost incidental; each lashing out with a blow deadly enough to kill an opponent any slower than they turn out to be, deflecting or dodging by slim margins.  Another inverted somersault toward the door and a pair of knives whip toward the witch hunter, but he is no longer where they were aimed, and they hammer into the wooden door at the far end of the room.  An an instinctive guess, locked in a pit and made to fight, you would expect the assassin to come out on top; but the witch hunter of Solkan is still a hurricane of steel and human malice, apparently having learned combat arts sufficient to preserve his life against foes even as deadly as this.

You wonder, if you had decided to pull the trigger on the blunderbuss, if you would have blown him apart; or if he would have swerved out of the line of fire as your finger twitched to loose the shot.  Can he move like the rats do as a blessing from his god?  Did he simply  learn  to be so deadly?

Could  you? 

So wrapped up are they in their contest of skill - the assassin trying to establish distance to escape, the witchhunter pursuing the rat in black like a hound from hell - that they blow by your own combat and out into the corridor, then start curling around up the stairs again to the floor they have just fallen from.  Simonuccio doesn't give you a glance - he may not be able to afford to - but for a moment, the Rat in Black's lone eye flits its attention to you, flashes with recognition, and then looks away again; unable to spare focus for you however much it might have longed to make you suffer.

And then the combatants are back to their feet, brawling again; at the rear of the room, the wounded guard who has forfeit his shield to you lets out a defiant cry and plunges his sword through the stomach of one runner - the first casualty of the combat.  Meanwhile, a fighting claw is trying to hook aside your shield once more to open your guard!

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Some cinematic flair.  The rat upon whom you spat (not to be confused with the cat in the hat) fails to land a blow on your defendy self.  The guards seem to be winning - it's a matter of time before they overwhelm the rats, at this rate.  But now there are two rats in melee with you and the sergeant, both of whom are lightly lacerated.  You can lash out, or defend again!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

The explosion deafened the girl as she ducked when the roof caved in - the shattered fragments of masonry battering off of her shield and protecting her from the worst of it. She stuck close to the sergeant, her teeth gritted and her shield coming up to get between an assassins knife and her own body as the rat-man she spat on flailed at her with a deep-seated hatred only an insulted narcissist could muster.

But what she did  not  expect was the two figures that came crashing through the melee - the Assassin and Simonucci.

Personally, it was a shame that both of them survived the explosion. Though she was fated to be burned, the girl would have gone to the pyre with at least a little bit of satisfaction knowing that the bastard who sent her there had received his just deserts.

But as the guards regained their positions, standing up from the blast that had knocked them all down, Taalia recovered quick enough to help drag the Sergeant to his feet.

 "Come'on, up!"  she encouraged - bringing her shield up in time to block an incoming blow from one of the Skaven as she lashed out, trying to kick the thing away. She caught it by the shin, but her foot only glanced against that spry, bone appendage and had little impact.
MrAbdiel
  
 Spoiler: OOC: Oh no, Defenses! 
The bad news is, you don't get a free parry when you are just wielding a shield. You need to take Parry Stance unless you are wielding it with a sword or dagger or similar; Full Defense isn't enough!

The good news is you weren't actually struck, the claw scraping on the shield trying to pull it aside was me being dramatic about the rat missing because of the Full Defense you took, so you didn't need to spend that fate point to defend, so all's well that ends well.
 


You lash out at your attacker, failing to land a telling blow as it strives to find a way to strike at you around you shield - but then at the sound of a shrill, blown whistle, the nightrunners intentions change; and as one, they begin breaking off from combat and skitter-leaping up through the hole in the roof, using their daggers and fighting claws to scramble up and away to the floor above.  The sergeant manages to hack down your Spit-Faced nemesis as it turns to flee; but four of the lesser assasins steal away to the floor above with their various wounds, leaving the two dead behind them.  "Go!  Go, up the stairs!  They're trying to escape!", the sergeant calls to his subordinates; and the four guards who are not nursing heavy, bleeding wounds rush to the exit and start winding up the stairs.

But there is no catching them; they are up, and gone; and the sergeant, who has been overhearing your trial, enlists your aid tending to the wounds of the slashed guards until a physician arrives with his kit to attend them.

Later, you would learn they fled up, and out; through the roughly patched hole in Rashabang's cell wall, presumably the way they got in.

  "They got what they came for..."    A sullen, panting Simonuccio informs the sergeant; behind him, two guards carry a stretcher with a lumpen mass covered in a linen sheet.  This time, you are certain it is not a mess of pillows.  Once the hubbub dies down, there is nothing left to do but to escort you back to your cell.  The sergeant - his name turns out to be Mauro - removes your shackles.  Perhaps he intuits something about your mood, or else imagines it; but he offers rather spontaneously:

 "If they hadn't got in that way, they would have made another way in." 

This seems likely.  The Rat in Black had carried one grenade which he used to blow open the floor to provide extraction for his underlings; he might well have packed another and used it to get in.  Either way, he would have ended up in Rashabang's cell as he had, completing his dark work long stalled; either extinguishing the old debt he had to murder the old engineer or else tasked perhaps to eliminate the skaven prisoner whose existence was now public gossip in Verezzo.

 * * * * * 
The following day, the third of your trial, witnesses resume.  Polo offers an explanation.

 "With a narrow margin on the vote like that, Tordemondo must fear Groccolo has whipped his defectors back into line, and must push harder for his scheme of events - not to mention, he needs an opportunity to spin last night's attack as some attempt to help you.  He will likely call Simonuccio to make that lie - keep heart, lovely Taalia; they have squeezed every fear available and stoked the mob-panic that is in the heart of even rich men, and it hasn't been enough.  Now it may be a long batter, in which sense may yet prevail." 

Strangely, though, Tordemondo  does not  call Simonuccio to the stand.  This puzzles your whole defence team.  Who better to pronounce with convinction that the rats had come to rescue you or eliminate you as a loose end?  Yet he sits, arms folded, at the accuser's table; a storm in his eyes, barely paying attention to the proceedings.  Instead, Tordemondo calls a different withness - Mauro.

 * * * * *  
"...And to your knowledge, they broke into the tower through the window broken wide by the  accusata ?" 
 "That seems to be the case, yes.  They entered the cell of the skaven prisoner, killed him, and then began ransacking the upper levels of the tower.  We suspect they were looking for the information gathered on the skaven language by Signora Lilli Citti already, but that was moved to another location already during the  accusata's  arrest." 
  "And we are to understand they attempted also to kill Taalia, but were thwarted and driven off by the tower guards and Padrone Simonuccio, isn't that so?"  

Mauro frowns a little; but he is a jailer, not a wordsmith, and he concedes.

 "Yes." 

It takes Damio, on respondant questioning, to catch and clear this confusion.

  "Is it your opinion as a fighting man that these skaven had come to assassinate Taalia, or was she just another human present in the fight?"  
 "No, I mean to say... I had custody of her and couldn't let her go; so she followed me into the combat as I asked, without a weapon to defend herself.  Spat in the face of one of the rats, which we killed together.  They didn't seem to target her specifically, no.  She even helped staunch the bleeding on some of the other guards.
 She's been a, ah... model prisoner.  Except for blowing the hole in the wall at the start of it all." 
  "Oh, yes; the little demolition that Signore Tordemondo is determined to cast as an effort to allow the assassins in; assassins he is also implying were there to kill her.  You were a bodyguard before you were a jailor, Signore Mauro - did you ever hear of a client who was so desperate to be assassinate that they blew a hole in their own wall - or an assassin that, seeing their target, made only the most lukewarm effort to kill them, when provoked?"  
 "No.  No, sir.  Honestly, it seems like she didn't matter much at all to the rats.  The leader spent much more time trading blows with the witch hunter, though to be fair he was running away while the Simonuccio was giving chase." 
 * * * * * 
A good outcome, your team thinks.  Tordemondo really expected to get over the line with the last day's circus, and for some reason isn't putting Simonuccio on the stand again for another round of questions even if he seems expert at scaring the senators into his way of thinking.

Tordemondo has one more witness up his sleeve - another surprise you had not expected.  Every eye in the  building turns to watch the stranger move down the aisle toward the witness chair; a woman tall and slender, but somehow alien in her grace; with eyes like black pearls and ears rising to points like knives.

Iyaseanna, Elven Bounty Hunter, gives you an indecipherable glance as she takes the witness seat.

 * * * * * 
It's an outrageous play - most humans do not get along well with elves, and so Tordemondo must imagine he has something quite damning from such a witness - but what must she be gaining, to allow herself to be swept up in such a proceeding?  Do elves care for the courts of men?
  
"Do you know the accusata, Singora Iyaseanna?"  
 "No.  Not in any personal way.  I took note of her when she started to operate in the realm of Bella Collina.
 I spoke to her once on the road while I was pursuing a fugitive thief for a bounty I was seeking to collect." 
  
"Ah; did she help you make your apprehension, model citizen and prisoner as we are told she is?"  
 "No.  She told me she had seen the fugitive fleeing further south; and I wagered even odds she was telling the truth, and continued my search." 
  
"And what turned out to be the case?"  
 "The fugitive had not gone that way.  I later discovered that Taalia turned in the bounty on the stolen goods herself, presumably after confiscating them from the fugitive." 

Tordemondo tuts.  Unable to elevate his case that you are a skaven spy without some hard evidence, he is forced to try to undermine Damio's counter arguement that you are a good and fine citizen of Verezzo, and he is doing so by impugning your honesty.

  
"And the fugitive theif?  Did they meet justice?"  

The elf shrugs.   "The bounty wasn't for the thief; it was for the stolen goods.  Once the bounty was turned it, I saw no fruit in tracking that individual any further." 
  
"Unfortunate.  Theives deserve punishment.  But that's another matter.  I wonder, have you any experience dealing with skaven, Signora bounty hunter?"  
 "I have dealt with them, yes.  They are a remarkable menace on in cities of men." 
  
"Indeed, indeed; and in your experience, is it unusual for the skaven to use humans as... agents?  Pawns?  
 "They frequently use humans in this way.  Typically using blackmail to force them to action - infecting a family member and withholding medicine, for example.  Compulsive magics and chemicals are within their arsenal also.  They are cunning and ruthless creatures." 

The elf's description is almost bland, and perfunctory.  Tordemondo has managed to minimize her 'elfishness' which might be odious to some in the senate assembly; but desperate moves involve managed risk, and sometimes it does not pay off.

  "So Taalia Giovanna, the  accusata , could well be an agent of the skaven, compelled in some way by these monsters."  
 "Unlikely, considering she spends her private hours refurbishing a shrine of  Verena Triumphant. " 

The look on Tordemondo's face seems to suggest this was not the answer he was expecting.

  "Well, I suppose a good spy must go to great lengths to maintain their cover.  No further questions."  

Damio and Polo watch Tordemondo's retreat from this turn, share a confused look, and Damio rises cautiously to offer his respondant questions.  He does not seem to know what he is looking for - only that something important has transpired, he he ought to chase it.  The same is true of almost everyone in the room.

 "We've already heard that Taalia is charitably giving her time to restoring a shrine she has discovered - something one would expect only of someone with loyalty to the gods.  Is there... something remarkable about this Shrine of Verena?" 
 "Not Verena,"  the elf corrects.  Now the flat affect of her voice seems to have gained a cold, humored edge.   "Verena Triumphant.  I recognized the markings within; much of the script within is Eltharin.  But I recommend asking your the Matrona about the goddess, to apprehend the important detail." 
 * * * * * 
Matrona da Motiano is delighted to return to the witness chair - now that the tides have turned, and she is not being publically betrayed by a colleague.

 "Verena Triumphant is an aspect of Verena that is not commonly represented because of the loss of the texts about her significance.  It is a tenet of Verena not to forget or lose information, but certainly not to fabricate it - with such knowledge lost, there is little to do but wait for the mother of truth to reveal it again.  We cannot in good faith run doctrine, let alone found orders, off secondary sources and legend.
But based on the signora bounty hunter's description, this is a quite exciting little discovery." 
  "I wonder why it might be so relevant to the matter at hand, noble Matrona.  Perhaps you might speculate for us?"    Damio of course knows, by this point; he and the Matrona exchanted excited words before she was called up to the chair.

 "Certainly.  Verena Triumphant is the aspect of Verena in war; the corrective force of violence.  Law applied at the level of nations, and peoples.  It is understood that this warrior mantle was passed to her daughter Myrmidia in time; but prior to that, there are secondary sources that claim an ancient order of her clerics once enacted a miraculous ritual that devastated warhost of skaven who imperilled an elven trade settlement in what is now Luccini.  The elves were filled with such respect for the activity of a human divinity that they constructed shrines up and down the peninsula in her honor using their advanced arts and skills; though they have been thought either mythical or universally plundered in earlier, ignorant times for their marble.  Humans have largely forgotten Verena Triumphant; though the elves haven't.  And it seems unlikely the Skaven have." 

Again, you feel the energy of the room change.  Tordemondo's respondant questions fall unremarkably - an attempt to underline how uncertain this is, how it is possible this is not such a shrine.  But given his previous remarks were thrusting towards the idea that you might be feigning piety at this shrine to cover sinister motives, his arguements ring hollow given that this apparently legendary aspect of Verena's primary myth is destroying Skaven - the least enticing divinity for a rat's paw to feign interest in.  Now it starts to feel like condemning you to execution might not be the safe option, the lesser of two evils; but dangerously close to blasphemy, given your now known story of emerging from captivity among the skaven and discoverying the shrine, instinctively working towards its restoration.  When it's laid out like that, it starts to sound like the start of a legend all of its own.

Damio sees his moment, and calls for a vote.  Tordemondo is afforded first remarks.

  "Noble senators; you and I have walked through this dark matter together knowing it to be a gloomy, instinct thing.  Knowing that your duty is the protection and health of Verezzo.  Each of you has taken office knowing they will be required to make difficult decisions - and here is one such decision.  Is it within the realm of possibility that young Taalia is what her litigant claims her to be - a simple girl, good to those around her, with no malice in her body for her fellow man?  Yes, it's possible.  But you must consider also the possibilities of danger, and your responsibility to hedge against it.  Given her time among the skaven, and her suspicious survival of their torments; given her unusual affection towards the skaven prisoner in a moment she thought private; given her inexplicable reluctance to pursue what seems to you and I to be a matter of terribly important security more than to offhandedly mention it to a road warden one time and never again... Can you take such a risk?  Are you willing to countenance a tomorrow  in which the skaven are crawling in  your  windows with their knives and grenades, and will you be sufficiently warmed to think 'ah, I did enough to protect my people'?  I think not.  No; no, I think not."  

Damio, still sweating and pale with the weight of responsibility, rises to make his own arguement.

  "The good Signore Tordemondo has returned over and over to one point, in this trial - and that point is fear.  Fear of a threat that might be; fear of the rats; fear of being wrong; fear of not doing enough.  And certainly there is much to fear; and I am myself a somewhat fearful man, I admit.  How I might like to be so natural to this, as Signore Tordemondo. But I am not; and giving this appeal before your noble factions is, I confess, a dread experience for me.  But I hope you hear me.  I hope, in contrast to fear, that what is obvious to me - a man who has come to know young Taalia some in the last two years, and anticipates knowing her in the years to come also - will be obvious to you.  Because this remarkable young woman has survived incredible suffering and indignity, with the comfort of family and home stripped from her; left to strive in darkness until she forgot the heat of the sun; and she has  yes,  miraculously endured where others have died in darkness.  But why are we so desperate to refuse to believe in a miracle of this kind?"    The sweating man with the unfortunate profusion of neck gestures to you, where you sit; and offers a frail smile.    Are we somehow better for being so cynical that we cannot believe someone might survive such a thing, and not be corrupted, and come out the otherside eager and strong keen to earn and learn and love?  Are we so black hearted now that we do not even  wish  to think that when a cousin, or friend, or a lowly constituent farmer is stolen away by the dread pirates, or the elven corsairs, or the Arabyan raiders, or the ratmen with their mischeif, that there may be hope even then in that terrible state of bondage?  We have not heard here any evidence to suggest young Taalia is anything but a survivor and a beloved countrywoman.  We have heard much fantastical speculation about what we might have to fear, if certain unseen and unprovable things turn out to be true.  But we have also heard that it is possible, provably so, for even the most low citizen of fair Verezzo, with only rags on her back, to find shelter, and community, and prosperity, and dignity, and purpose.  We, who have been born to or found in our lives wealth, may have lost touch with the truth of it, but that is itself the heart of the dream of our nation - the reason those before us threw down the prince and raised up a senate to represent the people in its place.  Because of a certain belief that individuals are not resources to be expended or risks to be mitigated but each a man or woman entitled to the fruit of their toil, and the simple dignity that comes from serving, and being served, by a community.  Have we fallen so far that our many good, demonstrated reasons for hope are swallowed up in baseless, animal fear?  I dare to hope not."  
 * * * * * 
Thirty Yellow.
Eleven Blue.
Six Green.
Fifteen Red.

The opposition block cracks; perhaps in part swayed by Damio's appeal; perhaps with superstitious dread about the shrine; perhaps for fear that, now the vote for guilty has vailed, they are better served expediting the end of the trial by swinging the other way. Whatever reasons they have, the votes tally to  sixty two  - well clear of the pass margin.  The clerk in white reads the tally, and probably announces that the verdict is innocent; but the implication precedes his words, and he is drowned out by the rowdy hooting of the Bella Collinans behind you; a passel of country hooligans whooping up the senate house as the senators begin gladhanding each other and chatting at the terminus of proceedings.

Tordemondo crosses to claim one of Damio's limp, sweaty handshakes.  His understudies begun folding away their resources and documents as if this were just the end of another day, and not a matter of life and death.  And Simonuccio, not raving or storming off in a huff; remains in his seat at the accuser's bench; fingers steepled in front of his lips, dwelling meditatively on his own thoughts. 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Gain 200XP for The Trial of Taalia Giovanni!

Ginormous post spanning several developments so I figure there's plenty to react to there, but you're home free - the sergeant will be returning your belongings, and you may feel free to describe Corvo spassing out in a manner of your choosing when you are reunited with him at the stables attached to the senate house.

Were there other outcomes available?  Why yes.  Yes there were.  So it wasn't totally a puppet show!
 But given that Taalia is somewhat incarcerated, I decided to chop events along to get your season of powerlessness across as quickly as was reasonably possible!
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

The rush of violence coursed through Taalia's body as she kept her left shoulder against the right of the Sergeants. Their embittered history aside, right now they were two humans standing against two Skaven, and as Taalia brought that shield a few centimeters to the left, then the right, then again an an angle, she held the rats at bay while the Sergeant brought his blade across and stabbed one right through its chest.

 "Grande!"  Taalia exclaimed, a wild grin across her face as her nervous system embraced 'fight' over flight.

BUt then that whistle. The girl had heard it before, but only once, back when she had poisoned the room full of rats and the aftermath in which that single ear-scraping sound recalled the agents of the hidden masters.

Watching as the Skaven fled and the healthy guards gave chase, Taalia scampered forward, making sure the coast was clear, before her attention immediately fell onto the two wounded guards, particularly the one with a cut across his throat.

 "Hold on Singore!"  she exclaimed, dashing down into a kneel by his side. The formerly wild-eyed teenager who reveled in the physical exertion of combat was gone, replaced by the gentle and soft features of a girl wearing her desperation and care on her sleeve.

 "Here, apply pressure!"  the shepardess uttered, tearing off some of the clothing around her arm and applying it to the wound on the mans throat. She knew she did not possess the tools to check whether an artery had been severed, but the fact that he was still in the realm of the living suggested that it had been damn close.

Breathing heavily, checking his vitals, holding his hand up to apply pressure to that makeshift bandage that stemmed the bleeding, Taalia took several moments to inspect elsewhere so that she could soon make a declaration, her face now a mask of happy relief.

 "I think you'll be alright! Hang in there singore!" 
 oOo 

Polo's explanation quite succinctly shined a spotlight on Taalia's lack of experience and...strategic thinking. She had approached her own defense with a  tactical  plan, to humanise herself. The intention behind this would have been more applicable to a local tribunal of civilian judges that lived and worked in the area and need not consider anything more, whose careers did not rely on the votes of wealthy citizens who would only hear rumors and hearsay about their conduct. Her efforts may have endeared senators to her on a personal level, enjoying the spectacle caused by a girl of obvious spirit and fire but also with a tragic story to tell who was now in a perilous situation, but it did not grasp the heart enough to stave of the fear and that old saying: better safe than sorry.

Sure, the senator might like her. He might even believe her and think her not a threat at all. But did his constituents feel the same way? They didn't see her, they didn't know her from a hole in the ground, which is where she'd come from as far as they knew. For the distant voter hearing tell-tale stories, it would mean nothing to them if some girl got thrown onto the pyre 'just in case', just a regrettable but necessary fortification, but it would mean everything to them if she was a security threat, willing or not.

Simonucci, odious sadist that he was, didn't have to  prove  she was a spy. Taalia and her backers had to  prove  that she wasn't. It was a subtle but powerful distinction that made the difference between life and death for many, with herself a potential candidate among that number.

But, on the other hand, it also showed to Taalia the ebbs and flows of the legal battleground and the crowds that populated it as strategic points to be captured. Tordemondo's best time to secure the outcome that he desired had been the prior day, and he had almost got it, but he was denied by a single vote. The young senator chasing his courtesans was the most obvious culprit that had fouled his hopes, but it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that had Taalia not delivered the wild and passionate self-defence of a girl her age, another few votes may have aligned against her. Taalia would like to think so, but she would never know.

In any case, Polo's observation prodded Taalia's realisation that yesterday's "increase" in her guilty vote, but not enough to secure a conviction, was also her silver lining. It had been devastating to her on the day as she felt as if her whole life on the surface had been repudiated, but that was her not thinking long-term strategically in the legal apparatus. She wasn't the only one with something to lose her, though it was certainly the gravest. The Yellow Faction stood to concede political territory if she was sent to the pyre by over-arching means that were outside of Taalia's current understanding. So, that thin-edged call had frightened the leaders of the Yellow group almost as much as it had her, and they had worked diligently to whip their own members back into line and make out-reaches to members of the other groups. Tordemondo had indeed missed his chance, and by the slimmest of margins, because now he also had a worried political faction working against him. He had not secured the required 2/3s of the vote on his best day, firing his best weapons with his best ammunition. What hope was there of new information arriving that could secure that condemning vote? He had won that battle, but the odds are he would lose the war.

Mauro's talk on Taalia's behalf brought a small smile to the girls face, and he certainly spoke well of her character and vigor against the Skaven. She had stood shoulder to shoulder with him against them without even being armed, she'd protected his life with a shield and when the smoke cleared she had hurried over to the wounded men to stem the bleeding and preserve their lives until better equipped medicinal staff could arrive. That the Skaven had not even tried killing her because they apparently didn't care about her was the cherry on top.

But then the elf entered and Taalia felt her stomach form a knot. She knew how skillful Tordemondo was at crafting the narrative he wanted with the spoken word. Taalia had been...alright, she had deceived the elf. There were no two ways about it. She had lied to the elf to save one of her own community.

But as it turned out, that didn't matter. Heck, the Elf didn't even seem to mind, nor did she apparently care that she had lost out on a rather healthy bounty because of it. Did the elf not care? Or did she tip the hat to a well-played game? Another mystery to which Taalia would never know the answer. However, it was here that Tordemondo over-played his hand, he tried [i]too/i] hard. The words of an elven bounty hunter admitting suspicion of the girl as a spy would certainly bury Taalia's case further, perhaps fatally so. The elves were regarded with fear and suspicion, but also a healthy degree of respect as the elder race. They knew things that humans did not, and would not for centuries to come. If an Elven bounty hunter had her suspicions, as did the Witch Hunter Simonucci - well what more was there? Better safe than sorry...

But instead she cleared her name.

 'Unlikely' .

Such a quick and certain dismissal by one whose profession was catching criminals and who knew the ways of Skaven was elevating for the shepardess' case. Humans feared the elves, but not enough that the two races had not worked together in the past, and only a madman would suspect that they would cover for a spy of the jointly hated Skaven.

But it was the words that came next that would prove to be the lifeline for her defence and a return of a prior good deed to bless her day. Recently it seemed that the good deeds of Taalia's past were coming back to ensure she was punished, but this time one became her savior: the restoration of the shrine.

That shrine, as it turned out, had been built by Elves in ages past, its health having declined as it sunk into the muck of the river to serve as a den for a disgusting troll - one that Taalia had slain. But her curiosity had led her to a restorative spirit, and she had even done so at great personal expense to reveal it was once a place of respect and minor worship and a sign of gratitude by the Elves for a cadre of human priests that had annihilated a Skaven warhost.

The fear of reprisals now swung in Taalia's favour. That she had escaped the grasp of those evil mongrels only to begin restoration of a shrine that celebrated their destruction and had done so without knowledge of its purpose before her commencement...the stars were in alignment. The Matrone all but said as such.

Where the senators might have felt it was safer to sacrifice Taalia to stave off destruction, now the fear was that by doing so they would invite the retribution of the gods or the absence of their favour during a critical time of need.

 'We sent you a prodigy to help you out and you burned her. So tough tits, you're on your own.' 

It secured the vote of her release. But the cynical voice in the back of Taalia's head that had been growing in strength these past two days whispered into her skull: they still acted out of fear. Damio's speech was nice, but Taalia didn't believe it was the final nail in the coffin. It was the fear of angering greater powers.

Fear.

When the verdict passed and Taalia's section of the crowd erupted, the girl sunk her face into her hands where she felt the hot tears smear against her features. How close she had come to escaping hell, discovering heaven only to be snatched away and threatened with a one of the most painful deaths imaginable.

Drawing her face up, turning back and forth to those around her, Citti, Polo, Damio - they all received joyous tearful hugs, each delivered with a hint of just how freakshly strong the girl was as her inhibitions were understandably lax.

Turning to her supporters, Taalia waved, grinned brightly and hugged over railings. She let it all out. Where last night she had a borderline nihilistic view, holding those from Bella Collina brought her back down to reality. The politicians could all hang, but her community knew her and loved her.

Tordemondo didn't even look at her. Taalia watched his approach and she looked at him, her face slightly messier now, and she stared at him, watching for anything, but nothing. Just a short handshake for Damio and that was it. He could hang too, as far as she was concerned. If they could find a rope that supported him.

Then she looked over at Simonucci. Why hadn't he taken the stand? Was he truly that bitter and nasty that he had refused to testify once again because he knew doing so would clear Taalia's name and deprive him of the enjoyment of burning her alive?

Taalia's face was one of disgust. She didn't know what game he was playing, but he had just thrown away two of the best intelligence assets Verezzo had likely gained in decades on this ridiculous charade, and he had betrayed the Matrone who would never trust him again. He had gambled enormously with whatever prize in mind, and had lost. She hoped it was worth it.

When the sergeant delivered Taalia's belongings back to her, the girl smiled at him.

 "When I was pointing this at you, did you ever think I'd soon be holding a shield over your shoulder to guard against the rats?"  she piqued with a teasing, playful smile.

Whatever his answer, her expression was genuine, as she gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek.

Corvo's excitement at seeing her again as predictably energetic, and one that demonstrated familiarity with new novelty. You see, whenever Corvo met  new  people, in his enthusiastic excitement he was inclined to jump upon them, paws up, drawing his big head closer to theirs as a part of greeting ceremony dogs seemed to love so much. But when he was  familiar  with someone, he darted around their legs in a circle, pausing at their front and rubbing his side against their legs, his huge head looking up at them and tail wagging, receiving rubs to his back, before he'd dart a circle around them.

On and on this went, Taalia laughing before kneeling and just wrapping her arms around his massive shoulders and kiss kiss kissing his broad head all over, holding the enthusiastic and bounding dog tightly before he managed to sink over and her hands went to his tummy where she scratched and rubbed, her baby-voice pouring the affection onto him further before sneak-attack grabbing him and wrestling him further to the ground.

 oOo 
In the wake of the celebrations her and fellow Bella Collinians had enjoyed at the nearest tavern at which everyone was staying, Taalia had hoped on Jezebelle, drawn Corvo to her side and set off for just a gentle cantor throughout the city, her blunderbuss over in its holster where she could quickly draw it up with her right hand if needed.

Dressed nicely, not overly so, but nicely, she moved along and through the people atop her horse, the gravity of how close she had come to being marched into the fire weighing in the back of her mind. This wasn't death on a battlefield quick and sudden. SOmething about the drawn out nature of it all and the agonising death...

Taalia first visited the Temple of Verena in the Gods Quarter. Her purpose there was obvious: she wanted to prayer there in gratitude for seeing justice done.

She also told any of the staff who would listen about her current refurbishment efforts, and invited any of the clergy to visit once she had finished cleaning away the muck.

Her second stop was more...unexpected. At least for anyone who knew her. Maybe for Simonucci it was a self-fulfilling prophecy?

But ever since her time to think in her prison cell, Taalia had thought about this topic, the effect of fear on people and their decision making. Fear and deterrants. She had seen, for even a brief second, the spike of fear in Tordemondo's eyes at the Matrone's suggestion that calling her a liar was grounds for imprisonment, or worse. Tordemondo, with all his legal power and expertise,  feared  making such an accusation. Matrone was insulated against such slurs. Even the senators final decision on her freedom was not out of loyalty to some higher principle, it was out of fear of angering the gods.

The love of her community at Bella Collina filled Taalia's heart, but deep down she knew it was not enough. Oh sure, it would have been had guards come to arrest her in their midst. They would provide cover while she escaped, but there would become a point where the threatened reprisals would be so bad that they feared them more than they loved her.

In her most formative, developing years, who were the most feared? The most beyond reproach? Those who were barely so much as questioned and whom would only be moved upon by others of their rank and class?

Taalia looked at the collection of buildings that was the small arcane college in Verezzo.

The Grey Seers.

Fastening her horse and drawing Corvo to her side and drawing her blunderbuss unthreateningly over her shoulder for travel, Taalia entered.

 "I want to learn the ways of the arcane."  
MrAbdiel
 Sergeant Mauro gives you a faint smile.  Like many men you meet, he is at first uncomfortable being embraced and kissed on the cheek by a woman taller than him, since his only point of reference for that sensation is his mother many years ago; but he pats your back, and takes your affection in the spirit it was intended.

 "I... did not." 

Not an imaginative answer to your question, but an honest one and not completely without warmth.  He reminds you of Bertuccio in that way, a little.   "But I'm glad you were there to help.  There's not really a reward I can give you for helping out, but if there's ever anything I can do to help you around Verezzo, I owe you one." 
 * * * * * 
It turns out that the Bella Collinan's have been staying in scattered rooms and taverns in Verezzo, relying on the hospitality of family relations and a special stipend Polo carved out of the village's festivity budget.  Before that, some had been staying at the Pigly at a worthy discount, up until your trial began; thus Bolo Hempfire's discovery of the conundrum and decision to come along to support you.  Once the trial is over, after the immediate jubilation is done, Bolo is trying to herd the folks to action.   "Alright, alright, my fine friends!  There's enough daylight that we ought make it back to the Pigly at just past sunset, and when we do, I shall show your man Gherardino here how a feast is done!  Ale and pork for all, har har!"   The middle age halfling punctuates his declaration with a spontaneous jig, which draws laughter and cheer from the villagers.  It seems he and Gherardino have become friends over the length of the trial; the  Trollslayer's Rest  and the  Pigly  are too far apart to be in competition, so the halfling operator can razz his junior innkeeper companion with no spectre of malice.  They get to packing and preparing to go while you get about your late errands.

The Matrona walks with you to the Temple of Verena; and seems well interested in seeing the shrine.   "My Eltharin is not strong, so I shall need to wrangle up a translator; but its a fascinating find, Taalia.  I wish I had known when I was last in Bella Collina - but I suppose we have that bounty hunter alone to thank for sneaking in, and seeing it, and knowing what it happened to be.  And... I hope you know, I knew about nothing of that whole debacle until it was sprung on me.  And Simonuccio -... I wouldn't ask you to forgive him, for that.  I can only attest that in the past he has been a good man; and I have seen and done much good with him.  But the church of Solkan... is not recognized outside of Remas because it encourages such extremism.  He has spent many years chasing after the worst kinds of evil in the world and seeing it extinguished - I suppose he is beginning to see it where it is not.  But by the end, I think even he doubted the accusation he had leveled - if that offers something like comfort." 

She declines an offer to go drink and dine at the Pigly - it would be unbecoming, but she appreciates the invitation.  But she does  show you how  Verenans ought to pray, at the temple; hands open and empty infront of you, kneeling with eyes skyward; memorized words recited  sotto voce .  She gives you a book of prayers; the kind of slim, pocket volume that might be included in any rural shrine, for your keeping.  It contains prayers for recitation in Classical, with their Tilean translation beneath.  You bid her farewell, and take a look at the tall silver statue of Verena in the sumptuous vaults of the main temple before you go - a tall, elegant woman with her arms held to either side; a sword in one hand, a set of scales in the other.  Her icon in the front of the book incorporates these elements; a downward pointing sword with the bowls of the scale hanging from the crossguard, with an owl's face rendered on the sword's pommel.  You recall in your shrine, that 'Verena Triumphant' bore scales and a spear - a small, but somehow significant variation that sticks in your mind.

 * * * * * 
You look up at the Tower of Verezzo once more as you pass by on the way to the House of Mysteries.  You stand where Bella and Gaulfredo danced for days, and look up at the hole you blew in one of the upper stories.  Just behind that wall is where Rashabang died - though there was not much for him left in life.  The scar left on that wall when they brick it up will be his last incidental gift to you.  If you had not succeeded in breaching that wall, there may have been no great public trial at all - just Simonuccio's word to some disinterested, roaming judge, and the end of the matter.

The House of Mystery is a strange affair in the  Quartiere della Porta a Nord ; four stories, though wide, having apparently cannibalized two of the buildings either side of it and composing them into its greater bulk by a series of snubby enclosed bridges on the second and fourth floors.  When you raise a hand to the door, your fingers make the lightest, barest contact with the knocker before it swings gently open at no more prompting than that.  A servant meets you in the foyer of the house; a man with an alabaster white prosthetic hand and fuzzy grey hair; but a sleek black uniform with golden frogging.  Your request seems not to be an uncommon one, and he bids you wait before shuffling off to summon someone to help you.

The man that returns is approaching middle aged; a Tilean of average height and build, who all but saunters into the room with a swaying gait.  His hair might once have been all black, and his eyes might once have been all blue; but both, by some strange mechanism, seem to be in the midst of changing.  The hair grading from black to flame red after an inch or so, at which point it is clipped short and brushed flat.  The eyes are heterochromatic - though in parallel, with a swell of golden yellow around the pupils in sunburst stretching through the ice blue irises almost to the edges.

He wears a deep red robe that hangs open like a coat, with short sleeves exposing his well tanned limbs and the fine black scripted tattoos ringing his biceps, and wrists.  He folds his arms, and looks you over; and in response to your question, asks simply:

 "...Why?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia returned Mauro's smile, having gotten used to the way people reacted to her affectionate-touchy nature. Listening to his words, Taalia's smiled widened, her happiness still present as she nodded.

 "I might take you up on that, sergeant!" 
 oOo 
Taalia had taken a mental note to ensure that she reimbursed the festival fund after next seasons sale. The willingness of her community to come to her defence and help her meant the world to her, but a glimmer of pride within her chest demanded that she make restitutions in  some  way, whether through direct monetary compensation or some other symbolic notion.

But, in the drunken revelry, feastous gluttony and celebratory festivity, Taalia took Gaulfredo aside. He had been with her almost since the very beginning. He could have left her in that forest, or given her some food and directed her elsewhere, returning her help - and likely assured survival - against those goblins with a reasonable kindness rather than a great one. But he didn't. He'd taken her in, convinced Ariana to give her a chance, and shown her how to make her way in the world. Without him, who knew where she would have ended up. Without the notice of the missing senator during that crucial vote, the pyre would be one place.

It was simple enough. Taalia, for all her fortitude, was clearly inebriated, which meant the words that came from her mouth originated in the heart as she threw her long arms around his shoulders and hugged him close, face nestled against his shoulder.

 "I love you, papà." 
 oOo 
 "I'm sure he was,"  Taalia responded to the Matrone's assurance that Simonucci was once a 'good' man. It was hard to be sympathetic to someone who had just tried to burn her alive with no evidence for it and all the evidence against it. Thus the paste tense of her agreement was significant.

 "My mentor, Singore Madre,"  Taalia said in the wake of the discussion and during their walk.  "She has numerous books in her home. It was she who taught me to read. She was the one with the grey streak in her hair? Who took to the stand early? I learned from her letters and healing the human body. I owe so much to her,"  the shepardess spoke earnestly as if she were describing a beloved grandmother, which is basically what Madre was for her.

 "She possesses a few books on philosophy..."  Taalia continued, speaking the names of several prominent thinkers both from Tilea and abroad.

 "I have not read that many, of course! But I remember one sentiment that stayed with me, and of which Simonucci reminds me: he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes back." 

Being shown how to prayer by one as esteemed and elevated in the Verena ecclesiastes was truly a privilege. Taalia knelt beside her, her hands out-stretched in invisible communion with the deity that had granted her a reprieve when her doom seemed certain. When she was handed that book, Taalia knew what a valuable item it was. Printed material was expensive, but contained within those inked parchments was beyond monetary value. Verena and Myrmidia; knowledge, science, justice, civilisation, revenge, beauty, art and honour.

They seemed like fitting patrons to her.

 oOo 
Taalia's eyes opened in surprise as that door opened  right before  her hand connected with it, as she even drew the limb back out of shock - her eyes wide, her mouth ( shape in puzzled confusion.

But the portal lay open before her...

Entering, rubber-necking around, greeting the servant with an attention and polite respect he may or may not be used to, she waited in the antechamber of otherworldly mysteries for some person of note to within the confines to meet her.

She was  not  expecting what she saw.

Turning when the man arrived, squaring herself up, she looked him over...what? Was he a...wizard? He looked like a pimp.

But the simple cutting of the Gordian Knot was not what she was expecting.

Naturally, she couldn't tell him the  full  truth. Taalia figured that answering 'Because I'm sick of being a nobody preyed upon freely by the powerful' was not an answer that would cut the mustard.

 'Oh! Well, why didn't you say so? The tome of Fireballs is right this way, sweetheart! We all get matching robes and Thursday is bolongese and wine night!' 

No, she didn't think so.

Answer truthfully, but not the  whole  truth.

 "Because the world is a mystery and I want to understand it." 
MrAbdiel
 The strange wizard thumbs at his neat, curled moustache; its tips trending from black to red like hot coal.

 "There are many mysteries in the world, to be sure; the answers to some of which are confounding, and terrifying to know.  I can tell by looking at you that you're not struggling with unwanted manifestations - that, and the fact that you haven't been escorted here by your parents with tears running down their faces.  Do you understand?  Magic is  forced  on most people, and they spend their lives coping with that reality.  Are you sure you want to invite that, just to understand the world more?  Have you run out of mundane books to read?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia listened to his words, her expression not changing much but her mind processing what he was saying. There were consequences, a life altered and put on another path. For a normal person that might have been enough to dissuade them, but for Taalia...

 "I have... seen  things in this world, Singore..."  the shepardess started, her address to him absolutely respectful, but the sheer weight in her mind evident in the slip timbre alteration of her voice and flash across her eyes.

 "Things that have sometimes drawn me out of my sleep in a sweated panic. I know that the arcane exists, I know it is an energy that can be harnessed, and I have seen it directed towards the most black and vile purposes you can imagine..." 

She swallowed.

 "And so I know that all that those who wield it to such ends only require that decent people avoid the responsibility, to not oppose them in their dark craft. I believe there's other forces at work in this world beside the will of evil, and I want to be among them. I could do so with a spear in my hand, or making weapons for the rank and file, I could do so by producing children and directing my sons to become knights and my daughters to become physicians. But I know that through learning these ways I can make the greatest contribution." 

Again, much like the trial that had ended not just 24 hours ago, Taalia spoke from her heart with passion and sincerity in her mien. Though she wore that scar on her face and an amazonian physicality, it had recently been revealed how supplicant the behaviour of the body was to the whims and wishes of the mind - and in Taalia's case, that was in relative alignment that one would expect from her soft, barely-two decades features.

Would that be enough though? At least for a probationary consideration? Time would tell...
MrAbdiel
The stranger sniffs deeply; shifts his hands to settle on his hips, and then casts a glance past you as if consulting the universe beyond you for commentary on you.  He may need to; he seems not to be among those folk of Verezzo who heard about your trial, either from your dramatic escapade or the desperate dancing of your Bella Collinan kin.

 "...Mm.  Well.  I suppose we'll see.  What's your name, girl?  And where do you live?  I'll consult with my peers, and send word on the matter.  I am Sapiente  Andreotto de Ravavia .  We shall make a determination; and then based on that, go about discerning if you have the discipline to make up for the absence of ' Il talento tragico ." 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia really needed to steel herself up. Or maybe the universe was just throwing her into the ways of challenges wildly unsuited to her youthful passions? Either way, the determination of her outcome was uncertain. He had not rejected her outright - that was a positive sign, at least. But he had been disciplined enough not to outward signs of acceptance either.

The unknown was a bastardly thing.

 "My name is Taalia Giovanni. I live in Bella Collina, In the past two years I have been a farmer who has loved the land and prospered. Legal matters brought me to the city, and collisions with fate prompted me here today. "

Drawing her heels closer together, taking his words with an admittedly mature thank-you-for-hearing-me-out demeanour, Taalia nodded.

 "Thank you for taking the time to see me, Singore,"  she said sincerely, but her voice clearly carrying that concern about the unknown.

 "I hope the decision is the right one." 

Was that again another instance of maturity? If the  right  decision meant she should be kept away from the arcane, then so be it? Or that they would permit her the chance to at least  try , then gods allow it? Who knew.

Her impromtu meeting over, Taalia politely withdrew. Outsided, she patted Corvo's huge head, leaning down to kiss his broad forehead before untying her pets and mounting Jezelle to return to her community members.
MrAbdiel
  "Bella Collina?" , he repeats with amusement.

Perhaps he  has  heard about you.  But he doesn't say so - he merely bids you farewell with a cryptic...

 "Soon then, Taalia Giovanni." 
 * * * * * 
There are eleven assorted wagons and carts filing up.  Ten of them are from Bella Collina, forming the delightful wagontrain of your countrymen.  The last is a comically small cart pulled by the smallest adult pony you have ever seen; a ridiculous, short legged creature that always  huffs  as if tiring but never  puffs  as if worn out, and manages to keep an impressive hustling pace.  This is driven by Bolo Hempfire, who zooms along beside your convoy as you go obsessing over the opportunity to introduce himself to new people and give them complimentary bath tokens for the Pigly.

It's an excessive number of carts and wagons, you think; it might have been cheaper with the tolls in mind to simply pack fewer of their odd belongings and ride more backsides to a cart.  But they chose to take sacks of their tools and weapons and instruments, presumably to sell and finance your legal defense, if that had been possible.

Unless, of course... those crowbars, and spears, and lengths of rope were for something else - something that never manifested, perhaps to everyone's benefit.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: What Might Have Been 
If you had a less strident and convincing defence, or if you had a handful more negative loose ends to exploit and the trial had gone against you... Well, you might have gotten to take part in a hillbilly jailbreak and go on the lamb!  But it seemed to me you'd kept your nose clean enough, and responded well enough to challenges, that it didn't come to that.
 


But after a couple of hours of riding, Gaulfredo whistles to you, and indicates behind with nod of his head.  Gaining on your group is a lone rider - Iyaseanna, the elven bounty-huntress.  She maintains a respectful distance from your column ahead; but when you look back, she raises one gloved hand in slow hail.  It's clear she's interested in speaking to you - and given that there are hours of riding ahead to the Pigly still, and that this alien stranger played a non-trivial part in your recent emancipation, it seems only fair to slow Jezzabella down some to fall in beside her.  When you do, she pulls down the kercheif covering her nose and mouth, to address you.

 "Now you are free.  Slave, to freewoman, to political prisoner - a very textured life you have lived, in so few years.  What will you do now, I wonder?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia paused when she spotted those assorted tools arrayed throughout the various wagons, her heart skipping a beat and her mind wandering with the possibilities, both heroic and tragic, if they had been put to the use she speculated upon. In many ways it touched her in soul like nothing else could, knowing that this group of people who didn't even know she existed just a few years ago, were prepared to go to such drastic lengths to preserve her against the depridations of Simonuccio's political machinations. She owed them so much, she told herself again, so much! But on the other, they would be sacrificing everything just for her to flee into the life of an exile with doubtless a bounty above her head and nothing but a field of strangers stretching out before her....and yet  they  would pay such a heavy price, their small town that had been so warm to her would surely feel the touch of Simonuccio's wrath. She would not put it past him to either torch the town as being in league with the Skaven spy, or use them as the means to draw her back, and then they'd be for the gallows anyway.

But. Would have. Could have. Maybe. May. Should.

These were all speculations for alternate worlds where the worst had befallen her during that trial. This was the here and now, and the here and now for her was a trip with those who had risked so much to help her. Taalia went up and down the carts, helping load and fix things down. She hugged all, shook hands, kissed cheeks and had warm and sincere thanks for each individual.

But out into the road there was another unexpected surprise: the elf.

Once again, if she were mad at the deception and loss of a bounty, she didn't show it. Did she truly not care? Was she that emotionally detached from her profession that she could simply nod and accept a loss before cooly moving on? Maybe.

Shuffling over to the side of the wagon where she could speak with the elf, Taalia listened to her and answered with an even, if friendly tone.

 "Now you are free. Slave, to freewoman, to political prisoner - a very textured life you have lived, in so few years. What will you do now, I wonder?" 

It was a good question. Every few months seemed to lure drama into Taalia's life, as if she were the main entertainment on stage for the gods who watched her reactions eagerly to every new antagonistic stimuli they tossed in her direction.

Pursing her lips, visibly thinking for a second, Taalia responded.
 
"I think I have had enough excitement for ten lifetimes,"  she started, a small, wry smile at the corner of her mouth.

 "Were it all my choice, I would wish to grow my farm, expand my fortunes, become someone of prominence people can trust, and fill a beautiful home with children with the help of a good, brave and handsome husband,"  she answered honestly with a slightly playful smile towards the end.

 "...but. As the saying goes, if you want to see the sense of humour of the gods, make plans,"  that smile of hers grew a little more.  "Something tells me that Myrmidia and Vereza aren't done with me yet. What will I do now? Adapt and persevere as best I can." 

There was a pause as Taalia's curiosity lingered on the elf. Unlike most humans, Taalia had been around elves this close before, in the slave pits. It was an ironic tragedy that their majesty crippled their chances of lasting for any extended period of time under those conditions.

 "May I ask a question?"  Taalia inquired,  "on the stand...your word could have ended me. But, arguably, I am free thanks to you. Why?" 


ooc:
If you're wondering how I react so quickly to new posts, I get email notifications of replies, just fyi hah.
MrAbdiel
  "As far as I am concerned, you owe me two hundred  duro ; a debt that would vanish if you were executed." 

It is difficult to tell if she is joking.  She certainly seems mildly amused by her own remark, but that may not mean she doesn't mean it.  She does append to it, however.

 "Bella Collina is part of my domain; I noticed your emergence into the community and your progression therein.  It seemed plain to me that you were no spy - and I am no stranger to the distasteful mantle of unfounded suspicions.  If I needed any more assurance, your personal vigor in scrubbing a shrine to a goddess you did not know - one of some importance to certain elven peoples - would have been enough.  So when it became public news that the white-haired amazon was on trial for collaboration with the Skaven, I made myself available to one of Signore Tordemondo's aides with the information that you had, I maintain unjustly, robbed me of a valid bounty.  After two days of trial without being called, I suspected they would not risk an elf's testimony; but you made them desperate enough.  So it seems that I am one of a number of narrow features which added to this outcome - which is the true outcome, the only one that matters.  Does that answer your question?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

It took quite a bit of gall for the elf to joke in such a manner. After all, Taalia was in a 10-caravan or so convoy of her community that been willing to go to pretty far-reaching methods to secure her release. What was to stop Taalia simply agreeing to pay, pretending to reach over for her pouch only to produce her blunderbuss and shoot the elfs horse out from under her, followed by a yell that she had threatened her life?

But...no. Taalia wouldn't have done that. In some ways the elf was right, she had deceived her and claimed a bounty she would've other wise gotten. She had used that money for an excellent purpose - it had set her up financially to generate far greater sums. And it had allowed the poor trappers daughter to rise to a position of respectability after being born into abject poverty. Was that worth basically paying the elf 200  duro  when such a sum was no longer that great amount of money to her? Or at least wouldn't be in the years to come if the Damio's and Polo's economic predictions came true. The prayer book of Vereza that had been gifted to her still sat in her pocket, its contents being hymns towards a deity that upheld justice.

The shepardess wanted to laugh. Had she come so far that such assurances of bountiful riches were already being spent?

The girl nodded, that wry smile still on her mouth, snorting lightly in amusement.

 "And here I thought maybe you had decided to live and let live,"  she answered with a with a yeah-alright-you-kinda-got-me expression.

 "You will be here long after I am gone, but before that day comes..."  she didn't want to commit, but after the elf had basically just saved her life and that of her fellow Bella Colllinians, it was just. Had the elf approached without that prefix then Taalia would have pointed her gun at her and told her to get off her property. But now, she really did owe her.  "...I'll pay you back." 

Just saying it stung. Instead, Taalia thought of it as an unexpected start-up loan that required repayment. But hey, having an elven bounty hunter - one with her own tale of exile, apparently - watching over her back to ensure she gets her money might not be such a bad thing.

 "And..."  Taalia added lastly, seeming a bit unsure about what she was about to say but going ahead anyway,  "...when I restore that shrine. Would you be interested in helping to translate anything there-in?" 
MrAbdiel
 That seems good enough for her.  She gives a little nod.

 "Good.  And yes; you may tell the Matrona, when you see her again, that I am available at a moderate fee, if she needs help with reading that Eltharin.  From what I saw, it's Old Cothiquan Dialect; but I can pick through it." 

That seems to be the end of that discussion.  Without a goodbye, she spurs her horse to a run, and peels away from you; overtaking the column and veering off the road into the light woodland; neatly avoiding the upcoming tollmaster.

 * * * * * 
At the Pigly, Bolo is true to his word.  It's startling for the other guests in the coaching in; suddenly the place fills up just past what would normally be dinner time, chattering and ordering drinks.  A pig revolves over a spit while the ovens are boosted back up and pies start emerging from the kitchen in succession for the hungry Bella Collinan to whet their appetite.

Emio the Violist joins forces with a horn-playing mercenary musician to fill the night with appropriate jaunt.  It's an emotional evening all round; and the flowing ale and mead only makes it more so.

When you embrace Gaulfredo and call him papà, he loses all emotional fortitude.  He is, you have known since you met him, a deeply emotional man, to the point where it may be a little unbecoming for him.  But he is who he is; and that appears to have been good enough.

 "Ah!  My Taalia, my Taalia, I love you too!  You make me cry; you make us very happy.  You come  home  for a night before you go back to your farm, ah?  Please, please.  You must, it's all too much." 

Polo and the Rampollo Damio are not men to whom such outrageous jubilation is natural; but they engage in the time honored tradition of introverted men, which is to pair off and spend the entire party near enough by not to seem antisocial, but mostly keeping each other company.  Both look exhausted, but content.  Polo only looked rougher after the fight with the troll, where his physical courage so badly failed him.  But his real skill, letters and organization and the navigation of complex problems, did the work of a small army in this most recent, more abstract battlefield.

Damio is different, in that you still do not know him terribly well.  He has certainly stuck his neck out for you here (some would say he had neck to spare anyway) but how much of that was towing the Yellow Faction line, or propping up his own interest and investments?  How much did the Bella Collinan's common fervor force him to go along with their desire?  This you don't know.  What you do know is that a he is a politician who is supposed to represent the interests of the people of Bella Collina as they relate to Verezzo; and this, he has done.

You are regarding the two bookish men over the shoulder of Gaulfredo as he tries to get you to dance, when you hear Bella cry out in delight.  She runs to the door of the Pigly where Ariana is wandering in with a sack of her belongings over her shoulder; while outside.  She embraces Bella, and Bella leads her over to you, and she gives delays not at all in hugging you, too.
 
"Taalia, you did it!  I knew it, I knew you convince them!"   Gaulfredo interrupts to give her a kiss, and flakes off to get some pie for her; and in the meantime, Ariana refuses to surrender the hug completly, resigning herself as a sort of sideways, draped adhesion.   "You'll come home for a few days, ah?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia watched the elf basically ride off into the sunset. Their ways would always be alien to her.

 oOo 
Taalia didn't hold anything back when hugging Gaulfredo. She was taller than him, but she was taller than everyone in the town. She put her arms around his shoulders, her semi-drunk swaying form having to lean down slightly, as she had tears on her face and truth from her lips.

The rest of the details, Taalia took them in as best she could. It was said that Beer Talking was Real Talking, because it removed inhibitions and let your real self come out without the hindrance of social graces. If that was the case, Taalia was every bit as friendly as she was normally, only turned up several notches. She hugged any who wanted it, received the flirtations of any strangers at the bar with a good sense of humour and openly told Emio that she found his work beautiful and his and Bella's singing had been a second blanket while in the tower.

Bella, as well, received a great deal of the shepardess' attention. Big hugs, big kisses, buying her drinks, arm around her as she spoke to her, retelling the situation that had happened, about that vile Simonuccio, the handsome sergeant she'd first pointed a gun at but then defended against Skaven, and her days incarceration and how it was her beautiful voice and Emio's violin that had kept her company in that elevated, lonely concrete box.

 "Please, Bella, teach me...how? Your voice, you turn air into beauty! How do you do it?" 

The fumbling words of a drunken girl or the hidden sincerity? Why not both?

Taalia had noticed Polo and Damio inhabiting the perimeter of the festivities. At one point she had had the mind to approach them. And so she did.

It was standard fare. She swayed slightly from side to side in her tipsy gait, like a tree in a strong breeze to and fro, arriving to put her arms first around Polo and then kiss her uncle-in-law on the cheek, and then around Damio's shoulders with that trademark characteristic friendly peck on the cheek. Sure he was a poltiician and Taalia had recently thought that most of them should hang, but Damio  had  helped her, enormously. It was all a collective effort.


 oOo 
 "Ah! My Taalia, my Taalia, I love you too! You make me cry; you make us very happy. You come home for a night before you go back to your farm, ah? Please, please. You must, it's all too much." 
 "I will, Papa...I will - thank you! Thank you for everything!" 

Ariana received a similarly affectionate welcome from the huggy amazon, Taalia's form almost enveloping the woman as if she intended to imbibe her. Having to lean down, knee bending slightly, Taalia gripped the other woman and kissed her cheek, unable to stop a number of tears moving down her own face and onto Ariana's shoulder.

 "I thought it was all over, thank you mama so much, I love you - I will!" 
MrAbdiel
 Emio is perpetually in demand to play - the only time people hear music is when they know a musician, after all - but not so much that he can't receive your appreciation with a wink.  Polo and Damio both offer the over the shoulder hand-pat that is the best someone who has been hugged from an unexpected angle can do; offering words of encouragement that render later and fog in your memory of the evening.  Bella, on the other hand, is her usual pleasant self,  with the added lubrication of alcohol - very receptive to all huggy and kissy affections, immediately taking your request to learn to sing as an invitation for her to teach  right now ; and then she's leading the soggy-brained crowd in song along with Emio and the young horn-player.  You gather from this that she is, indeed, open to the idea of lessons - but then, you and Bella have become good friends; if you'd asked her for pints of her blood, she would be looking for empty jars.

Ariana is just as weepy with your use of such parental language.  She was very worried about you, naturally; and knowing you are alright would be an emotional revelation even without this informal adoption happening at the same time.

But even the alcohol in your brain doesn't prevent you from remembering that Ariana wasn't in the crowd at Bella Collina - you had assumed she was back home, looking after the farm, and Vittorio.  She was not in the gallery at the trial.  Neither was she on the wagons that brought you here from Verezzo; slipping in later than everyone else, she must have arrived here under her own power.  But how would she know to come from Bella Collina, when word could not have made it that far of your release?  Was it just luck, that she had decided to join you and Gaulfredo in Verezzo?  Luck had been playing a hand in your life, for sure.  But as she sniffles her way out of grateful sobs on your shoulder, you catch a glimpse inside her sack of petty travel possessions which yawns open in her slackening grip - the lantern light overhead picking out the red fabric within...

  
 Spoiler: Recollection... 

 
 Originally Posted by A Younger Taalia 
  "Ahhhh!"  Taalia inhaled, covering her mouth with her right hand as she knelt down in front of the rest, reaching in and prying through the contents. They were, without a doubt, the most beautiful clothes she had ever seen. The beautiful reds, the fine fabric, the gentle and well-crafted pressing, the stitching and embroidery. The teenager defied no stereotypes at all as she grinned widely, the sun across her face as she looked positively over the moon. She reachined in, retrieved that hat, and immediately brought it up to her head and placed it upon her crown.

Hands on her hips, she looked up at Ariana, the female influence and role model in her life at the moment, and smiled bright, even posing a little, before an idea flashed in her eyes.

 "Ariana,"  she said,  &lt;"Most of these would fit you!"&gt;  she exclaimed, reaching in, grabbing that Nobles Garb and withdrawing it. Standing up, she turned and faced the shorter woman, holding the dress up against her with the happiest looking smile one could wear. In a way, this was her repayment for their kindess. 
 
 
  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


When Bella offered to start her lessons right away, Taalia wore a wide drunken-dumb grin on her face and nodded along.  "Si! Si!"  the laughed, holding her friends hand in her own and wading into inebriated singing as best she could.

But during a moment of relative quiet, Taalia had a burning question arise in her mind that she just  had  to know the answer to. Her arm around Bella's shoulder, holding her friend close, Taalia asked into her ear.

 "Why...hic...wh...why did you...hic...fight that troll..?" 

When Ariana smothered her with love, Taalia returned it, but even her liquid-mind noted a few unanswered questions that her mama's presence produced. Such as...how did she get here? Did she walk? Bella Collina was a day and a halfs travel away, with di Silo between them. Did she take a carriage? Had she been traveling to Verezzo only to notice them all gathering here and thanked the stars at the good fortune?

Or did that red dress in her travel pack, the singularly most valuable item Ariana probably owned, have something to do with it all?

An amused little image passed through Taalia's mind of that young senator of the red faction, and his moody courtesan. Could it have been her?

Ha! No, as amusing an idea as it was. That Ariana, pretty and salt-of-the-earth as she was, had been moonlighting for the past two years as a senatorial courtesan with  none  of them noticing anything suspicious was the stuff of comedy.

Had she been timing her arrival specifically? Had she already been nearby? Waiting for a sign or signal that they had sprung Taalia free from the clutches of Simonuccio and was ready with items of value the girl could use in her flight?

Taalia was going to broach the subject later, when everyone wasn't getting piss-drunk and stumbling about.

And so the girl enjoyed her time thoroughly. She danced (badly, in her drunken ways), she was her affectionately huggy self, she had two of those amazing pies, shouted a round of Good Bretonnian spirits for everyone, and in the wee hours of the morning she was doubled over out the back of the Pigly hurling into a bush like the classy young lady she was.

The next morning, being a rather tough girl that she was and youthful, Taalia seemed fine. The adults might shamble about as a pack of zombies groaning with their hands to their heads, but the shepardess had another gift of youth granted to those who drunk too much. She might not be used to consuming so much, but youthful vigor gave her the fortitude to spring back rather easily the following day.
MrAbdiel
 With her own arm around Taalia's waist - her shoulders somewhat beyond her comfortable grasp - the young woman in the yellow dress considers the question with a groggy blink of her eyes.  She has overdone it some, and is fated to fall asleep at a table and require Gaulfredo and Ariana's help putting her to bed in a room upstairs - but there is enough of her coherent to answer, with as much simplicity as you might have imagined.

 "Oh... Well; Bertuccio was asking about for archers, and I thought... Why not me?  I can string and fire a bow in a volley, even if I can't run down a stag in the wild, or brace a spear against a horseman.  You don't have to be a marksman to be part of a volley.  I suppose I thought I could help, and then perhaps I should.  Maybe... I also wanted to impress Bertuccio.  As if, maybe, if I landed the killing shot, he might see me like I wanted him to...  And I think, maybe, part of me thought it would be fun.  And it might have been, all the way up until it ranged up to the first firing line and we were all running back to the second.  And when it came for me, it was not fun at all - but you were there; and all our friends, too.  So it was alright, in the end..." 

She trails off from the thought toward the end; glassy eyed and nearly asleep leaning against you; one hand fiddling pointlessly with a lock of your white hair, the contrast of which to her raven locks is particularly stark when you're propped up in a tipsy huddle with each other.

There's a little more dancing, and drinking, and eating.  This is your first time doing any of those to excess; and you wretch your guts up pitifully out the back of the Pigly most heroically.  There is a rumor that ale-sickness is cured by more ale; but Bolo looks after you and makes sure you drink water instead; then, after you throw that up also, you drink some more.  When you wake, you're in one of the upstairs rooms; with Bella curled up in a snarl of blankets in another bed just across from you; and Corvo snoozing placidly in the no-mans-land between.  You can taste the vomit a little in your mouth still, but you're not nauseated, which is more than can be said about many of the other revellers.  The wagon ride to Caesa di Silo, needless to say, is remarkably more quiet than the one to the Pigly had been; and the night spent there more sedate, too.

Back in Bella Collina, those left behind are happy to see you return.  The troublemaker boys had taken on considerable responsibility, riding between farms to check on herds and flocks under the supervision of children like Vittorio.  Enrico had watched your farm full time; Tesifonte had fumbled his way through being the temporary operator of the  Trollslayer's Rest  and minding Gherardino's kids, while Ansaldo and Cremensio hoofed back and forth to one farm or the other trying to keep all of the town's plates spinning.  Largely the operation had been a success; but everyone is happy to be back in familiar surrounds and away from the cluttered, busy, byzantine rough and tumble of the big city.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: And now... 
And now... if there's any follow ups to the previous scenes, check ins with characters or things you'd like to do, now's the time to do 'em.  I have a couple of interim things to throw at you before we do another six month increment, but I thought I'd throw open the floor first considering how nuts things have been for Taalia!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


In her drunken stupor, Taalia listened to Bella's explaination, as her ear was close to her utterances and she was physically adjacent to her best friend. Though there were hints of other things there, wanting to prove she could do it, thinking it would be 'fun', the reason that stood out most to Taalia was that Bella had wanted to impress Bertuccio. It didn't sound silly to the shepardess, though some might think so.

Her arm over Bella's shoulder, in their liquid-brained lethergy just enjoying each others company on the bench long-chair, Taalia snorted lightly in amusement.

 "There are easier ways to impress a man,"  she snickered to her friend, speaking from her oh so successful experience, giving Bella an affectionate kiss on her cheek and hugging her. Gaulfredo and Ariana were her adoptive parents, Cestie and Madre her adoptive grand-parents, and Vitorrio like her little brother. But Bella was the only other young woman her age, that accord providing a natural affinity for each other as Taalia had asked and spoken about things with Bella she wouldn't even ask Arianna or Madre.

When Gaulfredo came along as Bella's boozing got too much for her, Taalia was still active enough to help draw her up to their shared room, laying her friend down on her side so that she couldn't choke.

Thankfully, Taalia would not asphyxiate either. Her time hurling into the bushes saw to that.

Back in Bella Collina, Taalia once more dispensed the hugs, even to the Troublemaker Boys. They had honestly impressed her with how much they had stepped up to the plate. First with fighting off the mutants, and secondly when the responsibility was theres to keep the farms and things running.

But as promised, Taalia stayed with Gaulfredo and Ariana one more time, ensuring she wrapped her arms around Vitorria and drew him into the air and spun him around before placing him back down, smothering his cheeks with big-sister kisses.

She'd been so close to losing it all.

OOC:
 
 Spoiler 
Probably, follow up with Bella on learning how to sing, and maybe asking Ariana about the dress and how she knew they'd be at The Pigly.

I also think in game time she's a bit passed being on the surface for 1 year, because she's only had one fleecing season. And if my estimations are correct, we have a rapidly approaching second fleecing and lambing season with her 21 sheep, and the first of her bi-annual piglet deliveries from her 23 sows (average 10 piglets each I think). It also means she'll get to decide on a birthday, and being the sentimental girl she is she'll probably choose some time in spring, so she'll be 19 soon.

Hopefully that lands her an eye-watering stack of gold. She'll use about half of it to expand her farm.

She'll use about 266 gold to build 2x Firearms and sell them in the year some time.

Oh and lastly, I'm thinking that Taalia might front the money for Bella to start a tailoring business, letting her know about the huge incoming economic activity, and thus customers. She'll help her best friend out.
 
MrAbdiel
 Back at Gaulfredo's farm, as you are reclining in the living area while Gaulfredo is out at the barn feeding and brushing down his old retired mare Dahlia with Vittorio feeding the dogs nearby, you put the question to Ariana about the dress, and her meeting you at the Pigly.  She can't help but smile a little, both hands curled around the clay cup of hot tea with milk and honey in her lap.

 "It's to the Rampollo's credit, mostly.  When we learned what was happening, Polo set out right away for Verezzo, but we had an immediate community meeting about what to do.  Everyone was... very animated and upset.  We all were.  Nogrom had half the village ready to try to storm the Leaning Tower after taking a pair of senators hostage.  It's foolish, in retrospect; wishful thinking that someone could force a politician to forfeit the right to retaliate at sword point.  But everyone was very worked up; ready to try something dangerous and violent whether it was storming the prison or hiring mercenaries to do the same or such.  One of the wilder plans we discussed was having some of the ladies pose as courtesans to distract the guards at the tower's base - I mentioned I had such a dress that might suit.  But Damio managed to talk the mob out of it; literally on his knees at one point.  He new the names of all the sitting senators, and so much about them.  Which were likely to attend a trial; which wouldn't bother.  How many would go with prevailing party opinion and which would be swayed.  He was convinced that, with adequate representation, the trial would see you found innocent and released... and that attempting to break you out by force or deception would bring ruin.  And I suppose he was right." 
 "It didn't all unfold how he said it would.  He had hoped to find Bertuccio and have him speak to your nature; the word of a man who had suffered through the indignity of a disloyalty scare, just as you were going through, and who was found to be innocent would have carried a deal of weight.  But no one knew where he had gotten to; so that couldn't happen.  And he had counted on being able to hire or find an experienced litigator to make the argument, but the ones he approached either weren't willing to get eviscerated by Tordemondo in front of the Senate, or had smelled something about the trial that seemed politically charged; and didn't want to get tarred as a 'Yellow Litigant' when the winds change.  So he had to represent you himself, which he had dreaded to do.  But he spoke to Gaulfredo and I as the trial came up.  He said that on the second day, Tordemondo was likely to call a vote and the margin would be very close, with two or three making the difference.  If it all went badly, there was nothing to be done for our efforts; but if it was going well - all things considered -the margin could be as slim as one.  So we hatched a plan to  try to improve those odds.  Gaulfredo tracked down the lady whom you sold the mask to, a year ago, and bought it back; Bella helped me match some things to the dress... Well, to cut the story short, we made sure I came to the attention of the youngest and newest senator of the Red faction - Telio Mandrasuccio.  He's your age, about; eager to prove himself in the political sphere by voting with the Red interest, but also flattered by the idea of attracting a courtesan to show off at the trial.  So I played a part, and feigned 'detached interest'.  Damio said towards the end of the second day, Tordemondo would likely call you and strike you with his best arguments; and I should take that time while the focus was on the exchange to 'storm out'.  Telio followed, and was absent when the vote was called - you know the rest.  I had to ride in and out of the city with different coaches to the village train; Damio said it was important that I not be seen unmasked and out of the dress, in the city.  But that's what happened, Taalia."   She smiles again, after a sip of tea; eyes wandering  to the doorway and beyond it the dusk over the farm.   "I played dress up for a few days, and pretended to be a masked lady.  And given how it all turned out.. I'm very glad I did."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

At Arianna's explanation, Taalia started off as normal, listening, ear in, nodding with her lips pursed, until finally...

Open mouthed, eyes furrowed, disbelief and shock across her face.

No...

 "No!"  she gasped, shaking her head.

 "No no - No!"  

It had been  half  of what she had imagined. She had not predicted the...suddenness of it all. Her comedic idea was that Ariana was smuggling herself out during the night to live a perennial double life - not that she had just done this as a one off on  her  benefit.

Taalia didn't know what to say. She didn't. Truly, she had no wit, rhyme, reason or words to even begin mustering an adequate response to this under-handed but life-saving plot. And Taalia would be lying if she didn't admit that there was a tiny, tiny self-conscience part of her that didn't want to give Ariana a nudge and draw in her confidence and ability at the knowledge that, if Taalia's own choices did not manifest in a husband and family over the next ten years, she'd at least be able to develop a mystique around her which would ensure men still found her desirable. And who knows? Maybe a young buck could answer her calls when her profession granted her a reprieve in time.

In truth though, Taalia had no response. She was shocked, amazed and frankly, infatuated. Not...in that way, of course, but just in sheer awe and gratitude. She hugged Arriana, naturally. Thanked her, naturally. Kissed her cheeks, naturally. Then, paused, pondered how she would pose the question, and then just piled upon her adoptive mother questions between curious daughter and still-adult mother on the affairs of the courtesan angle whose nature and answers were best left to the giggling and laughing there-in.
MrAbdiel
 Arianna laughs, and embraces you, and is happy to gossip about her masquerade adventure.  She kept away from the courtesan holdings in the city; she took on her disguise and swanned out of obscurity to attract the attention of Senator Madrasuccio outside the senate house where Damio had just finished congratulating him on his election - a gesture intended to locate him for Arianna's arrival.  Senators usually have to prove value and status among their senatorial comrades (or else be a person of prestige before election, like a particularly powerful merchant prince or mercenary captain of conspicuous valor) to draw a courtesan into their orbit, so he was quickly ensorcelled.  She remained with him at the trial, and then spent the afternoon with him, during which he spontaneously divulged his ambitions and insecurities, and she alternated between feigned interest and detachment.  Then she bid him farewell, and had been on her way - though a near-miss threatened disaster with another red-aligned courtesan and her bodyguard tried to make contact with her.  In the face of this, she could only hide amidst Verezzo's tall and cramped buildings before changing to her own clothes and escaping to her room at the inn for the night.  Leaving the trial during your questioning on the second day was a cleaner escape - the courtesans who might catch her and discern her falsehood were tied up in the ongoing procedure, so she was able to slip out, dismiss the heartbroken Madrasuccio with an ambiguous declination of his affections, and flee to change out of the dress for the final time in her ruse.

 "I did not fear for my safety in most ways - courtesans are so protected and prized by the higher classes that violence against them is prosecuted with exceptional ruthlessness.  But if I had been cornered by another courtesan, they may well have discerned I was not one of them.  I... assume they know each other by their masks and dresses.  As I was leaving the city after the trial on the third day, I made sure to pass the senate house to see the commotion on the steps, with the bickering politicians - but the courtesans had drawn off into their own council as well, and some seemed angry, and agitated.  I suspect that the original owner of that chest you and Gaulfredo dragged home that day once belonged to a courtesan.  Perhaps her own coach was ambushed and taken by those goblins two years ago, before you came along.  I hate to think I caused distress to those ladies with the confusing idea that their friend might still be alive if she is truly dead; but we can't afford to worry about that.  You're safe now; that's what matters." 
 * * * * * 
A few days later, as you are preparing to do some filing and filing and  filing  a trigger guard in Signore Cestié's workshop, your first shift since your return, the old man intercepts you with a hug.  He was at the trial, and the party at the Pigly, and has adjusted to you being back; but he is still unusually energetic and animated with this greeting.   "Taalia!  Taalia, Taalia, come here, come look; I have something to show you.  It's something I have been working on for a while - and I think it's time you were part of it!"   You can anticipate what's coming; he leads you to the rear room of the workshop and throws open the door, behind which is the now  much further along  two wheeled, two seated flying machine.  The slates on the walls are populated with wildly chalked out designs and data, and the form of it has changed somewhat since you last were here - but the composition has changed, too.  The light wooden dowels and beams have been replaced in places with more slender alternates in a whiter, finer wood choice; and the four long, narrow 'wings' like against the walls, completed with their sewn fabric sleeves.  Assembled, it must resemble a dragonfly bigger than a horse, with space in its 'body' for two operators.

 "I've been working on it since our trip to Mount Ezio, Taalia; I came back feeling younger than I have in a long time, and like I had something left in me to do.  And when you were locked up in the Tower, well... I don't know if I slept for much of a week finishing the design and construction.  There's only one man who has ever escaped that tower - Dadallo the Birdman himself!  And I thought, if it takes one flying machine for an escape, it might take a second for a second escape.  I hadn't worked out how I would land it on the roof of the tower and extract you - or what I'd do with whoever I got to pedal with me all the way there when I'd gotten you on board.  But ultimately, the Rampollo talked us all out of wild plans to break you free.  Just as well - I've relied on theory so far, and no testing.  But now!  Now you're back, and you can help me test her!  And then, when we've worked out the kinks, you and I will have done what Dadallo couldn't - what even great Leonardo couldn't!  A man-powered flying machine that isn't just a pedal assisted glider!"  He is almost jigging as he circles the glider, hopping foot to foot, a dreaming gleam in his eye.   "And then - then we can take her over the pass into Bretonnia.  Orcs can catch horses and coaches, but they can't fly!  And from Bretonnia, east to the Empire of Sigmar, and there to Nuln, and the Miagleanan enclave!  Perhaps even Altdorf and the College of Engineers!" 

He seems to realize finally that he is almost shouting with excitement; and in a surge of shame from it his shoulders crowd back in and he adopts his more typical posture, sheepishness in his smile as he backtracks a little.

 "That is, ah, of course... if you wanted to.  Not tomorrow, obviously - there's testing and modifications to consider.  But think about it, won't you?"   He, clearly, has thought about it.  You can tell by the way the front seat of the device seems to be made expecting a man of his size to reach its pedals; and the one behind it in the body of the machine anticipates much longer legs. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia genuinely enjoyed listening to Ariana's story, her face a bright smile, her eyes wide at times, hands over her mouth as she shook her head. She had no idea that such a thrilling little escapades of intrigue and deceit was unfurling behind the scenes while she was locked away or on the stand.

By the end of the tale, Taalia was onto her second small glass of good Bretonnian spirits, fully enraptured by Arianna's cloak-and-daggers yarn.

 "Ariana,"  Taalia started, hand on her mama's arm,  "Gaulfredo called me Taalia, gift from the gods; but it's clear to me, that  you're  my gift!"  she said with that big, infectious smile of hers, clearly understanding how cheesy it sounded, but sincere in the spirit behind it as she offered to clean up and cook that night as a thank you for her adopted mothers venture into the spy game on her behalf.

 oOo 

Taalia was busying herself on her one-day-a-week part time work of firearm production when Signore Cestié had come to retrieve her.

She had been using the boring machine, her hands working, her eyes watching and her mouth singing the practice notes and timbres that Bella had been teaching her in order to form a foundation for vocal proficiency.

Bending at her knee's slightly, keen eyes peering along the boring of a longer barrel that she intended to turn into a full, proper firearm, Taalia blew away a curtain of filings and iron dust that billowed off onto the workshop floor, before her adoptive grandfather arrived on the spot and excitedly hurried her away.

It didn't take long for her to know where this was going.

Taalia wore a little smile on her face as the elder gentlemen led her through his workshop, his direction towards the back and that nearly hidden door being something that she had to feign some surprise upon seeing.

 "Cestié!"  the towering girl exclaimed, covering her mouth with both hands as she was overcome with the shock at this revelation. How clearly enthused the elder man was endearing to the girl, who genuinely enjoyed seeing the man happy.

What she  wasn't  expecting was just how far he had come along with his contraption. When Taalia stepped into that hidden enclave, she no longer had to feign surprise - she wore the real thing across her face. Eyes wide, mouth agape, she inhaled sharply and covered her lips with her right hand as he beheld the ingenuous work that had absorbed so much of Cestie's energies.

But there it sat: a flying machine.

Did it work?

Cestie seemed to think so. In fact he was so certain about it, he proposed a plan to her that would risk  her  life if the thing malfunctioned.

Still dumbstruck at what she saw before her, Taalia tried to speak but words choked in her throat. Instead, all she could do was slowly circle the alien looking craft, thinking that the only others she had heard of who had successfully made such a machine were the dwarves and they frequently used them to travel safely through the air between keeps. Even the Skaven, with their insane genius, had not been able to replicate such devices - Myrmidia knew it wasn't for lack of trying.

But here one sat, produced by a man who believed - and had perhaps just proven - that he as a descendent of the great Leonardo da Miragliano. And could this be his homecoming? Could he fly this across the mountain-ranges into Bretonnia, and from Bretonnia into the Empire and the heart of their own engineering magnificence - Nuln? It would be a legend for the ages if he did, Taalia knew that.  And  it would imprint Cestie into the history books.

And he wanted her to help him do it.

Another moment of stupefied astonishment.

 " Me , Singore Cestie?"  she asked in disbelief as the sheer scale of it all sunk into her head. Fly across the country on the first man-made flying machine, into Bretonnia and then to the Empire?

 "Oh Singore Cestie, yes!"  she threw her arms around him as if she had just been proposed to, ears a little teary and clutching him tightly.

When the emotional timbre eventually settled the logical and sensible questions would emerge and prod her mind in demand for answers. But those could wait, this was a joyous moment of fantasy for both.
MrAbdiel
 Once you've given over to the excitement, once you've validated his geriatric enthusiasm, he has no reason to hold back anymore, and reinvigorates immediately with the wild light in his eyes and big grin.

 "To Nuln!  To Nuln!  Haha!  Taalia, my girl, they'll know our names, in Nuln!"   You hug, and join his manic dance; and surrender to the dream.

The terrible ordeal in Verezzo starts to thankfully feel farther and farther away.

 * * * * * 
You spend more time with Bella, in these days.  As new lanes in Bella Collina are designated and buildings begin construction on them, her little house stops being the fringe of village activity and starts being a little more central.  She makes her petty living as a seamstress already, but having an actual shop, some space to do her craft and display it, would increase her profitability for sure.

But it might not be her best option.  Bella Collina is likely to grow in the coming years, but it won't become a grand hub of fashion and activity.  Even Caesa di Silo is a small town, and a fairly pragmatic one.  Some discussion with your business savvy friend Polo suggests two options, if you are trying to impel Bella towards success - either she must go to customers who will grow to appreciate her products, or she must become so proficient that customers of means will send servants to buy from her.  One involves moving to another town, one with more means for discretionary spending - the other involves moving perhaps to Verezzo and undertaking an apprenticeship to a tailor or seamstress to expand and sharpen her skills.  But these are tradeoffs; the alternative is remaining close to the people she knows and cares about.

 "I don't know, Taalia.  Bella Collina means a lot to me.  Maybe I would be happier staying here - I'm quite happy now, really.  But... I would be lying if I said I didn't find my time in Verezzo interesting.  I've been so desperate to carve out a little safe place in the world for myself that maybe I haven't considered how... big the world is; the opportunities out there.  Is it better to take a risk, or draw close to what you know?" 

She asks this perennial question in a break during one of your singing lessons.  It's an enormous question, one with no 'true' answer'; but she is asking for your instinct, not a cosmic yes or no.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Given the amount of dancing you've been involved in, and the singing lessons you're taking, you can consider taking either or both Perform (Singer) and Perform (Dancer) as out-of-career advances now, for the normal 100xp each.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

It was a subtle, but rather difficult and necessary lesson for Taalia to learn: not everyone was like her. People were different.

Not everyone wanted to be up before dawn to tend to their animals with the grand prize of riches awaiting for them at the end of a road full of work and toil. Not everyone wanted "their own business", or to amass a great fortune or risk their lives on adventure and danger. Most people wanted a quiet, normal life with a periodic tinge of excitement: that was Bella.

Though she had beauty and heart and skill at her chosen methods of expression, from textiles to song and dance, she didn't "want" to start her own thing and be the boss of her own little enterprise.

Taalia did. Bella didn't.

Despite the venn diagram of over-lap, they were both quite different in their desires for what they wanted from life, and the more she got to know Bella, the more she could see that the girl was perfectly content to live a quiet, happy life in her pretty, idyllic village. From a girl whose parents had abandoned her to almost being torn apart by a troll, it was a perfectly fine desire. She would develop and grow in her community, she would see it grow and change as she did likewise, she would have her own little ones, her memory found in the hearts of others before time eventually called her back to the earth and her soul to whatever afterlife awaited the gentlest among us.

And that was fine. Honestly, it was a nicer life than most people in this harsh world got.

Taking her own ego and 'what she would do' out of the equation, Taalia thought that perhaps she was being nosey or thinking she knew what was best. Maybe all Bella wanted to complete her life was a good husband, and she could enjoy a better life than most?

Although, there was one more idea that Taalia had.

 "Bella...I thought about something..."  she would admit one time when over at her friends house, a pot bubbling with pasta above the small fire, both girls with a glass of wine that Taalia had brought over.

 "My little brother, Vitorrio,"  she was calling him 'little brother' by now,  "I am teaching him to read and write. I learned it from Madre. When I was in Verezzo, it was an incredible tool. I could read signs, interact with the wider world in ways I did not know I was missing out on. Given both of our backgrounds, there are what...Eighty children in Bella Collina?" 

A few dozen families. No contraceptives. Rural town with 'not much else to do'. Of course, all of those children were helping their parents in some way. They weren't just running around aimlessly and with nothing to do.

 "And with so many more soon to be arriving once the salt mine and slaughter house are built and are functioning with workers and more families in the area...I was thinking...giving something to this community that has been so good to me, took me in. I thought about perhaps..."  she trails off, pursing her lips,  "...I thought about building a school and hiring a teacher, so all the local children could learn at least a little of numbers and letters. If I provided the duro, would you be interested in participating?" 
MrAbdiel
 Bella considers, with a faint smile on her face as you articulate this dream.

 "A school for the children - incredible, Taalia!  I'd love to help.  Here in Bella Collina?  I think that's a wonderful idea - I'd be honoured to be involved.  I think the children in the new village by the mine will need it most - their parents will need their help less because their fathers will be miners, not farmers - but it's a two day journey between the site for Piede di Ezio and Bella Collina.  I'm not sure we can help them from here - not without a place for them to stay, and a way to feed them.  That requires a whole staff.  And that sounds like a very large project indeed.  But whatever form it takes, I'd love to be involved!"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia smiled warmly hearing her friends insight and how she spontaneously came up with solutions to problems they might encounter. Seeing that warm flash of passion in Bella's eyes told Taalia that this was something she was genuinely excited about.

The white-haired shepardess didn't say anything - she just maintained that smile and put her arms around her friend's shoulders and hugged her close.
MrAbdiel
 Bella hugs you back.  It feels good to be collaborating on projects like this.  You had your family ripped away from you; Bella's abandoned her without reason.  Both of you have an acute sense of what it is to be alone, and clawing your way to safety and making a new home.  Perhaps that's why it's become so easy to get along, when at your first meeting she barely noticed you and all, and you had only fantasies of her shame and humbling. She is likely to be a good teacher for the children, if things shake out that way.  Even if she is relentless as a teacher, with you.

 "Alright.  Break is over.  Remember, head voice and heart voice.  Try to stay in heart voice for this one." 

She keeps an arm around you, but scoops up her tamborine in the other to keep time; and you carry on refining your instrument.

 * * * * * 
You are on the south road, just past the Madre's house on the way to the the junction where the Salt road would lead to your house, or the south road continues to Gaulfredo's.  The gentle downward slope of the road is important, because today you are learning to ride.  Not a horse - that, even though you still struggle, is fun.  This is ...

Fun is an insufficient term to contain the whole experience.

Both you and Signore Cestié will learn to operate the machine.  Both you and he, he is convinced, will be able to power it with your own strength.  In the air, the front and back riders can trade off resting and pedalling and gliding. But to take off from flat ground, both will need to pedal, which means both of you will need to learn to ride this strange construct with two in-line wheels, driven forward by your pedalling.  You convinced the Signore to let you master it before he tried - he can afford fewer falls than you, after all - but now, on the stripped-down core of the flying machine, hold the handlebars in a white knuckle grip and weave, wobbling, back and forth.  The Signore trots along side, nodding encouragingly.  "That's good - it will only wobble like that while it's going slow.  When you get a little speed, it'll straighten up.  If brave Hurcio can hop around on one leg, we can go along on two wheels!

It's a good theory.  But the practise...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Time to ride a DaVinci-punk tandem bicycle.

Give me give Agility Tests, to offer a sort of 'performance arc' for the testing.  You're going to learn to ride, he's going to learn to ride, you're going to ride together, then you're going to ride with the flying rig as part of it along the ground... then it's time to try to acheive lift.  Give me five tests - and I'll give you some outcomes!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

The pair certainly were a strange mix, but in other ways completely compatible. Their backgrounds, their deep down affectionate and loving natures that had received a hard polished sheen by the nasty realities of life. Partaking in singing lessons, enjoying some wine and a beautiful bowl of Bolognese pasta each while spit-balling ideas for a school to help dozens of children learn how to read and write was as fantastic a night as either could enjoy on their own, and Taalia did so in the company of another woman she felt closest to in all of Bella Collina. She would return the warm embrace and keep her arm about her friend as she received directions, even if she loomed a foot taller than her, doing as best she could to follow in her education and example.

 oOo 

Taalia...had  a lot  of fun trying to get that machine to work and learn how to operate it. The slightly descending hill proved to be an ideal candidate for testing initial systems that would be necessary to both take off and stay in the air without crashing into the ground in a humiliated, burning heap.

The shepardess sat in the second seat, the one Cestie had obviously intended for her given its extra leg-room which furnished the six foot five Taalia with room for her long, athletic legs to rest comfortable and peddle when required. Due to the system of pullies and fulcrums, and differently sized cogs, Taalia could appreciate how the efficiency of work had been maximised to a point that even a man of Cestie's advanced age would be able to peddle as if riding a bicycle yet this would translate into adequate pivotal power for the blades to carry the machine into the air where both wind and gliding could assist with propelling it to where the pilot desired to travel.

When it was Taalia's turn, the difference was noticeable. Given her youth and physical vigour, she had an easier time of sustaining peddled flight, her long and strong legs seemingly on autopilot as she spent more time giggling and laughing while trying to direct and pilot the contraption about whenever it became air-borne over the crest of a slightly steep hill.
MrAbdiel
  Phase 1: Surface-To-Surface Navigation (Trial 1) 

It takes effort, but you slowly get the hang of balancing this contraption as it trundles forward.  Steering from the rear seat is hard; it involves using a pair of auxiliary steering handles  located on pullies just above you to turn the front wheel left or right; and operation normally done by the frontmost rider.  You wobble, and wind; at one point, you nearly spill over, but catch yourself. But then you have it, sure enough; you pedal a little, and the machine rolls forward, and that forward momentum makes it 'want' to stay upright.  Signore Cestié is running alongside, cheering.  "Yes!  Yes, that's it!  Wonderful!  Wonderful!"

But then he's running a little behind you, and then you are getting well past him indeed.  Up until now, you have been able to weave a serpentine pattern to arrest your speed; but a slight extra grade to the slope is adding speed and now the way the machine 'wants' to go forward means tilting the wheel left or right causes the whole machine to lurch right or left so much that you have to overcorrect and then you're almost off the other side of the road.  Putting your heels on the road causes your feet to shoot out behind you, and you are left with one option - mitigate the crash. Turning the contraption off the road into the grass, you plow into shrub and go head over heels into its thankfully thornless branches; a rough, but relatively painless end to a near disaster.

 Outcome: Mostly Positive.  Modification: Add leatherbound gripping brakes to one wheel to allow controlled stopping. 
 Phase 2: Surface to Surface Nagivation (Trial 2) 

Now it's the Signore's turn.  He positively giggles and he trundles along; and now it's you running alongside him, trying not to worry about what would happen to him if there was a disasterous crash.  It has taken him longer to get used to the weight distribution, the steering, the leaning this way or that.  He has a couple of small tumbles, but nothing you worry about.

Inevitably, as he pushes the envelope, history repeats- but this time, you have a braking system.  He begins to zoom down the mild slope with accumulated speed, his eyes going wide and amazed; you are able to keep up with your desperate long-legged stride.  To arrest his speed, he squeezes the brake... but when the pulley connecting the leather sheathed jaws squeeze the wheel and do not create a quick deceleration, he panics, and squeezes too tight.  The back wheel kicks up and the whole machine goes upright; Cestié goes soaring from his seat, but remarkably his instincts draw his limbs to his body and when he hits the ground bruisingly he carries on bowling bodily down the road for another ten yards.  He ruins the knees of his pants and loses skin in several places, and ends up with a big cut on his forehead where he banged into a small stone at impressive speed. But what doesn't happen, at least, is the machine isn't destroyed; and it doesn't go tumbling after him and hammer into his body to complicate the matter, because you manage to snatch it from that upright position and prevent it going further in a staggering dance of creator and creation.

Then you rush to his side - but by the time you are there, he is sitting up, touching the blood on his forehead, laughing in self-deprecating triumph.
 
"Well, we should have seen that one coming!" 
 Outcome: Mostly Positive.  Modification: Shift breaking mechanism to rear wheel. 
 Phase 3: Surface to Surface Navigation (Trial 3 - Tandem) 

But by the time you get to riding together, it's much easier.  You have to work to match the lean left or right, but there are no tumbles or crashes.  The design evolves a little; the wheels, which are simple narrow, wooden cart wheels, gain grooved wheels packed with rough leather 'pills' as Cestié calls them, to add grip since the wheels are what is taking the brunt of any deceleration against the ground, instead of the bulk of a horse stopping a moving cart.  The idea of trying to purchase and apply the very exotic  rubber  to these wheels is something that will have to wait for Nuln - here it is very expensive, in null supply right now, and it will wear out so quickly that the suede pills arrayed around the wooden wheels make for the presently useful alternative. You do learn something, however - your legs complete revolutions of your pedals just too fast for Cestie's feet to keep up with, the chain connecting your pedal systems to each other and the wing-drive requiring a much more sophisticated system of gears.  This is a significant issue - it includes adding a gearbox which will add many pounds to the device, but here Cestié finally introduces something he has been holding in reserve - a small cache of fine, silvery discs in his workshop that he has been stashing for many years.  They are as hard as steel ... and light as silk.  They are easilly the most expensive part of the machine.

 Outcome: Mostly Positive.  Modification: Added gearbox and gear shifting system with filed  ithilmar  gears. 
 Phase 4: Surface to Surface Navigation (Trial 4 - Tandem, full apparatus) 

It's during the full-apparatus ride, the  dress rehearsal , that you and the Signore have your most significant setback.  You're not trying to acheive lift - indeed, with the wings installed at their angle, the vehicle cannot life.  But experiment to make sure the vehicle navigates surface roads with full kit at speeds where it  could  achieve lift; that's the goal.  And you almost get there - racing down the South Road, the machine's four wings idle and unflapping at the vehicle's sides, you come to critical speed and Cestié infront of you gives the thumbs up.  Disaster only strikes by bad luck; a steer that has escaped from someone's property nearby wandering out on the road from behind an obscuring tree.  Cestié begins shouting at once, but the beast does not seem to understand the alarm of the cry; when he hits the breaks, he does so at an unfortunate moment when the wheels have hit a slight imperfection in the road and you have about one second of gliding, so the wheels are braked when it hits the ground again; too late, as wood, and canvas, and old man, and young woman, and surprised bovine end up in a calamitous wreck.  Much of the machine is broken, but those are wooden slats and torn canvas - things easily enough replaced.  The steer is largely unharmed, limping off with a distraught mooing, no doubt to tell the other cattle what had happened only to be mocked and disbelieved.  Cestié winds up with a broken arm, and you don't get off scott free - it's a matter of months before he is fit to make adjustments and repairs to the broken machine, and call for the critical fifth phase.

 Outcome: Mostly Positive.  Modification: Added horn and bell to handlebars. 
 Phase 5: Lift. 

Months have passed in the testing process.  The machine has evolved; ithilmar gears, and fine imported wooden dowels light and strong; silk sleeves for the wings, instead of canvas; slim, steel wheels with fine spokes instead of the lighter, but more commonly broken wooden ones.  The purpose of this test is not to truly soar; just to achieve lift from the ground, and land again safely.  The camber of the wings, and your dual control over the apparatus, means it should all work simply enough; and you've accidentally glided before, in the previous test.  But this time, the pair of you pedalling madly and the four long wings pumping up and down their dragonfly pairings, you feel the wheels leave the ground.  Beside you, a trio of the songful blackbirds you saw on your first day on the surface flit along as if in formation flight.  You feel Cestié shift your gears to contribute to the wing drive instead of the wheels; and four fourteen glorious seconds, you sail through the air twenty feet above the Silo road; Corvo running along side and barking his amazement; touching down without so much of a hiccup, as the braking wheels arrest all your velocity until you have to brace the idle machine with your feet either side.

 Outcome: Complete Success.  Modification: None.  Move to Phase 6: True Flight, to be scheduled.  
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Since you only failed your phase 4 roll, I invite you, if you should like, to take a memorable injury from that bovine intervention; a broken bone perhaps, which will heal fine over the months to come but will be an interesting story later.
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


The beautiful fields of the Tilean countryside and its gentle roads bore witness to one of the most peculiar pairings operating a peculiar machine for an intended peculiar trek. Taalia's towering figure and ensuing energy paired with Cestie's elder image, though he was no less spry in his advance age. Instead, the spirit of adventure had quite well and truly seized him, as the madness of his machine and the journey he was going to embark upon with it was a once in a generation spectacle that excited the imagination and whetted the intellectual appetite to push them to limits - which is exactly what the pair did.

The first field test was ergonomical and mechanical. Sitting her rump down into the intended seating, Taalia made a mental note to ensure the final product would feature nicely padded seats that would comfortably cushion her posterior for a multi-hour flight where she would be peddling hour after hour. Indeed, the more Taalia operated the craft and machine, the more things she noticed that her imagination projected into the future. Reaching up to hold the levers for the wings - how tired would their arms get? The ergonomics of proper seating  and  peddling for hours on end? What if they fly  against  the wind instead of with it? Will that be swiftly exhausting? Will it risk damage to the membrane of the wings? What redundant systems were there in place should a tear or breakage emerge during flight? Where could they store spare parts, tools, food and water in case they needed to make an emergency landing? What was the storage limit outside of critical necessities? One kilogram? Two? What about spare clothes (especially if Taalia was to be sitting  behind  Cestie and receiving the wind  after  him...). What was the minimal condition of the roads needed for touch down and take off? Would travelled dirt road be enough? What if it rained? How would they navigate from the sky, after all neither one of them were exactly used to a 'birds eye view' of the world, it could be quite easy to miss landmarks from up there?

All of these and a thousand other questions shot through Taalia's mind, and the girl was dutiful enough to write them all down on the parchment and notes that they had brought along during their testing. These were questions that were engineering in nature and which Cestie should be able to solve, but others were ones that her non-academically trained brain picked out over the course of the coming days that they excitedly tested the contraption.

And during the downtime when that damn steer stood in their way, staring dumbly at their rapid approach and received the charge of the machine and its man and woman occupants into its broad flank. The ungodly racket propelled machine and occupants across the ground, while bewildered bovine stumbling away in a stupid daze as Taalia was actually the  send  one to come too. After she was brought shambling to Madre, the older woman held her head tentatively in her hands and tilted it gently this way and that, asking the girl to look and trace her finger back and forth.

Taalia had a concussion. A bad one too.

Flight helmets. That was another necessity, it seems.

So the girl spent the next few weeks wandering about her farm, weakly helping out where she could while a bandage remained wrapped around half of her head.

 "Never, I am fine! No need to treat me like some little...old woman...!"  she would protest as one of the Troublemaker Boys caringly showed her back to her porch rocking chair, the towering amazon, known for her vigor and toughness, staggering back and down into her plush seat where she could watch the idyllic beauty of her farm and hear the sounds of her animals to bring calm and serenity to the chaos of the mind-blocking liquid that seemed to slosh around in her head.

Flight helmets indeed.

But her injury came to pass, and it wasn't long until she was back at work on her farm, in the workshop, with Gaulfredo's family and, of course, with Cestie's machine. The injuries and humiliating, undignified crashes had been weights upon Taalia's confidence, with her prior one causing her to question whether this trip was really a wise idea to conduct. Yet in that final test when they achieved lift-off, the world sank away form her and the sky opened up. The hands of Myrmidia and Vereza held her gently and pushed her into the air, the wind rushing into her face, her hair tucked beneath her helmet, as the world below shrank away and the freedom of the avian became hers in name and spirit. Any doubts she had about the feasibility of this mad scheme disappeared behind her as the girl gave in to excitement and hollered loudly as youth was want to do when seized by adrenaline, as the world had seemingly became a much smaller place.
MrAbdiel
 Signorina Taalia Giovanni and Signore Maso Cestié, the first aviators of Bella Collina, must make for quite a scene; both hooting and calling as the road below rushed by, and Corvo beneath driven almost feral with amazement and desire to be part of this gravity defying game.  Or you would, if anyone was out to watch you.  Bella Collina is growing, but still a sleepy province this far down the road from the village proper; and only the Madre Angeletta knew along with the pair of you what was being planned.  She naturally doubted the ambition was possible, but knew better than to try to stop the pair of you, injuries and all.  Still - when you touch down, and ease the wheels to a stop, and there are no more concussions of broken bones, the old man looks back at you over his shoulder with tears in his eyes and a triumphant smile.  Next would come the extended flight test - higher heights, higher stakes - but then it would be all but ready, with a few adjustments from the observations you have made.  On that day, a whole new adventure will open to you.  Until then, there was no shortage of it within Bella Collina!

 * * * * * 
Finally, you complete your project, having sworn to do so and sworn again when it turned out the shrine played a part in saving your life.  Another brush or two worn through, another few days of scrubbing and scrubbing with the persistance learned through crushing labor.  How darkly humourous, that the slavery you endured under the Skaven gave you the discipline and endurance to render clean and honored a shrine to a goddess whom, you are told, is a demonstrated enemy of the rats.  And you are told again; standing in the cave that once reeked of troll filth, now only of the nostril-stinging chemical tang of the detergent.  Cleared, you see the shrine for what it is; a hexagonal chamber in which the facings of the six walls are exact, but they are not completely flat; as if a roughly round chamber had its walls smoothed back into six great panels, but not so totally that they met at six corners.  Instead, each face (and indeed the floor and ceiling) spread out with geometric precision but, nearing their extension, graded back into rough natural rock either dipping a little further into the wall or bulging out.  And the natural rock was not marble all through, either.

 "Mostly granite,"  the elf Iyaseanna notes as she runs her slender digits across the smallest panel, made small by necessity to accommodate the pathway into the shrine in its face.   "The stone has been transmuted to marble in places, then worked.  The touch of high magic."   Matrona da Motiano takes note as she taps her finger to her lips; her eyes darting about the torchlit faces of the shrine.   "Remarkable.  Remarkable."   Behind her, a pair of Verenan acolytes sit on the ground with parchment and quill, copying the revealed Eltharin text as they perceive it, though without comprehending it.  The Matrona pays little attention to them, now they are on task.  Her fingertips touch the carved impression of a spear in the divine image's hand.   "The Spear of Verena.  Have you seen anything in the writing that suggests where it is, Signora Iyaseanna?" 

The elf gives a shrug.  "It's Cothiquan, as I suspected; but that is a ... thick dialect.  These three faces here are meticulous report of the battle, which this claims took place on a peninsula to which the rats had been driven back.  These two walls here are victory poems, commemorating six human priestly warriors who took part in the combat.  Only this part, on the entry wall, discusses the Spear - praising those who wielded it, and the devastation it wrought on the rats."

"..Is it your instinct that this is a literal description?  A genuine weapon, held in the hands of champions...?"  The Matrona asks, with some skepticism.  Something about that notion seems to trouble her; though the elf takes no notice.

 "...Possibly.  Though I wonder how six warriors could wield a single spear in battle to any effect.  And however powerful a literal spear may be, I cannot imagine it powerful enough to really devestate a whole army.  Perhaps it is poetic, then.  The spear of Verena is wisdom?  Wisdom in battle, cunning to overcome the foe?" 
 "Maybe.  That seems a Myrmidian philosophy, however, more than a Verenan one.  Even Verena's sword is not her own; it is Morr's, seized from him when Verena was forced to shame the other gods into action against the great enemy.  Verena's wisdom is not battle - it is protected by warriors as a last resort." 
 "If you say so, Matrona.  Whatever it was, it was enough to impress these Asur - elves, from across the sea.  Enough that they took the time to embed your countryside with marker shrines like these.  Here - see this?  This is not Eltharin." 

You, the Matrona, and her scribes all look up a the low ceiling - the most frustrating part of the cave to clean, though still tall enough not to force you to crawl.  The elf indicates three lines, amidst the others; and not knowing elven writing, you took no notice previously.  But they do appear... different, in some way.

 "...Not Eltharin characters.  Not classical characters.  Almost Arabyan, with those slashes and dots..." 

One of the scribes pipes up, after coughing to clear her throat.   "It... looks to be Indan, Matrona.  Though... not the kind used by the Brahmiri cult, which I had studied.  But the characters are Indan; they just don't spell words I can comprehend." 

The Matrona sniffs.   "Well.  Copy them meticulously, both of you.  I cannot imagine a reason for an Indan inscription here but to make the information within it harder to attain for people stumbling upon the shrine - accessible only to dedicated scholars, which is a puzzle that sounds much more like the Verena I know.  We will see if our temple of Clio in Verezzo has anything Indan to help us; otherwise, I fear someone is going to have to undertake a very important journey to Altdorf - their library being considerably closer than Ind." 

Whatever this Spear of Verena is... it kills Skaven.  By the  swarm.   What an interesting thing to know.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Dun dun 
Congratulations, you have uncovered the  Da Vinci Code  part of the adventure.  Opportunity here to ask the Matrona or the elf about the shrine!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia kept up as best she could, but for the initial stages of inspection she was a quiet and looming observer. However, early into the archaeological inspection, she had taken Iyaseanna aside to offer her something in private.

 "I do not believe souls to be of different value to each other,"  the shepardess started, her height one of the few who could stand equal to or surpass the heightened elegance of the bounty hunter.

 "But during my...indentured service to the Skaven, I observed several of your kind. I am sorry to say they did not last long. Or perhaps thankful, depending on your perspective. Nogran has let me know the ways of his kind, and I am thankful for the relation between man and dwarf, but your kind...I know very little, Singora, and I wish to remedy that. I grant each people their own ways and direction of thought, but I earnestly believe that the dwarves, us,"  'us' meant humans,  "and your kind, despite our differences, have our common enemy in the Skaven and other horrors of the world. All our peoples create things that are worth preserving in this world."
 

It was a personal confession to the elf, the first that Taalia had actually interacted with on any meaningful level beyond simple eye contact. That their relationship had started with deception was unfortunate, but given the looking-out-for-ones-own the elves seemed to exhibit - as did most species - perhaps she would understand.

But further inspection of the shrine revealed a treasure trove of mystery, history, mysticism, analogic lore and prior relation between humans and elves. That these shrines even existed thanks to the combined ecclesiastic power coming to the rescue of a small enclave of elves was testimony in itself. Perhaps it was being in the presence of an  actual  elf that drew out Taalia's affectionate nature towards Singora Iyaseanna, but the towering human would often hang near both her and the Matrone, listening to their words, over-hearing their educated and learned conversation. Taalia had demonstrated numerous talents and the ability to learn quickly, but this was an area in which she was a stumbling ignoramus. Such was her thin knowledge of the topic and consequences, that she held her tongue at offering suggestions as to how the singular weapon of the spear could be interpreted, lest she look like a fool.

She respected Matrone for not only the role she had played in her innocent conviction, her general knowledge and as a priestess of one of her own deities, she did not want to look like an arse in front of her. Likewise, Iyaseanna...who knew how old the elf was, what she had seen come and go before her. Taalia had started her memory within that collage by deceiving her, and though she had elevated her station slightly by restoring this shrine, she knew the elves could be unknowingly capricious, and so thought it best to simply just shut up and listen.
MrAbdiel
 Iyaseanna is difficult to read.  It's a difficulty you didn't have with Nogrom the dwarf, or Bolo the halfling; whose expressions and sentiments are, if anything, more extreme and readable than those of humans.  But the elf is not so clear.  Her features are all in the right place - though the sclera, iris, and pupils of her eyes are all different values of black, hauntingly.  Her narrow features, pale skin, and elegant proportions certainly register as nearing  beautiful ; but beautiful in the way a bird of prey is beautiful; not in the way  people  are beautiful.  But at your best guess, she isn't irritated by your questions; and she receives them as if the action is more positive than even the bare minimum 'toleration' you had hoped for.

 "...Thankful, from my perspective, yes.  The alternative to not lasting long is lasting extremely long
indeed.  As for my kind, my people... These are two different things.  I have a kind; but I have no people."   She enjoys being ambiguous for a moment, before clarifying.  She gives you the cliff notes of elven kind.  The elves,  elthii , once were united as a people.  An ancient war split them once; sending the vile and treacherous  Druchii  to the frozen far western continent - so far away it seems mythical - and the  asur  reeling from that betrayal.  The Asur empire stretched far across the ancient world, where they were allies and friends of the dwarves; but another ancient war broke that faith, and after an age of bloodshed the elves abandoned their holdings in what you think of as  the world  and retreated to their fantastical island homeland.  But some elves did not flee - they had found something more spiritually true and important in the world; they had made pacts with the spirits of the land and the trees and met the elven gods more closely there, and would not retreat to a fortress of indolence and pleasure.  These would become known as wood elves -  Asrai  for the most part, in the grand forest of Athel Loren which lies beyond the huge, imposing mountain cluster in the 'elbow' of Tilea; the  Vaults .  Beyond that, a smaller colony of wood elves defined themselves apart from the Asrai - the  Eonir , in their own forest within the Empire of Sigmar.

 "My  kind  are the elves; but I left the Asrai behind some time ago - this is why I say I have no people.  They seethe about the abandonment of the Asur and the ignorance of dwarves and the mayfly-brevity of humans; but they are not without folly.  As for working together against greater evils... Well.   It has happened before.  It will happen again.  When elves are dying, humans do not care; and when humans die, elves do not care.  But when both have died in sufficient numbers... They have a combined strength that is admirable, certainly.  If nothing else, this shrine is monument to the ability of one to appreciate the other.  And now, given I make my way in this season of my life on the willingness of some humans to honor my skills, I can hardly disdain them with any depth.  I do not know how the gods weigh souls; but we all suffer when theives snatch our belongings, or brigands strike our loved ones.  Pain unites, even if hope does not." 
 * * * * * 
But it's not all flying machines and divine mysteries; your time is also drawn to affairs more mudane.

 "Taalia!  Taalia, you must come with me!" 

This is Bella, running with handfuls of skirt through the tufty grass at the front of your house on your land; at once alarming you a little at her hurry dismounting from her little donkey-drawn cart to call to you, and simultaneously reminding you to bring some sheep out to mow your front yard.

 "It's Istuccio - he's out of his mind!  He won't listen to me - but perhaps, he will listen to you!" 

You've only just recovered from your concussion; the idea of getting out of house and going for a ride is not unappealing.  But what has happened?  Istuccio has seemed to you always to be loyal, and clear headed, and good hearted.  Bella tells you some of it, as she catches her breath.

 "I was coming to visit you - to see if you wanted to go see Piede de Ezio with me - and Istuccio was escorting me.  But when we got to the Trollslayer's Rest, he became... strange and evasive.  He was drunk this morning when we were to leave, and when I chided him, he yelled at me, and locked himself in his room. Gherardino suggested I come get you, since the road there to here is clear enough... But I fear I have... offended him somehow."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 
 "Pain unites, even if hope does not." 

The words seemed to reach into Taalia's personal history and seize her by the heart, her mind drifting back to her time as a slave beneath the Skaven. The tall girl nodded, lips pursed.

 "I must sadly agree, Singora,"  she would respond, but offer a what-are-ya-gunna-do-about-it shrug.

 "Maybe pain has its use afterall..." 
 oOo 

Taalia was preparing to cook a beautiful Bolognese, spinach and mushroom gnocchi now that her mind had recovered from its traumatic injury. Her two employees, soon to be four, were used to her being the cook of the farm-stead, a role Taalia didn't seem to mind taking upon herself, for it helped hone her skills. It was a curious picture, as they were all teenagers plying their trade on Taalia's farm. The white-haired amazon, though arguably the one with the most personal experience of violence in the whole village, was happy to play young mother to the group, cooking the food, performing the washing and offering directions, all from her elevated position as employer and her physically exalted station of owner of land, buildings and animals that all three worked with to generate wealth. Naturally, the boys were used to their mama's cooking, however various in skill that spectrum was, and so the shepardess believed if she could create dishes each night that received all of their honest praises, and not just that of the sycophantic employee, she was well on the path to creating fulfilling beauty. Besides, having learned from Ariana and Bella, Taalia had become quite an excellent cook. And she had grown wealthy enough that she could regularly indulge in utilising poultry meat every few days in her cuisine. Not required to pay rent  and  receiving home-made meals that were both delicious and nutritious, while being paid an adults wage, it was little wonder the Troublemaker boys might show Taalia incredible loyalty despite her high standards and (in)famous temper that caused some to wonder whether she had Norscan blood somewhere in her lineage. Not that she was unfair or cruel, mind you, her default setting was of a hard-worker that had a friendly smile for operational competence. But her cultural assimilation into the Tilean habit of passionate displays mixed with whatever ethnic lineage she hailed to create someone that was decidedly intimidating when repeated screw ups drew out her ire. Thankfully, such instances were rare, and the far more common guise worn was that of the employer who was either preparing delicious dinner or working alongside her lads and joining them in the enjoyment of an honest days labour. And unknown to most, there was a reason for those standards...where she grew up, failure was rewarded with beatings.  Repeated  failure invited beatings for  all  the slaves involved, in order for the workers to "motivate" each other to do better.

Speaking of Bella, seeing her closest friend in a state of dishabelle and clearly fraught with current events, Taalia put aside whatever it was she had been doing and went to receive her friend, her hands on the other girls elbows-by-her-side and listening to her plea.

Istuccio? But Taalia had only know him to be a reliable and brave young man...he was  angry  with Bella? Descending into drunkenness?

The shepardess agreed to travel with Bella to the  Trollslayer Inn , where she would at least offer to try and speak to the lad.

Rapping gently on that door,  "Istuccio?"  Taalia's familiarly sonorous and smoky voice would permeate through the wooden portal.

 "Istuccio, are you in there?"  
MrAbdiel
  "...No." 

This unconvincing denial is definately Istuccio's voice; sullen, and a little slurred.  Bella grimaces at you, helplessly.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
This might be a good time for a Charm check, to convince him to open the door and listen.  Unless there's another skill you think you could use, in which case that!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Swallowing gently, receiving Bella's look of concern with an equal amount of worry of her own, Taalia leaned back to the door.

 "It's me, Taalia..."  though her smoky voice was as distinctive as her physical appearance, it was nice to announce anyway.
 
"I've heard a lot of worrying things...may I come in?"
 
MrAbdiel
 A long pause....

 "...Okay." 

He isn't in much of a state of mind to reason away from your gentle imploring; and you've given him nothing to be unreasonable about; so all he can do is yield. The door clicks the lock, and you are afforded entry.  The smell of rum that has been down a throat then ejected out with interest smashes into your nostrils, as you do; a shameful pool of old puke in one corner of the room, looking to have been addressed with a towel that has sort of stirred it around on the floor more than cleaned it up.  The puker himself sits on the ground beside the door, even though there is a perfectly good bed right there, and a chair elsewhere; rolling an empty clay jug between his hands, listening to the sound it makes in his fingers.  With a little probing, his silence ruptures, and he confesses the reason for his state.

 "I'm to leave Bella Collina, Taalia.  Maybe I'll go south to Luccini and try my luck.  But I can't stay here - it's not fair to Ernesto." 

The dramatic tale comes rolling out.  Over the past months, almost a year, Istuccio has fallen in love with Antonuccia.  It's not hard to see why - they're comparable ages, and Antonuccia is not unlovely.  But more than that, she is pouring herself heart and soul into the act of caring for Istuccio's brother; whose infirmity he must certainly feel guilt to have escaped.  But the complexity of the matter is in that Ernesto has fallen in love with her too; and confessed so to Istuccio, in melancholy musings about having no right to expect the love of a woman given his condition.  Ernesto had resigned himself to loving her forlornly and appreciating her labors for him.  But Istuccio, in moment of weakness of character, gave Antonuccia a kiss which she returned (his report of the kiss is almost painfully longing).  But immediately after he saw his error, and apologized; and in confusion Antonuccia demanded understanding of his changing intentions; and as the matter escalated it woke Ernesto sleeping in the room beyond; and being only lame and not a fool, the younger brother understood the events and offered some regrettable invective of his own.  At the end of it all, Istuccio struck out from the house hoping a jaunt to town would clear his head; though it seems to have done the opposite.  He accepted Bella's request to ride with her to your home, but when they stopped here at the  Trollslayer's Rest , the events caught up with him and he turned to drink, which popular myth held was the remedy for heartbreak.  In the morning, he was so ashamed of himself and so overcome with feeling that he snapped at Bella when she tried to rouse him to action.

 "It's not fair to my brother.  Antonuccia is very good for him; very patient in her work.  Even if she doesn't - ... I can't do that to him.  I shouldn't have done what I did anyway.  Ah!  Taalia, why didn't you bring back some... fat old man of a doctor, instead of this vexingly charming woman?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia slipped inside that door, her nose immediately assaulted by the odoriferous melange of of vomit and internal bodily humours. Her nostrils twitched, her hand closed the door and she moved to sit nearby her friend, where she sat upon the ground and told sad stories.

And Ernesto had a sad story to tell.

Comical, in a way, but sad. Two brothers losing their heart to a beautiful, learned woman who had come to shower her professional care upon one of them. Ah! Taalia should have seen this coming. Antonuccia was easy on the eyes and young enough to still consider marriage and child-bearing. That she would be in a position where her maternal indulgences were required for one of two youthful, handsome young men with money in their pocket and hopes for the future...

Taalia showed a compassionate face for Ernesto, as she reached out and gently rubbed her closest hand upon his shoulder. However in regards to Tilean ladies like Antonuccia, it was fun, in a way, for Taalia to see that even learned, level-headed and "rational" Tilean women became impassioned and fierce on matters of love. One could take the girl out of Tilea, but you couldn't take the Tilean of the girl. Taalia smiled, she respected that. Istuccio was tall, handsome, brave and part owner of prosperous little oxen enterprise. That Antinuccua had fallen in love with the idyllic country side of Bella Collina...it was doubtful that she would be the first.

 
"You'll away to Luccini? And rob Bella Collina of half of it's handsome men?..."  she offered with a playful smile, trying to bring just a sliver of levity into the room.

 "If you leave, you will only force Antonuccia, Bella and myself to fight over who will have rights to your brother,"  she continued her coy and playful mirth before leaning in to speak gently to him with the tone of one who was clearly enjoying the jest and dark humour  "...and I fought a troll with my bare hands so I don't fancy their chances..."  she snickered, before drawing her levity back down to a more sombre level.

 "Your brother loves you,"  Taalia stated, her smoky voice soft, her own maternal and gentle side shown.

 "Maybe you should not have acted that way, I do not know the answer to that. But what I do know...is that I lost six brothers and sisters I will never see again. All that I have now? I would give it in a heart-beat to see just one of them. You have him, here and now. Tell Antonuccia that you love her, but that you love your brother more. She will learn to love again, as will you two. Offer your heart to your brother and I'm sure he will reciprocate. Should Antonuccia still wish to come between you and care not that she is separating brothers, then perhaps she is not worth the trouble and your heart will be free?" 
MrAbdiel
 Istuccio stews in your advice, before hanging his head in his hands.  You are right, of course - it would be a terrible shame for the brothers to have a lasting falling out over this.  It takes Istuccio's pickled brain a little effort to work this wisdom which he should have already known, but perhaps needed reiterated, through his predicament.

 "...Yes... Yes, I... cannot leave him.  But I cannot have her; and if we all dwell together there will be more folly, I know it.  But we cannot send her away - Ernesto loves her too, and she has done very good for him in his condition.  He has not regained his function, but... she makes him feel capable of accomplishing things, still.  I do not know if another doctor could do so.  Maybe... Agh... I need to speak to him.  We have been together our whole lives.  Perhaps now it is time for us to remain brothers but live under separate roofs.  Then I do not need to rob him of anyone, and I will just..."   He leans back against the wall, and rests a hand over his heart; fingertips curling and uncurling like he's mildly trying to claw the painful organ from his ribs.   "...I will just overcome it.  I have so much.  Maybe I need to do something other than rest on my blessings..." 

He's not all the way there to a solution, but his gears are spinning again.  The Madre would say 'some men will only take medicine if you trick them into thinking they brewed it themselves.'  Istuccio may be such a man, who must put his stamp on a solution to fully credit its value.  But he doesn't undervalue you for getting him started, atleast.  He sniffs, sighs, and then offers you a smile that seems to appreciate how awful he looks right now.   "How is my horse?" 
 * * * * * 
You stay the night at the  Trollslayer's Rest .  Bella is glad Istuccio seems to be better, but you can tell she is somewhat crestfallen that she was not able to help him, and disenchanted by how he turned on her in the face of his melancholy.  He apologizes to her, and she accepts it; but this is the second man whose inner emotional realm has been inaccessible to her; and she confesses to you on the road that she wonders if she cursed to drive people away.  What is hidden in that confession is a plea - [I]please don't abandon me, too/I] - which you have no trouble honoring.  Over the next couple of days, you travel past your farm to the east, to Piede de Ezio.  It's still mostly tents and shacks at this point, but you can see that the settlers here have brought in dwarven mining consultants to get the salt mine started while the living arrangements for the miners and their families still completes itself; though many of the buildings of the brineries and smoke houses on the road there have been completed, with their own little homesteads like yours.  The settlers here come from villages all over Verezzo who heard of opportunity,  and were offered financial help in seizing it.  In a few months, Damio's plan seems like it will be bearing salty, salty fruit.

But before that time comes your first Mystery Night without Gaulfredo's family; you can hardly abandon your livestock to whatever comes in the night.  Three of the troublemaker boys, for all their contentment of living on the property as they work, have their mothers and fathers and relatives to consider on this night, and have to beg off enduring the night here for their higher priority of retreating to their family home.  Only Cremenzio is unattached sufficiently to stand guard with you; as does Bella, who has journeyed out to your farm for that night.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: The Night of Mystery! 
Spooky scary skaven sending warpstone through your brain!

Probably not, but all the same.  For the night of great spookery, Taalia has a farm to look after this time; with Bella, and Cremenzio to help her out.  What's her plan?  I assume the sheep pen is adjacent to the sty, so is the plan to hold up in there all night - or hold up in your somewhat more comfortable house preparing to run to assist if there is commotion in the piggery, or split your 'forces' between?

Did you have anything else you'd like to do to prepare for a night of such superstition and menace?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia watched Istuccio go through the motions of a man resolving a deep conflict within himself, and realising he had to correct course. It was fascinating in a way, like receiving a keyhole into the human mind and male struggle and acceptance. She had seen Ariana and Bella handle such things differently, but never the men. Gaulfredo rode his emotions like a wave, up and down and deal with them off the cuff in the same way. Usually it worked in his favour, but other-times it didn't. But Istuccio was more stoic, more closed off, more guarded. Or, alternatively, just didn't want to burden others around him with his own roiling emotional state? Who knew. It was a mystery to her, though Taalia admitted to herself that during her servitude to the rats, her heart was likewise fenced off - emotion was weakness underneath the rats, it was a door through which you could be manipulated.

Taalia smiled to Istuccio's question.

 "She's in the stable. When you clean up here come down and see her, I'm sure she's missed you,"  the shepardess replied warmly.

 oOo 
On the road back, Taalia played shoulder-to-cry-on to another, Bella. That was fine though, as the two had become remarkably close over the past year, with Taalia sharing thoughts, feelings and past events with her best friend. Her concern that she was cursed was a thought Taalia could see developing further, picking up pieces of the girls own history to use against her and confess a sense of uselessness that could place the heart in chains. Her parents had abandoned her. Bertuccio had abandoned her, when he came to his senses. And now Istuccio had not opened up to her, even borderline taking it out on her. Indeed, she had not had the best of luck it would seem.

 "Drive people away? You?"  Taalia answered, seated on Jezebella as she looked over to Bella with a bright grin.

 "You're focusing on the negatives,"  she continued, her tone gentle and matter-of-factly.

 "People adore the most beautiful girl in the town,"  she smiled,  "and it'd be a less beautiful place without you,"  she stated, leaning over and down from her saddle, boots hooked in the stirrups so she could kiss Bella on the cheek, offer that bright smile of hers and then lean back up.

 "You'll see. With all the activity coming Bella Collina's way? How many young men do you think are going to come seeking work?"  she smirked, perking an eyebrow.

 "You'll get your pick and your hearts will be joined, and the school we make will be full!" 

But soon, Mystery Night was upon them. Cremenzio stayed on her farm, and Bella arrived to spend the night, which Taalia preferred. It was better than the poor girl being on her own in her house.

That day, Taalia and Cremenzio had been working diligently to organise all of the sheep and pigs into their respective enclosures, as the barn and sty had been constructed with this very night in mind, the capacity of both able to draw in and comfortably 21 sheep and 25 pigs. The sty and the barn were adjacent, with a door installed to allow passage between them. Once the animals had been gathered and food for both them and the three human occupants were sorted, Taalia and Cremenzio set about locking the doors from the inside with heavy iron barricades. Taalia was dressed as if she were about to go and travel, wearing her good clothes, her boots, even her leather armor upon her frame, with her sword and shield nearby and her blunderbuss loaded and ready.

As the dusk turned to night and the eerie silence of the external world seemed to suffocate them all in silence, the three of them waited...
MrAbdiel
 It is not in Bella's nature to mope, neither in yours; and so it is not a difficult thing for you to guide her out of that spin.  But the events of the Night of Mystery would be more difficult to forget.  You had prepared for the worst, based on the stories, based on how Gaulfredo and Ariana taught you to prepare.  As it turns out, there was precious little you could do to prepare yourself, and your household, for what happened.

Cremenzio is the least likable of the troublemaker boys. Almost six feet tall and built bulky, he remains still a decent option for cudgel swinger in a desperate situation; and you personally witnessed him on Silo Road take a bleeding blow to the head and keep brawling away till the end.  The scar - a large, ugly mark from the peak of his hairline to the middle of his right brow, is obvious and damaging to his already mediocre looks; but you're no stranger to facial scars, and what it means to feel marred in the way you are presented to the world.  In some other world, in which the troublemaker boys continued to make trouble, he would be the member of their gang that is sent to beat people senseless for not paying money, even if not the one to rely on in a serious fight for one's life.  As it happened, his influences were positive enough that he is simply a young man with potential for that kind of thuggery inside him; contained by a thick membrane composed of the traditional esteem of the people that matter to him.  It's also obvious to you that he has eyes for Bella - but half of bloody Bella Collina has eyes for Bella, just not any of the people she has expressed the mildest interest in.

He sits on a stool with a short spear in hand and a borrowed shortsword on one hip, letting his gaze drift over the snuffling and shuffling pigs in their sty nearby.  Like you, he is innured to the smell now.  Only Bella, who does not work with such beasts every day, has to endure it at cost, which has driven her to the window where, after some negotiation, you permit her to crack it open to take a fresh breath!  But in doing so, after the color returns to her cheeks, she seems to spot something, and you watch her take a skittering backward step in her peasant dress, one hand twitching toward the quiver over her shoulder, before relenting.   "Taalia... Taalia, there's someone in your house!" 

From the window, you can see your humble little home.  There's no candles or lanterns on within it, naturally - and the back door, the one you can see from here, is still closed; but you see what Bella is regarding with surprise.  The wooden shutters on the barn facing window flex back and forth against the bolt you locked on their inside, as if being attacked from within with striking blows.  And then, as you watch, they blow open and slap against the exterior walls.  Out from that window begin to sail, one at a time, your possessions, with little regard for how well they hit the ground.  A clay jug.  The sheets from your bed.  The pot of rainwater you keep inside by the stove.  A handful of cold charcoal from the stove.  Wooden cutlery.  Out they go, landing in a big, messy pile just outside the window; most enduring, but in the case of crockery, cracking and crashing against each other, too.

Someone is ransacking your home.  And from here in the barn, you can either do nothing - or you can go out and cross the space between to investigate. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia's eyes widened as she peered through the cracks of the barn, a fury rising up in her body that threatened to seize control of her mind and hurtle her outside to do something rash.

But the girl restrained herself. For now.

Visibly furious but bringing her facial expression down, Taalia grabbed her blunderbuss and swung her shield over her shoulder. For a second it looked like she was about to go storming out, but instead she drew herself near the closest door where she could peer through the cracks.

Who would be  stupid  enough to come out on a night like this? She had locked the doors of her house, whoever it was had obviously gained entry  somehow . But to sail out into those dark waters with that moon...she remember what happened to Bertuccio. Had he witnessed something similar and had been drawn out, only for his mind to be seized from him?

Watching her mundane possessions tossed out of the window, Taalia felt the weight of her gold purse on her hip and the rest in her backpack. She could lose items, she reasoned, but her currency was fine.

As if sensing her anger, Corvo had stirred from his nap, trotting over next to her and sniffing at the bottom of the barn door.

 "What stupido bastard is out on  this  night?"  Taalia hissed to herself. Again, it looked like she would open those doors and go through. But what a ridiculous risk she would be taking. Bella and Cremenzio were relying on her keeping a cool head. Her animals were here - the real source of her future wealth - and still safe. They were all safe, but if she threw open that door and ran through it...what if the Witches Moon seized her mind? Compelled her to turn her gun onto her employee and friend? As personally violated as she felt watching...whoever...up in that room throwing items out the window, Taalia knew she'd be a fool to leave. No mundane item was worth your mind and soul.

Besides. What if it wasn't a man? What if it was a physical being...something  else ?

If it was an opportunistic local, well, Taalia looked down at Corvo and patted his big, broad head. She could track him down. She could get a look at him too through the cracks, her keen eyes perfectly fine in the dark.

Visibly calming down, pursing her lips as she tightly gripped her weapon, Taalia watched and waited...
MrAbdiel
 You bide, and watch - Cremenzio and Bella take turns watching, too, with atleast one set of eyes watching the interior of the barn.  But it's hard not to watch the desecration underway, helpless as you all are to do anything about it.  Over the next fifteen minutes, you watch ever single loose item from your house that can fit through that window be ejected through it onto that growing pile.  Fireplace poker.  Unlit candles.  A bucket of scraps from cooking you hadn't quite brought to the pigs, yet.  Every pan and tray and dish that you had bought from the Spinster Sister's trading post, or that Ariana had given you.  Your sandals.  That one, well-gnawed stick that Corvo likes (the pup jerks in place as his ears catch the familiar woosh-woosh of it revolving in the air, but he cannot see it, and soon settles again).  Your chamber pot - thankfully clean and empty as it lands on the pile of your clothes and linens.  But then comes the content of your larder; cooking wine, and honey, and olive oil, and egg after egg after egg land on the pile, leaving an unholy mess topped off with all your clothes pulled from your wardrobe - your breeks, and skirts, and smallclothes.  With a note of finality, your poor, fine, fine muffin cap flops onto the sticky busted mass of life's little things, and then the defenestrator responsible seems to run out of ideas.  You see a chair bang against the window twice and drop back inside - threaded carefully it could go through the opening, but your vandal is too impatient to do more than toss.  Then there is a minute long pause, and you wait to see if someone emerges... but no one does.

Instead, the window shutters suddenly flap harshly as it shocked by a burst of air; and a visible streak of movement with nothing physical corresponding to it comes racing towards the barn.  You track it by the harsh parting of the grass and the dust it kicks up, just as you might track a fish skimming below the surface of a stream and disturbing the surface water.  It moves to the barn with the speed of a hurled spear and you and Bella lurch back from the window instinctively as it approaches... but it doesn't smash down the wall as you may have feared.  But you feel it pass through; the icy chill of cold air ripping past you, past Bella, past Cremenzio, and then shooting straight in through the barn and all its animals and then out through the barred door on the other side and into the night.  The wave of shock and alarm rippling through the pigs and sheep is something you have never seen before; a linear sequence of animal terror lighting up like fire racing down a line of blackpowder.

It takes the three of you the better part of an hour to calm the animals.  The air is thick with the smell of their panicked evacuations, but ultimately there seems to be no harm done... not here, anyway.  And the interloping force does not return.  When dawn comes, you see the great mess of possessions and the filthy compound of dozens spices, sauces and ingredients which in many other combinations would be delicious.  Only the ants, now swarming for the honey, can find nourishment in the pile now; even Corvo doesn't dare sniff too close.  It does not seem like the force broke into your house; it just broke out of it, and tossed out literally ever loose item that you could reasonably carry with the strength of one hand.  Cremenzio and Bella give you uncertain, disturbed looks; they are glad the night didn't result in violence, but it's easy to imagine the violation this is.  To Bella, it's especially easy; having spent so much time with her and talked about your past, she knows better than Cremenzio how these  things , while ultimately material and superficial and in many cases salvagable with a good wash, are not just  things  but also, perhaps, a collection of talismans that symbolize how far you have come from being an  owned thing  to  owning things .  But it's Cremenzio who pipes up first.

 "...Err...I guess I'll, uh...start boiling water for scrub-tub." 

He carefully picks the washboard from the heap, the device caked in syrup and oregano, and prepares for long day. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

It was painful to watch her accumulations tossed and thrown out of the window and onto the ground below. They weren't just items she had bought, but ones that she had been  given  that were the most dejecting to witness desecrated by... whatever  that thing had been, and even that topic was a cause for concern and ponderance.

What  was  it? Had it been some spiritual seed implanted into the house by her own thoughts? Had she somehow exuded the aura of her bleak past into her surroundings, only for Witches Night to breathe unholy life into it so that it could inflict one final vengeance of the rat-men before fleeing?

Or was this a... positive  witness? Had she just seen some past trauma, forever with her, analogously break free and escape?

Whatever that thing had been, Taalia silently thanked herself that cooler heads had prevailed and she had remained in the barn. Had she run out of the safety of the internal world to chase a violent poltergeist, who knows what would have happened to them all. Perhaps maybe that was the metaphor the world was telling her: she had grown up and matured and all around her were better for it.

Perhaps.

But still, casting her gaze across that mess was painful, as she bit her bottom lip and knelt down to scoop up her muffin hat. Such a beautiful piece of clothing, one of her first proper purchases. Holding that fabulous item in her hands, its image marred by a powdering stain of spice and crushed basil, Taalia turned and looked up at Bella with a sorrowful look that only  just  held back the water works.

 "...I will buy a small shrine to Myrmidia and Verezza in my house,"  Taalia spoke quietly to Bella before she went to free her animals and return them to their state of idyllic mindless grazing and wallowing.



OOC:
I actually timed myself how long it took me to write this post, 10 minutes.
MrAbdiel
 One unpleasant day of labor, and then several of shopping, is required to sort the mess out.  Most of the clothes and linens can be saved with a wash and a minimum of staining, though a few are write-offs on account of the ink well from your writing kit upended in the heap.  Bella has a way with a washboard which is a credit to her as a seamstress familiar with both fashion miracles and disasters; but all the foodstuffs and many of the breakable bits and pieces are irrecoverable.  They can only be sorted into groups to be washed for repair, or thrown out entirely.  Cremenzio is canny enough to lean into the farm labor so not to get roped into the cleaning - which is a calculation only possible in the head of someone more comfortable in pigscat than soapy water, but there you go.  But Bella, at least, manages to save your hat - after it dries out there is no visible trace of its trauma except the faintest smell of basil.  And all things considered, that's not so bad.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
These mystical shenanigans will cost you  (3d10)[ 14 ]  Gold Crowns to repair, replace, and replenish.
 

 * * * * * 
Weeks pass.  At the end of another day's labor helping Signore Cestié, you decide the day is far enough gone that you are unlikely to make it from Bella Collina to the Trollslayer's Rest before dark.  You'll have  to spend the night in Bella Collina before you make your way back home, with Jezzabella laden down with supply from town.  But before that, you do another good deed - keeping the Madre Angeletta company as she goes about her own shopping and loads up her mule with goods of her own.  She does so with a new companion - the rooster Hurcio, who sits in a shallow basket on top of a pack on her back, peering about and brooding out his clucky commentary. He was a little over a year old when you got him; now he's almost three years into his life, which is about when a chicken might be thought of as oldish.  Given the extra traumas of his early life, the one-legged bird has earned his retirement and Ariana offered him to the Madre, rather than to the cookpot, as is the fate with most older birds.  His valor against the troll won him the right to die of old age, a privelege few chooks get. For now, he runs down the clock (cluck?) as a lazy, portable little friend for the Madre.  But not her only friend.

 "Oh!  Andreotto!"
 
As you heft a bag of oats into your arm from the Madre's trading post purchase, she has spotted someone beyond the doorway whom she recognizes with excitement, and hustles immediately out to meet him leaving you to follow.   "Oh, Taalia!  Taalia, this is Andreotto - Bella Collina's favorite son!
You bring another Flicker-tide yourself, this time?" 

As it turns out, you barely need the introduction.  Andreotto is the wizard you met in Verezzo - the one who told you months ago he would review your petition and ultimately report to you the outcome thereof.  Eccentric tattoos, colourful hair and all, he has made his way to Bella Collina driving his own cart with a few bags of trade goods in the back and most importantly several jars of the flammable sparking powder required to make the spark-bags for Bella Collina's festival - a festival, you recall now, is both enabled by, and a tribute to, a Bella Collinan fellow who 'made good' by going all the way to the Imperial Colleges of Magic in Altdorf to train and returned to Verezzo with worldly wisdom and in-demand mystical skill.  As it would happen, the wizard you met, and this local celebrity, are one in the same.  The amused look on his face when you mentioned you were from Bella Collina is retrospectively clear to you - he must have known he was bound to come this way anyway, and was able to take his time deciding on your fate knowing he would ultimately be in the neighbourhood to fulfil another promise.

The Madre appears to know him well; she gives him a hug, and he hugs her back and gives her a kiss on the top of the head (though eying the rooster now at his eyeline, a new addition to her ensemble upon which he does not comment.)    "Yes indeed, Madre; and perhaps I'll be around for this one, too.  I've other business in town, that will keep me here a while.  Hello, Taalia - fortunate for you to be here.  You've saved me asking the Madre directions to find your house.  I trust recent months have been relatively peaceful, by your standards?"   
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


A macabre but ultimately positive analogy of letting past trauma go and maturing into a new life?

Perhaps.

But a bloody expensive one, as it turned out. Taalia spent the equivalent of a grown mans yearly wage repairing and replacing the damage caused by that damn spectre, an accounting fact that Taalia was  not  impressed by. She had one sour expression indeed when she went about town and paid for replacements for her 'eventful' Witches Night.

 oOo 
Working in town had its advantages, as she always got to be around people whose company she enjoyed. At the end of a day of labour within Cestie's workshop, plying both trade with her next project, a firearm, and bits and pieces for their flying machine, Taalia ended the day by ensuring Cestie had a nicely cooked dinner waiting for him once he had ceased his own activities. With a gentle hug and kiss on the cheek, as was her characteristc custom by now all had learned, Taalia departed the workshop and ran into another elder figure she adored - Madre Angeletta!

Taalia offered to escort her former mentor to her small home, an extension which was accepted. Physically handling most of the work of loading up the donkey and holding both the reins of Jezebella and the mule, Taalia chatted happily with Madre until a familiar face crossed their path.

 Him ?! Taalia thought, astonished, the rememberance of his amused look now making sense that  he  was the one that had supplied those wonderful little glitter-bags.

 "I can still remember the color of the bag I bought when I entered this village for the first time,"  she said after introductions.

 "I barely knew a lick of Tilean, all the children were staring at me, and I tossed the little sack into the fire and a plume of golden flames blossomed out from it. Your little invention made a frightened girl very happy for a moment, thank you,"  Taalia offered with a sincere and friendly smile.
MrAbdiel
 "Gold sparks; a little wink from  Chamon  and then you go on and become something of a political pet project for the Yellow faction's rural interests in southern Verezzo.  I hadn't intended the bags to be prophetic; but sometimes..."   He shakes his head a little, smiling at his own wit.  You have no idea what or who  Chamon  is, or why he would be winking; but Andreotto doesn't seem intent on explaining right away.
 
"But you're welcome.  I'm glad it was meaningful to you.  Though I understand now, after crawling out of my lair and researching the fracas around you, that you've become quite the local dynamo yourself.  We have some discussion ahead, concerning your question - I'll be staying at the Bella Collina tavern tonight, after some errands. Come see one once you've delivered the precious Madre safe home, ah?  I'll be checking to see if Gheradino has started to stock better ale than Nogrom's." 

The Madre corrects him.   "Gherardino manages the coaching Inn on the way to Taalia's farm, now; Nogrom runs the tavern in the square." 

Andreotto grimace; an expression both a little genuine and also exaggerated for humor.   "...Well.  I suppose it's a  wine  night." 

Later, at the tavern with two mugs of complimentary 'ale' on your table - Andreotto is polite enough to be chipping his way through his own, despite his earlier statement -  the wizard listens, and speaks with you.  Periodically you have to pause your discussion as one of the locals comes over to fuss on Andreotto - he's big news here, and you're the biggest thing since him, so more reason to wander over and fuss - but it's a more or less private conversation, while a handful of locals numb themselves to the flavor of Nogrom's ale by the application of the same.

 "Magic is a strange thing, Taalia.  Some are born with the talent, and spend their lives trying to contain it.  Others discover it after much focus and study, the way a confusing game will suddenly fall into place in the mind and become intuitively playable.  And some strive to have it, and it never manifests at all.  Of those, many cannot bear to walk away from the effort they have invested to have it, and they turn to darker ways.  Such people will make profane deals, and slide into madness while denying it the whole way.  They're the reason people like Simonuccio are seen as an ugly necessity.  For elves, Magic is a gift of the gods.  For humans... it is a snare of the devils; and we learn it at great peril.  This is why Tileans send their magical talents to the Empire to train there; Sigmar's Realm is where the great elven master Teclis established the colleges of magic that gave us ways to understand, somewhat safely, the winds of magic.  Before we go on... you were once thrall to the skaven, in their lairs.  You mentioned their uses of magic were black and vile - but how much do you know about magic, in total?  About the winds, and their ways?  I'm asking because I am willing to tutor you on the subject somewhat.  But there are things I cannot guarantee; and things I need guaranteed from you." 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia slowly sipped her ale as she sat across from Andreotto in the tavern, its new proprietor having greeted her warmly upon her entrance. Some people may have understandably grown tired of the friendliness and recognition where-ever they went, and one might surmise that Taalia would be particularly prone to this trait given her indentured history. But, as the girl had come out of her shell the past couple of years, she had grown to enjoy the familiarity of her community, a place where everyone knew her name. They might not throw out red-carpets before her and bow obsequiously, nor would she want them to, but a friendly wave and a personalised greeting, one that she would endeavour to return, helped tighten those communal bonds.

Listening to Andreotto's word, Taalia remained quiet and her face sombre. She still felt what she had those months ago and what she believed would be the remedy: she no longer wanted to be a nobody who was easily preyed upon by the powerful. The Norscans, the Skaven, a political faction and their Witch Hunter goon. Her beautiful community had saved her this time, but what about the next?

And besides, did she even have the innate ability to learn the arcane? It was hard to deny that she had been unnaturally lucky, as even Toremondo had illustrated during her trial. Her enslavement was not fortunate, of course, but to have emerged out of the Skavens vicious brutality after a decade relatively unscathed and adapted so quickly to surface life, indeed being on the verge of generating enormous amounts of wealth the average man could only dream of...had it all been just luck? As Andreotto said, some are born with the talent, others manifest it and still others draw it to themselves through sheer study and willpower. But for those lucky, or cursed, individuals who gain that mantle and explored further into the eldritch mysteries, there were those who the Winds of Magic would not touch, and their lust for its embrace often drove many down a darker path.

Could that happen to her? Sweet and cheerful Taalia, prompted by her own insecurities along a road that would transform her into something monstrous? Where once people smiled and waved at the sight of her, one day they would eventually whisper fearfully over how one either died or hero or lived long enough to become the villain?

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

Maybe such people became so obsessively self-destructive because they had nothing else in their life? Nothing else to lose? No family, no other interest, hobby or ambition, no close friends, no children to care for? An empty life could prompt one to believe they were entitled to at least  something  in the world, and when the Winds of Magic rejected them after they had poured so much time and effort into desiring its acceptance...yes, Taalia could see how one could become adrift in the storm if the moorings of their humanity were no longer fastened to any harbour.

 "I think,"  Taalia started, her smoky voice slow as the fire and music of the tavern played outside of their private booth,  "I am not so far into life that I do not have other things I can live for, should I have no ability. When I was in the pits of the Skaven, I witnessed... something ,"  her tone lowered, pursing her lips as her eyes stared through Andreotto for a few moments.

 "We were all taken to some type of pit, lots of other slaves and I. It was like the coliseum, and we were situated under the bleachers. At the centre was a pit...dozens, I think, maybe a hundred, slaves...their throats all..."  and Taalia brought up a closed hand and drew it across her throat to represent a knife.

 "I watched them do it. Pile the bodies on. Their Grey Seer leading some type of choir..."  that trembling, another hurried sip and a clear discomfort washing over the normally cheerful or fierce girls image.

 "They summoned some  thing . It came out of the centre, corpses strewn across it. To look upon it drove the rat-men mad with euphoria..."  the memory was obviously not a fond one as Taalia trailed off, shaking her head. She reached up to wipe a tear from her right eye,  "scusa..."  she offered as she patted the dew away with her sleeve.

 "I have no interest making any black deals or pacts with whatever energies can bring such  evil  into the world. Should I have no ability, should I learn from you and prove an eager but not capable student, I am more than happy to return to the green fields of my farm and flock,"  she smiled gently, snickering just a little bit as if she had been building up to some punch line this whole time, which was obviously not the case.
MrAbdiel
 "A daemon.  What you saw was a daemon.  There are many kinds, and the skaven have their own kind.  I'm sorry you had to see that."   He turns his glance away from you and the table, his gaze naturally attracted to the fireplace in silent moments.

He takes out a wooden pipe, and in silence packs it with shredded tobacco.  He begins smoking it without the normal intervening step of lighting it, somehow.

 "What I'm impressing upon you is that... creatures like that are made of magic; as surely as you and I are creatures of flesh and blood.  And to want to channel magic - even in its mildest form - is to invite that same  stuff  into your body to project it again in a form you choose." 

He sucks a mouthful of smoke, and puffs it out in a slow drifting ring; then blows a sharper run of smoke through the middle of it that pulls the ring into its slipstream until both are dissipating, loose spirals in the air.

 "...Like smoking. But unlike tobacco smoke, magic is not inherent nourishing to the body.  It is hostile to the body, and mind, and soul.  It's a powerful tool, but also a hazard; because the evil that competes with us for its mastery is not just evil, but also..."   He strains for a word.   "...Also contagious, even to the good." 

He does not seem to expect this will sway you, and quickly follows his own remark.   "Here is what I am prepared to offer you, Taalia.  I can teach you  about  magic.  I can teach you where it comes from; how humans came to use it; why dwarves do not.  And all the time I'm doing so, I will be doing my utmost to dissuade you from the idea of trying to learn how to  use  it."  He leans over the table a little, and points at you with the clay pipe; locking eyes with you as he does.   "Because I recognize you are an extremely determined woman, and I suspect if I say  no  then you'll look for someone who says  yes , and I fear who that might be.  But if, at the end of that tutelage, you are still determined... I will write a letter of recommendation for you; and you can take it with you to one of the Colleges in Altdorf like I did, and learn from the masters like I did.  Agreed?" 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


So that's what that was?

All these years the mind-curdling horror of that  thing  had haunted her. She had many foul memories of the ratmen, but few compared to having witnessed the birth of that  thing , but she had never known  what  it was. She had assumed it was some demi-god, a small shard of divinity that could pass through that glass barrier that separated the material world form the spiritual. But perhaps her own imagination had granted it greater significance than it actually possessed? Maybe.

But seeing the rather casual way in which Adreotto receives her description was suggestion that he was used to this sort of thing. It threw a bit of dynamic on things. Simonuccio with his ramblings could be relied upon to conjure fevered dreams of horror from beyond the stars. But a man like Adreotto was more practical, more academic and down to earth, having hailed from a small farming town that she now called home. But beyond her idyllic life with her farm, there was another layer to reality that men like that had to interact with. Taalia had entered this wanting some degree of prestige that granted defence against the depredations of the powerful, but now she felt genuinely fascinated.

Listening to his propostiion, the shepardess not making any demands, she felt what he said was reasonable, even if the full scale of the consequences of his words were not fully seized upon. Traveling to Altdorf to study magic? Her own growing farming business? Her trip to Nuln with Cestie? So many things lay on the horizon. But if Adreotto was any indication, it wasn't the end of the journey, just another path, one that could bring her back to the warm fields and lovely people of Bella Collina.

Smiling gently, Taalia nodded once.

 "Si, Singore. Thank you." 

Naturally, Taalia invited the man to stay at her farm, even telling him about the poltergeist. He wanted for little, and perhaps was able to enjoy some of the gentle moving rural life he might have missed since moving to the city.
MrAbdiel
 Andreotto takes you up on the offer, though not all the time.  He has places to go, people to visit in the area.  But you have plenty of running around to do yourself, locked in as you are to helping Cestié in town which is two days away from your home now; so it's no trouble  for him to be in and out of your presence just the same.  When he is staying with you, he stays in the cupboard.  Not really; but sort of: he produces a blackened brass key from one pocket, uses it to unlock the cupboard (which doesn't have a lock except when that key is in it?) and when it opens, it opens to a brightly lit interior that seems to be a somewhat spartan room a little larger than the main room of your house.  Then he goes inside, and closes the door, and the only sign that he's in there is the little lock on the cupboard door, which doesn't connect to anything.  When you open it, there's just lentils and preserved tomatoes as you should expect. But sure enough, some time in the morning, there is a knock at it to make sure you're decent, and then out he comes somehow.

Magic.

He tells you about magic.  He tells you that magic is like the shape of a cloud, which you might see as a  fish  but someone else tells you is a  hat with a feather ; and only once you know to see it that way do you see it, and often can't see the fish anymore.
 
 "There are eight Winds of magic that blow and eddy and shift through the world.  There is more to magic than just that; but that is how the elves see magic, and we learned magic from the elves.  It's the best way to see it, I think; certainly, among the safest.  And once you know to see it that way, eventually, you start seeing it that way."  

Eight winds, each with a corresponding force in the world; a selection of powers that do not seem even in how fundamental they are as concepts, but eight all the same.   Chamon, Hysh, Shyish, Ulgu, Ghyran, Azyr, Aqshy, Ghur.   Metal, Light, Death, Shadow, Life, Heavens, Fire, Beast.  It takes the span of a human lifetime of concentrated study to become something of a master of one of these forces.  Humans who seek to master more than one invariably go mad or destroy themselves - it is simply too much for their brevity.  Elves can wield many, even all; but they have the privilege of an extended life to learn them within.  And, apparently, it is possible for the magically gifted to  see  these winds as colors, when born to it, or trained to it - Gold, White, Amethyst, Grey, Green, Blue, Red, Brown.  A mad rainbow of threads underpinning the world.  You have seen no such winds; nothing like what is described; but apparently it can be taught if the hidden potential is there.  You catch yourself trying.. but no luck.

Humans have always had magic - just in the hands of tribal shamans and hedge wizards and self-taught hermits.  Elves taught mankind to formalize and harness that power, so they might be a stronger ally against the dark forces of the world - or at least, that's what the elves say.  If they have other reasons, they have kept it to themselves.  Slowly, the magical theory begins to coalesce for you.  The idea for being conduit for these forces is interesting, but not without cost.

 "Even containing the power is... changing."   He gestures to the bright red tips of his naturally black hair; the bright orange of his eyes.   "I study the red wind; and it finds its way to manifest in me as a conduit, where I like it or not.  These..."  he gestures to the tattoos, around his arms...  "Are related, also; a concession to that power.  They glow like hot metal, when I channel.  If I'm in a situation that requires my full master, I wear my regalia also - robes of red, and yellow.  The colors of flame.  The Red wind...  likes  that, for lack of better word.  More muted clothes inhibit the wind somewhat; wearing the associated affects, having its marks on the skin, make that translation of power smoother.  This is why wizards look so strange - they are counterbalancing the power they are expecting to channel, with oddity dictated by the magic itself." 

If you were to go one day and become such a wizard.... would your hair turn to firey red?  Or your skin to metallic gold?  Would your arms grow hirsute, and would you find yourself compelled to live in the woods?  All of these things are possible, it seems; just part of the hazard you are broaching.  Part of his effort to dissuade you.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You may, when you wish, buy the Academic Knowledge: Magic skill, from the Apprentice Wizard career at its normal cost of 100XP, without joining that career yet.  That way is barred... for now.
 
 
 "You will not find a magician who remains unchanged by their power.  It will mark you - body, or mind, or soul." 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia listened to what Adreotto had to say, his words finding deep causes within Taalia as the girl, over the coming weeks, absorbed his theoretical lessons. Of course, everything the wizard said contrasted with what Taalia knew...which admittedly was not much. But what she was  aware  of, even if it wasn't what she knew as fact, was framed by the lens of her incarceration to the Skaven, their society and their Grey Seers that ran the whole fetid show.

But holding that in contrast to what Adreotto taught her made Taalia wonder where the rat-men figured in. If there were eight Winds of Magic, what was theirs? Or did they operate along a sub-wind of magic? A branch of a main vessel? Or maybe one that was unknown?

No, it couldn't be unknown. As even Adreotto had told her, it was the Elves that had brought the formula and conceptual scaffolding of magic to the humans of the Old World. Perhaps the elder race was holding something in reserve, it was possible. But why would they eschew such valuable information?

Taalia didn't know. She had only been on this earth for 19 years, and she had spent most of them in indentured servitude, so what the heck would she know?

Either winds of magic, Taalia would write in her little empty book at her home, equipped with her writing kit and the soft glow of a lone candle on her desk all that illuminated her room.

 Chamon...Hysh...Shyish...Ulgu...Ghyran...Azur...Aq  shy...Ghur... 

Metal. Light. Death. Shadow. Life. Heavens. Fire. Beasts.

Taalia remembered back to when Adreotto had addressed her in Bella Collina, that "Chamon had blessed her", it's 'color' being that of yellow to match the blossom of sparks that had crackled to life when she had thrown that bag into the fire, and the subsequent protection, however indirect, she had received from the Yellow Faction of Verezza politics. That was certainly an... interesting  coincidence.

She considered the other winds of magic, their colors and their name. Immediately, Death and Shadow held little appeal to the girl. That sounded like what the Skaven were into, and the sorts of realms to which one would make those Faustian bargains to visit. The others sounded beautiful in their own way, each a purview over the world around them. Heavens sounded intriguing, Taalia wandered what that was about - but Life and Beasts. She only had to look out her own window to consider the farm that she had bought and built, the abundance of life around her farm and the veritable symbology of her having escaped the clutches of the Skaven only to emerge into and spend her first surface night in a beautiful forest.

Metal and fire? Taalia did not know what either meant specifically, but her imagination allowed her to guess. At the very idea, she pictured industry and fireballs. How wrong was she? How right?

Further time with Adreotto would reveal the accuracy of what little she knew, and fill in the gaps of what she did not.

However, it was the alterations that particularly caught her interest, the way that magic would reach into you and alter your mind, your body and maybe your soul. For the better or worse? Well, it couldn't be for the worst if many wizards existed in human lands and were tolerated. Or at least, it couldn't  entirely  be for the worst. If magic enacted such a terrible, corruptive price on the spirits of all those who studied it, surely such practices would not even be allowed within civilised nations, surely? The fact that wizards developed, grew old and passed into the next life while living respectable lives was surely testimony to the ability to resist the deleterious effects of magic upon the spirit? Surely?

If she took that offer up and went to the colleges of Altdorf in a far away land, what school would accept her? What suited her best?

All of these questions and more drifted through Taalia's mind over the coming weeks as she played host to Adreotto at her farm, happily tending to her flock, her drove, her field and cooking now both for her boys and for her magically inclined guest.
MrAbdiel
 Many of these questions are answered, in the course of your hospitality.  Some, even, with Andreotto shoveling pigcrap beside you; a labor that you might have thought somewhat beneath him.

 "As I said once before, the Winds are a way of understanding magic; and that understanding carries on, though... not for we mere humans.  For the elves, the greatest discipline is  Qhaysh , or 'High Magic' - the mastery of all eight winds, braiding them seamlessly into a greater whole capable of doing unthinkable magical deeds."   Immediately, you recall the elven bountyhuntress remarking on the walls of the shrine - her instinct, that the granite had been transmuted to marble by the use of High Magic.   "...But humans cannot approach such scholarship.  Not that Master Teclis has left us with too little power - a great deal is done with the Eight Winds, in the Empire.  Not the least of which is war.  But I digress - opposite  Qhaysh  is its dark mirror.  This is  Dharr , or dark magic.   Dharr  is what happens when the winds of magic are forced into patterns against their nature; a kind of bruising of the magical realm... the coercion of its power, instead of harmony with it.   Dharr  is the shortest path to power, and is the driving force behind most magical wickedness in the world.  Necromancers animate bodies and compel spirits with chains of Dharr; demonists conjure servants from the realm of Chaos with them.   Dharr , likely, would be the source of power for the magics of the skaven; though I have not witnessed them to see. But I expect it very much to be the case; the damn wyrdstone they covet radiates the winds in concentrated form, in a fashion that is turned to dark magic very easilly; and only with great risk used for any other magical purpose." 

There, then; most of the pieces fall into place.  Though, just to complicate matters, he elaborates.   "Beyond those eight - or ten - disciplines, there are other things.  Hedge wizards who know the Old Ways of magic, but they employ mostly a muddling of Ghyran and Azyr.  Every now and then, you will find a hedge wizard who is discovered and drafted into the colleges; they make find magicians, if they can break out of their calcified mindsets.  But not understanding the Winds properly, they are at risk.  It is a crude way - good enough for some isolated villages; but not nearly the right way.  Beyond that, there are what the priests would call 'miracles', but which might properly be called divine magic - a transmuting of the winds into something else by the touch of a god, then gifted to a user to employ by certain means known to their orders.  The orcs do this, with their bizarre gods too; as do the maidens of Bretonnia, and the Ice Witches of Kislev, and others beside.  But as far as manners in which a man or woman might master magic without the explicit invitation of a divine, and to do so with the minimal risk of corruption and the most return on their academic investment... the Winds are the way." 

Andreotto's tutelage is mostly like this; talking and listening, answering questions when you have them.  True to his word of limitation, he doesn't approach anything about how to attempt to use any of this power, or even to 'see' the winds; but you can tell how keenly he is focusing on you.  At times, you catch him staring at you - but not, you think, in a lascivious way.  He is peering through you, perhaps.  Or into you.  Trying to see something  about  you which his mystical senses permit him to see.

Whatever he sees... he does not invite you to know.

This path of learning is interrupted one day by more pressing matters - on a regular trip into town, the Madre Angeletta comes to find you, having ridden from her house on her donkey for that express purpose - her expression is softened, almost apologetic, remorseful.

 "Taalia - you have to go home, now.  And you should hurry."
 
 * * * * * 
She warns you on the situation; but by her tone alone you could have known you had to speed not to your  house  and farm, but straight down the South Road, past the Madre's, past the turn to the Salt Road and the Trollslayer's Rest, past the forest with its hidden shrine to Verena Triumphant, to the familiar grainfields, and house, and barn which took you in after your great escape from below.  You have most of a day of travel to brace yourself; but the attitude of the home is sombre indeed when you arrive.  Ariana hugs you tightly at the door, and brings you inside to the living room.  There, in a nest of blankets made for him on the floor, is Rocco; father, sheepdog, Veteran of the Battle of Silo Road.  Rocco is not a young dog; but you wouldn't have thought of him as particularly old, even if he had visibly flagged in vigor over the couple of years you have known him.  But here, he is mournful and enervated; manifestly unwell, the misery of which is held at bay by Vittorio's ceaseless applications of pats to his fluffy flank.  Gaulfredo must be in another room, presently; no doubt pacing about and containing himself, given how emotional he becomes with his animals in distress.

Rocco certainly recognizes you, when you enter the room; he stirs a little, raises his head, licks his chops, shuffles his forepaws as if beginning the execution of a movement the strength for which is no longer with him, and offers an apologetic whine for being unable to complete it.  Elmo, ignorant of the mortal peril of his father, is too rambunctious to be inside presently; but Corvo is a more sedate son, and exchanges sniffs with his sire before settling next to him.  You are proficient in medicine for man and beast, now; atleast to country standards.  And you find the Madre's assessment is inescapable - Rocco is dying.  There are maladies of the flesh that are not detectable to the physik or the farmhand; and perhaps, with some ghastly exploration once Rocco has passed, a seeker might find - ... Well.  It doesn't matter, now.  Some creatures live long lives; Rocco certainly lived a full one, which is more than many men and beasts can boast.  There is nothing to do here but shower affections upon the sheepdog, and be present; and this family could not imagine doing so without you there, too. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

It was a curious case, having Adreotto dwelling on her farm and conversing freely with her, Taalia found. Oddly enough...it reminded her of Rashabang. A strange connection to make, indeed, but Taalia was a smart girl. She might not  know  a lot about the world at large, nor have the right answer to every one of lifes problems, but the processing power of her brain was top notch. If IQ tests existed somewhere in the Old World, it was doubltess that she would attain an enviable score. Now, that didn't mean she was always right, of course. The difference between intelligence and wisdom was measurable by millions of graves. But show her a technical skill and allow her to understand it, and she would be able to do so with remarkable ease and it was rare that something would need to be displayed to her twice.

And so, when Adreotto stayed with her at Giovanni Farms, Taalia came to greatly appreciate the mans presence as a source of intelligent conversation from which she learned a great deal. That's not to say she didn't learn from Bella, or that the Trouble Maker boys didn't have their moments, but the academic side of the wizard and his desire and ability to converse on his topics of expertise were a source of endless fascination for the Shepardess. More than once she had poured them both wine (or whiskey, in her case) and sat on her furnishings' before the fire that kept the cool night air outside of her home, and simply spoken on matters of the arcane well into the night.

It was a bizarrely fascinating and unique experience that the girl hadn't realised she'd needed. Is this how the great philosophers occupying the vaunted hauls of academia lived?

And it was not just on her farm that Taalia would pester the man with questions that needed answers. Sometimes she would saddle up Jezebella and she would guide Adreotto through the forest into which she had emerged, even taking him far enough one day to show him the cave from which her escape had arrived those years ago (hopefully now detonated and collapsed in). She showed him the shine, the peace of the river and the gentle sway of the green field grass, all while she learned more about the supernatural lifeblood that underpinned the world.

Alas, good times always came to an end, and this end was particularly grievous.

 oOo 
 "Ohhh my dear Rocco..."  

Taalia's affection was visible, her face pained and her hand coming down to cup the canine's head, upon whom the centre she planted a kiss of goodbye.

The first time she had met the family dog, he had actually growled at her. He couldn't be blamed of course (well he could, but still), as she was a stranger and he was guarding his cart with his little human master tucked and hidden away beneath it when Gaulfredo had ventured off to retrieve his horse, only to return with her instead. Since it had been made clear to him that she was an ally and not an enemy, he had warmed to her and had spent the night with her in that barn all those years ago. She had pet him, played with him, kissed him on the forehead and hugged him, and he had grown to love her in return without judgement or care. Her scars didn't matter, nor her lack of verbal language, they had simply both followed that age old path of friendship between man and dog.

He had also been ungovernable, and through his anarchic activities he had produced the huge, short-furred Corvo that nestled beside them both. Did the hybrid warhound understand the gravity of what was happening? It was likely he did. Though Taalia knew that at his age he was now 'maturing' from rambunctious pup into a mature young adult, he still had energy plenty, yet chose to spend his time resting beside his father one last time.

If there was a benefit to Taalia's enslavement, it was that the brutal experience had hardened her. Though she had softened considerably, there would always be a degree of fortitude to her heart that only battle-hardened soldiers or a Kislevite grandmother losing  another  grand-child to the winter could match. She'd seen thousands come and die, some had been friends even - there one day, dead the next. One developed a level of stoicism to cope lest one go mad with despair, and so Taalia was able to comfort Vitorrio for whom this was likely the first pet to witness passing on. Ariana too, and finally, Gaulfredo. Hugs, kisses and offers to assist and help. Well, not 'offers' exactly, she just did it. She'd cook dinner, she'd do laundry, she'd perform Gaulfredo's tasks around the house while he mourned for his dog.

For her part, Taalia sent word back to her farm that she would be gone for a few days and she would let them know why. Rocco had been there since her arrival into this world, and she would be with him here during his departure.
MrAbdiel
 Rocco spends his final day surrounded by adoring family both canine and human; he licks your fingertips when you put them close to his muzzle and basks in the profusion of pats.  You're even able, with your training by the Madre, able to grind up a finger of herbs and mix it into milk which, delivered to the tongue of Rocco, numbs some of his pain.  He spends much of that evening not zooming around, but propping himself up on his forepaws; more animated and bright eyed than otherwise.  He passes in his sleep, which is much as anyone can ask for in this difficult world.

Gaulfredo is better with Rocco's passing than he was with Bartolemeo, the poor horse.  In some was, Gaulfredo is very unlike you despite your closeness.  He is not hardened to death at all; and the comparatively gentle loss of Rocco is a balm to him, where Bartolemeo's end at the hands of the goblins was truly devastating.  To you obviously one is worse than the other; but both are so small in the great multitude of miserable endings you have seen inflicted on the undeserving.  You are not unwounded by such things; just well adjusted.  But this time, unlike with those other losses, you are part of a mourning.  Gaulfredo gets up the next day, and buries his canine companion at the back of the house, placing a wooden marker for him there beside the plot.  Vittorio has carved Rocco's name into it with a chisel; it stands beside a marker for Bartolemeo, and a marker which is older, even if its inscription relatively new - Ralfeo, Rocco's father and Gaulfredo's previous companion.  There is no 'service' or anything like that; such a thing would feel weirdly formal for this relationship.  But Gaulfredo gets about tending his crops, and you help him out for the day to keep him company.  There is a gloom that hangs over the whole household.  Not a sulking; but a distinctive pall of sadness.  It makes Rocco's death somehow more meaningful that he is so achingly missed.

You remember, with cold sharpness, the journey across the Sea of Claws to Norsca, after your capture; how you and the other slaves were chastised for making a fuss, and too scared to weep; surrendering to numbness to survive.  Unable to remember them in detail, the mother and father and brothers and sisters you lost back then were taking from you in such a circumstance that you were forced to grieve them alone and in perilous silence.  In the Ratholds, life was so cheap for slave and master alike that Queekish does not even have a word that means 'mourning' - the closest is 'distracted', as a state which invites attack.  But something about the household honoring Rocco's absence with an unspoken agreement to ache for his sake is different.

If  you  were to die, this family - and Bella Collina - would suffer in the same way; and it would be to honor you.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You can decide how Taalia feels about that at all!
 


Another party visits the house, to offer condolences - Istuccio, Ernesto and Antonuccia.  The last you heard, Istuccio had gone to Paesa de Silo for a month to train to be a road-warden; a profession ever in need, which would allow him to wander from Ernesto's side and avoid the tense situation previously discussed, without abandoning his brother altogether.  But they arrive together and spend some time with this little farmstead.  They bring a wreath of white lillies, and lay it on Rocco's resting place.  The brothers are yours and Gaulfredo's friends, yes; but Istuccio has particular attachment to Rocco's bravery.  While he was bleeding out on his knees trying to protect his fallen brother, Rocco had charged barking in to distract the many-armed monstrosity that would otherwise have killed him; and did so long enough for you and Gaulfredo to break the battle on that side and the line to eventually roll the mutants up entirely.  Such small acts of heroism are not forgotten, by those most affected.

* * * * *

Towards the end of the six months, you have your hands extremely full.  You are still working with Cestié, and learning under Andreotto, and tending your sty and lands.  You're also planning the idea of constructing a school with Bella and trying hard to make sure your beasts are ready for the coming muster.  This will be your biggest payday - and you are eager to see it go off without complication.

You have one more visitor to disrupt this season.  He knocks on your door; and one of the troublemaker boys has to go get you.  It's Marco; the lad from the leatherworker stall in Paesa di Silo  He has a slingbag under one arm, and broad hat on his head; a cloak on his shoulders, and the trail dust on his boots that suggests he has walked a long way.  He grins when he sees you; raising a hand to wave a little  despite being only five feet away ; and clears his throat.

 "Taalia - Taalia, buon pomeriggio!  It's, a; I'm Marco, if you remember.  I was travelling by Bella Collina and remembered you were from here; and thought I would... check if your boots are holding up."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


The sombre and reflective procession was an unusual process for Taalia, which might seem weird given her fortitude against loss. When she was some small she could barely form memories, she remembered those who were taken alongside her being thrown overboard into the gold, gnashing froth of the sea, their appearance in the world and exit no more significant than that of an ant dying in a cave-in while extending the hive. The Skaven were just as equally uncaring, though far more cruel and capricious in their disposable. Though in some ways, slaves had a glimmer of protection higher than that of a normal rat-man...after all...slaves cost warp tokens, but fellow Skaven were free. But any who relied on this sliver of worth as protection against the vicious depredations of the ratmen would find their faith terminally misplaced, as there was no end to the grisly, violent and nasty ways slaves could come to an end in the Under Empire. Taalia knew all too well, she had seen enough to fill dozens of lifetimes. Witnessing the first demise was unpleasant. The second, harsh. The third, a shame. The fourth, nothing. Admittedly, her brusque treatment by the Norscans may have 'toughened her up', as peverse as that sounded. But either way, caring about those who passed on was not something that entered the mind of brutalised slaves. Indeed, some may even envy them - their troubles were over.

To care about the ones who passed on, to keep a piece of their memory alive here in the materium. In a way it was a kind of immortality, Taalia thought. Her mother and father and brothers and sisters might be gone, but a bit of them remained with her as long as she lived.

Her family. Where were they? Well, that was easy - they were with her here in Bella Collina!

But it had been a thought that had never left her all of these years: where were  they ? Her father, her mother, her brothers and her sisters. Had they survived? Would she ever find out?

 Could  she discover their fates? Well...whether to Altdorf, Nuln or both...she was due north within the next couple of years, wasn't she?

Why not find out?

 oOo 

Now  that  was someone she wasn't expecting.

To be honest, the stress was really starting to pile up on Taalia. It was easy to forget that she was only nineteen. Her slavery had permanently installed a tireless and energetic work-ethic into her brain and when combined with freedom, her natural intelligence and some starting capital, she had really made it come a long way in such a short amount of time.

But, teenager she was, and even she had her limits.

She spent two days a week with Signore Cestie.
Those two evenings she spent with Bella, as friendship companions and learning how to sing.
She spent four days a week tending to her farm: her sheep, her pigs, cooking and cleaning for her workers in preparation of the great Baconing.
She spent an evening on the way to and from Bella Collina and her home at Matrone Madre's home, helping the older woman out and enjoying her company.
She spent her last day traveling to and spending the afternoon with Gaulfredo, Ariana and Vitorrio, during which she brought along the latters education in reading and writing.
And then, at each evening at her farm, she spent it in conversation and learning with Adreotto.

Perhaps it was good that she was doing this at her age, as it was hard to imagine someone with a few decades under their belt managing to conjure the energy to get all of this done.

But then to her door arrived a face she had almost forgotten about, a nice young fellow she had met at Paula di Silo...a year ago? He still remembered her?
 
"Taalia - Taalia, buon pomeriggio! It's, a; I'm Marco, if you remember. I was travelling by Bella Collina and remembered you were from here; and thought I would... check if your boots are holding up."
 
Taalia blinked, then smiled widely in polite friendly greeting.

 "Ahh, Macro! Yes, I remember!"  she said. It was the truth, but barely.

She gave him a hug and looked him up and down, the 'you've come a long way!' look on her face.

 "You are traveling past here? Were you off to Luccini?"  she asked, as she made a trying-to-remember-while-wearing-a-smile face as she tilted herself back slightly.

 "...you wanted to...go to Verezza, yes?"  she asked,  "I have been there a few times since last we spoke! Those boots that you made were a life-saver!" 
MrAbdiel
 Marco is amazed to be hugged.  He's so shocked that he neglects to participate in it, only activating too late so it's almost like he tries to hug you immediately after the hug, leading to an awkward disentanglement he has to laugh off.

 "O-oh!  Good. Great!  Hah.  A good pair of boots, you know.. Makes all the difference."   He clicks the keeps of his own together, demonstratively.  He gazes at you, starry eyed for a moment, as his brain catches up to your questions.   "Oh.. Oh!  Ah...  No, no, I had been told there was a lot of development near here - tanneries and such - and took it upon myself to see if they were likely to level better prices than my current suppliers.  I'll be taking over the business at some point, after all." 

This is true, but also a stretch.  You know enough about trade that the cost of importing leathergoods directly from Piede de Ezio all the way to Paesa di Silo, is a business in itself.  Without the economies of scale to make it worthwhile - the kind of thing a merchant would do as their whole business - Marco's father will continue to buy leather locally.

 "Anyway, I wanted to bring you this."
 
He fishes through his slingback, and pulls out a long strip of rosy-brown leather; a fine looking belt with a brass buckle, its length engraved with the image of a long snaking vine curling and winding from one end to the other, with buds and flowers along its length.

 
 Spoiler: OOC:  
Marco has brought you a Good Quality Belt.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia wore that friendly smile the whole time, and she meant it, she really did. She thought he was sweet and she genuinely admirered his journeyman leatherwork. With years practice he would be quite the excellent tradesman. He wasn't bad looking either. He was above average, with boyish contours and a clean appearance that most girls her age liked. Indeed, with his profession being that of a skilled craftsman who spent his time indoors, out here in Bella Collina where most of the men were farmers, he was most certainly a downright pretty boy. But for her, personally? For a split second her mind wandered back to that mercenary captain she had delivered the pistol to. He'd been her height, big at the shoulders, fighting trim and rugged, with broody, handsome looks. There was a man Taalia found herself blushing over. Not that she would have. She remembered what the guards asked her, 'oh we thought you were another of his daughters'. Heh, he was untrustworthy, a dirty, sly dog indeed.

Marco, on the other hand, hard working, reliable, honest and devoted. But just  something  within her didn't click with everything. When she held someone, she wanted to feel safe, protected, not that  she  was the protector. He was a fine young man, just not for her.

Besides, coming out all this way to inspect the tanneries? Please, Taalia wasn't born yesterday. Although, she  could  see a good living awaiting a skilled leatherworker in a farmland/light industrial region. He could make a comfortable sum and ply his craft, making both items of luxury and necessity for the individual and the factories.

Then Marco produced the belt, and Taalia looked genuinely touched. Bringing a hand over her heart, her smile broad and sincere,  "Oh, Marco, thank you!"  she said, receiving it in her hands and inspecting it.

 "Oh, but I couldn't..."  she said, engaging in the Tilean ceremony of receiving, cannot accept, receiving, cannot accept, receiving oh very well if you insist.

But then something clicked in Taalia's mind. An image entered her brain!

 "I don't know what to say! You've travelled so far and been so thoughtful! Say, why don't you stay for dinner, si? I also cook for my farmhands, and I have a guest staying, but I also have another friend of mine who visits this evening and others during the week. I'll prepare something for everyone!" 

Bella! Marco and Bella! He was  so  her type! Yes - Taalia could see it now! After all the rejections her poor friend had endured only for life to award her a skilled pretty boy with good career prospects who would adore her! She was a seamstress and he a leatherworker and cobbler. Taalia felt her heart flutter. What a wonderful idea!
MrAbdiel
 Marco does not catch on to your plan.  You and Bella cook a small outdoor feast - you have both become quite good at roasting pork, given your present business - and good food is had by all.

Andreotto catches what is happening, and becomes an easy accomplice.  He occupies all the troublemaker boys in conversation the whole evening; he knows their families, and can ask them about the goings on and remind them of follies they performed when he was last in town.  This isolates you, Bella, and and Marco in another conversation.

It proves to be a bit of a challenge.  Whenever you are able to talk about crafting, there's plenty in common for everyone to talk about; but Marco tends to gravitate back to you as the focus of the discussion, and Bella is perfectly happy to talk about your life.  But by the end of the evening, as you are excusing yourself to pack up plates and cutlery, you are able to abandon them to each other's brief company, and they seem to get along quite well.  This plan relies on Marco ultimately turning his focus to Bella, and that requires him losing focus on you - this is a long term scheme, but it may yet bare fruit.  When the boys go to bed in cots set up in the barn for the overflow, Andreotto has vanished into his strange key-room, and you and Bella are left to deal with the dishes by your design, you ask her what she thinks of him; and she gives you a faint smile that hedges expectations a little.

 "He seems... very earnest.  Certainly a very nice boy."   'Nice' - no more damaging word comes from the mouth of a woman assessing a man.  But you've done your part.  Now, when Marco finally gets the hint and gets over his obvious eyes for you, it will be up to him to prove to Bella that he has better qualities than 'Nice'.  And he may have a chance to do that - a month later, he has struck a deal with Nogrom to rent one of the rooms at the tavern; and pay for that space by manning the bar while Nogrom tends to his own property.  This works well for Nogrom, who has had remarkable trouble being in two places at once; and well for Marco, who has decided to strike out and start his own leatherworking business outside of his father's umbrella for definitely his own reasons, and definitely not to be near you.  Soon he is selling belts and pouches out of the tavern, when he is not pouring Nogrom's bad beer.  Harmless, helpful, and reasonably likable - Bella Collina could certainly acquire worse settlers!

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You have jumped through all my hoops! Gain 250XP for your trouble!
 And NOW we can work out how much money you make, over the last six months!
 
 
MrAbdiel
  * * * * * 
Over two years now, you have been on the surface and advanced your fortunes by courage, the sweat of your brow, and the invitation and generosity of the people around you.  Now you are more that a woman; you are a small industry, with many beasts to your name and four full time staff.  You have skills that mean, even if all of that vanished, you could make a decent living almost anywhere you ended up.  And you have people, who care about you, and about whom you care.  One of them is with you, now; Bella is by your side as you stand at the front of the scaffolded and half-completed bones of what will be the schoolhouse of Bella Collina, and the dormitory beside it.  It comes off the road as it peels west from town; a stones throw from the town proper, as Bella Collina continues to grow with its recent advancements.   The buildings are coming along well.  In another couple of weeks, they will be complete and ready for furnishing.  Marco is there, too; having spotted the pair of you wandering down this way and taking his break from the tavern to give chase.  His harmless presence hovers at the periphery of yours; with the occasional interjection.

 "It's really fine, I think, that you are both doing this.  Kids all over Verezzo will want to come here, I think." 

He might be right, even if he is exaggerating.  It's a great project and your generosity has garnered more favour from the village, if you can believe it.  The work gangs that have put some time on each of these buildings in one way or another include half the town; including Marco, who gravitates to the windowframe that Gherardino heavily guided him to assemble.  He rests on it with one arm, and looks up at where the roof might be in coming days, and smiles.   "Love kids, I think.  I reckon I want to have... ten sons.  And five daughters."   He glances furtively over his shoulder to check your reaction - and Bella's, too, which heartens you that he's at least expanding his scope of interest.  But he seems distracted by something past you, and jogs a few paces down the road past the half-constructed building in the afternoon light, so he can see better.

A column of people is marching down the road, under the shade of the nodding trees either side of this stretch of the Western Road.  With the sun behind them, it's hard to make the detail of them; but they resolve as they close.  Some handcarts, and some mules; but not a merchant band or travelling troupe; nor an array of mercenaries, on their way home.  Here is a line of twenty or so people, loaded with petty possessions and pushing their wounded loved ones in carts, or carrying them on stretchers.  They are dirty, in many cases with clothing stained with dried blood, and small injuries upon them.  Most are women; there is a notable lack of fighting age men among them, with a few exceptions.  One exception rides at the head of the group, on a white steed,  Fiamma , that you recognize.

"Salve to you, travellers - and welcome to fair Bella Collina!  Can I show you the way to the tavern, where your feet might rest from the day's traverse?"  Marco offers a pitch cluelessly.  The rider gives him a flat look; but offers a blunt, informative response.   "No.  I need to see Damio, right away.  Gherardino and Nogrom, if you can find them."   You can almost feel the heat radiating off Bella's cheeks, as Bertuccio returns.  His hair is grown out, a little; not clipped close, but long enough to be held back is a small blond tail at the back of his head.  Stubby, a few shades darker than the hair on his crown, informs you that he has not been afforded an opportunity to shave in the last few days.  He has acquired a cleanly healing cut over his right eyebrow that is likely to heal up into a handsome scar.  The longarm is still in its boot, at the horse's side.  He offers you and Bella a faint smile of recognition even as he blows right past Marco; the leatherworker slowly gaining understanding of what this all is, and then taking off toward the tavern to fetch Nogrom.

The former roadwarden speaks as he approaches, and passes you both; not quite halting the whole way.   "Ciao, signorinas.  I must go straight to Damio - will you tend these, behind me?  They are the people of Aglierrie.  War came to them, and it comes here too."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 
  
 
Taalia stood back, breathing heavily as the muscles across her shoulders burned with the satisfying ache that only a long day of labor could provide. Since before the rooster crowed to bring about a rising sun, Taalia and her boys had been awake and loading the piglets onto the caravans due for the newly opened slaughter house.

The mourning air was crisp, the greenery of the farm illuminated by the pale moonlight that was slowly fading to make way for the dawn. The boys struggled at first until their eyes adjusted, but Taalia's vision was as good during the stary night as it was during the day. It was loading day, which meant it was all hands on deck. Taalia had haggled quite an...eye-watering amount for the hundreds of young pigs that were growing fat upon her farm, and she knew that placing them all onto carts that would be hauled away would be a cyclical and laborious job. You see, transporting between two to three hundred, one hundred pound pigs was a  big  job. The wisdom in placing her farm this close to the abattoir would be a merciful one when the carts formed almost a ring or worker ants initiating at Giovanni Farm to collect their porcine cargo, then out to the slaughter house where they would deposit the snuffling progeny for pork, only to return to the farm on the other side of the road. It was quite a spectacle, as Taalia herself, the Pig Lord of Bella Collina, both watched and assisted, every cart that left her property managing to conjure the sound of gold duro jingling in a pouch within her head.

Not that her workers would miss out. No no. Taalia was an expectant employer, just a few steps short of a slave driver, but she was generous in her charge. Not only did her farm hands receive free lodging and food, costs that normally consumed 75% of what most workers made, but to ensure they took particular care of her pigs, Taalia had promised the two lads three copper apiece for each healthy swine they helped raised to sale age. Were they managing one or two sows this might not seem like much, but when the shepardess returned from the abattoir with a deal to deliver her two hundred and thirty young adult pigs, well...suddenly three copper really added up. And so, each of the two farmhands landed himself an extra two  duro , 17 silver and 6 copper, on top of his normal yearly wage of 14 duro, of which they had no demands from rent or food. Could she be demanding with high standards? Yes. But did she also get her hands dirty alongside them? Yes. Was she also a generous and well-rewarding employer? Absolutely.

As the dawn broke and the troupe had been working for two hours, Taalia retired within her home and got her fireplace cooking started. Within half an hour or so, she brought out and placed upon a table a pot of scrambled eggs, flecked with salt and pepper, with rashes of bacon by the side and plates with cutlery. They would work in shifts while getting a needed breakfast, but she would comment not to eat too much otherwise they'd simply vomit it back up - and it would be their responsibility to clean.

And so the day went on, the sty becoming depopulated as each cart hauled off another half a dozen pigs, until eventually all that was left were the original twenty three sows and the two boars, Porchetta and Biscotto.

When the boys were given the next couple of days off to celebrate, Taalia remained on her farm, alone with her animals. Her pigs and sheep would need care, but she could manage. The girl wanted to enjoy a glass of spirits while sitting on her porch, watching that sun set. She had just generated more money than two dozen families. She had earned herself a vote in the senatorial elections - her opinion suddenly mattered! It was hard to fully grasp and take it all in, but to think where she was two years ago compared to now.

Or even fifteen years ago. Exhaling as she took a sip of those good Bretonnian spirits, Taalia once again found her mind wandering to the fate of her biological parents and her siblings. Were they in the afterlife, looking down upon her with a smile and happiness for her success? Or were they still here among the living, having accepted and believing that one of their girls was taken by the Norscans and there was nothing that could be done about it? If they could see her now...


 oOo


 Bella Collina School for the Young 
 
 

The school had started off as a thought shared with her best friend, but it soon grew into an organic phenomenon that developed its own appetites. What Taalia thought would be a simple, but clean and welcoming building which Bella would staff and teach, soon became the beginning of a complete boarding school, with its own small kitchen, fifty duro a year staff, main class-room, bedrooms for children and faculty and storerooms. It was, for all intents and purposes, a mansion.

Taalia had built a mansion.

...and she wasn't living in it. It was for someone else!

The shepardess would be lying if she said she was 100% altruistic about this affair. She loved the idea. Hell, she  thought of it . But as it expanded and the bill came due, Taalia looked like she had bitten a lemon when she peered down the costs and witnessed the final number.  Two hundred and seventy   duro ?! She could  hire  three tutors for a quarter of that price and have them teach the little brats at her farm in between shifts tending to her flock and drove!

 Taalia Giovanni - shame on you!  her conscience scolded her.  You'd be some vagabond in the world if this community had not of taken you in - the value these children will bring and make for the region and their families, it's the best gift you could give this area that has been so good to you! 

The shepardess felt her cheeks flush a shade of red as she felt a little embarrassed by her miserly, tight-fisted ways. This would be her ego-free good deed or Bella Collina and the Republic of Verezzo at large...of which she was now a monied voter!

So when she and Bella stood before the skeletal form of the school and the wooden flesh that was slowly being applied to its frame, Taalia spoke quietly to her friend.

 "I want this school to be dedicated to Myrmidia and Verena,"  she'd say, the two Tilean patrons of science, war, knowledge and civilization. She was sure they were watching over her during her trial and had a hand in her being spared the pyre.

 "I don't want my name on it. I will supply the cost of staff, but as an Anonymous Patron,"  she stated.

Yes, Taalia told herself internally. That was a good act, free from the egoistical desire that others would  see  it as a good act - altruism for praise. Everyone knew it was her that built and funded the place, of course, but in generations to come they would not.

But then the caravan arrived, headed by an all-too-familiar image.

Immediately, Taalia reached out and empathetically held Bella's hand. When Bertuccio passed by on his horse, Taalia looked at her friend, a volume of information exchanged between them as they locked eyes for even just a moment, before Taalia looked across at the procession of the wounded, bloody and broken.

Wasting no time, Taalia darted forward to do what she could.
 
"What happened? Who was it?"  she would inquire while working as best she could.
MrAbdiel
  * * * * * 
 "Pirates." 

Bertuccio explains, in a closed door meeting with Damio, Polo, Nogrom and yourself.  Gherardino, despite Bertuccio's hopes, is too far away, at the  Trollslayer's Rest  for Marco to fetch him, so the former roadwarden proceeds with those present.  Gherardino and Nogrom are the defacto militia leaders of Bella Collina, with Bertuccio's departure; Polo and Damio its formal leadership.  And you, the village's adopted daughter, and icon of common valour and industry.  But none of you are  warriors , exactly; knights, or mercenaries.

 "Sartosans, raiding under a black banner.  Taking plunder and burning as they go." 
Damio, once more pale and sweating and palm at his hair, sighs with dread.    "Sartosans!  Those rats!  Oh, but would Manaan pull their whole island under the sea.  Of course they are raiding - they know the mercenaries are stretched against the orcs to the north and south of Tilea; and Verezza's own are up against the Pavonan border waiting for the Pavonans to provoke!  We've no choice but to muster a militia force, and send word to Paesa di Silo."  
 "What we have to do is evacuate!"  Polo urges, with sudden exhasperation;  "Get everyone out of the surrounding farms and dash east to Piede de Ezio.  They won't follow us all the way to the mountains just to get cut off by Verezzan troops when they arrive." 
Nogrom furrows his brow, and shakes his head.   "Then we come home to ash and ruin!  We cannot give over our home in the face of brigands." 
Polo, more animated than usual, fires back.   "We can rebuild everything here - wood, and stone, and material things.  But everyone who dies making a stand we cannot replace!  Those people outside - their sons and fathers gave themselves-" 
Nogrom is the first to raise his voice.   "NO!  No, I will not abandon another home to vandals and killers!  I will die first!"   The other voices go quiet, uncertain of how to deal with this sudden escalation of passion.  You think you see unshed tears shining in the dwarf's eyes.

Bertuccio speaks, after a moment's pause.   "Well, we don't have time to evacuate anyway.  The Sartosans will be here by the morning.  They were burning Aglierrie while I was leading the refugees away down the West Road.  These pirates fan our their crews into raiding parties, taking and burning as they go.  We'll have a dozen pirates sniffing around here shortly after sun-up, for sure.  If we can run them off, we'll buy four or five days while they muster a genuine host to attack, and we can use that time to fortify ourselves." 

Damio puffs, wipes sweat from his brow, and stands.    "Alright.  Well.  There's nothing to do about it, then; we have to prepare for the first attack, atleast.  Nogrom, if you and Bertuccio will see to gathering what weapons we have, Polo and I will start knocking on doors and alerting those in the village proper.  Taalia - if you would assist us, that would be very fine indeed."  

An attack in the morning; and not by scrappy mutants wielding broken tools and sharp sticks, but hardened pirates with genuine steel and a record of pillage.  And no time to alert and gather allies from the farms out from town - Gaulfredo back on his farm, or the Troublemaker boys back on yours.  And gods be kind to Istuccio, Ernesto and Antonuccia - with their farm far down the western road on the way to Aglierrie, you can only hope that their farmhands see the smoke, or get word of the pillage before they are overcome by it.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You've been drafted into knocking on doors in town to recruit an on-the-spot militia to defend against pirates on the morrow.
 You can roll a Charm, or Intimidate test - whether you want to put it towards encouraging some (like Cestié and the Madre) to flee; or to convince some of the villagers to take up spears and prepare to fight, is up to you.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 
 Pirates?! 

Immediately Taalia's mind went back to the Norscan raiders that had stolen her from her village so many years ago. That such filth existed in these beautiful lands, but only in another form and under a different name, formed a knot in the girls stomach as she pursed her lips at the thought to the village hat they had just attacked.

But then the shepardess did a double take on her own thoughts - pirates? This far inland? Just how close to the ocean were they? She had seen the maps of both the area around Bella Collina and of its geographic position relative to Verezzo. The only oceans were on the other side of the mountain stretch and beyond the Border Princes over a hundred miles away, or the ocean along the coast of the Republic. Unless...they were using the rivers to move? What ships were they using? She knew the Norscans had flat-bottomed, nimble ships for just that purpose, but she thought the larger vessels of Tilean origin were better for open sea-faring but too large to move down rivers?

In any case, they were here. It was unlikely that Bertuccio had stabbed a bunch of travels in order to form some elaborate ruse.

But, when Damio suggested they put together a militia, Taalia found herself nodding. Polo's insistance to evacuate was understandable, and Nograms passion she felt within herself.

 "Nogram is right,"  Taalia would say quietly. She wanted to back Polo up normally, but this was a matter she knew better through experience rather than learned academics.

 "If we flee and leave our homes for them to plunder and burn, they will only consider it an annual tribute and they will be back in the future. The only thing that will keep them at bay is the fear of us being more trouble than we're worth." 

Besides, a raiding party of a dozen pirates would be here by the morning, so there was no hope to evacuate everyone anyway. Not that Taalia would. She had build too much, come to far, to let the southern version of Norscans take everything from her again.

 "We should send a rider to Verezzo,"  she spoke up towards the end, her words halting the dispersal and catching attention.

 "When we hold them off,"  she said, 'when', not 'if',  "we'll have four to five days before a larger group arrives. If we release a rider to Verezzo with coin and contract, we could bring in a few dozen men at least. Even greener mercenaries with the element of defense and side by side with us defending our homes, will give us an advantage. I will put forward two hundred  durii  of my own coin." 

Another rider to warn the surrounding farmsteads, including Gaulfredo and Arianna, as well as her own farmhands, and the new workers beginning in the salt mines and slaughterhouse would be necessary.


 oOo 

Taalia took her duty quite seriously. When she met with Bella again, likely tending to the wounded, she told her what was occurring, and that she should guide Cestie and Madre to Paula di Silo. Should she offer protestations, as was understandable, Taalia would look her squarely in the eye with an expression she had never given before, and directly tell her that she knew what pirates would do with a beautiful girl like her, and that Taalia would accept nothing less than her acquiesces to helping the elders and herself to safety.
MrAbdiel
 Bella does  indeed  offer protestations.  She stood against the troll, and she feels entitled to stand against the pirates too - but of the small train of women and children and elderly departing the town, bound for the  Trollslayer's Rest  and refuge there (there is some bickering, but ultimately it is decided to be safer especially by night to send these vulnerable folks east towards the mountains rather than by the north road where, if there are pirates moving inland up there, too, they will be intercepted), she is the only half-capable marksman between them; and so she concedes after your hectoring, with a stern reservation as she leans away from your finalizing hug.   "I will come back, after they are safe on their way - with Gherardino and Andreotto and the troublemaker boys. As many as we can pare away from your farm without it going to pot." 

The Madre is close enough to the village proper to be alerted; she does not want to leave, and makes the arguement that she should stay to tend wounded after the battle - not to mention the refugees who have just now gotten a little rest.  But you take no quarrel from her, and with Bella assisting you, she too is driven into torchlit flight from her little cottage.  Cestié, by contrast, will not go; he is dug in as fiercely as Nogrom is.   "I cannot do it, Taalia.  I can't leave my shop for looters - especially not with  the machine  so close to completion, in its walls.  I won't run out to the spearline, so don't fret on that too much.  But I'm not going to the hills - I'll be right here." 

As far as riders for reinforcements, Polo assures you as he hustles back toward the village hall.   "We will send boys to ride to the farms along, and east of the long road.  But I'm about to loose a few birds to Paesa di Silo and on to Verezzo.  Your money is generous on the offer, but if we need to muster a purse for defenders, the whole town will do it.  But... I fear, a little.  These Sartosan savages know this is the right time to attack - there are precious few companies of fighters looking for sudden, unplanned contracts.  A year ago, they were lounging about in Verezzo waiting for the call.  But with Pavona making noises... We may have to see what we get.  Not to mention, even if a bird gets to Paesa di Silo and another from there to Verezzo by next evening, even if the wheels of the city turned instantly to spring to our defense, there is three days march in the interim.  They are not likely to reinforce us for ...five, six, seven days if we are very fortunate." 

Bertuccio gives you the answers to your queries about the pirates from the coast.   "We're about four days straight march from the Tilean sea.  Usually, the Sartosans can only pick at coastal settlements because the republics and princedoms react too quickly for them to make deep excursions.  But for the from the last few years, they've been escalating their hostility against trading lanes and decreasing it against land targets - it's become harder to sail out of Tilea, but safer to live within it. Right now, there are probably pirate raids up and down the coast from the tip of Luccini up to Remas.  Sartosans have their spies, and they know how much they can stretch; and they know the best plunder is inland.  It's been a long time since a Sartosan has laid siege to a city, but from time to time they muster armies of their own for just that purpose.  But they're roaming inland in gangs.  They seize horses and carts from the farms and towns as they go, then drive them bloody back to the coast when they decide it's time to flee.  Bastards." 

A silence falls between you.  The circumstances of his departure last were difficult; and much has happened between then and now.  Bertuccio defies his awkward nature to remark, mildly.

 "...I heard about what happened to you in Verezzo.  I'm glad you're alright." 

You notice then, he has upgraded the armament hanging from Fiamma's side.  There is his familiar longarm, the one he let you shoot at the troll's head.  And on the other side, hanging parallel to it, is another leather weapon boot; and a firearm within it; one with the small maker's mark that you and Cestié agreed upon for your enterprise.

 * * * * * 
The preparation carries on through the night.   You gain a few hours desperate sleep at Polo's; and in the morning, you have the town's militia.

 Nogrom , dwarven grump.
 Marco , leatherworker and lovelorn.
 Emio , violist virtuoso.
 Polo , reluctant clerk.
 Fenicia , dutiful clerk's wife.
 Alfredo , local farmer and owner of the site of the first Battle of Bella Collina, against the troll.

There are two young farmhands,  Paoluccio  and  Ugo , who come to the village only on errands for their farmstead, and happened to be in town.  They know you and some others by reputation; and being both willing and with their flails on hand, are grimly honored to be enlisted.

Beyond these, there is also  Bertuccio , riding on Fiamma; and then, joining him and wobbling in his saddle as he comes, is the  Rampollo Damio , dressed in fine chainmail with a boiled leather breastplate and open helm.  He looks... minimally comfortable, in this arrangement; but it's not uncommomen for the well-born to receive a certain amount of martial training, even if it has been left to gather dust; and he has made the calculation he can hardly flee from this responsibility.

After that, there is  you ; and there is  Corvo , ever faithful.

Ten humans, one dwarf, and a dog.  Cestié has promised you to stay back in the square with his crossbow, rather than join the fray.

 "Gentlemen."   Damio says, after clearing his throat (a not inconsiderable act, considering the distance cleared).   "Is there an... order of battle to discuss?"   He looks to Nogrom and Bertuccio, who look at each other, then back to the politician.

 "Not especially,"  Bertuccio answers.   "We've two options, as far as I can see.  Either way, we'll be fighting out near the half-built school, since that's where the miscreants will start setting fires.  We can either set up our line on the road and invite them to come in, then have Taalia pop up from a bush and blast down their line with her bunderbuss before we give them all we have.  But they'll have pistols.  If we line up, they'll shoot several of us down before they close.  Better we don't make it a shoot-out.  We can't outgun them; we might overbear them, in close, if we get the surprise." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
On the off chance Taalia has some amateur war advice, she might offer it now - but even if not, would you kindly roll me your initiative, just to get it out of the way now, for when I set up the scene?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia nodded in agreement with Bertuccio.

Earlier, she realised how awkward, or difficult, it would have been for him to speak to her on a personal matter. She knew he was not a talkative and empathetic man, and given what he had bene through, he could have simply carried on. But the fact he chose to take her aside and give even a sliver of empathy for what she had endured because of Simonuccio, it mattered.

Taalia would have just smiled, genuinely, offering a small nod,  "And you, Singore. Those people would have been lost without you." 

In the present, listening to the plan, Taalia decided to chime in. She was not some veteran mercenary or grizzled soldier, but she knew what it was like to fight as the underdog.

 "I think an ambush would work better, Singore,"  she spoke, her sonorous, smoky voice even and measured.

 "They are armed with pistols and have seen combat. They come here to loot and rape. Perhaps we allow them to lower their own guard and ambush them, seize the element of surprise." 

It was the best she could offer: create and lure them into a trap.
MrAbdiel
 The little volunteer army looks at each other in silence.  An ambush, or a trap, sounds better than meeting such monsters in direct combat.  But how to effect it?  None of them were tacticians; most held their spears, and the unbanded wooden shields they had been given without much expertise or skill at all.  They had been paired up to watch each other in the brawl to come, leaving six pairs (your partner, of course, is Corvo), but something as advanced as a convincing ambush is not something most are familiar with.

But Nogrom strokes his black beard, and grins a little with self regard.   "...Hmm.  Mayhaps, that gives me ideas..." 
 * * * * * 
Ernie "Fiddlesticks" Lambogino was once a musician on a Reman sailing boat; a pleasure vessel owned by a merchant prince in a short-sighted window in which the Reman waters were the best and safest in the southern kingdoms.  When that vessel was destroyed, Ernie - who was a child at the time - was taken and pressganged into service with the pirates.  Over the next twelve years, he became a reluctant sailor, and then crossing a few critical moral thresholds, a pirate indulging in all their worst practices; and eventually, recently, a low-ranking 'mate', qualifying him to lead a raiding crew.  But he was the most recently appointed mate, which meant he could be bullied by his peers; and he didn't much like the fact that he was being driven days of march inland for any good rapine while the other gangs plundered and burned much closer to the ships.  Still, he considered himself a fortunate, all things considered; King Death had spared him, and if he gathered well and tossed some overboard for that grim onlooker, he might see him through another few dangerous years.

Ernie's gang was eclectic, violent dregs of the crew; a dozen men and women of the proven bloodthirsty and repulsive qualities of Sartosans.  There was "Jawbone", with his collection of such bones clicking and clacking at on his belt; here was "Jenny-Scabs", once the crew's strumpet until she became so riddled with disease none would have her, after which she discovered a talent for violence to prevent her obsolescence.  "Dog" was salivating; the bizarre, second personality hidden behind his crazy old eyes straining at its leash.  These, and another nine scallywags beside, roamed on towards their target - a scruffy little village not far from the major interior townships, after which they would have to turn back lest they get cut off far from the bulk of the raiding fleet.

 "Oi, Fiddlesticks - lookit here."   Jawbone called him over, as they approached the first structures in the morning light - a half-built, empty structure with planks and scrap wood laying about it before the first buildings worth looting at all.  But just infront of it was a barrel, and that barrel was full of bundles of thatch to start insulating the roof of the construction.  This was not worth looting, of course; but Jawbone had pointed it out for a reason very obvious to Mate Fiddlesticks.  When it came to burning these villages, it was important to have a 'pilot' burning somewhere from which one could light the torches they intended to whip onto rooftops.  Usually this meant having one of their number rummage through a house for some oil flasks, and smashed them over an exterior wall.  But a barrel of thatch was perfectly convenient for the purpose - it meant they could get to work without having to delegate any of his disobedient wretches to lighting the pilot.

 "Good spot, Jawbone.  Jenny-Scabs, my dear angel, if you would be so kind.  Seems the local sheep-shaggers have up and run; so it might be more 'burn' than 'loot', here; more luck with the farmsteads, I suspect." 

Jenny-Scabs hated being called Jenny-Scabs; scabrous though she was.  One day, she'd kill Ernie - but she'd bide her time for the right moment, as she had so far.  For now, she took out the matches to light up her own torch, and with that torch lit up the thatch barrel as the gang wandered past toward Bella Collina.

And then the barrel shuddered, and puffed smoke, and the gang flinched away with a fear it was going to explode like a powderkeg.  Surely these bumpkins didn't have barrels of powder to just lay around?  But what the didn't expect was for the barrel to vomit a blinding plume of rainbow sparks high into the air, showering gold and green and orange and blue light in a great fountain that left afterburned flashes into their eyes as they reeled.

 "Yeeeeeaaaaaargh!"   Ernie tried to track the source of the howl, though the flash still dazzled his vision.  He grabbed for his cutlass as something dwarf-shaped and furious  exploded from hiding, belting out his injunction to the air:   "Attaaaack!" 
 * * * * * 
 
 Spoiler: Attaaaaack! 
Taalia wins the Initiative olympics, and so may act first - before anyone has charged or gotten into melee.  You are concealed either in the half-build schoolhouse, or in the brush and trees nearby.  You are within charge distance... or, given the fact that you are infact able to act before anyone charges, you could fire your blunderbuss!  You can catch four pirates in the blast, if you do so.

Oh - and Corvo has successfully been trained to  Attack.   You may give Corvo a command freely once per turn.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia waited quietly in those bushes, her white hair drawn back into a bun to avoid being grabbed and hidden within her hat so that its unusual color would not catch the morning sun and give her position away. Instead, the towering girl kept low in the bushes, having become surprisingly adept at hiding within the wooded area's when she so desired it.

She didn't have to wait long...she  smelt  them before she heard them, as the pirates came canting down the pathway that Bertuccio had recently traversed with the wounded. Perhaps they expected their scrappy little town to be easy pickings? Maybe they had thought they had already fled? Whatever the reason, they moved in a group, and Taalia gripped her weapon and waited...

The sparks flew into the air. The pirates shouted in dismal surprise.

Taalia drew herself out of the bushes, aligned her blunderbuss into the throng of rapists and murderers and pulled the trigger.

Were the pirates expecting a close-range ambush from a blunderbuss?

Doubtful. But that's what they got.
MrAbdiel
 Your blunderbuss booms and throws a cloud of shot into the midst of the pirate band; raking down their line and opening bleeding wounds in a number of the scallywags.  These are not the only reports; Bertuccio and Damio, having crested the hill at Nogrom's battlecry, let fly with musket and pistol respectively, with the former roadwarden slickly holstering one gun and bringing the next to shoulder without pause.  You think they hit targets - but it's hard to know, now.  The gambit with the spark powder has enveloped the street in smoke, and the gunfire is now adding to it; and the rest of the militia charges in to use this momentum as best they can.  You hear Polo cry out as he lunges in, fighting with Fenicia by his side; the woman refusing to leave town and let her man face this trial without her; and they are mixing it up in the smoke with the brigands while weapons are still being drawn and a response mustered.  Corvo, shuffling paw to paw for a moment, hears Nogrom yawp out from within the smoke; and hares off at the sound of the dwarf to lunge after whomever he is fighting.  Your friend's forces have made their ambush; now the combat is a whirl of smoke and chaos, with nought left for it but to dive in and fight like wildmen.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Tracking wounds and deaths on the initiative tracker in the OOC.  If Taalia is going to charge into the smoke and attack the first pirate she finds, roll a d13 for me when you make your attack roll.
 If you want to charge in to the side of a particular friend, or to target one of the wounded enemies you blasted, give me a visual Perception test at -10%; and if you pass that, you can select your target/ally.
 Whether or not you succeed, you'll take a -10% to the attack roll as you sacrifice your charge's momentum to track carefully into the battle.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Once Taalia had fired her weapon, she let it to the ground and drew her sword and shield.

Thinking little more beyond helping her fellow Bella Collina's, she charged forward, a scream of war erupting from her throat...
MrAbdiel
 You dive into the mess, and find a scallawag to strike.  In your patch of the fog, you find a pair of the pirates going for their weapons with speed and instinct.  One is tall, gangly, with a loosely fit false eye that rolls crazilly about in his head, giving him a  Mad  look; the other has a network of scars cut into his face making some profane, evil  Mark .  You slip a blow through to the marked man, and he howls and rounds on you; for a moment you feel alone until Corvo finds his way back to you and bites into the cretin's calf.  When the marked man swings at you, your shield is ready; but you feel the weight of the blow jarring your arm as you fend off cutlass and dagger one after the other, and his mad friend makes warding, cautionary jabs at the snarling wardog.

Nearby you, through the smoke, you see the tow farmhands, Paoluccio and Ugo going back and forth with a buck-toothed pirate and his surprisingly handsome female counterpart; they trade blows onto shields and parrying weapons, but make not much headway.  Elsewhere, you hear Bertuccio and Damio's horses whickering as they plunge into the mess - the smoke preventing them shooting again.  You think you see a glean of Damio's armor attached to the arm swinging and getting a lick in against the back of one of the pirates - but you hear Polo cry out in pain on the other side of the brawl, and another voice - Alfredo you think - wailing out with the throaty gargle you know means he has blood in his trachea.  The Militia have given all they have to the ambush, but it has not been enough to break and run off the pirates at once.  They stand, and give back; and they are the better fighters.

But you do not have to overwhelm and kill them all - these men are raiders intending to escape with their lives, and you are fighters defending your only home.  None of them has a reason to die - the fear of it, the spreading fear of it, will be enough, if you can induce it.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
You and Corvo are facing off against Mad Murry and Arley The Marked.
 You've gotten some dings in on The Marked;  and parried his reprisal!  The pirates spent this turn quickdrawing one weapon, drawing another, and striking once; soon they begin swift attacking.  But not yet!  Not yet.  Your go!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Survival instincts permeated through Taalia's mind as she focused on the man before her. The yelps and cries through the mist, whether from friend or foe, could not penetrate her focus and disturb her concentration. Though she was not a trained soldier nor grizzled mercenary, the girl had a freakish natural instinct for handling weapons, whether her own hands or those of steel, and she displayed it when she struck her first blow and then landed the next, her body darting out of the way of the follow up response.
MrAbdiel
 Your sword - the sword that once belonged to an extravagant mutant gang-boss slain in the Battle of Silo Road - does much work protecting you.  You hoist your shield against the marked man's cutlass, but find as he does the short blade in his other hand is ever seeking around the edge of that shield, hunting your sides; and you are forced to chase it off with sword blows, one of which lacerates the pirate's arm to for good measure.  But you feel now, in combat with these salty scoundrels who have seen many melees, the point where your instinct and affinity for combat runs to its end, past which you might wish to have training for such affairs more formally.  It's all you can do to fend off the rain of blows hammering your shield; you have no defense to spare when Corvo, darting in to try to take the ankle of the mad-eyed pirate, receives a pair of slices on his back that send him whining and reeling back to your side; his piebald coat splashed with his flowing blood.

The battle has its first casualty, elsewhere; the smoke beginning to clear. You see Bertuccio laying in crossing swords with a pirate on the ground, while another  on the other side steps in and hacks through Fiamma's foreleg with a hatchet.  The beautiful white steed screams and crumples, throwing Bertuccio roughly to the ground in a bed of smoke where he fights for his life from his back.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Onwards we rage... 
Lots of light wounds.  Bertuccio's horse has been crippled; one of the pirates in the mix is heavilly wounded but not killed, yet.  Corvo got hit twice!
 But low damage rolls meant he took only 6 wounds total.  We gotta get that good boy some dog armor.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia knew she was against season fighters here - but she had no choice. There was no other course open for her but to press on and fight as best as she was able. The sound of Corvo's whining spurred her on, murderous rage in her heterochromia eyes as she attempted to batter away the pirates cutlas to give her an opening to stab the bastard in his black heart...
MrAbdiel
 Your furious attack drives you into a weapon bind with the marked man; his growling face close enough to yours that you smell the rum on his breath, straining to mask appallingly bad hygeine.  With a concerted collision of efforts, you both press at each other and shove back from the bind.  He smashes you in the face with his shield; but your sword slashes hard through the leather jacket's sleeve and his cutlass rings against the ground as he cries out...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Damage 
8 Points of damage to your head. You may reduce with armor and toughness as normal.
 


Corvo is twice-shy from his opponent, skittering back and barking rather than throwing himself in; and a dangerous blow that might have ended the hound whips through the air where he might have been, if he lunged.

Across the field, the smoke is near to clear.  You can see the brawl has progressed terribly, with partners changing throughout the last furious twenty seconds of life and death.  Bertuccio and Damio are suffering; the combination of socially awkward former road warden and physically awkward political soaking up the attention of two pirates and also their vicious gang leader.  Bertuccio almost loses his head to the axe that took down his horse; its downward chop bites into his collarbone and elicits a cry, but stops short of punching into his heart because much of its momentum is caught on his half-parry.  Damio is wrenched off his horse by one leg, and rolls to avoid the stabs and slashes of his aggressors; but winded, he manages an amazing upward slash that lacerates along the chest of one frothing lunatic barking like a dog; a man whose parry might have prevented that blow, if his arm were not hanging loosely from the blunderbuss shot torn through his muscles.  The frother forced back a step, Damio is able to find his feet, wheezing; and with it, another chance to survive.

The surprise of the attack has long worn off, now; and experience proves deadlier than passion.  Polo and Fenicia do their best, but struggle badly.  A pirate's boathook stabs through Fenicia's waist, eliciting a scream; Polo is driven frantic by her pain and interposes himself against the following blows, one that smashes his guard aside, the other chopping fiercely into his left hand and splitting it from between middle and ring fingers all the way down the wrist.  The clerk's blood rushes from the wounded, splattering his boots as he shuffles to try to defend himself and his wife from the hurricane of attacks.

Emio raises a slender arm used to bracing his viola to brace his shield; and a scabby-faced woman stabs up under it, her dagger shearing through the tendons under his arm and causing the shield arm to hang half limp at his side with a crimson curtain dripping beneath.  Nogrom hears the minstel scream, and barks for Marco to leave him to assist the musician.  The young man turns to take the attention from that pirate as ordered, but this leaves Nogrom alone against the ratty-faced man and the sultry, grinning she-pirate; they surround him, and in moments he is taking cuts to the backside, the shoulder, the back of the head while laying about with his short spear.

And then comes the moment you and all Bella Collina were praying for.  Some of the pirates take up a cry in some short-cut war cant you don't know; but they begin to fight defensively to withdraw.  They are winning the fight; and in a fight to the death, they would have killed you and all these people you care for for certain.  But not without deaths of their own; and none of them are willing to die just so their scummy companions can be a little richer for it.

 "Hold!"   Croaks Bertuccio;  "Don't give chase; they'll isolate us and pick us apart." 

A moment later the lines are split apart, and the scallawags are running down the slope off the left of the road.

 "Taalia!" 

It's Fenicia wailing your name.  She is bleeding from her side, but not as badly as Polo is from his ruined hand. Blood splashes from it in spurts and splatters as he kneels in the dust.  A few yards from him, Nogrom fumbles trying to find a way to apply pressure to Emio's wound; his thick dwarven fingers slick with blood, and untrained in the art of medicine; his inarticulate grumbling rising in frightened pitch.

At a glance, they are the most wounded of the group and most urgently in need of help.  The clerk whose courage failed him against the troll has redeemed himself in self-sacrifice here; and the musician who has asked little of anyone is giving all he has drop by drop.

You possess the skills.  If Shallya is kind, you can save both.  If she is unkind, it might be too late for both.  But the one you rush to first has the best chance; that much you know.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Out of combat time.  Emio and Polo are both bleeding out.  At the beginning of their turns, they are required to roll to see if they hit the 20% bleedout chance.
 Fortunately, your initiative is higher than theirs; so you can start making medicine checks to try to stop the bleeding on one before any rolls are made.  It's a flat heal check to stop bleeding.  If you fail, and the target doesn't bleed out, you can try again the next turn.
 If they both hang on long enough for you to succeed twice in sequence, you can possibly save them both.

Who will it be first - the clerk who fought for in the beaucracy of Verezzo, or the musician who played for hours and hours to draw attention to your plight?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 
 "Argh!"  Taalia hisses as the shield clobbers against her skull, her natural fortitude and the leather skullcap she wore offering her a degree of protection that nulled most of the damage, but still left a nasty ring in her mind and a dark mark forming around an eye. In return, the shepardess stabbed the man through his arm, his bellowing scream and spurt of blood granting the girl some degree of satifaction as he was forced to drop his weapon. And that is what dominated Taalia's nostrils: blood.

As the pirates fell back, having taken a hell of a beating from less experienced combatants, with several bleeding profusely and critical injuries abound (the trained healer within Taalia knew many of them would not survive for much longer unless they received medical attention, but given their hygiene they were more likely to become viciously infected), the shepardess threw her eyes across her compatriots - a knot forming in her stomach when she saw Polo and his gentle wife.

  Myrmidia  damnit  why did he let her in here?!   Taalia hissed to herself internally. She had sent Bella way for this  exact reason .

Dashing over to her adoptive brother-in-law, Taalia dropped her backpack and immediately withdrew the medical supplies within. She tossed a bunch of healing draughts to whoever was able to receive them in order to start dispersing the precious vials across those involved. Meanwhile, Taalia drew up a bandage and other processions as she took swiftly to Polo's hand.

It was a grisly wound, she knew that. But...she had seen worse. Keep that hand compressed together and let it heal. He would take time to recover its use, and it likely would not have the dexterity it once had, but with treatment and time, it would still be practically functional. Polo was lucky he was a man of letters and not a farmer, he could still tend to his profession just fine.

Next was Emio, as Taalia quickly removed his coat and shirt, applied pressure and bandages. She did what she knew best to treat the wound, speaking to Emio as she did it to keep his focus in the present and not drift away.

 "In a few days, I'll sing by your bed-side - Bella has been teaching me!"  she grinned as she worked feverishly, her strong front likely a projection to distract her from her own desperation.

After that came the others. She had bandages plenty and all the healing draughts were imbibed. With the critical wounds seen to, Taalia went from man to man (and woman in the case of Fermia) and checked him, her left eye having become a little swollen, but nothing she couldn't handle, as she went from pirate-blasting sword-wielder, to the sister of mercy and medical aid.
MrAbdiel
 Shallya be praised - both men cling to life until you can staunch their bleeding, and it seems the entire contingent of Militia will survive, somewhat the worse for wear.  As you are holding pressure on Emio's wound, Bertuccio and Damio have a tense exchange -  the Pirates are only seconds put to flight, and despite Bertuccio's demand that the mob do not give chase, they could not afford the chance that the pirates would regroup and turn back on them immediately.  The former road warden is leaning over his agonized, suffering horse; but takes a moment to pull the still-loaded firearm from its boot and tosses it to Damio, who is back in his own saddle; and sucking in a breath of courage not natural for a man of his kind, the Rampollo rides off after the pirates, prepared to give threat enough to keep them going.  Over the next few minutes, you hear the pop of pistols three times. You must hope they did not find their mark.

But nearer, Bertuccio strokes Fiamma's mane trying to calm the beast; hushing as he removes his yellow sash and takes it to bind around the horse's eyes, as a blindfold.  With he recovers his second longarm from the ground where it spilled after the horse's fall; takes a minute to load and pack it; warns the group of what is to come (by such time you are binding the non-critical wounds of the other fighters).  He pauses for a long moment, before pulling the trigger to end the creature's suffering; his muted emotional reach the furthest thing from Gaulfredo's grief in a the similar situation.  But you know Bertuccio well enough that any outward sign of emotion is a sign indeed; and the frown on his face, the hesitation, the heaviness of shoulders not entirely from his own considerable injury, suggest he is not without feeling for the act he is forced to commit.

A little later, Damio returns - having apparently dodged all the bullets sent his way, and arriving to gratefully receive your ministrations to his own injuries.

  "You continue to bless us all, Taalia.  What a tremendous scrap - outmatched and outnumbered.  We might have lost the village without you in the fight; and certainly, would have lost some friends here in the aftermath."    He gives you his odd smile; the politician happy to be alive - and happy, you realize, that you have saved his best friend, Polo.  Still, Damio remains pale and sweating at the next test lingering a few days in the future.

Of the twelve who went into the encounter, most have paid in blood.

Emio and Polo both came close to death, with their bloodloss.  Bertuccio, Damio, Fenecia, and Alfredo have all earned serious wounds that that will require significant rest and recovery, and may leave them too fragile for the battle to come.  And Nogrom, Ugo, and yourself (not to mention Corvo) are variously featuring cuts, bruises and sundry small sufferings.  Nogrom's wounds would have been life threatening, in a human; but the brawny density of his dwarven physiology makes them less remarkable, if still serious.  Only the farmhand Paoluccio, and young Marco have come away uninjured; the latter making sure to take up the fallen cutlass left behind by the marked man you struck it from in the combat, and giving it to you later.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
This cutlass is a hand weapon; it can either be sold at some point, or else kept as a trophy, or whatever purpose you see fit.

You may also gain 150XP for the Second Battle of Bella Collina.
 

 * * * * * 
The next day, folks from the surrounding farms start trickling in to report for duty.  They have sent their families away toward the mountains and hidden, released, or driven their herds as best their judgement allows; and brought their spears and shields and skullcaps and leather jacks.  Many have bows; a few have firearms.  Nogrom, using Marco as his aide-de-camp, does his best to group and organize them while Bertuccio conducts his best strategic speculations from his recovery bed in the inn.

It is on this day, the first after the battle, that a stranger comes to town.  A rider on a black warhorse with speckled grey 'cannons' - lower legs.  He - horse and rider - wears polished steel armor with some laquered black panels with brazen-gold chasing.  You have seen such armor before, riding in formation out of Verezzo to one task, or another; and the iconography of the sun on his breastplate, and the helmet propped on the saddlehorn, and in many places on his regalia suggest a Myrmidian allegiance.  His massive horse is followed by two others; a riding horse with no one in the saddle, and courser whose rider - a young woman with short cut brown hair and suspicious eyes peering out from the ring of her mail coif - leads the unmounted horse by a long tether.

Marco alerts you to this arrival; he sees it coming down the road and runs to fetch you, as Nogrom and Bertuccio are discussing the militia with each other.

 "Taalia, you've got to come see - a knight is here, he is!  A knight of Myrmidia, no less.  And he's got a lance, and a sword as big as he is!"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

It was harder and harder to conduct these fights, Taalia found. She remembered back to the troll and the town gathering the militia necessary to combat the threat it posed to all. Taalia had barely been able to speak a coherant sentence in Tilean, but she had done her best and walked away a hero. Though she would have been lying if she had said she felt as connected to everyone back then as she did now. During that time of peril, she had been on the surface for barely a few months and had little more than her relieved enthusiasm to guide her.  Now , having put down roots, built an enterprise and thoroughly integrated with a people who were prepared to spring her from prison, watching pain come to them was almost impossible to bare. But she knew she had to.

That's all that went through her head as she tended to wounds and wrapped bandages around arms, legs and injured area's. She dispersed healing draughts, showing how they were to be used, and once able to she tended to Corvo. The massive hound licked at her neck and jaw as she treated him, "I know bubby, hang in there!" she'd coo, kissing his broad head as his tailed wagged back and forth while she cleaned and then wrapped the cut to the dogs back. Yes, she'd definitely have to acquire some protection for him, something custom made to his size. But also, she should keep him leashed or at least near her. The way he ran off to Nogram...no good, that could have gotten him killed.

But! He should recover soon enough. Tying that bandage tight, the bleeding stopped and the dark-red patch present on the tape where linen contacted the wound, Taalia smiled into her dogs eyes and gave his big head another big, warm kiss and hugged him around his shoulders.

In the background, that firearm shot went off to announce the passing of Fiamma, that beautiful white horse. Taalia closed her eyes and exhaled, pursing her lips and shaking her head. When she opened them, she was looking at Corvo and suddenly feeling  very  lucky, so she gave him another tight hug.

However, Damio's bravery surprised the girl. She hadn't suspected him of being a coward, but she had considered that his presence was merely a token show and that he would mostly hang around the back where it was safer. That he risked his life not just during the melee, but actually  went after  the pirates to ensure their flight was maintained, even risking several return shots, well...that was quite something else.

When he returned and spoke to her, she had a visibly amount of gratitude in her eyes. She had always been thankful for the ways he had helped her, but this was adding another level.

 "I don't know where I would be in this world if this town and its people had not taken me in,"  she answered honestly,  "I'm just returning the favour." 
 oOo 
In the following day when more villages arrived in to do their part, Taalia was helping out where she could. She was the Trollslayer, after all, though she was not egotistical enough to think of herself as some great leader, she knew that she had become a bit of a symbol for courage and defiance against the odds, and that her presence, both as a militiawoman and a healer once the fighting stopped, lent a morale boost to those who would be risking everything to protect all that they had.

She checked up on Emio, fulfilling her promise of singing a small tune so that he could be the one to be entertained for once. Likewise, Polo received another visit from the shepardess, her tone hopeful and caring, checking out his hand and replacing his bandages with clean ones. She likewise did the same for Fenecia, Gaulfredo's sister, and her adopted auntie (and Polo her adopted uncle). Taalia still couldn't believe that Fenecia had been permitted to assist, but there was no use crying over spilt milk. When she did her little check up, it was clear between Taalia and Polo that she understood the man had above and beyond redeemed his former hidden sense of cowardice before the troll. He wondered if he could protect the town should pillagers arrive with beastly intent, and now they had both seen the answer: he could, and did.

When Marco hurried to come and retrieve the shepardess, she followed his enthusiastic return, her eyes widening slightly at the magnificent sight of the knight upon his huge steed, and the squire behind him. She recognized him as possibly one of that column that she had encountered during her first trip to Verezzo, the gesture still seemingly fresh in her mind as they had given her a friendly salute as they passed, and she had returned it.

Holding her hand up in a saluted greeting, Taalia spoke first, her white hair drawn back in a loose ponytail.

 "Good afternoon Singore! I am Taalia Giovanni, you honour us with your presence - are you here to aid in relieving our troubles?" 
MrAbdiel
The knight looks at you and Marco with cool interest, then back to his squire.  They share a look of amusement; some kind of inside joke.

  "Why?"    The knight asks in a rough baritone, dismounting to stand, as a matter of fact, slightly taller than you.    "Are there troubles to speak of?"  
 * * * * * 
The knight's name is  Cavaliere Guidaldo Visconti .  His squire is  Scudiera Jacobella da Fundino .  She manages the horses while the knight listens to you and Marco account for the situation in the village - he seems mildly surprised.  "In truth, I had not come here expecting a particular purpose.  My order - the Order of the Blazing Sun - task our knights to roam to settlements and homesteads, seeking places where aid is needed... but often enough, our Lady Myrmidia arranges things such that we are where we ought to be.  Such is my experience, at any rate."  He strolls a little as you speak with him, drawn to the town's grotto of Myrmidia with the statue of the spear wielding goddess within.  He peers up at her and smiles faintly.

He might be thirty years old, if he is a day; and he have been very handsome indeed, with his cornsilk blond hair and green eyes.  But a rough scar is prominent on his face, a cut from the centre of the left cheek down to the middle of his chin.  It must not have been stitched well when it was left to heal; now it leaves his moustache disrupted on one side, and pulls up the corner of his upper lip slightly so his resting face appears to be an unpleasant smirk, however pleasant he seems to be in personality.  His eyes are a little wide set, but his body is broad, too, so it seems to match up; and standing six and a half feet tall, he might be the largest man you have ever encountered.  His  scudiera , Jacobella, is as laconic and dour as her master is friendly and pleasant; managing the horses, regarding you with suspicion every step of the way.

  "But pirates, yes; it makes sense, though they'd normally not come so far inland.  But if you need martial aid, then I can only conclude I am here to provide it, whether I had intended to, or not.  Who is running you defense, here?  Take me to them; and we shall operate with the sum of our expertise."    He gestures once to the statue of Myrmidia as you lead him away towards the inn where the militia is headquartered, and asks conversationally as you go:   "A fine shrine; in the classic likeness.  Do you know much of the Lady Myrmidia, signorina?  Or is it a more... traditional matter, for your village?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Maybe the gods did work in mysterious ways? The shrine of Verena had been her saving grace in her trial, her curiosity at the troll-desecrated shrine having paved the way for her salvation and saviour from the pyre. And now, at their hour of need, Myrmidia has seen fit to direct one of her knights to her childrens aid.

 "Then maybe Myrmidia is smiling upon us for the hard times to come?"  Taalia spoke, smiling as she considered the man whom was taller than she - a rare sight indeed! Even the mecenary to whom she had returned the pistol was at eye-level with her, but this one stood just that teeny bit taller, his athletic and fighting fit frame bringing a smile from the shepardess as she walked alongside him and filled him in on the details: who they were and their troubles, mainly.

That he showed a dearth of knowledge as to her identity was also new for the girl, as it seemed everywhere she went she was becoming a recognisable figure. Here in Bella Collina as the Trollslayer. In Verezzo she had blown a hole open in the most notorious prison and then proceeded to sit upon the ruins and blow kisses to the people, forcing her trial to go public rather than be a hidden affair in the shadows of the justice system beneath the influence of Simonuccio.

Smiling as she spoke, Taalia nodded as she walked alongside the only other being her height,  "I owe much to Myrmidia and Verena's mercy, perhaps you are where you ought to be by their hidden hand?" 

Approaching the town shrine with the man, Taalia would likewise kneel and pray with him to the patron of this town and land, offering her the motes of mortal faith that sustained her.

 "Our former Roadwarden, Bertuccio, is the main director of our defences. He has shown to be capable, under his guidance we have fended off Trolls, goblins and now these pirates...once. But he was injured in the last attack, Singore." 

Oh the topic of Myrmidia, Taalia smiled as she led the man to Bertuccio. Every now and then Taalia would look over at the mans squire and size her up, only to offer her a friendly smile - at least the first time.

 "I have learned much, and I owe much to both her and Verena. I was not born in these parts, you see Singore, I am adopted here in the past few years, and I am taken with defending the people who have shown me so much kindness. Pray-chance, Singore..."  Taalia considered,  "recently we discovered and restored a shrine to Verena near a beautiful river in the forest. It seems more than a coincidence that this place of worship to Verena is returned to its proper dignity, only for your travels to bring you here in our hour of need, no?"  she asked with a wry smile, leaving out the part that it was she who had done most of the restoration.
MrAbdiel
 The huge knight laughs benevolently at your suggestion concerning the shrine.   "It may be so; Verena is wisdom, and it would be wisdom to defer to her gallant daughter in matters such as this.  But the gods - even Myrmidia - do their work mostly in the calm times between crises.  It is in the tribulation that the gods require of  us  the showcase of the virtues that the right worship of  them  institutes.  Ah!  Let me sermonize no more.  Come, let me meet your local heroes."   

Guidaldo is friendly, and likable; he is huge, and visibly strong.  But more than these things, his panoply is that of a knight of an order; and most of the Bella Collinans have never even  seen  such a figure, sustained only by tales of their actions, alternately slanderous and overblown.  But arriving at such a time seems to be something they take for granted.  This, you gather, is common enough habit for Knights of the Blazing Sun; less prone to crusades in far lands, or guarding pilgrimages, and more prone to wandering in ones and twos to small towns and turning up in time to rally a defence, or lead a ragged band of peasants to overthrow an obvious tyrant.  Even Bertuccio seems a little starstruck - almost moved to tears when the big man places a hand on his shoulder and commends him for his bravery leading the survivors away from Aglierrie.  Everyone but Marco quickly falls into orbit around him as he starts asking about the battle yesterday; what flag the pirates might have carried; how they were armed; the way they spoke; if they moved in formation; how many farms around the village; how many fighting men are likely to answer the call; and so on.

Marco watches from a few paces removed; a humble leatherworking apprentice who, yesterday, felt he had become a man by stepping into the fires of war like the others; and today, in the shadow of this almost cartoonishly accomplished and mighty fellow, looks bitterly aware of how much he has to be humble about.

Over the next three days, the defenders of Bella Collina assemble and Guidaldo seamlessly integrates them into a defensive plan.  The morning after Guidaldo's arrival, Iyeseanna arrives and quickly takes the job of scouting our around the western farms to keep an eye on the mustering enemy and to point survivors and refugees to Bella Collina.  By the end of that day, volunteers have begun streaming in and the knight has his squire running spear drills for the soldiery.  The next day, Iyeseanna returns with a small group of farmers from the western farmsteads - including Istuccio, Ernestio, and Antonuccia.  The brothers report to you, grimly, that they had enough warning to open their gates and send some of their farmhands driving their herd south and east, inland and away from the incoming enemies, and they hope their workers and beasts made it the distance.  But they were forced to flee their large and comfortable family farmstead in haste, hiding themselves in the forest while the smoke of their home's destruction rose behind them.   "No need to burn anything - they could take whatever wasn't nailed down.  It's just spite, for honest folk."   Ernesto scowls; feeling especially useless propped up in the cart the elf escorted.   "Damn animals.  As bad as orcs." 

Antonuccia falls naturally into the role of chief medical officer, relieving you of that burden - though not without appreciating all you've done.  "Some of these wounds would be certainly fatal if you hadn't been there, Taalia.  It seems you have a talent for saving lives - less remunerative than bacon-dealing, unfortunately."

By that evening, Gaulfredo and many of the farmers from the south road have joined the gathering throng, along with a new force multiplier - Adolpho, Viletta, and a dozen energetic, lean wardogs.  It takes all Viletta's attention to keep them herded when they're off the leash; they are restless, competative, curious... in some cases, horny, and spoiling for a fight; and all of these impulses have to be tamped down until arrangements can be made for their accommodation in town.

"Vittorio and Bella are looking after your farm; and Elmo is with them," Gaulfredo assures you.  "We will have another daring tale to tell them, when this is over."  He hugs you, and kisses your forehead; then goes to spend time with Polo, and Fenecia.

The next morning, as tensions are getting tighter, the Troublemaker boys arrive, along with a handful of volunteers from the brineries and Piede de Ezio; and the wizard Andreotto.  Guidaldo is very excited to have the wizard on board, as is everyone else; and the mood of the town militia doing their combat drills significantly increases with the arrival of their home-grown wielder of the arcane mystery.

 * * * * * 
"Hey - you, stop that."

In the midst of the spear drill, the squire  Jacobella  calls you out on something about your form. You've been furnished with a spear to fight with - though armed irregularly with hand weapons, the plan that is forming requires atleast some cohesion as a group fighting in formation, and this you have never done.  The  scudiera  stands before you, takes the shield while it's still attached to your arm, and moves it, and your posture, physically into the stance she is looking for.  Without formal training, it feels deeply unnatural. Your threat feels.. frontloaded.  Your shield facing the front, spear held overhead for a downward stab.  Your instincts scream at you that this will get you killed; you should have your weapons at rest either side so you can protect and strike anywhere, and use your stride to avoid being cornered.

 And wield another blade in your tail , the subconscious realm of your martial instinct might have said, if it were so articulate.

 "You're fighting like a scrapper, but you're not out here to scrap - at least not until the formation breaks down if a chariot comes smashing through, or something.  You're fighting in a block, now.  Your shield protects two thirds of your front, and a third of the man to your left.  You have to trust that.  With your height, you'll probably be in the second rank to begin with, but when the man in front of you is struck down, the rest are relying on you to step into the gap and become part of the wall.  Do you get that?" 

Her criticism of your form might be fair; but you can't help but get the impression that she doesn't like you, for some reason.  But you're sure you've never seen her before; and definitely haven't done anything to warrant her hostility. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia smiled and walked alongside Guidaldo as she listened to him, her conscious Superego fending off the slow, damnable creeping warm sensation across her shoulderblades,  "No, no Singore, really, go on, I believe I owe my life to Verena and Myrmidia, and when we need it most - you arrive. Their details deserve my attention!"  she insisted, putting a hand on his forearm to induce his continuation as they walked.

But, both of them were deceived, for another looked upon them with a mixture of resentment and jealously, his station understandable and sympathetic but not particularly commendable.

It didn't take long for Taalia to catch onto Marco's...situation, and for the first time in her very young life, Taalia felt her heart  hurt .She liked Macro, she genuinely did, just not  in that way . He was sincere, well-tempered, skilled at his profession, energetic in his enthusiasm and was willing to take risks to get ahead. These were all commendable qualities in a man, but for Taalia...it was difficult. Were she a normal Tilean girl, her height around the low five foot-something, her life that of a rural peasant or tradeswoman, she could see herself fancying the lad and reciprocating his advances, she truly could. But...she wasn't. She was the  Trollslayer . Two years had to pass upon the surface to meet a man who was taller than she, and he shared a grouping with only two other men who, instinctually, seemed capable of physically fighting her...and she didn't want that. Taalia wanted a husband one day, she wanted a brood of her own mini-Taalia's running around...but she didn't want to sire them with a man for whom  she  would be the guardian. Was the young lad brave? Yes. Did he prove his mettle against the pirates? Absolutely. But would Taalia feel that sense of inner security if he put his arms around her? Sadly, no. Rationality collided with instinct in this situation, and instinct won.

It wasn't fair, but then again, life wasn't fair. Was it fair that she, as a six year old girl, had been ripped from her community and sold to the brutal Norscans and then to the vicious Skaven? Of course not. So why would such an expectation be extended to the realm of companionship? It was even  less  fair on Taalia herself. How many other men were there in Tilea, or beyond, who could be imposing to her? Very few. Immediately her pool of potential suitors was dramatically narrowed, as much as she may  wish  it were otherwise. But ah! The way this meddled with the mens sense of 'masculinity' or self-respect. Taalia knew the men were different. It didn't take her long to divine the separation and venn diagram of behaviours between women, herself included, and men on the surface. She had learned that each man in this spirited and hot-blooded land, had a self-awareness of his own physical capabilities and the  perception in others  of those qualities, and was constantly measuring them against other men,  especially  those whom he had just met. Women had the same thing too, Taalia had noticed, but just in a different direction. As a tall, amazonian girl with scars across her face, forearms and back, Taalia had long accepted that she would lose that competition to even an average Tilean girl of sweet and homely demeanor. Yet nevertheless, the shepardess had noticed how much more striving the men (in particular young men) were in  proving  themselves, while the girls around her did not need to do such a thing. Indeed, she had value ingrained in her being, it was the males that had to compete for her and other womens attention. The men seemed to need to prove themselves as men to be valuable, while as a young woman, Taalia's description as such was seemingly a given. Polo's reminiscence upon his failure to display courage in the face of the troll was testimony that this sensation ran across the male age range.

  Just tell him!   a voice rang out within her, the words coming from that borderline sociopathic instinct of survival that had been less and less present within her mind since leaving her charge as a slave to the Skaven.

  Just tell him that he's a brave lad and any girl would be lucky to be his wife, but you don't know what you want right now and you're focused on other things.  

By Myrmidia's tits why did this have to be so hard? Taalia felt less fear against the damn  Troll  or Skaven or goblins! Why did her courage suddenly roll up into a little scroll and fly away on the wind when it came to potentially hurting someone's  feelings ?! She was the  Trollslayer ! She had charged a creature of nightmares with nary but her bare hands without thinking, yet  this  was what caused her to hum and haw and avoid the subject?!

If offered the choice, Taalia would genuinely choose to get punched in the face than have to be brazenly honest with a decent young man whose affections she did not return.

Bella.

Yes! Bella! Tell Bella what a brave man Marco had been in the face of the pirates, unscathed despite their fierce skills! Imagine all of the vigour of which he was capable if he were prodded in such a direction - no, no, no no. Taalia knew it, no. If Bella would receive his advances, fine, good, she would happily by the maid of honour at the wedding. But no, it was unfair. That was just plain manipulative, and her friend meant too much to her and Marco deserved something more straight forward.

And so, when able, Taalia would take Marco aside. It was clear she was conflicted.

 "Marco..."  she would start, the dichotomous look upon her features likely to immediately arouse suspicion.

 "You skilled at your craft. You make friends where-ever you go. You take risks to get ahead. You showed valour for people you barely knew, and bravery in the face of threats most would flee. I know you are interested...in me...but..." 

There was that dagger to the heart word: but.

 "...I cannot right now. You don't know where I come from, my way of arriving here. My farm takes up all of my time. You are a good and brave man, but I just can't right now." 

She quickly gave him a hug.

Then...she couldn't help it...the tears wetted her eyes, as she drew her hands up to rub them away. The sniffle soon followed.

  Just punch me in the face and get it over with.  
 oOo 
Taalia was arrayed with the others, the only woman who had proved physical capable of standing in formation. The discipline required was more than just holding the arms, but of using them, and moving in synchronicity with the men around her. She was a tall girl,  very  tall, her body having been further sculpted by two years of farm work and the healthy, protein-rich eating of good farm food her wealth could afford and her skills could cook. By now Taalia had the well-proportioned physique of a statue come to life. She was freakishly strong for a girl her age, and very tough, and that allowed her to stand side by side the the men. It was the only reason she was here.

Jacobella seemed another rare exception to their gender, her body formed by years of walking around in heavy armour and being trained to use a variety of weapons. When combined with the natural talent required  and  interest to excel at warfare, they were both  very  rare sights on a battlefield.

Perhaps that was the source of Jacobella's clear barely veiled animosity towards her?

Nodding as she listened, Taalia followed as best she could. She held the spear as was shown, she gripped the shield as Jacobella instructed. She fell in line, took note of the men to her front and to her sides, and she suppressed years of practice ingrained into her muscle-memory to fight as  a unit  rather than an individual brawler.

Even if Jacobella's prodding made it that much more heated.
MrAbdiel
 Marco listens intently; his eyes wide as he nods along with focus on your every word; his smile faint and present through the entire thing, though the nature of it changes from genuine to fortified.  It's a good façade; there's only two moments as you tell him with painful frankness that you cannot return his affections that his gaze dances away from you to elsewhere in the village, like a man coming up for breath once and again before diving underwater again.

 "Oh, sure, yeah - no, of course.  Me too.  I mean, I'm probably gonna open a shop soon, so I'll, so I'll, so I'll-..."   He stutters himself into a trail off, gives you a transparently frail shrug and  you know how that grind be  smile; contributes to the hug with boneless awkwardness, and pivots away after you release him, strolling like a man with somewhere to be; somewhere that just happens to be around the bend of the tavern and out of line of sight.  There is no punch in the face, of course; there is no formal acknowledgement of received heartbreak, even.  But he goes from following you around like a lost puppy to being unable to look directly at you and reluctant to be in the same room as you; and tough as he might like to appear, he certainly isn't fooling you.

 * * * * * 
It is a labor to learn to fight this way.  You fight easilly  for  other people; nothing makes you more ready to fight that threats to your adoptive kin, except perhaps the threat of imprisonment.  But fighting in concert with people whom you are forced in each moment to trust to protect you, when your natural fighting instincts have been always to put a wall to your back and never expose yourself to vulnerability in any facing... proves difficult at first.  Yet this, like all other things to which you have devoted yourself, has room in it for you to excel, after you pass the hurdle.  And after two days of the spear drill, Jacobella has increasing difficulty finding things to harass you about - even if she can find no praise for you.

And then the report comes; you see the elf Iyaseanna giving report back to Guidaldo, and short exchange between the two; and an hour later, a meeting is called in the tavern, just like it had been for the troll hunt.  This time, the tavern is packed to the gills.  Guildaldo gives his presentation on a sheet suspended against one wall, drawing on it with charcoal to create a semblance of a map, and explaining the implications.

 "They will attack at the break of dawn.  We know this both from how quickly they march, and also that we have word from Paesa di Silo that a regiment of the Alcatani Fellowship are marching now to releive us, and will be here before noon.  Therefor, the pirates have a small window to accomplish what they want to do and begin their retreat to their ships." 
 "So we will have to hold the town for hours,"  Ugo wonders aloud, with audible dread.

 "No - no, that's not an option.  They are marching a force of eighty men towards us, and they bring a cannon.  Their intention to shell the town, probably with heated rounds so it catches fire, and round up survivors for slaughter or press-ganging." 
 Press-Ganging - slavery with opportunity for advancement , you think with bitterness.

 "What?  If they burn the town they'll have no plunder - why?  What is the point of this for them, now?  Risking getting caught by the mercenaries?"   This is Adolpho's question; confused like many of the others in the gathering.

 "It's no longer a matter of plunder.  If every village and community took a stand like yours has, they would not be able to plunder at all.  They need to create dread for their ongoing scheming to work.  If they leave you after your victory on the road, people would be talking about it for years and the next time they raid so boldly the folk will galvanise around those tales.  They require the name  Bella Collina  to be a dreadful reminder of the destitution and suffering that comes to those who do not drop their valuables and run when the pirates come calling.  Loot hardly matters now - they want your village erased, and its defenders killed, shamed, or chained.  We can't hold the town and wait to be rescued - we have to march out and meet them, and run them off - here."   The knight taps the cloth-map with his knuckles, indicating a square of fallowing open land south west of town.  It's a familiar locale.

 "Your farm again, I'm afraid, Alberto."   Bertuccio says with apology, to the poor man whose land has hosted the battle against the troll, and now this.   "It's the natural place they'll set up the mortar for shelling of the village.  They'll pitch their cannon, start hitting the town, and do so to drive us into the open to attack us."   Alberto groans, claps his hands over his head, and pulls them down slowly to grab his own beard in frustration.

 "Ah!  Can we not confront them before?  They will destroy my home!  I built that home with my father twenty years ago!" 

Bertuccio nods, in resigned apology.   "We cannot.  If we go out ahead to meet them down the road, they will be able to send a party around us and attack the town.  We have to let them engage with their cannon and then cross the ground toward them as quickly as possible to prevent them firing more than one or two shots at our people.  I'm sorry, Alberto.  Once this is over, we will all pitch in to see repair and recovering to your home and those others in the pirate's warpath; but we must everything we can to secure advantage here." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: A note on Italianisms 
I have been accidentally calling Alberto  Alfredo  a bunch, forgive me.  But he's the same guy.  Forgive also that I have for a long time been accidentally calling Paesa di Silo  Caesa di Silo , which sounds like some Estalians are using it to store cheese.
 


Alberto holds his face in his hands; Nogrom beside him places a hand on his back and gives it a companionly rub.  You remember that house - where the Madre and Alberto's wife awaited the outcome of the fight against the troll to come in with medical aid.  The pirates will certainly burn it to the ground on their way through; just as a matter of course.

Such are the casualties of war.

Guidaldo gives his assessment of the enemy force, and what he expects the battle will entail based on his understanding of the enemy and tactical sense.

The pirates have their cannon, so they have the advantage of range.  When they set up, they will fire a couple of ranging shots at the village while they heat other cannonballs in a firepit.  Once they are hitting the town, they will begin loading and firing the heated shot while most of their force - perhaps sixty men armed with swords and pistols - guard the cannon.  They will be anticipating the village militia to attack to defend the town.  After this, they will lower the cannon's sights to fire at the militia, while a minority of their force - perhaps twenty - come down the road to put torches to the village directly.  By the end of their plan, Bella Collina will be ashes, and the town defenders will be blown to smithereens or being dragged off to serve on the ships of the enemy.

The defender's objectives are threefold, then.

 1. Defend Bella Collina from destruction.
2. Destroy or capture the enemy cannon.
3. Rout the enemy army. 

The Bella Collina Militia numbers a hundred souls.  They will take to the field as three units of thirty, with some special reserves making up the remainder.  Two units of thirty will respond on Alberto's field against the enemy force. They will be facing the enemy cannon and outnumbered by the pirate army.  One unit of thirty will remain in town to defend it from pirate's secondary force.  A small unit of Bella Collinans on their horses will hide in the trees on the West Road.  And Adolpho, Viletta, and the wardogs will lie in wait in a gully off the south road.

 Unità Uno  and  Unità Due  have the hardest jobs.  They will be required to cross Alberto's Field, and will likely receive some incoming cannonfire.  Their task is first and foremost  not to break and run .  After they have crossed the field and are close to engagement, the pirate units will form up into two squads to meet them.  They will release a volley of pistol fire before charging; the Bella Collinans will have to stand through all of this.

While this is happening, the Pirates will be sending their secondary force, likely their greenest and least capable warriors, around by the West Road to attack the 'unattended' town, expecting the sight of the flames coming off it will cause the militia in the field to begin to break.   Unità Tre  will be waiting in town to fight them; composed of the Militia's best fighters, it will be their job to overwhelm this secondary force and drive it off, and then join the main battle if possible.

Meanwhile, the  Cavalleria , lead by the squire Jacobella, will break from their hiding once the pirate's secondary force has passed by.  They will make a hard rush for the enemy cannon, and kill its operators.  During that moment, the cannon will likely be in motion, being moved to try to make flanking fire on the engaged militia.  Once the cannon is disabled, the pirates greatest leverage will be gone.

At the same time, Adolpho's  Cani da Guerra  will charge into the south-most engagement in Alberto's field, flanking the pirates and giving them ample reason to begin breaking and running.  If they do not, and if the Bella Collinans hold, then  Unità Tre  and the  Cavalleria  will join the battle.

Guildaldo offers to answer questions, before the militia are fatefully to be divided up into their units.  It stands to be much worse than the fight with the troll; worse than any fight you've been involved in.

Gaulfredo claps a hand on your shoulder and gives it a squeeze.  He smiles; not delusional in that expression, but relentlessly optimistic.   "Once more we fight, ah..? Corvo with the dogs, maybe; going to war alongside his mother."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

And it was over.

It was hard. Bloody hard. Weirdly, it was the hardest thing that Taalia felt she had had to do since her arrival on the surface - how bizzare was that? She'd fought goblins, trolls, been imprisoned, attacked by mutants...but that moment there had required  all  of her courage, and she still felt an internal shyness that almost stayed her hand.

But he had accepted it. He was putting on a brave front, she knew, but at his youthful age, he'd land another girl in no time. There were plenty in Bella Collina and more who would be arriving with the new workers, who would find a go-getter pretty boy appealing.

Now she felt much better!

 oOo 
Taalia listened to the plan unfold, a knot forming in her stomach as she understood what was being required of Group 1 and 2. They were the anvil against which the heaviest hammer blows would fall and so naturally, that's where the bravest or more spirited of their number would be...and who would take the greatest casualties.

But overall, everything seemed sound to her limited knowledge, though she was curious how many working parts they could have in regards to predicting the pirates plan. But a particular individual whom the shepardess noted was missing from the formulation was possibly their most powerful asset. Where was Andreaotto? What was his part in this? Or was his role deliberately kept secret in order to use him as the final, enemy-morale breaking card that they would play at the right time to truly shatter the resolve of their enemies and send them fleeing?

All that remained now was to learn what group she was in, but Gaulfredo soon broke the girl out of her visible concern and apprehension for the fight to come.

Jumping slightly, turning her head in Gaulfredo's direction, Taalia exhaled and grinned, hand over her heart before she gave her adoptive father a tight hug.

 "You shouldn't be here,"  she said quietly,  "leaving Ariana a widow and Vitorrio without a father...you've proven your bravery plenty of times, everyone would understand if you went to Paula di Silo with them..."  she said matter-of-factly, not imploring or scolding, but stating the obvious to him in a quiet voice. Even now the very idea that Gaulfredo would receive a pirates cutlass to the belly made her skin crawl.
MrAbdiel
 Gaulfredo's easy grin persists.  His curly hair is a little too long, right now; it dangles into his eyes, signally he is overdue for Arianna to trim it, and invite his monthly complain that  the other sheep only have to endure this once a year!   "Ah, they are fine.  Both will be at your farm, by now; minding your pigs.  Whatever happens, the pirates will turn back before they get that far east.  They are safe - and now, we keep each other safe, ah?  The goblins are just bigger, this time."

Guidaldo and Bertuccio work around the assembled peoples explaining their unit designations, answering questions personally.  It's impressive that Bertuccio knows all these people; but he was roadwarden in the area for such a long time, perhaps it is not so strange.  But it's a credit to Guidaldo that he has come to know the names of everyone in the throng after only a few days of watching them perform drills and doing his level best to give the village a fighting change.  The knight make his way  to you and Gaulfredo, and kneels down to let Corvo sniff his hand as he addresses you.

 "Well, my friends; I understand you've fought together a few times before.  I see no point in changing that now.  You are both in  Unità Due .  Taalia, you've quite some stature, as a fighter; talent, too.  If you had time to add skill to the mix, you would be very formidable indeed; but you are still one of the village's strongest fighters.  If I had made the decision alone, I would have put you in  Tre  and you could have burst out of the buildings with Nogrom and the rest here in town to fall on the pirate saboteurs with hell in your swings.  But I've been told you're something of a local legend around here, now - a Troll killer, even.  They are going to need you to hold their spirits strong in Alberto's field.  You in  Due ; with Andreotto in  Una  for the same reason.  I will be calling maneuvers from  Una .  Not that there's much to maneuver - just that we're going to spread out broadly as we cross the field, and contract into our battle lines when the Sartosans start to rally their own line against us.  A couple of cannonballs will be coming through our militia; and when we're assembled, probably a single pistol volley as well.  If everyone keeps their shields up, and fights conservatively, we'll be alright.  They don't have enough to outnumber us; we just need to hold fast, take the teeth our of their force with that cannon, then we'll see them run back to their boats with our bootprints on their pants.  And this scamp..."   He has earned Corvo's tolerance now, and buys the dog's appreciation with scritches.   "...Can put in a tour of duty with the other dogs, if you think he can keep up with the purebreeds."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia swallowed silently as she listened to Gaulfredo. Ariana and Vitorria were safe? Well that's very nice...but you're not! she wanted to yell, wanted to scream at him, to hurry him back to his family and no risk himself here with her and the others. In a way she loved him as her adoptive papa, Ariana her adoptive mama and Vitorrio her little brother. Just the mere idea of papa being put in danger, hurt, maimed or killed...it was a terrible sensation that both crawled along her skin and wrapped its boney grip around her heart and squeezed.

But then came the news that she would be in Unit 2.

The anvil, to receive the hammer blows? That was her. She'd be there with them. She would be approaching a gang of murderous thieves and rapists in alignment with her fellow Bella Collinians, while said murderers aimed a  cannon  at them and ignited it.

Swallowing, visibly and clearly a little shaken by the news of her position but putting on a brave front as she squared her shoulders and nodded simply in acceptance, the girl stated,  "Si, Singores, Si..."  she said. It was hard to imagine for a girl her age to willingly walk into such mind-warping danger, and doing so with the morale of dozens of men around her counting on  her  reputation and spiritual fortitude, but there it was. The times mad the man. Or in this case, the woman.

 "And when do you want me to use this?"  she asked, gesturing to the blunderbuss hanging over her shoulder. It had proven invaluable against the pirates during their first encounter, and would be lethal still against a packed regiment of pirates in formation.

But then came the question of Corvo, and Taalia's outward stoicism faltered.

Her lips pursed, a defeated and forlorn image crossed her face...it was clear she did  not  want her dog there, but knew that it was necessary.

Swallowing,   "My baby..."   she uttered, her youthful features contrasting with her sonorous and smoky voice before she squared her shoulders once more, closed her eyes and nodded.

 "He will respond well to Adolphus. He and others have helped me train him..." 

Had she just signed her boys death-warrant? Taalia speedily pushed the notion out of her head.
MrAbdiel
 The knight considers the blunderbuss.   "It's a good weapon.  You will get the most from it if you can catch the enemy when they're already pressed and fearful of breaking.  It's not just the killing power of black powder that is useful on the field; it's the  fear  of the killing power of black powder.  Once the battle is well engaged, there will come a point where the units we've formed start losing cohesion and become a looser spread of battle.  It's inevitable - with a line of ten thousand men, the side whose units dissolve into rabble first will pay the price.  But with a few small units like this, dissolving into rabble is a reliable gambit for a foe who is going to lose the pitched battle, but might get your people to run if they start squeezing the flanks.  I would hold off with it; wait for them to be making their last ditch to push us back, or if things go badly, to cover your friends' retreat.  Combat morale is a multiplier - an enemy losing a battle is unsteady, but one that is losing a battle, and suddenly taking gunfire, and learning there is a wizard of fire ready to bombard, and who has a pack of snarling dogs chewing on one ankle.. that's an enemy sure to run; and be run down." 

He gives Corvo a vigorous, just-close-enough-to-violence ruffling of the neck that makes his eyes light up and his jaw open as he detects a game in progress in which he would participate; an ungentle handling that suggests familiarity with such beasts and their likes and limits.

 "Beyond that, it will be like the other battles you've faced in most ways.   Myrmidia Invicta  has many rules for war for generals and soldiers, some apocryphal; but I will give you these, which I have always found helpful:..."

"Do not permit impatience or fear to push you beyond the ranks of your friends; for a man stands with the strength of one, but two stand with the strength of three."
"The cunning man does what is not expected; the reliable man does what is asked; the dead man falls having done neither."
"Respect the  duello ; there is little shame in a weak man recoiling from the challenge of a strong one, but no recovery from the shame of intercession.   Di scribent per sanguinem suum,  the classicalists say - by bloodshed do the gods make known their will."
"And finally, a precept close to my order's heart: to defeat a foe once is almost twice.  That is to say, we must stop these villains here so that they and their kind think again about such invasions - if we do not, then we can be sure they will visit the same wrath on other quiet and peaceful villages, with their hearty but often vulnerable people." 

With that, he has equipped you as best he can.  Soon, you will face the enemy, and their cannon; and the fear of its killing power...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Last stop before the Third Battle of Bella Collina.  Any last requests, or thinks to do - or should I set up the board?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia paid close attention as the knight explained and elucidated the situation and tactical possibilities to her. The shepardess, honestly, found them quite interesting and fascinating - both in a personal matter for something she would soon be participating within, but also in the more abstract concept and the discussion around it.

She stood close to him, her blunderbuss in her arms, her feet parted to shoulder width, body at an angle as if preparing to fire.

 "Wait until the time is right - use it as a weapon to break their morale rather tan slay enemy troops?"  she asked, looking at him, a warm smile on her face and interest in her eyes.

 "What if more men in my unit had these? Would we use them to break a charge?" 

She'd smirk and tilt the blunderbuss towards him length-ways, a slightly proud smile and blush across her face.

 "You know, singore, I actually made this myself..." 

She put her right hand on the inside of his elbow, her eyes directing his attention to the breech where the index finger of her left hand gestured.

 "Right here, singore, is where all of the magic happens! I spent days in Singore Cestie's workshop filing these to precision! Just one millimetre out of step and my face would be blacker than night if I tried to fire it!"  she laughed.
MrAbdiel
 The knight lifts his eyebrows.  He seems genuinely impressed...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Though make a charm roll, to determine how impressed.
 

 "That's very impressive.  Finer work than that of which I have ever been capable, that's no lie.  Every squire learns a bit of the farrier's craft, and the maintenance of steel.  But gunsmithing, well... That's quite a skill indeed.  If we had a while squad of such weapons, well... tactics would certainly change.  Perhaps give them to the cavaliers and rush to effective range.  If there's a great row, I'd have them take the field and blast off warning shots before taking to march - the prospect of facing down superior firepower is perhaps better than surprise.  As it its, with the one, you ought use your best judgement.  You're quite tall, which is good; you can angle the blast down, so you don't risk allies further in the back-spread.  I could tell you some stories about the guns I've seen in the Empire, in my travels.  They have a ship they call the Hellhammer..." 

For a little while, he tells you stories of the Empire and their machines of war.  The college of Engineers in Altdorf is the seat of their greatest geniuses, but the Gunner School in Nuln is where their warmachines are produced and perfected.  And the small, proud state of Hochland have a mastery of long guns the likes of which the world, including dwarves, have never seen.  After he slips away to reassure and assist other members of the militia, you wonder if he was really impressed by your blunderbuss; Leonardo, lovingly crafted with your own hands, from your own labor... or if he detected your fear for your loved ones in the battle to come, and thought it kind to offer distraction in conversation for a while.  Would it be too much to hope it was both...?

 * * * * * 
The elf's scouting, and the knight's strategic guesswork has proven out.  How much better it might have been if the pirates had cut their losses - but one does not become a bloodthirsty, seafaring thief with judgement and care.  off the side of the road where Alberto's field lies, trimmed short recently by grazing livestock, is the perimeter trench cut into the ground to drain off oversaturation; a precaution taken by many of the region's farmers.  The last time you were here, you were deep in the field behind a line of burning pitch at Gherardino and Bertuccio coaxed the troll out of the woodline into the archers' sights.  Now, you lie on your back in the grassed trench by the road; concealed from the distant eyes of the encroaching pirates.  You know they are here; when you and others have carefully peeked past the line of the earth, Alberto's house is burning in the distance.  The plan requires that you wait for them to thrice fire ranging cannonfire on the town before revealing yourselves and making your dash across the field - a jog, it has been stressed; fast enough not to waste time, not so fast that anyone is winded when contact with the enemy comes, or that anyone is left behind, or that the skirmish line is drawn out into a mob through which cannonballs might more viciously cut.

Somewhere to the north west of you, Damio and Bertuccio and a handful of horse-trained fighters lie in wait to ambush the cannon while it shoots at you.  Somewhere to the south west of you, Corvo and his mother Jean-Marie and the two wardogs from the fight with the troll, Pierre and Oscar, lie in wait with Adolpho and Viletta and the rest of the hounds to take the pressure off your squads once you have soaked up a round of pistol fire and the killers' charge.  All this, if you and your friends and countrymen can just hold the line.  Gaulfredo  lies on his back next to you, in this long row of sixty fighters in their ill fitting leathers with their spears and unrimmed shields.  He gives you a wordless smile; sourcelessly confident, despite the conditions.  His moustache and beard are in need of a trim, you notice. They are getting a little long, even if their corners do not quite connect.  You notice further that he is wearing a necklace you haven't seen before; a piece of string, threaded down to knot around the cork from the first bottle of spirits you bought him.  It looks like Vittorio's craft; though he has recently turned off from making things like that as he begins to gain height, and the distractable energy that comes with that season of life.

 "We forgot to open that brandy.  It was going to be when we were eating your first home-grown pig - that's long past, now.  But victory here will be worth celebrating, too." 

A distant boom sounds across the field.  A small, dark blur whips across the sky in your eyeline towards Bella Collina...

 
 Spoiler: OOC:  Boom!  Cannonball into Bella Collina, fox one. 
First shot hits only on a 30 or less.   (1d100)[ 83 ] .  Hits will be resolved in the OOC.
 


"That's one." Gaulfredo marks, with an even breath.  Down the line, the fighters of Bella Collina begin wrestling with their hearts.

Another boom...

 
 Spoiler: OOC:  Boom!  Cannonball into Bella Collina, fox one. 
Second shot hits only on a 55 or less.   (1d100)[ 96 ] .  Hits will be resolved in the OOC.
 


Guidaldo, laying in his armor a few bodies down from you, holds up a plated gauntlet, and two fingers.  Excitement, fear, healthy denial, muttered prayer, echoes down the row in a soft surrussus between each blast.  Then comes the third...

 
 Spoiler: OOC:  Boom!  Cannonball into Bella Collina, fox one. 
Third shot hits on a 80 or less.   (1d100)[ 77 ] .  Hits will be resolved in the OOC.
 


Then it's time.  You and the rest of the defenders of Bella Collina pull yourselves to your feet and draw out into the open.  First order is to fan out over a wider area, so not to give the cannon easier marks; and you spread from one end of the field to the other.  In the distance, you can see the little warmachine and its operators arguing, loading it, bringing it about.  A bonfire rages beside them - heating their shot to burn the town - but they had not see your forces lying in wait.  You see the motley assemblage of pirates back there, too; three score, like Iyaseanna reported.  They begin to mill and prepare as your lines begin crossing the field.  After you cross the distance the time will come to form up around the two banners assembled and painted last night for this purpose, one for each unit.  After some discussion on the village's iconography for the militia, Emio - the most artistically minded on hand - made the winning suggestion.  Now, across the field, the enemy can see a wealth of rugged farmers turned fighters strung out on their approach, and two banner emblazoned with the likeness of a figure of popular defiant legend: the one legged rooster, rampant.  Alberto carries the banner for your group; Ansaldo, reformed troublemaker, carries the other.

The cannon fires again - this time, aimed across the field...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
  AttackRollVs90  - (1d100)[ 13 ] .
Potential 2nd and 3rd hits:   vs30  - (1d100)[ 82 ] ,   vs30  - (1d100)[ 88 ] .

If hits are scored, they will be resolved in the OOC, as will the difficulty of the coming WP test...
 


The blur of hot steel hits the ground infront of your advance, throwing up huge clods of dirt, and bounces.  It seems like it might gain enough air to bounce over the line entirely, but fortune bids it not so.  A short man - fifty one years old with a tan like old leather - is not quite as short as fate required.  You recognize him from hanging around the tavern, mostly keeping to himself; occasionally, when drink gave him the courage, forcing his presence on other drinkers who are sometimes drunk enough to enjoy it.  The ball can't have hit him square.  That would have been much messier.  It must have clipped him, just barely - but it has clipped his face.  He lets out a choking sound and spins back and over into a crumpled heap on the ground, shuffling slightly in his heap... still alive.  But anyone struck by a cannonball at all must be injured badly.  You shudder to imagine what has become of his face.

...Not that you can afford to stop, and attend him.  You, and everyone else, listen to him braying out sounds that cannot be made into words, as you leave him behind.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Adrenaline is up, and you have received a great deal of pep-talk before the battle.  Make a Willpower Test at +30 to retain your nerve.  And, if you'd be so kind, give me a tasteful misery photograph of Taalia's mental journey at the first real casualty of  war  she has witnessed, as she marches on.
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia's cheeks gathered a red shade as she received seemingly legitimate praise from the experience knight for her work. It felt nice. It felt very nice. Encouragement and adoration from her comapnions in the town was always welcome, but one couldn't help but think that such things simply came up with the rations, so to speak. To have a man of adventure and action grant a nod of approval to her craftsmanship was another thing entirely, as the girl smiled gently and sweetly at his words.

 "Thank you, Singore,"  she said, her voice a little lower, but still with that smoky timbre.

 "That means a lot coming from you,"  she conintued, before her eyebrows perked slightly at the mention of the Empire.

 "Oh, Singore Cestie and I...we are planning a visit to Nuln! Would you tell me more of the land?"  she asked, both in a way so that she could retain his attention on her and engage him in conversation, but also to both learn more for her up-coming trip and also to gather further information about the land that was quite possibly the nation of her birth.

 oOo 
 Boom! 

The distant rumble of cannon fire washed over them as an ominous portent.

The skies were clear. The morning crisp and beautiful. Right now, Taalia should be hours into tending to her expanded flock and piggery, the animals under her care living good, healthy lives and returning her labour with fleece, swine and lambs to sell. But such general attitudes were not permitted on this particular day. No, this morning the sun had drawn up on eight harrowing hours that promised nothing but a diminished population for the beautiful little town Taalia had come to call home.

Unlike Gaulfredo who lay upon his back, Taalia was on her front. The only woman out of the whole town to be here in arms, beside, the squire, she occupied a...unique position. Not just as a source of local iconography of defiance, but peculiarity. Her unusual height and strange colored hair were just another layer on top of her unique station in the town, though the latter of that description was tied up in a bun and hidden beneath the skullcap that went with the leather armor she wore.

Smiling towards her adoptive father, still wishing he would simply get up and sneak away - no one would think less of him! - Taalia reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. She noted the cork, her heart feeling a blanket of tingles washing over it in recognition of memories from calmer times, as she swallowed and nodded.

 Boom! 

Taalia exhaled, her nerves eaten alive by the apprehension that sat heavily upon her body and wanted to ground her from going over the top and risk her figure to cannon fire, musket shot and cutlass steel. An instinct deep within her mind which reached out towards her across thousands of years of evolutionary selective pressure telling her to simply flee or surrender, weighed upon her and threatened to halt any advance she wished to take. But the girl shook away such thoughts, she knew her place was here, among the men of the town and serving in its defence. Should she die, Gaulfredo would inherit the farm. If not him, the Vitorrio when he came of age. Other than that, she had no husband, no children of her own, no one to mourn her passing. At worst she'd be an interesting footnote of Bella Collinian history festooned upon the  Trollslayer Inn  as a fond memory for anyone who wanted to hear the tale of the strikingly tall girl who'd fallen on the battlefield to purchase after few years of peace for those who had given her so much. With any luck, Vitorrio would marry a lovely girl and maybe even name his first-born daughter after her. Given the raw deal life had started her off with, that wasn't such a bad end, was it?

 Boom! 

That was it.

Nerves steeled, whispering,   "I love you, Papa,"   to Gaulfredo, Taalia focused and stalked her towering figure upwards and drew herself into a jog, spread out to minimise the effect of cannon shot and prepared to fall into the square as they had practiced. As she did so, she felt the dimensions of something pressing against her lower back, something earthen that she had carried upon her person ever since she had first emerged into the world at large from that horrible rats nest: the root-shaped lucky charm.
MrAbdiel
   "I love you, Taalia!"  

And then you are off, together; off at a marching jog crossing the field.  Two thirds of the width of the field and passed by the time the small crew of cannoneers have finished loading, lower the cannon's arch once more, and fire again...

 
 Spoiler: BOOM! 
  vs90ToHit  - (1d100)[ 5 ] ; additional hits   vs30ToHit  - (1d100)[ 27 ]  and   vs30ToHit  - (1d100)[ 41 ] ...
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia pursed her lips and kept going, the scent of smoke already pushing against her nostrils as she tried to keep herself hunched forward in a jog. Her shield in hand, a spear gripped in the other, she kept going over in her head what it was she was supposed to do: fan out, then come together, shield the man to the left, stab over-head, back up the man before her, and plug in any gaps.

The sounds of screaming from anyone hit was drowned form her ears as the girl remained focused and steadfast, drawing up on that courage she had shown when facing the nightmarish troll. Acting and coordinating as a unit was all that mattered, maintaining their line was all that mattered: they were the anvil, they  had  to keep the pirates in place for the others to hit them hard.
MrAbdiel
 The second cannonball, the last they have the chance to load on your approach, is much deadlier than the first.

Middle aged Zilio was one of those fellows in town that was almost as tall as you; over six feet, though pudgy to add width to it.  Strictly speaking, he and his wife Cherubina ran a small wheat farm supplemented by a handful of sheep; but his true interest had always been politics.  He fled to Verezzo from Pavona after the previous war, chased out for his democratic interests that were much more popular in the Republic.  He was always vocally in opposition to Damio, better read on Verezzo's politics than almost any layman, and wore even his blue sash of affiliation to this battle.  That sash is pushed into his belly and gorilly out the other side by the cannonball, along with a great deal of the man.

Before losing velocity, the ball carries on and strikes Mafeo.  Mafeo's wife Imeldina had spoken to you a number of times over the last few years; particularly since your plans for the school started to manifest.  They were a very prolific couple - only a little older than you, but with two sons and two daughters, with another daughter tragically lost to illness in the crib.  The sons, Giovanni and Jacopuccio, were some of the smallest but most fascinated in the crowd of children observing you at the first Flickertide you attended.  Their daughter Cristofana is the youngest of all, born only two weeks ago.  Their eldest, Rugiada, is five years old this year and probably the sweetest little girl you've ever met.  But the goodness of men and their families does not armor them against the Sartosan menace; the cannonball catches Mafeo's shoulder and tears him open awfully.

You knew these men; but they were not as close to you as many others.  It will have to be the matter of introspection in a safer time as to whether or not it is good, or evil, to feel gratitude for that fact. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Such was the internal agony of fighting alongside people you knew. For other Bella Collinians, the pain would be greater, for the two lives taken had been with them their whole existence, while for Taalia, it had only been two years. Nonetheless, neighbours were neighbours, particularly that of Mafeo whose wife Taalia considered a descent friend, their children beautiful little examples of the towns kind. Though the shepardess could not yet see it, the father had been taken from them, his wife now a young widow. The anodyne for this tragedy would need to be resolved later, as that had been the last cannon blast.

Drawing her spirit in with the others, Taalia collapsed into ranks and drew her spear up in readiness to support the man before her, while using her shield to protect both herself and the two men to her flanks. Her breath was hot in her lungs and an adrenaline surged through her blood with a brewing hatred for the vile pirates that would take from their town so capriciously to satiate their own greedy and licentiousness. There would be no mercy for them, Taalia steeled herself, they would all die here on the field, their blood feeding the graves of the towns ancestors and nourishing their spirits with vengeance, or they would all hang as a warning to all future bandits that mistook a peaceful nature for a weak one.
MrAbdiel
 Comrades are lost, but the Bella Collinans do not break; indeed, the courage of brave Hurcio on the banners holds true in them and with a short blast from a copper horn Emio brought to the occasion, the time comes to sort into ranks and prepare for what is arguably the worst of it.  The enemy cannon is being dragged back by its handlers, away from the approach as the pirates form a great line.  They do not split into two groups, a had been the projection; but their singular row does not change the plan at all.  They are close enough to see, now - you can make out some of the grotesque features of the pirates now, even some that fled from the last battle.  However courageous your people are, they do not see discouraged.  They wait for the walls of enemy to be close, in two big staggered rows; and the front ranks kneel as the gap narrows to a distance where you can make out the whites of your enemy's eyes.  You have heard gunshots before many times, now.  This is the first time you have heard the rippling thunder of 60 going off at a time; a blizzard of lead shot zipping over, around you, past you, into your shields.. through the shields, into the men behind them....

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Some statistical housekeeping - one of the guns is likely to explode in its firer's hand, on a roll of 41 or up.  (1d100)[ 14 ] .
 And Two simply fail to fire.  So 57 shots will be resolved with some abstraction in the OOC; stand by...
 
 
MrAbdiel
 A chorus of pained cries bursts from the men around you.  You search your sensations for burning pain, but find to your amazement, none of the lead has found you.  But many in the units are struck.  To your right, you see the banner of Une sag to the ground - Ansaldo was carrying it, and you desperately hope the boy who once teased you, but who fought like a hero on Silo road and then came to work for you on your farm, is not fatally injured as someone else takes up the banner.  In the midst of your unit, in a flurry of splintered wood from your shield, someone goes down and you and the others are forced to step over then as they groan on the grass.  The banner of Dua wavers as poor Alberto totters back; the ranks part to allow him to the back with his injury, and Istuccio, limping from a bullet in the leg, takes up the banner.

Gaulfredo stumbles, and grunts.  Blood runs down his right calf as he limps on; and you see where a bullet has struck his shield, punched through, and sunk into his shoulder to let the blood there flow, too.  The intrustive worry that that bullet was meant for you, deflected into him by the intervention of his shield gnaws at you; but though his skin pales with the pain of it, he does not succumb.

No more lead, now; with men crying out behind you on the ground, the time for steel comes nigh; and your ranks crash into the pirates own.  Immediately, you feel the balance of the combat shift.  They have cutlasses and knives, but you have spears and shields, which are meant for such engagements.  They cannot easilly get into your ranks; they hack at your spears, trying to smash away the heads or wrench them from your militiamen's grips, or to pull men our of line by the shield to be cut down by their comrades.  All you can do is deal with the men infront of you - a hideous man whose lips have been cut away so a dried and cracked facade of gums and rotten teeth grin at you.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Attackers get the initiative.  Feel free to make an attack, and a parry for me.  I'll have to pause the combat and resolve more tomorrow, since it's late; but that's the worst of their power.  Now you just need to hang in there, in combat where people are entitled to roll to defend themselves!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

They had cleared the cannon field with the brutal weapon claiming three of their number. Three out of sixty. Statistically it was a relief, as such a fearsome weapon had extoled such a minor price upon their advance, but Taalia knew better. She  felt  better. Those were three men deeply embedded in the local community whose presence they would never enjoy again, their company snatched from the town by filthy pirates content on sending a message of terror and fear. Well, defiance to such an idea was what the town had spent their lives to purchase.

Her breath burning hot in her lungs, Taalia gritted her teeth and focused on the task ahead, as all around her she could  feel  the spirit of her fellow Bella Collinians. She knew that morale was a powerful force, yet also a fragile one. In many ways it was akin to water: it could be formless, shapeless, easily dispensed and poured into whatever shape fit, but when given nowhere else to go it could become as dense and impactful as the mightiest cannon ball. Such was displayed when they drew together as two separate units, shields up, spears at the ready, the pistol fire raking across their ranks and sending 77 calibre lead bullets hissing above their heads. Drawing her shoulders together, Taalia couldn't believe that she was staring down the field at a row of men aiming guns in her direction and firing, the billowing bank of smoke erupting in the wake of the roar of guns and the impact of bullets on shields, armor and mens bodies. Immediately the scent of blood assaulted her nostrils, mixing with the acrid air of smoke and the screams of her fellows as lead tore into flesh and bodily humours ripped from the innards.

But they pushed on. They had to. To falter now would be disastrous. And when that opening presented itself, when the hill of smoke cleared just enough to give all present a sense of distance between themselves and those who demanded from them the scorched earth of example, the Bella Collina's roared and surged forward with the heart of men defending their homes.
MrAbdiel
 Steel, and wood, and blood, and hate.  The press of violence and desperation is not particularly glorious or heroic in the moment itself.  The Bella Collinans plunge in with spears; your own speartip gouging along the lipless pirate's side and spilling his blood, forcing him into a more defensive posture as his blows rattle on your shield.  The spears of the rank behind you pick their targets, stabbing down over the shieldline into the mass of pirates beyond and scoring the hits they can.  And they do score - the reach on the spears pierces and wounds the buccaneers indeed, but the retaliation is furious.  They have to fight past the forest of points to and try to pry into the shieldwall to score, but down the line the pirate's superior skill and ferocity begins to show.  Over in the other squad, you hear a man scream out as he is cut down; and the familiar cry of Istuccio and Polo as they are given scars for their valor.

Most horrifically, Gaulfredo is struck again, on your right.  The wound to his left arm has made his shieldwork shaky and pained, and he is unable to deflect a sabre's tip stabbing into the front of his foot, working its way into the joint.  He lets out a shout of pain you have not heard from him ... ever, you think, and collapses backward - though the men in the rank behind take him under the arms and pull him away, and a second later, just as the drilling instructed, another warrior steps into the gap.  This time, is Paoluccio; one of the doughty farmer lads who happened to be in town when the pirates first attacked, and who stayed on to answer the greater call to battle.

The  cavalleria  must be in position, now.  You hear a snatch of the rambunctious squire's voice as she rides Guidaldo's horse toward the panicing cannon crew, beyond your immediate sight.  But your task is the man before you - and to hold the line.

Holding the line becomes easier, however - you feel a flush of power, and confidence, and righteous anger bloom into your blood.  Much later, Andreotto would explain that  Aqshy  is not all thrown balls of fire, and in battle its best effects are instilling men with courage - a "fire" in the soul.  The relationship between metaphors and the wind of fire is something you will need to discuss, at that later time. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Through the barrage and the bedlam there was only one sound that reached Taalia's ears with any recognition: Gaulfredo's yelp.

Snapping her head around for only a moment, her eyes widened as she spotted her adoptive father take  another  battering, his foot receiving a blow as his body stumbled backwards and his face a mask of eye-winced agony.

Taalia wanted to throw her shield and spear down and rush to his side, to haul him over her shoulders and carry him home to the tender mercies of Ariana. But she knew she could not. Indeed, now that he was replaced and injured behind the front lines, Gaulfredo's  only  chance of survival now was if they  held  the pirates long enough for the cavalry.

The pirates had just even Taalia even  more  reason to hold, as Adreatto's magic flooded through her body and invigorated her soul against the depredations of the black-hearted, vicious killers before her.

Narrowing her eyes and gritting her teeth, Talia redoubled her efforts. Given her elevated eyes, the shepardess could see the cavalry falling upon the cannon crew behind the pirates, a swelling of hope warming within her chest as she knew if they could  just hold  for a little bit longer...

 "We're all that stands between them and your homes and families!"  the girl shouted out loudly to her comrades, a simple reminder of why they were even here, and a dark hint at what would happen if they failed.
MrAbdiel
 Beside you, Paoluccio on one side and Guidaldo on the other feel the weight of your plea.  The local farmboy batters back his piratic foe with his shield, while Guidaldo pikes his spear through the shoulder of his own target, grunting as a saber blow bashes off the side of his dark lacquered helm in the process.

Now you hear the horses across the way, whickering as the small band of cavaliers lay into the cannon crew... and the barking of the hounds coming from the south, soon to crash into the enemy's flank.  Adolpho and Viletta are with them, you know; criminal as it is to put the young girl in this battle, she alone has the expertise to wrangle the wardogs back into order if her father falls.  How awful the risks that such threats force good people to take with those they love!

You a find yourself in a locked bind with your terrible enemy, your lines pushing forward so your shield restrains his dagger arm; the cutlass in his striking arm pushed back by your grip choked up on your spear, pressing into the crossguard.  He is wounded. If you can just get around his damn defense...
 
MrAbdiel
 Blood flows on both sides.  Bella Collinans fall, but so do many pirates.  There's no question which side is the superior fighting force, but your people make them pay.  And then the hounds come barking and snarling over the hill, Adolpho running after them with staff in hand; Viletta following behind him, crowding behind  her father and the wooden shield that seems overly big in her grip.  Panicfire from the pirates comes from their flanks to the flankers; the sound of canine pain punctuates the air, but none of the creatures slow their charge and assault. But one pistol ball manages to evade father and strike daughter, and you hear Adolpho's shout of horror as his nightmare scenario begins to manifest; the shy, dark haired girl sagging against him in shock as he kneels to clutch her.

But the hounds strike unabated, and do terrible damage to the exposed pirate flank.  Some of the wounded scallywags had retreated to the back of the unit; others were still reloading their pistols, and caught fumbling.  But with canine fangs on arms, and legs, and throats, the pirate line cracks and buckles into scattered pockets of fighting against a foe of superior number - a losing battle, once they realize it.

The formation breaks apart, but now you're able to move more freely and use your agility and natural scrappiness.  Your pirate foe dances back, blades akimbo, but he is fighting you  and  Paoluccio now that the lines have broken, and his odds are bad.

A ways over, you see Andreotto drop his spear and manifest from nothing a blade that seems to be made of smoking black iron and roiling scarlet flame.  Beside you, you see Guidaldo drop his shield and spear with the formation's dissolution and draw his massive greatsword; a weapon whose blade curls in serpentine waves most of the way up its length before straightening out, and the big man barks a challenge as he hoes into the buccaneer infront of him, chopping the man almost in two.  The armored knight is the ideal warrior to face off against the enemy leader, they dare.

...But it seems he is beaten to the punch.  You can tell the enemy champion by his profusion of rings and the size of his hat, and you recognize him from the raiding party that first attacked near the school.  He is already answering a challenge - a mismatched challenge from Marco, who rides high on his sense of invincibility from surviving the first battle unscathed and the  Aqshy  boost of courage in his heart.   He throws himself at the older, stronger sailor with wild stabs of his spear, both combatants already bleeding from the battle preceding. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

From her position, Taalia couldn't  see  the situation of poor Viletta, and it was a good thing too. Instead, all she could hear was the panicked voices of pirates and a mad scramble to let loose more powdered shots, followed by the whining of pained dogs. Blessed be Myrmidia that Corvo was not among them, Taalia hoped. But then came the rabid snarls, shouts and the all-too-familiar audio to the shepardess of vicious dogs latching their huge jaws around legs, arms and into bodies, the snapping growling, the tearing and crushing of flesh and the agonised screams of those who discovered the bone-breaking force the dogs could impart through their fangs.

Seeing the pirate before her faltering and their lines giving way, Taalia remembered Guidaldo's advice to use her weapon when the time seemed right, to push an enemy from uncertainty and over the cliff into panic.

Dropping her spear, Taalia reached for her blunderbuss that had been specially strapped over her shoulders. Using one hand, she brought it around to her side, aimed it down the line of pirates before her and pulled the trigger...
MrAbdiel
 You unlimber your weapon for a shot.  The gruesome lipless man sees this as his opening, but brave Paoluccio barges into him and charges him out threat, giving you your shot.

Leonardo barks.  The charge of lead shot you had packed into its muzzle earlier that day whips out and rips down the line of troops.  You see three of them screaming and stumbling back and falling, riddled with the bleeding scattermarks of the weapon's wrath.  Another three don't even get that far - combined with the spear wounds from the militia men, two drop to the ground never to rise; a third - you think the barking dog-man from the first attack - loses most of his face and throat to the blast and perishes horribly.  If they needed any more excuse to break, this is it; pirates begin fighting defensively and withdrawing, which Guidaldo has told you is one step before an open route. You have almost won.  You are almost there.

All around you, as the combat comes apart into small battles and brutal chases, you see the war rage on.  over there, your piebald companion Corvo takes a laceration to his haunch but lunges in to the throat of a scallywag anyway, driving him to the ground.  There, the knight Guidaldo chases and menaces retreating foes with great swings of his flamberge, while striding through a blow that would have been the death of a less armored man.  Andreotto swings his summoned sword but can't bring it around his foe's defense - taking a slash through his leathers, for his trouble.  A mournful howl goes up as one of the wardogs takes a lethal wound.

Marco's folly does not catch up to him - indeed, he seems to ride high on it.  Stunningly, he seems to possess no small amount of martial talent, and his spear bites into the left arm of the enemy's champion without the young leatherworker taking a blow in return.  For now, it seems he may even win the challenge.

But Polo suffers the misfortunes of battle most accutely.  His shield is strapped to his injured arm, the hand behind it bundled in bandages and a restraining splint; but even fighting defensively, one of the wretched Sartosans manages a blow that rakes down the length of his spear and slashes deeply through his right hand and wrist, letting a fantastic spray of blood fly as he cries out and stumbles back.    His enemy does not pursue - it's too late for them, now.  They are breaking, routing, running.  You see a bloodied mob militia charging from the treeline by the west road - Nogrom's  Tre  unit, having finished their task and coming to reinforce.  The pirates are quitting the field in droves, now - the militia begin breaking naturally into small efforts to help the wounded, or keep the running pressure on the fleeing Sartosans... though the dogs do so relentlessly. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Leonardo's muzzle exploded in fire and smoke, a cloud of lead shot rocketing out of the weapon and raking across the pirates before her. The velocity of each little bearing helped it rip into flesh and puncture through bone, as Taalia could see several pirates collapse from the injuries while several more out-right died.

 "Die, bastardo!"  Taalia yelled, the plume of smoke billowing around her.

Already now, she could see the pirates were turning and fleeing. The  Tre  group, whom had been garisoning the town itself, had ventured to the field, colored in their grim trade for the day. Meanwhile, the cavalary unit lead by the square had hacked apart the cannon crew and were drawing themselves around on the main body of bandit members, while the dogs were ensuring none would escape. With the speed of horse, skill of man and the nose of hunting dogs, none would leave here alive.

The shepardess grinned. They'd done it! With outside help, organisation and drills, their small town had fended off a threat they had previously only just saw off. But now, the aftermath.

Seeing Marco was locked in a duel with Ernie, Taalia took a step forward and went to draw her sword - but then she saw Polo's situation, grasping at his bloodied  other  hand. Eyes wide, offering a soft prayer for Marco's safetly, the shepardess darted over to her adoptive uncles side,  "Polo! Polo!"  she hurried, kneeling next to him and withdrawing her backpack, withdrawing bandages and equipment from within.

Had Polo not fallen so, it was entirely possible Taalia would have continued and visited her hatred upon the fleeing pirates, swinging and hacking where she could. But that's not what was needed of her right now. Now she went from warrior to healer, and there were many who needed her aid...
MrAbdiel
Andreotto assists, as you apply your efforts to Polo.  It turns out his studies have included medicine, atleast at a field level; and he seems competent, if not as focused as you.  More than that, he has a certain edge - some time later, when going over the field and collecting the wounded and dead, you find Renato, the lonely tavern drunk who had his head skimmed by a cannon ball, is alive - the bleeding around his face cauterized by a swift, precision application of fiery magic.  You will need Antonuccia's help to assist him at all - to save what can be saved of his face. But he has not bled to death, which is something that cannot be said for some of the soldiers.

 "T-Taalia..."   Polo stutters, shaking from the bloodloss.  He offers you a smile.  A very strange smile, for a man with two hands badly mangled in battle; for a clerk whose capacity to write had been put in true peril.  But you know the nature of the smile instantly.  Last time you came to his side on this field, he was beside himself - shattered by the revelation of his craven heart, forbidding him to go to battle with the Troll of Bella Collina.  Now, he has done battle; he has paid a price; but he has found here what he lost during the last battle: the regard for himself as a protector in desperate times.  His regard for himself as, simply, a man.

You manage to staunch his bleeding, declining an offer from Andreotto to cauterize the wound.  Fire would save his live and seal the leaking blood vessels, but would also badly damage his chance of using his hand again at full function or close to it.  you wouldn't wish that on him - and you estimate correctly that you can contain the situation.

The butcher's bill is not small.  By the end of your medical effort here in the field, you have addressed serious injuries on Istuccio, Viletta, Cremenzio, Alberto, Ugo, Nogrom, Emio, and Andreotto; in addition to another dozen Bella Collinans.  Gaulfredo, Polo, Ansaldo and Marco are all all critically injured in ways that, if fate had broken dfferently, could have killed them.  Over the next few days, you - along with the Madre, Andreotto, and Antonnucia, will pull pistol rounds out of many of your friends and countrymen.  Eight of the men here, and three back in Bella Collina, gave their lives and are beyond medicine; now, in Morr's embrace.

You cannot be completely certain that none of the pirates escaped - Guidaldo's instructions were not to give your enemy no escape, or he will find as if he has nothing to lose - but the judicious cavaliers and Adolpho vengefully seeking with his dogs round up and kill most, for certain.  No respect for these dead - a team of those unharmed in the fight spend the next few days burning over three dozen Sartosan corpses, lest they bring disease.

Thus concludes the Third Battle of Bella Collina.  Perhaps the pirates will be ware of your village, next time they venture this way.

Verezzen mercenary troops arrive the day after the battle and march west hunting the pirates to the sea, though the scallywags have all but withdrawn by then.  You can't take part in that, of course - you spend several long days up to your elbows in the blood of Bella Collina's finest, as their loved ones trickle in seeking their condition.  Fenecia, along with many of the first women to arrive back in town take on the grim task of preparing to care and comfort for those widowed and made fatherless.

And Tesifonte, the only one of the Troublemaker boys to come through unscathed, performs a small task before he heads west to relieve Vittorio and Ariana at your farm: patching up the hole blasted in the front wall of Damio's fine home by the only cannonball that found its range.

 
 Spoiler: Victory! 
Gain 300XP from the 3rd Battle of Bella Collina.  Proceeds from the battle - sold spoils, the cannon, so forth - will be going into the town treasury to care for widows and orphans and perhaps to consider building a wall around the growing community; but you are entitled to take battle souvenirs, like a few swords.  Additionally...
 


Signore Cestié is given the task of inspecting the captured firearms for sale.  He spends hours going over pistol after pistol at his desk, disassembling and cleaning them, throwing some away as too damn dangerous.  He does come to you, at one point...

 "Taalia - Taalia, before you get back into it..."  He waves you over, drawing you away from another bullet removal waiting patiently, after you have washed your hands from the last and sent Vittorio to fetch more water to do it again.  The elderly tinkerer leads you to his shop, and the rows of pistols on his workbenches.  A matched set, their handled a bloodspattered cherry-wood with brass striking plates on their butts, are isolated from the rest; and he slides them towards you.   "They'll need a little clean-up, but you know how to do that.  They're the best of the lot, which isn't saying too much considering the cretins that carried them.  But I asked the Rampollo if he thought it was proper for you to carry away a trophy that wasn't some bloody Sartosan's earring, and he thought it was a good idea.  You might need to commission a holster harness for the brace of them, though..." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Gain two  Pistols !  They are nice to look at, but still only technically normal quality.  Still!  Pistols.
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Polo didn't need to say anything, he didn't have to. It only took a few moments of reading between the tea leaves of facial expression for Taalia to discern the source of his pride: he had proven himself. His lack of action during the battle with the troll had truly wounded the man deeper than any pain of flesh thus far. The body may recover, but the spirit? That was another matter entirely, and here, on this bloody battlefield, injured and laid low though he was, Polo had found himself again and seemed willing to pay the price to do so. Though time would tell if he would regain the use of his hands - his trade really only needing at least one functional appendage at least - he likely had the money to use his natural intelligence to move onto another trade if he so needed.

Taalia attended to others as best she could, first to the wounds that were critical so that she could staunch any bleeding and preserve as many lives as she could. Once she had done all she could there, her fingers and hands stained with shades of red as if she had been crushing purple grapes all mourning, the shepardess tended to Vilette and then to Gaulfredo. And, of course, when able, Corvo.

 "Look at the bravest one on the field!"  Taalia spoke to Vilette who was struggling with the bullet in her shoulder. Using a pair of sterilised forceps, Taalia gave the girl something to bite down on before pressing the intruding instruments into that wound and sliding them around the lead ball that had implanted itself into the girls body. Blood oozed from the wound, the slippery sound of working in flesh and the girl biting hard on the cloth mouth-guard as her father stood by her side in calming reassurance, Taalia bit her bottom lip as she slowly felt around and - there! The ends of the forceps slid around the shot slowly, gripped it, then gently withdrew the ball to present its bloody image above the girl, placing it in a little tray beside her.

 "You're almost there, Vilette, you are braver than I!"  Taalia smiled to the girl, slowly sending her forceps back into that wound, moving exploratively, gripping at...there it was. Gripping with moderate vie, the shepardess cautiously withdrew a piece of red, clot-soaked cloth that she quickly unfurled and held up to the girls clothing where the shot had first entered her body. It was a match! Taalia grinned, laughing gently,  "there it is! All out - shot and fabric! It'll patch up wonderfully, Miss Vilette!"  the shepardess assured her young charge, looking up at Adolpho and exhaling with a smile - but both knew just had close he had come to losing her. Afterwards, Taalia would joke with Vilette that she could keep the bullet, a lucky memento.

This continued in the coming days as the in-construction-school was turned into a makeshift hospital, being one of the larger buildings of the recently prosperous little town that seemed to have to pay a tithe of blood every few years. Working stead-fast with Madre and Antonnucia, Taalia did as she was able, accepting help from and of the other women that wanted to assist, and tending to the grief of the new widows. When Vitorrio and Ariana arrived, Taalia embraced her and took her to her husband, whom the shepardess had been early to treat and snatch away from the icy hands of death.

 "He'll recover fine in due time. But he needs lots of rest,"  Taalia would reassure her.

Should Ariana permit it, and it was a big ask for one likely beside herself with the grief of what  could  have been, Taalia would offer to let Vitorrio help in the hospital. He wouldn't be a little boy forever, he'd need to see what dangers lurked in the world.

When Cestie took her aside, Taalia had at first said that it might be a better idea if she joined him later. In her mind, she imagined the tinkerer would want her asisstance with the guns, given her budding expertise in their construction. However, something  else  awaited her.

Eyes wide, mouth agape,  "no, singore...!"  she uttered in disbelief, reaching down and wrapping her hands around the grips of both pistols, drawing them up and aiming down the sights.

 "No, no I could not..."  she protested, turning them over in her hands, observing the construction and how the wear and tear had given them a degree of charm and character.

 "I think that half of the firearms should be sold, the proceeds going to the widows and families now missing husbands, fathers and brothers. I think the other half should be kept and the men trained monthly in their use, so that we have an arsenal the next time trouble arrives. But, I couldn't accept these Singore..."  Taalia offered.

It was a reluctance that would be worn down over time, and as day turned to night and night turned to day several more times, once the wounded were patched up and the town enjoying its celebration, Taalia would return to the workshop to clean the two pistols up and work on a pair of holsters.

The  broken  pistols, however, she would work with Singore Cestie to improve and bring up to a level of safety and reliability that made them either serviceable in the towns future defence needs or marketable to raise capital to patch its losses.
MrAbdiel
  
 Spoiler: Injury Roster, for posterity. 
Cavalry:
Damio
Iyaseanna - 3 wounds
Bertuccio
Gherardino - 3 wounds
Scudiera Jacobella - 4 Wounds (2 hits)
+5 Additional Bella Collinans

Une:
1 Andreotto - 6 Wounds
2 Polo - (2 hits) 6 wounds
3 Tesifonte
4 Ansaldo - 6 pt chest crit
5 Cremenzio - 12 wounds.
6 Enrico - 1 wound
7 Marco - 2pt Crit to the leg.
8 (Rando) 9 wounds
9 (Rando) - Vituccio slain by pistol fire!
10  (Rando) Slain by cutlass!
11 (Rando) Slain by pistol and cutlass!
12
13 (Rando) 2 wounds
14
15 (Rando) 6 wounds
16 (Rando) 8 wounds
17 (Rando) 8 wounds
18 (Rando) 9 wounds
19 (Rando) Killed by cutlasses!
20
21 (Rando) 4 wounds
22
23
24
25
26
27 (Rando) 8 Wounds
28 (Rando) 9 wounds
29 (Rando) 3pt crit
30



Dua:
1 Taalia
2 Gaulfredo - Critical 5 pt left leg!
3 Guidaldo - 6 wounds (2 hits)
4 Istuccio - (3 hits) 10 wounds
5 Alberto - 11 damage
6 Ugo - 6 wounds
7 Paoluccio
8 (Rando) 8 wounds
9 (Rando) Renato - cannonball to the head
10 (Rando) - Slain by cutlasses!
11 (Rando) - 8 wounds
12 (Rando) - 10 wounds
13
14
15 (Rando) 3 wounds
16
17
18
19 (Rando) - Slain by cutlasses!
20
21 (Rando) 5 wounds.
22 (Rando) 3 wounds.
23 (Rando) - Mafeo, Slain by cannonfire
24  (Rando) - Leg crit.
25  (Rando) 9 wounds.
26
27
28
29
30 (Rando) - Zilio, Slain by cannonfire

Tre:
Nogrom - Heavily injured
Emio - Heavilly injured
+28 Additional Bella Collinans and Piede Ezians.

Dawgs:
Adolpho
Viletta - 8 wounds
Corvo - 3 wounds
Jean-Marie (Corvo’s Mum)
Oscar
Pierre - Slain by cutlass and shot!
Wardog7
Wardog8
Wardog9 - 8 wounds
Wardog10 - 3 wounds
Wardog11 - 10 wounds
Wardog12
Wardog13 - 9 wounds
Wardog14
Wardog15
 


Arianna permits Vittorio to help, as the town becomes a hospital for those days; running back and forth to the well as you insist, as the Madre taught you, to wash your hands with running water and not simply in a still basin.  And she puts in her labor too; as do so many others as they return.  The survivors that Bertuccio brought back are most eager to help; your people are responsible for their vengeance, now.  The effort is exhausting; three days of relentless medical effort before the folk are stable, healing, and at the simple level of checking bandages and changing dressings each day.

The prisoners are kept locked up in stable where Bertuccio once dwelt during his interrogation - an irony that Bertuccio, true to form, doesn't seem to have an emotional reaction to.  You are present for one session while he and a few others are working over the captured pirates, trying to extract information and intentions without knowing exactly if there is much to gain.  None of these Bella Collinans have the violent stomach of a Simonuccio to really put the screws to them, but Iyaseanna, now more welcome among the people here having bled her elven blood for them and played a key role in anticipating their strategy, shakes her head at the effort.   "Forget them.  They are Sartosan scum; whether bred to it or sworn after their dragooning.  Their plans are to hunt for wealth.  If they were smarter, they would not have stolen this far inland.  But they are stupid; and the sooner that stupidity meets its natural consummation, the better." 
 "We may yet be able to trade them for some other prisoners - people they took from the coastal villages.  Trained sailors are better than slaves."   This is Bertuccio's pragmatic assessment.  In a war against enemies from any other Tilean state, he would be right.

Guildaldo doesn't like it, but has to agree with Iyaseanna.   "I fear there is nothing we can do for them, now.  The pirates will be on their ships and gone, by now; prisoners and all.  They will not come back for these; they will give us no recourse to bargain.  I am sorry.  We have our prayers only, for their captives." 

Bertuccio's eyes glance to you briefly.  He retains his flat facial affect, but there is something in his eyes.  Perhaps, knowing your past, he feels it may be a sort of secondary disservice to you, not to make the fullest effort to rescue anyone the pirates may have captured.  However complete the victory in Bella Collina, the report held that such raids had taken place up and down the coast at dozens of villages and thorpes with varied results.  The notion that another generation of little  Nameless  are being loaded into stinking ship holds is a distressing thought to anyone, and not least to you; the idea that such prisoners were fated not necessarilly to be disposable labor units or sacrifices (as with the Skaven and Norscans), but to be somehow  turned into these fiends , these scarred and marked lunatics who raid and kill for profit and living... It must repulse the orderly souls of Guildaldo and Bertuccio, too.  But there is nothing to be done - Sartosa is a menace to Tilean waters, but it persists as an island fortress with its labyrinthine approach waters, and fleets have perished trying to deal reprisal to the pirate nation.

Ultimately, the pirates have little helpful to say, except curses and lies; they attempt to instigate some scheme for their release, but they convince no one; and they are unceremoniously executed and burned like the others.

The village holds a service for the slain heroes of Bella Collina, when a travelling cleric of Morr comes to the village - he is in great demand - and a plot of ground is set aside for a small garden of Morr, later to be populated with a full time attendant.  Its first honor dead are the eleven men killed in the combat, and a smaller marker for Pierre - the wardog who dived in along side you to finish off the the Troll of Bella Collina, laid low by the blade of a Sartosan villain.

Finally, Bertuccio moves on with little fanfare.  You spot him having a conversation with Bella, before he goes.  Not an intimate one; but perhaps a forthright and honest one.  She gives him a hug, and he returns it stiffly; and then he is away again.

Guildaldo is more open about his departure.  He comes to say goodbye to everyone he has met in turn, his armor now adorned with a ribbon Bella has made for him - a small white strip of satin, emblazon with a stitched with a likeness of the one legged rooster.

 "Well, we're off, then.  With one disaster often comes another; I expect there will be more greenskin attacks on the settlements around Monte Castello, so south we go.  But I'm proud to have had the opportunity to serve along side you and your people, Taalia-Trollslayer-Giovanni.  Perhaps you wouldn't mind terribly if I wrote to you from time to time."
 

Jacobella, listening to this, looks  miffed.   It's an offer that isn't explicitly  interest  in that definite way, but definitely leaves that way open more than vanishing into history would... 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

It was with grim satisfaction that Taalia watched the pirates led to the gallows, their necks breaking or their lungs suffocating at the end of that rope. She watched with cold, pitiless eyes as each one died, her only sympathy in the situation reserved for those who may have been taken from the coasts. Could  she  have ended up like this? Press ganged into service had she gone down a different path once she had escaped? It wasn't impossible. Perhaps she could have fallen in with a gang or shady cartels, her living made by pilfering the wallets of others only to meet her own end in such a grisly manner.

Could she picture herself as such a villain? Her spirited nature and impressive physique seeing her beat her way to the top of a pile of these murderous lunatics, looking on callously as those beneath her burned, pillaged and raped the gentle towns of the coastline?

The shepardess inhaled sharply at the very idea. If that  had  of been her destination, then she'd deserve to hang.

Taalia joined the others over the next few days as she helped direct, manage and perform the healing process, often working eighteen hour days with barely any time in between to sleep or even eat. By the end of the ordeal the girl was about ready to collapse, but fortitude pressed her on, and when the mural was completed for the fallen she was there in her finest clothes to sing a gentle hymn along with Bella to honour the fallen.

  "Well, we're off, then. With one disaster often comes another; I expect there will be more greenskin attacks on the settlements around Monte Castello, so south we go. But I'm proud to have had the opportunity to serve along side you and your people, Taalia-Trollslayer-Giovanni. Perhaps you wouldn't mind terribly if I wrote to you from time to time."  

Taalia would smile gently at this, the slightest tinge of blush across her cheeks as she looked up at him, ignoring the dagger-like glare from the mans squire.

 "I would very much like that, Singore,"  she responded, her normally smokey voice noticeably softer.

 "You don't know much about my past but...I have lived a very violent life. I have seen more lives taken form this world than anyone should, and since this town took me in, I have learned the beautiful peace of tending to the simpler life, but not necessarily yet the complete life..." 
MrAbdiel
 As you mention your violent life, his eye glance naturally to the pronounced scars over your eye.  There is no judgement there, natually; certainly not with his own facial scar.

 "Well, I hope the simple life, incomplete through it might be in some ways, is some compensation for what came before.  This, life here in such a place, is about as good as life gets anywhere that I have seen or heard of; atleast for humans, who cannot sit in an elven tour drinking elven wine while our magical fields plow themselves.  But there remains much time to find what is missing, and alloy it to what you have.  Few could deserve it more, I think." 

He has just finished this flattering statement when he notices, and you shortly after, that Marco is off to the side; patiently waiting for a chance to speak with you.  Corvo is exchanging sniffs for pats with the young man; his favoritest deal of all.

"Time to take my leave, then.  Taalia."  The knight opens a hand for yours, and for a moment it seems that you are going to receive the man-to-man handshake; but when you submit your palm to his, he turns your hand over, leans down, and places a kiss on the back of it.  It's a Bretonnian gesture, you think; one he has picked up in his travels, for Tileans kiss cheeks, not hands.  Then he releases your digits, offers that imperfect smile a final time, and looks to Marco.  To the lad, he does indeed give the man-to-man shake.

 "Fare thee well, young Marco.  Remember what I said." 

He gives the lad a ruffle of the hair - a gesture that seems meant to be friendly, but Marco finds somewhat embarrassing with you looking on - before moving away to continue his farewells; Jacobella offering no individual farewell but only the implied one.

When he has your attention, he delays for an awkward moment, avoiding whatever he has come to talk about.  He thumbs after Guidaldo, and puffs a half-laugh.   "Taller than you.  Don't see many of them.  Heh." 

He has, under the arm that doesn't rest over the crutch he is using not to stress his injured leg, a carefully folded sack, with some flattened content. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

When Guidaldo received Taalia's hand and kissed the back, it was lucky that she was facing  away  from Marco - whose presence she had not noticed. The shepardess visibly blushed, biting her bottom lip for a half second before morphing her mouth into just a pleasant smile and shooing away the red from her cheeks. If he needed any other hint that she was interested, it didn't get any more blatant than that in polite company. It was likey Jacobella saw it, but Taalia wouldn't have cared - she could stew and glare all she wanted.

 "Until next we meet, Singore,"  Taalia offered with a polite and half-curtsey with her hands and bending the knee's just slightly, as she watched them leave - at which point she noticed Mad Marco.

Had he been watching the whole time? But then something caught Taalia's ear:

  "Fare thee well, young Marco. Remember what I said."  

Wait - had they been talking in private? About what? Her? Oh no...Taalia felt a knot form in her stomach. Marco had been talking to Guidaldo about amassing the courage to pursue her! She knew it!

Wait wait wait wait...if  that  were the case, and Guidaldo seemed friendly with Marco, then  why  would the knight have kissed her hand like that  in front of him ? Talk about a **** move to make if that were the case - what a scoundrel! But no, that could not be. The knight seemed far too honest or at least honorable to stoop to such bravado, surely?

Offering a friendly smile and nod to Marco, "You're looking better!" Taalia spoke, as she heard his words.

 "Oh..hah! Yes, the first person on the surface I've had to tilt my eyes upwards to meet their gaze!"  she laughed gently, noticing the little bag under his arm.

 "Are you feeling better? I heard some of the other men referring to you as Mad Marco now, for your bravery against that pirate!" 
MrAbdiel
  "Oh, ah... Hah, yeah..."   He scratches his scruffy hair, embarassed again at that.   "Yeah.  I think, uh...  Well, I guess I almost got myself killed there, you know?  That was dumb.  That's sort of what I wanted to say - I uh..." 

He runs a hand through his hair.  The goofy air of happy-go-luckiness is gone from him, now; or faded, certainly.   "I guess I did that because I was still trying to impress you.  And that's... It's less brave that stupid.  That guy could have cut me in half, and then maybe the Sartosans would have seen that and rallied, and more people would have died.  It wasn't very strategic, is all.  Just sorta selfish, especially since you've been clear about things.  I know you said 'the farm is taking my time' and you can't 'right now' but really, I understand that's not really it.  It's not about the farm or anything, it's just..."   He gestures back and forth between you, with a sad little smile on his lips.   "It's not there, for you.  I get it.  I got it at the time, I just... needed to be stupid about it for a while first, I don't know why.  And I'm okay, really, so don't lose sleep about it, if you are.  You're great, and if I hadn't followed you to Bella Collina, I wouldn't have met all these nice people, or been here for this and to meet Guidaldo and other things like that.  So I'm okay.  But here, I have this for you.  I started making it a while ago, talking to Viletta about it and I was gonna save it for the right moment, but... I'm not waiting for moments anymore, or trying angles or schemes; and it would have been a shame not to finish it, so I finished it.  Here." 

He produces from the sack a bundle of folded, darkened leather, and offers it to you.  When you hold it up, your first conclusion is that it is a studded leather breastplate, which is a very nice gesture; but it has been made with a bizarre disregard for the actual shape of your torso and the arrangement of your limbs.

 "It's for Corvo.  There's, uh... A little skullcap, and all the pteruges in the bag.  Those are the little flaps that hang down to protect his legs - they buckle on, because I don't know if some might cause him to trip or he'll go crazy chewing on them or something." 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Marco has made a set of full studded leather armor for Corvo, which confers an armor bonus of +2 to all locations with its underlying 'vest' and studded overlay.
 

 "So... I hope he likes it.  And I promise I won't be weird anymore.  I gotta help Nogrom in the tavern now, or he'll change the kegs over himself and tear his stitches.  I'll see you around, okay?" 

Well.   Now  he seems self-possessed, and content, and less overwhelmingly invested in being liked.  All it took was a little heartbreak, and nearly dying in battle. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia watched as Marco began to speak, that twisting sensation returning to her stomach while she retained a stoic and indecypherable exterior. She had to admit it took a lot of courage for him to approach and say such things, as she recalled her own damnable hesitation before mustering the strength half-way tell him she wasn't interested. That he would do so now in the wake of every reason to believe he might have another chance, was a degree of maturity Taalia herself might not even have. In the end, she gave him a sincere smile, leaned forwrad and gave him a hug. Not a teasing hug, of course, as she withdrew after a few moments.

 "Thank you so much for telling me Marco...what's this?" 

Taalia unfurled the outfit, recognition dawning on her eyes as she grinned widely, warm and bright, and even laughed.

 "Oh Marco, it's fantastic! Thank you so much!"  she hugged him again in joy, allowing her affectionate nature to return as the air had been cleared between them.

 "He will look  most  handsome in this! And I'll be sure to let Adolpho know you made them, he has customers travel in from across the Republic,"  she beamed, clearly indicating that she hoped the suggestion would send some wonderful business his way to help establish both his personal finances in the small town and his reputation. He'd already made a fantastic first impression with his bravery, even if he thought his actions had been a little foolish.

A little later on, when cooking with Bella, Taalia would bring the event up again, mentioning how Marco had fared and the kind gift he had shown. This time, however, she did so out of a genuine desire to share it with her friend, rather than as a used car salesman trying to off-load unwanted merchandise.
MrAbdiel
 Taalia is glad to hear Marco has matured through all this.  He's certainly a better prospect for any woman than he was not long ago.  But you can tell a couple of things about Bella, presently, that occlude her thoughts.  As you cook, and chat, and spend time with each other.

The first is that seeing Bertuccio again has opened old wounds in her heart; literally riding out of obscurity to save a train of strangers and then into battle again for the safety of the town to which he no longer feels he belongs... there is a roaming, heroic appeal of it; an apotheosis of the Road Warden into something more.

The second thing is that she is angry with you.  Not  seriously  angry, in a way that would damage your relationship; not in a genuinely direct way.  She is angry because of a blurt of feeling she cannot control, and it's no mystery to you what it is - she does not like being separated from the people she cares about.  If anyone other than you had tried to twist her arm to make her leave town, she would have dug in her heels and made a fight of it.  But you, alone, possess that leverage and respect; and the wounded young woman whose family vanished from her life after one trip to market is outraged that you would overpower her instinct to stay - an ability you only have because of her love for you.  The slightly less young woman that contains that wounded young woman understands the sensibility that went into the demand; and this better nature is quietly smothering the emotional distress of the lesser nature within her.

But these are subtle things; things she doesn't need to talk about, and can trust that you can detect in her because you know her.  The unsubtle thing, the thing she says openly and returns to several times in conversation, is how glad she is you are okay, and how devastated she is for the families whose men did not come home, and how much more important it is, now than ever, that the school be completed.

 * * * * * 
Two weeks later, after life is beginning to settle down, Bella Collina begins to feel normal again.  More houses are being built.  Some of the refugees have decided to stay in the area, or to move to Piede di Ezio.  The Troublemaker boys are in condition to work the piggery, which affords you some more free time.  And your free time is once more in demand for a very important purpose.

 "All devices check!"   Cestié runs through the devices at his disposal - the bell, the horn, the front and rear breaks, the flap adjusters, and a dozen other functions.

 "Helmets, check!"   He slaps the bulbous, hardened leather shell, packed with springy hay between its layers, as it sits upon his head, and waits to hear you do the same.

 "Passenger, check!"   Corvo knows this command, and shuffles.  The compact wooden pod built into the contraption behind you is just large enough to fit Corvo lying down, which is the safest way for him to travel; and he knows 'passenger check' is an invitation for him to shuffle forward against his harness, ringing the bell that assures you he is buckled in.  After some experimentation, you have together determined the carry capacity of the flying machine.  Individuals who pedal provide sustained lift for themselves equivalent to their mass, and then a derived percentage on top; enough for a couple of large, heavy bags laden with supplies... or a very light bag of supplies, and one extremely adventurous dog.  Cestié was hesitant to try to add the passenger pod at first; but the idea that you would have to leave Corvo behind when you set off into the wider world together was a proposition that he decided to challenge; and it has been challenged successfully.

 Phase 6: True Flight 

Cestié looks back over his shoulder at you with his wily old man grin, and gives a thumbs up.  All the principles of the device are sound and tested; Phase 6 is almost a formality.  But it is also a threshold, and one he intends to see crossed in style.  Before you, in a long scooping line of bumpy boards buried into the clifftop, is the ramp that Daddallo used many years ago when he tried to create his version of this device from Leonardo di Miragliano's plans.  He had entered into a controlled dive and crashed, nearly dying in the process, before going on to eventually escape from Verezzo's leaning tower (how funny it is, the way history rhymes) using his new, one-man flying apparatus which his "Birdmen" mercenaries employ today.  Some of those mercenaries are visible now, off on their rocky spar on the mountain neighbouring yours, putting their fledgeling recruits through their paces and occasionally offering a wave to Signore Cestié, whom they know somewhat by now.  They watch you go through your checks.  They must think you are going to plunge, and be hurt or die, and they will be required to give aid or mockery depending on how severe the fall.

They cannot possibly anticipate how perfectly it will all go.  And, frankly, it's about time something went according to plan, around here.

 "Retracting immobilizer!"  Cestié calls as folds away the kickstand; and down the ramp you begin to rumble together, bouncing along the flat-enough wooden boards towards the cliff edge, pedaling as you come to the nadir and the upward swoop of the track, off the cliff, into the sky...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: Fight; then, Flight. 
No roll required this time. You put in the hours with the old man.  The plan is to soar contently through the air, pedalling leisurely for an hour, which should carry you all the way back to Bella Collina in the time that would take a day and a half to hike.  The people of Bella Collina, battered and recovering as they are, may not be prepared for what they will see.  After circling the village a few times, the landing zone is the south road - going up it, against the gentle slope this time, and parking just about outside the Madre's house.  Last scene for Chapter 5, and the last scene for Part 1!

Almost implying there is some kind of plot! Mysterious!
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

A cooking session with her best friend after the bedlam and ensuing prolonged medical demands was just what Taalia needed. In the span of a few days she had been in a pitched battle against experienced, ferocious pirates whilst standing with the farmers defending their homes, wrist-deep in the blood of her fellows to preserve their lives against the scythe of Morr, receiving and consoling the anguish of newly minted widows, saying farewell to  another  man she had interest in and warmly reaching accord with one whom she wasn't. To say that the days had been a rollercoaster of emotion would be an understatement, and so when the chaos and the bedlam had rescinded and time was permitted to simply spend a night with her bestie with a pot of fantastic food, a flask of wonderful wine and eventual tipsy/drunken singing together once the wine had sunk deep enough into their brains. Bella sung with her usual pitch, while Taalia joined her established Contrallo timbre that suited her sonorous, smoky voice.

But, as the night progressed Taalia became more forthcoming than usual. She understood her annoyance, her irritance and anger towards  her  as an individual, being the only one who was emotionally coiled around her to be able to change her mind from staying to moving away from her adopted home when true, menacing danger came knocking. But the shepardess had assured her, she had told her in no unflattering manner just what would be awaiting a beautiful young soul like herself had the pirates carried the day and the local defenders of Bella Collina had of fallen during those fateful few hours. As if to hammer home the point, Taalia was not shy in sharing the... details  of what transpired that day, the blood, the gore, the devastation of cannon fire and musket shot. It was one thing to imagine oneself being virtuous and brave before perilous danger, but was quite another actually undergo it with all of ones senses intact and surrounded by those they cared about. Be thankful the images I have seen do not weigh upon your beautiful mind Bella, Taalia assured her closest friend, hugging her with hands in her hair, for the witness of discharged blood, internals and bone with the sounds of agonised screams and acrid smoke in the air will be carried within ones mind for years to come.

But such deeply hidden and disturbing movements of the mind were not the only thing that Taalia opened up with to her friend that evening. No no, there was more to come. At one point the shepardess had wondered whether Cestie would even reach the starting-point of his envisioned final journey, his fevered dreams having rubbed off on the young entrepreneur to the point she was now actually committed to going along with his crazy idea of  flying  across the mountains that separated the Empire from Tilea and landing within the welcoming embrace of an amazed and shocked city of Nuln.

Indeed, there  still  remained a part of Taalia that wanted stay. Another part that wanted to ask Bella to brave the journey to come and be with her where-ever she ended up. But whatever the course to be travelled, as deemed necessary by fate, Taalia allowed her friend to know the truth: Cestie had created his flying machine with her help, and he planned on going to take them both to Nuln, while Adreatto had written a letter of endorsement for her to study magic at whatever college to which she chose fit to apply in Altdorf.

 "There had been a time, a time that still persists, that I envisioned us finding husbands together, here in Bella Collina, both of us raising our young together, no one else outside m yhusband closer to my soul than you as we grew old and gray together with our partners and brood. But Adreatto has given me the purpose and Cestie the means...would you come with us if you were able? Do you think I should travel with the Singore, or stay?" 

For a rare change of pace it was Taalia that visibly grew the more emotional, her usual position of the stoic, slightly-amused neutronium rod for Bella's mood changing course and flipping on its head as she was clearly torn between following the avenues life had presented and her loyalty to the soul to whom she was closest in the town that had taken her in.

 oOo 
 Phase 6: True Flight 
 "Retracting immobilizer!" 


That was the final chance Taalia had to throw herself out of the hairbrained contraption to the semi-regular safety of the mountainside, lest her young life be snuffed out by by the mad schemes of a faded tinkerer in his quest for final fulfilment.

But it was not to be.

The flying machine rattled around the frame of the towering girl a she sat behind its creator, her own leather helmet fitting goofily-adorably around her head as she held herself fast in the seat, even going so far as to compress her body out against the frame when needed, as it rattled shakily down that naturally developed but man-sculpted ramp and sailed off the lip...and drew itself up by the wind-currents beneath its frame and the power of its peddlars siphoning through the machianry to propel the contraption into the air where it sailed as beautiful as any naturally born bird!

Taalia laughed. She laughed heartily, genuinely and loudly behind Singore Cestie as the action of her feet an well-developed legs powered the device with an effort that didn't even register on her consciousness. All the girl could see where the vast stretches of forest shrinking beneath then and the beautiful fields of the dozens of farms surrounding the vast arable land that hugged Collina Bollina.

The wind in her face, Taalia grinned brightly, the greatest sensation of freedom possibly gripping her chest and pulsig her heart as she yipped, hollared and laughed behind the more stoic, but still-excited elder Cestie, her grip on the control yoke relaxed to allow his guidance while her peddles worked regularly at the end of her long, strong legs, the world becoming such a smaller place beneath them as they soared across the skies of a land that had once been the 'surface' of Taalia's world, but now which became just the mid-ground.

By the time they had landed, Taalia had calmed down, but only in decibel. Her excitement was still visible i her energetic movements, the ease with which she bounced out of the machine contrasting with Cestie's aged graces as the shepardess greeted which-ever Collinians had approached in absolute disblief - Madre possibly being the first among them as someone who was dumbstruck that 'that crazy old fool had  actually  gotten that old thing in his workshop to work?!'

But that wasn't enough for Taalia, not this time. When given the chance, their words away from the prying eyes of excited observes, the shepardess would have gently placed her hand against Cestie's elbow, her face drawing close to his but her mouth towards his ear so that she could speak quietly in private.

 "...could Corvo's carry space be shifted to accommodate a second passenger instead?" 

The first passenger was her.

The second? To anyone who knew Taalia and whom was aware of her emotional connections to the local community, it was not hard to discern of whom she was intending. Corvo was a heavy-set dog who weighed fifty to sixty kilo's, more than the average Tilean woman...
MrAbdiel
  "Oh, Taalia!  It sounds so fantastical.  But maybe-..." 

Not outright dismissal - indeed, her dark eyes light with the adventure of it all.  She takes a silent moment to wipe flour from her hands with a damp cloth, and to consider the amazing crossroads you have presented to her; both for her, and yourself.

 "...I think you should go; and when the orcs are cleared from the pass, I would expect a backlog of letters detailing every step of your journey to come to me in the hands of a legion of couriers, and bury my home.  I think you are strong, and smart, and ferocious, and you ought to wander the world a little even if, ultimately, you reach Altdorf and come home having decided not to stay.  I have never met a man or woman who wishes they had seen less of the world, or was less wise for it; only those who wish they had been braver, or the world safer, to permit them to go into it.  Of course, I would rather not be separated from you - but I could not bear to think I had restrained you from greater things." 

That squares away her feelings on whether or not you should leave at all - the bond you have, and your word that you will communicate and ultimately return, is enough for her to countenance your departure more easily than when she was being driven into the hills while you were going off to charge a cannon.  But the idea of somehow going with you...

 "...If you had asked me about that before the Sartosans came, I would have said I needed to remain to see to the school. But it's just about done, now; and the widows who chose to stay here instead of return to their ruined homes have a great deal of learning between them - enough that I have stopped fearing that I should be teaching all on my own and started worrying they won't need me at all.  Would I go with you, if I could..?  I think I might, Taalia.  We can always come home, when we're ready.  Or... if you end up settling somewhere far away for a matter of years... Perhaps, you could send for me.  And if I haven't been swept up by a gallant stranger in the interim, then surely I would come find you.  When the pass is clear, I mean.  When it's safe." 

How long will it be, till the pass is safe for foot traffic, or the seas around Estalia are not dicing their luck against Estalians and Dark Elves?  Who knows?

 * * * * * 
Piede di Ezio, a village larger now than Bella Collina was when you first found it, crowds in a half-circle around the foot of the mountain below you.  A few of the birdmen fall into flight formation with you, their legs pumping the pedals of their devices to keep the wings flapping.  They, you know, will tire after fifteen minutes of sustained flight, at best.  You and Cestié, not so much.  "Incredible!"  One calls, shouting to be heard over the passing air.  It's all the conversation really possible up here like this, and he and his flight mates shake their fists in admiration at your ascention.  Cestié lifts both hands off the yoke for a moment to shake both above his head like a champion pit fighter revelling in the defeat of a great foe - in this case, gravity.  The flying mercenaries were positively dispositioned toward the old man before, but word must certainly now make its way back to Daddallo that the 'fake' plans he sold have born true fruit.  With luck, he will recognize a fellow genius!

The Birdmen bank away, and leave you to your flight.  Far below, a cluster of dirty children peer up in wonderment as you zoom over; past them, and the salt mine; on and past the string of tanneries, slaughterhouses, brineries and smoke houses along the Salt Road.  Then your house, and fields, and beasts.  Cremenzio and Ansaldo happen to be outside at the time, and they point at you and shout and howl with delight, calling the others to see - peering over your shoulder, you see the crowd of the four Troublemaker boys, plus Vittorio who is growing like a weed, waving and cheering.

From there, a leisurely, hour long soar over the green hills past the work crews paving sketchy sections of the salt road.  Over then the Trollslayer's rest, where Gherardino's children wave up at you and a crowd of ale-soaked travellers in the ale-garden roar with confusion and mystification at your passage.  North west then, over the trees in which you slept your first nights in on the surface since childhood and the Shrine hidden within to Bella Collina, where the Spinster sisters point up and you and are given yet more to gabble about.  Polo, sitting on a wooden chair in the sun out the front of his house with lovely Fenicia turning the pages of a book for him, raises a bandaged hand in salute to you.  The Rampollo leans out the window of his manor, ducks back inside to find a hand, then leans out again to wave his hat around in celebration of your deed.  By your third wide and lazy circle of the town, a small crowd - that is to say, a small crowd of small people, the village's children - are outside in the village square, squealing with amazement when the machine zooms overhead; Cestié honking the horn for them, Corvo barking back at them.

As you come around to land on the South Road near the Madre's house, you realize one of the blackbirds of the nearby woods has perches on the doweling frame near your head; a cheerfully little hopalong happy to let you do the work of flying for him.  He offers his single-note musical chip at you when you eye him, as if that were payment; only taking back to his own wings as you approach the ground for your thankfully by-the-books, perfect landing.

After the celebration of touchdown, after the dazzled Madre has come out of her home to coo amazedly and hurry back in to fetch you both some cool water, you put the question to Cestié as emancipates Corvo from the passenger pod and lets him stretch his legs.

 "...Yes, I suppose so.  It wouldn't be much good to carry a juggernaut like Guidaldo, but a smaller person, a regular person, we could put a seat there.  There's nothing that couldn't be moved to accommodate.  They wouldn't have much to do but enjoy the scenery, but it might be good to have someone to manage the waterskins in the air.  But I had just assumed that you couldn't bare to leave Corvo behind; that's all."   He gives you a look, free of judgement; and leaves the matter with you.

 
 Spoiler: What a decision! 
You can bring one passenger.  Corvo, or Bella, are the natural choices.  The other will have to stay behind, in Bella Collina.

Best girl, or goodest boy?
 
 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia listened to her friend and pursed her lips, whatever sudden spike of thoughts or emotions she experienced kept locked behind her emerging poker face. She didn't want to give to much away. She didn't want to influence Bella one way or the other. She wanted it to be her decision...as much as she wanted to find a way to influence her, Taalia did not want to decide her fate for her. She remembered back to her offer to float Bella the duro to get a business started, only to be confronted with the reality that not everyone wanted to "run their own show", some were happy to punch their hours and enjoy their leisure time. Everyone was different.

Taalia told Bella when they were expecting to depart and how long the journey would be for. She and Cestie had gauged the cruising speed of the flying machine, that velocity that was most comfortable to maintain with simple, slow peddling and how far they could go each hour of flight. That had allowed them to make both a detailed and general back-up plan for their journey, as well as a measure of spare parts and provisions that they would need. That Bella did not feel dejected or that she had been 'abandoned' again was an enormous relief, and Taalia knew that she would not be gone forevery. Five to ten years? Mixed with copious amounts of letters she would send back here that would doubtless gather at the bottleneck of the mountain passes.

 "Few things would give me more joy in having you with us,"  Taalia would admit,  "but I would be lying if I said that the journey would be risk free. I also know how much you are looking forward to running the school, to foster all those beautiful young minds and influencing a generation for the better. I will only say, my dearest Bella, that the door is open if you want to come with us." 
 oOo 
 "Corvo is beloved!"  Taalia would answer, at the same time as she knelt down next to her hound and hugged him around his broad, deep shoulders and chest, kissing his excited fat head as he trotted up and down on the spot to expend the adrenalised energy.

 "But, it is possible, if she wanted to come?"  the shepardess would ask, standing up and addressing her senior, before she had to turn and grin and greet the flock of children that ran up as an excitable mass of grasping hands and joyous squealing.
MrAbdiel
 Bella is quiet for a long time.  In truth, she has never gone anywhere, really; she grew up in one town, then went east because of necessity until she settled in Bella Collina.  Electing under her own power to go to a far place, romantic as the idea may be, is foreign to her.  She looks down at her hands; the callouses on certain fingertips from relentless effort with needle and thread.

 "...How much can I bring?"  
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
I'm outta things to do for the scene - Bella is keen for an adventure, so that may mean you'll have to leave Corvo with someone long term, while Vittorio and the troublemaker boys run your farm and Polo handles its finances.  Is there anything else you wanted to do, before things move on to Part 2: Transire Benefaciendo?
 
MrAbdiel
 Over the next several weeks, you begin arranging affairs.  Welcomely, after the battle, this goes smoothly.  In confederation with Gaulfredo, Polo, the Troublemaker boys and Vittorio, you chart out the running future for your property - the farm, the flock, your investment in the school, and sundry other things.  At times the process is tedious - but like many challenges in life, you are made more ready for this one by your hideous upbringing.  The tedium of managing your abundant blessing is very light on you your lash-scarred shoulders.

And you need the time to get your things in order - it gives the craftsmen in Verezzo time to complete your special orders.

 * * * * * 
Sapienza da Larimo is pleased both to see you again, and to have your business.  The young cartographer has had a nice little burst of work doing land surveys for the development around Bella Collina; but here, outside the Lucky Duck, she has completed a map at your request, and is somewhat proud of it.

 "I've touched it up with some watercolors for fun, mostly.  I'm sure you could tell the sea from the land without color coding. It's low detail - there's all sorts of small rivers, and little hills and cliffs and things.  There's archives of maps all over the civilized world and none of them are as reliable as asking a local.  Except elven maps - boy, but they could chart a coastline.  But I've marked up all the major duchies and borders and passes; cities, castles.  Even some of the dwarf holds.  If you want to know about any of it before you go, you can ask - I haven't travelled so much, but I've learned a lot about the places I wish I could travel."   She gives you a warm smile.   "I'm jealous.  They say Bretonnia has plains as wide and beautiful that Verezzo would vanish in them." 
 * * * * * 
The armorsmith Genevria Liadrotto is one of the few master armorsmiths in Tilia, and a specialist in chainmail and the rare fittings of armor for female warriors.  She, and her swarm of apprentices, have been working on your armor for the last few weeks; and they are happy now to be doing the final fitting with you.

 "Not as much a challenge as we might have thought.  You have the same proportionality as the lady of Monte Castello.  Most my apprentices walk by at least one statue of Myrmidia on the way in, of a morning; so I didn't fear they'd lose track and end up making leggings too short or shoulders too narrow, hah." 

She fusses with the sleeved mail shirt; shows you how to fasten the buckles where you need to keep the coverage where it needs to be.

It restricts your movement, more than the leather did; but there's no feeling like being covered in steel to give one an enhanced sense of safety.  Genevria lets you take a few whacks at a straw dummy draped in some of her chainmail, using some of the practise swords. You get a sense for what such armor can take - the way the blade skates right off most slashes across the body; but by leaning into a thrust with the point, the tip shears through links and punches right through.

 "Nothing will stop a spear flush-on with a strong arm behind it; not mail, anyway, but if you even give it a little deflection it'll pull to the side, probably snap off a few links, but not run you through.  Any decent smith from here to Praag can make repairs on it, too.  I've got your helm on the other bench, near completion; you can grab that on your way out of the city tomorrow.  I'm not sure you'd be interested, but I thought I'd ask; lots of the mercenaries get an inscription on the inside of the rim of the helm.  Sometimes an epitaph, or a name and a home town.  Something you might hope that a noble soul who comes upon a fallen soldier might take to heart when deciding what to do with the possessions discovered.  Do you want an inscription, or would you rather keep it simple?" 
 * * * * * 
Your instinct when seeking the hand weapon in Verezzo is to find a dwarven smith, for they are renown for their mastery of steel.  You go to the most reputable dwarven smith in Verezzo - a dwarf named Nokrin Skallaginsnev.  His workshop in the Merchant's District is a magnificent showroom of art pieces curated by his uncle Tomrin, who is extremely proud of his nephew's accomplishments and pleased to have such an honorable job even now, as an old war wound prevents him from retaining the constitution to serve in battle.  The showroom has weapons of all kinds and in the most beautiful styles; some forged in styles you've never heard of from places you've never imagined existed.  His array of hammers, picks, axes, daggers, and knives are most compelling.  Past that, he has polearms, rapiers, cutlasses, falchions, greatswords and pikes; weapons a dwarf would not wield but that a dwarf selling to Verezzan mercenaries knows he is best served to master.  But you  do  notice on that first trip that what is not presented in this showroom is a simple, two-edged, classical longsword.  When you ask Tomrin, he gives you what you later understand is a face-saving lie - that the great Runesmith, Alaric the Mad, forged the mighty Runefangs of the Empire for Sigmar's heirs and so perfected the craft that his nephew declines to make them.  But Nokrin overhears, and once his well meaning uncle has limped away to deal with more interested onlookers, the laconic smith draws you aside and makes a confession you did not expect to hear from dwarven lips: he does not make longswords because there is a superior maker of them in Verezzo; and it is out of respect for that master's craft, wrestled from the dwarf's prideful grip by purity of its excellence, that he can only direct you that way.

Aesirian Wintertide's shop is in the Northgate district.  You could almost call it humble, though you can tell that, even though he possesses a single long forge and anvil and no apprentices, his tools are of the highest quality.  An elven gentleman just a little shorter than you, with the masculine version of the elven features you know from Iyeseanna; the strange beauty that is a mysterious parallel to human attractiveness.  A sharp, narrow jawline and cheekbones; hazel eyes (which, unlike Iyeseanna, have a normal white sclera) and a simple mane of ash blonde hair draw back in a low ponytail, with two artfully effortless licks of hair hanging from his fringe and partially veiling his eyes.  He has a list of requests from many families in Verezzo and beyond for his services; but he selects his clientele arbitrarily, not in sequence.  He witnessed your half-escape from the tower of Verezzo from his shop, and recalls the fiddling and dancing going on in your honor in the district.  That, and the recommendation from the dwarven master, seemed to be all he really needed to decide he would make you a sword.  That, and a hundred and forty gold crowns, and the exacted promise that you would not sell it - he makes exactly one sword each year, and they are not to be commodities, but to be weapons of dynasty.  It is one of his small joys, he has told you, that periodically he will be visited by the son of the son of someone he made a blade for, previously, to have the weapon's edge cleaned up and restored on the same grindstone that made it.  Now he has completed your blade, made for your handspan, and stature, and balanced for your grip.

"Held by a smaller warrioress, it might be called a bastard sword..." the elf explains as he respectfully, even reverently, takes a sheathed blade from a wooden cradle where it has waited for your arrival; "but in yours, merely a longsword, after the Sylvanian designs that became popular in the late seventeenth century."  His voice seems confined to a whisper; though you cannot tell if that is a product of spending more than a human lifetime crowded into a smoke-filled forge or just his preference of volume.

It's a beautiful blade, to say the least; the steel so clean and smooth it immediately feels borderline shameful that it will have to do some grim business in its future.  Ten inches of grip on the hilt and another forty four inches of blade beyond a gently curved, cruciform guard.  The lower twelve inches of blade features on both sides an inset design picked out in meticulous gold; a likeness of braided gold and artful, stylized knots featured again on the pommel.  He turns side on to you and makes a few slow, graceful swings of the blade in the air.  On the last one, the final swing, he strikes a little faster, and the metal seems almost to sing softly as it cuts the air.

 "Ricasso runs the length of the gilding,"  he explains; demonstrating as reverses his grip and brings his dominant right hand all the way to the base of the hilt with his thumb curled over the pommel, and the left hand around the golden design on the ricasso.   "For choking up your grip.  You will lose fingers going past the gold, however; she is quite sharp."   He makes a pantomime downward stab at a phantom shorter opponent, with one hand above and below the guard.  You have never seen a sword wield so; but then, you have not been formally trained, so if this is a common technique for the journeyman swordsman, you are careful not to let on that it is novel to you.

The elf takes a cloth, wipes the blade where he gripped it, sheathes it again, then passes it to you, gesturing loosely for you to test it to your satisfaction, and taking a step back to accommodate your testing.   "If you have settled on a name for her, I can mark it up before you leave."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


It felt surreal organising and setting in place a mechanism for her affairs with Polo, Gaulfredo, Vitorrio and the four boys that had come to be her employee's over the years. In some ways it was even a touch morose, as if she were filling in a last will and testament for when she was gone. But in other ways the process was cleansing and set her mind at ease. Ever since escpaing that tunnel, Taalia's life had been a whirlwind of activity, and one would be hard pressed to image so much drama blowing through the streets of this quiet little rural town in about as far south of civilised lands as one could get. Goblins, trolls, mutants, a sensational court case (and Ariana's moonlighting as a spy!), pirates, battles, economic opportunity, an elven shrine...it was quite a bit to take full stock of, when the girl found herself prompted to ruminate on it all. That she would now need to bottle it all up as memories and take them with her was an undertaking that was both difficult but exciting at the same time.

It felt wonderful for the girl to bring Gaulfredo and Vitorrio into her scheme, as if she were returning the life-saving generosity he and his small family had blessed her with. The man himself had come south from his home-town seeking an entrepreneurial fresh start and when times had seemed hardest, he had crossed paths with her, a freshly emancipated, skinny shivering girl in the forest who couldn't speak a lick of Tilean. The goblins had seemingly spelt doom for the poor, hard-pressed farmer by murdering his horse, but fate had brought him in contact with her and the chest, within which came mirrors and clothes and then a small flock of sheep and then a larger enterprise that made unbelievable amounts of money - and he was now part owner. He had found that entrepreneurial success he had moved south to discover, and better yet, his son had a secure future. Their symbiotic relationship had nurtured them both and produced a bountiful harvest for the whole town.

 oOo 
Taalia watched with a fascinted eye as she was fitted for some heavier protection, the leather she previously owned no longer feeling as secure as it once had. She had witnessed the possible violence from the pirates, of cutlass and shot, and she knew that some boiled cow hide wasn't going to cut it if she needed to step forth and be the sole physical barrier between danger and their little skyborne trio.

Wearing the mail atop her leather and padded armor, the shepardess listened and nodded as Genevria Liadrotto explained and demonstrated the best use for the knitted steel and how to optimally utilise it. It would provide excellent protection against weapons that primarily slashed open their enemies, but it lacked the stiff fortification to resist something like a driven stabbing wound or even a particularly violent swing of an axe and the kinetic impact that would impart through the looser fitting chainmail.

 "Try to roll with such blows, si?"  Taalia would confirm, allowing one of the assistants to practice stab her with the wooden weapons so that she could gauge a sense of a the motion that could one day save her life by the merest of inches. Though only practice, the movements demonstrated the work it took for someone to attain the level of 'professional' soldier, rather than just guy with a sword, was high indeed. To fight like this was a crashing back and forth, almost like waves beating against each other, looking for that opportunity to get the blade in while denying their opponent any such opening.

At the proposition of etching something into her helmet, Taalia pursed her lips and thought for a second.

 "Hmmm..." 

She wasn't planning on dying. But, as the saying went, if you wanted to see the gods sense of humour, make plans. Something short and concise that would easily direct the charity of one who would see the item returned and her fate announced. Alternatively, it could become some sort of grisly trophy, should she fall foul of the wrong people. Alternatively, she could meet her end falling out of that flying contraption and splatting across the earth below, that helmet the only piece of her that would survive.

 "The Trollslayer of Bella Collina,"  Taalia finally answered with a bright, cheeky smile.

 oOo 
Taalia seemed to get along well with the dwarves, given their insular nature. Perhaps it was having Nogram speaking very well on her behalf at her trial. Perhaps it was establishing an account with the Dwarven bank which would deliver enormous amounts of gold annually into its coffers. Or maybe she was just a likeable lass? Perhaps it was all three! Whatever it was, the shepardess stood in that forge and marveled at what the dwarven smiths used to develop and build their famed works of art. The last time Taalia had visited a gun-shop in Verezzo, she had been a complete amateur, only really knowing what end to point towards the enemy. But today, she was proficient, a pretty good shot and had physically crafted her own guns using numerous tools that she could recognise in the dwarf's smithy. That allowed her to ask questions or appreciate details that would have escaped her notice earlier in life.

Hearing the dwarfs confession, however,  did  come as a surprise. Taalia was not some authority on the dwarves, but she knew enough of them to understand just how difficult such an acknowledgement would be - and for the credit to go to an elf! The craftsman must be remarkable indeed. Thanking Nokrin with a respectable curtsey-bow as appropriate, Taalia gave further thanks to his uncle before she would depart in search of Aesirian Wintertide.

The only elf that Taalia had known, in the loosest sense of the word, was Iyeseanna. Though they had not gotten off to the most...honest of starts, they had come to accord with Taalia making right by the Fey and the elf, in turn, assisting their town greatly in its direst time of need. But where Iyeseanna galloped around on her beautiful steed, her eyes the very definition of vigilance, Aesirian was a craftsman, and that immediately over-lapped an interest of hers.

Much like with the dwarf, Taalia's own budding skill at building firerams, though considered crude by the elves, gave her insight into the skill and attention required to truly  forge  and create something functional and beautiful. It was an idea that Aesirian clearly understood in ways it was doubtful Taalia ever would, given his centuries of existence before her and presumably, after her own. But as they conversed, Taalia felt that shimmer across her shoulders and slight red flush to her cheeks as she'd experienced the first time she'd spoken to Bertuccio, the Mercenary Captain and Guidaldo. But where as they were all rugged and manly men, Aesirian had a trim strength as befitting his kind, his handsome features framed by that ashen hair, and the beautiful works he could create prodding the shepardess in the heart. That he had decided to grant this years work to  her  was marginally romantic, given that he did so due to her antics in the tower. Deep down, was he a rebel at heart?

 "I have no intention of selling something this beautiful and practical, Singore Wintertide,"  Taalia assured him, her eyes wide and mouth slightly open as she ran her hands along the flat side of the incredibly crafted blade, its astounding flexibility and an edge that would stay for years only providing further testimony as to the Asur's skill. Receiving the handle and gently drawing it up, she blinked at how light it was, gripping its hilt and giving some practiced swings and thrusts.

 "I have not yet sired sons, Singore, but when I do, the most trustworthy and capable will receive this,"  she remarked, shifting her feet and drawing herself into a fencing stance. It was light enough to be moved with the speed of a rapier!

 "Though, if I may impose a favour,"  Taalia commented, her expression portending that it might be a significant request...before her infectious smile returned once more.

 "...to please put in a good word for me with my future great grand-son when he arrives here to thank you."  

Inhaling gently as she considered the weapon in her hands, a weapon she  owned , purchased by her own labour and theatrics. To think that such a thing of boundless beauty and worth could have been  hers , when just over two years ago she was shivering, shackled and was driven forward not by any love of living, but because her instincts for survival would not allow her to perish.

 "Daybreak" , she answered.
MrAbdiel
The inscription on the interior of the helm runs the interior back rim of the armor.  The letters are as tall as your thumbprint; nice and squared off; fun to trace your fingers over.  The apprentice who did the engraving has a good talent for it.  The sword's name,  Daybreak , is engraved under the leather binding on the sword's tang, on a thin copper plate worked into the steel just for this purpose.  The words are just below the the tiny elven sigil that is Aesirian's maker's mark.  That engraving he did before your eyes, freehand with a small steel graver tipped with some kind of dark gem, or metal.  His script is small, cursive, neat, and perfect; and the whole operation of unwrapping the the hilt, engraving the tang, and wrapping the hilt again takes about four minutes.  Then it's sheathed again, and rendered back to you along with a small complimentary box of walnut wood, which contains two grades of whetstone, a buffing cloth, and a slim corked vial of oil for the care of the blade.  He seems to take your joking-but-not-joking-joke in the spirit it is intended; and smiles faintly at the question.

 "I will tell your descendants that you thought of them, when you stood here; and they will think of you, just the same." 
 * * * * * 
The other elf of your acquaintance, Iyaseanna, was helpful in finding Bellina da Isolome again.  The elf tracked her across Verezzo's countryside once before; and when you had the opportunity to ask, it seems she already knew without asking.

 "She and her lover, and her lover's child and kin, all moved to the gate district of Verezzo after they received your generous gift.  But it has been a little while, since then, and she was on a downward path when I saw her in the city during your trial.  I would check the Ox district.  I'll put you in touch with a revenue collector there I know - he will know where they are." 

That, then, is the mystery of Bellina's insular family life.  Wherever her father the trapper is, he is not here; and the girl seems to have turned to high-stakes thievery from mercenary champions - providing for the unusual family into which she had grafted herself.  No word of where the young mother's parents are, or the father of her child; but she seems to have taken maternal auspices over her brothers in whatever event has exiled or orphaned them, and Bellina has welded herself to that misfortunate bunch by an uncommon affliction of love.

Of course, stealing for the sake of one's family is the age old justification of thieves everywhere.  How much nobility that actually instils in the crime is in the narrowed, judging eye of the beholder.

You get directions from Iyaseanna's contact, and wind up standing outside a two bedroom wood-and-thatch shack deep in the Ox district.  Two of the young lads you saw climbing trees at the house near Bella Collina are sitting on the roof of a burned out, ruined shack next door to it; chattering away in grubby, purposeless bliss.  The third boy, the oldest, is across the road playing checkers on an old wooden board using chips of wood and dark stones as the pieces.  His opponent is the legless beggar you saw here once before - his gappy smile and wave when he sees you wandering through his neighbourhood is as genuine an expression of glee you have ever seen on a human face.  It is enhanced by the fact that he does not make his way over to you to ask for money again.

Bellina emerges when you knock, with the same hunted look she has worn before (especially when she was hunted).  The last time you saw her, she was in very good clothes, gazing up at you leaning out of the Tower of Verezzo.  Now she is in shabby clothes again, and covered in soot and grime.  Her left arm and face are smudged mostly clean, as you have interrupted her in a ritual of wiping off the day's mess; but it seems she has found some manner of gainful employment sweeping chimneys in the city.
 
"Didn't... think I'd see you again. I heard them say pirates attacked Bella Collina, too.  Did you see them..?"
 
The girl's shoulders are bunched, arms folded infront of her; she offers this smalltalk to you because she has nowhere to run, but she radiates a bristling insecurity about her condition, given the fact that the you not so long ago went halves in a major prize of wealth; and how obviously your fortunes have diverged since then.
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

It was difficult for Taalia to look upon Bellina in this condition, and surprising. The last time she had seen the girl she had been wearing clothes of a moderate finery, and her breathless flight towards Bella Collina had arguably saved her life by raising the alarm for her situation to her political sponsors. So to see her now, like this, situated in some shabby ramshackle in the arse-end of town, her younger brothers strewn about in seemingly blissful loafishness, hit Taalia in the heart in ways she had not anticipated. She had saved the girls life once, and Bellina had returned the favour, while both had enjoyed the spoils of the shepardess' honesty towards the mercenary captain. Yet only just a year ago she had been handed a hundred gold pieces, seven times the annual income of a hard working man of labour, yet where had it gone? Taalia had been gifted by fate with the treasures of the chest in the forest and her half of the bounty, yet her expenses had largely been towards the enterprise of her farm and, ironically, paying back the elf her 200gc for conning her out of her bounty. What had Bellina done with hers?

 "Didn't... think I'd see you again. I heard them say pirates attacked Bella Collina, too. Did you see them..?" 

Taalia wore her fine,   burgundy muffin   hat that accentuated her angular, pleasing features.

 "Saw them. Fought them, twice. Killed them,"  she stated, using both hands to gesture down to the pistols holstered on her hips, suggesting where they had come from.

  'I have killed seven people since gaining my freedom, by the way. Have I mentioned that?'   a tiny part of Taalia's brain wanted to say, but her more restrained and civilised ego knew was inappropriate and psychotic. Besides, a dangerous freedom was preferable to a...well, dangerous slavery, as the Skaven utilised.

From the look on Taalia's face, it was clear she was a little...surprised, at the situation, as if she had expected to arrive at a humble, but comfortable little house within a nicer part of town. Not...this.

 "I...wanted to find you. Cestie, Bella and I, we are traveling soon, and I will be away from the area for years, at least. I remember when I was in the wall of that tower, looking down upon the crowd - I saw you..."  she gestured to the girl, a sympathetic and gentle look on the tall shepardess' face.

 "Polo told me how you emerged in Bella Collina exhausted and out of breath. Ran the entire distance all at once, he said. If you had not of done that, they would never have known of my...situation. I would have been quietly brought before a judge and likely executed. All of my influence upon the world since and in the future, is only possible because of your actions. I wanted to at least thank you before I left..." 
MrAbdiel
  "Hell.  Well.  Good."   She notes, on your pirate-fighting.  A genuine, if reserved oblique compliment.  When you mention you saw her, she grimaces a little; her expression flexing toward childish anger for some reason before she contains it with her better judgement.  "Yeah.  Yeah, well... That was when we lived in a nicer place, before the money ran out.  Kinda funny that I was in that neighbourhood.  But I figure you saved me from the elf dragging me back to get hanged anyway, so one good turn deserves another, maybe.  I guess we're even on that account."  Another no-big-deal shrug, eyes furtively darting their glance away to the door of the shack nearby.  The sound of the infant within crying, being coo'ed  by its mother, pipes up briefly then dies down.   "Travelling... Hey, well... Karnos keep you, I guess. The lot of you.  You're okay."   It's an almost mumbled blessing, but it's there, true enough.  Finally, after a pause, after all this run up, the scruffy Bellina wrangles up enough decorum to offer the petty hospitality available.

 "Did you.. Do you want something to eat?"  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia looked at the boys, Bellina's much younger brothers, her mind wandering to what their fate would be here if they remained. Joining one of the numerous gangs, no doubt, and knifed in an alley for a few silver. Or perhaps drawn up into the life of a soldier-of-fortune.

 "Si..."  Taalia answered gently, entering the house as permitted, her pistols still on her hips. When she saw Bellina's own infant, the towering shepardess's face would turn into a mask of soft, coddling joy as she would reach a gentle hand down to affectionately stroke its bubbly head, making her own little cooing sounds at it.

However, as much as she wanted to, Taalia didn't straight-out ask: what happened? Her social skills had developed considerably over the years to the point where she'd recognised that being so blunt would likely just erect the defenses and get nowhere. Instead, Taalia helped Bellina prepare something and just let her talk, offering her the time and ear for her to get it off her chest.
MrAbdiel
 As it turns out, inside the shack, there is little to prepare.  As always, you've lived in worse conditions; but it is the state of scrabbling poverty you expected.  Inside there are a few chairs, enough for you, Bellina, and the young woman holding the child now - who naturally a little older than last time you saw, the boy capable of babbling almost-words and, sometimes blowing raspberries back at you when you blow them first.  The child's name is  Gilo ; the young woman holding him  Isabella .  Bellina remains awkward and restrained; but Isabella, heroically pretty in the way that mothers of troublesome children sometimes are, is delighted to meet you again.  She still has her stutter - seemingly not a feature of fear in that earlier meeting - but she is more open thanking you about the money you gave over.  Indeed, she does most of the chatting; and after Bellina has cleaned off more of the soot from herself enough to take Gilo in her arms, it's Isabella who cuts up some day-old bread, smears it with olive oil, and completes it with some hard cheese cut from a diminishing wheel in one cupboard.

The dynamic of the home becomes apparent, after a few minutes.  Isabella has been the protector of her young brothers for years since her father vanished (just as Gaulfredo reported), and her mother not long after (which no one seems to have known about).  Isabella is Gilo's mother; there is no mention of his father, but you gather from the negative space that it was not a situation about which she is particularly proud.  The girls, each with their dependants, combined their efforts to survive.  Isabella shook out into the maternal role, keeping an eye on the boys and her newborn; Bellina took after her father, and tried to provide for the lot of them; though it seems her talent for trapping was not sufficient, and everything since then has been a feature of her efforts.  Somewhere along their journey, if Iyaseanna is right, the two young women graded from cooperative friends into lovers; they aren't direct about that, but now that you know to look for it, you can see the admiring pride in Isabella's face when she refers to Bellina, even if Bellina is caught up in a tangle of her own insecurities.

At your best guess as to what happened... the money just ran out.  Isabella's dress is one that would have been very fashionable indeed a year ago; now, work perhaps every day since, quite degraded.  And renting a house in Northgate isn't smart without a supporting income; the pair - who for all you can guess, might not be particularly numerate, let alone literate - had more money than they'd ever seen, and made the common mistake of treating that as  infinity .  Now they've hit equilibrium again; barely surviving together in the worst part of the city, hoping for things to get better.

"They say th-the horses f-fly, in Brett-tonia."  Isabella comments with wonder, as you talk about travelling north.   "Can you imagine?  A f-flying horse."   Given inspiration by this comment, Bellina takes a couple of minutes to hoist Gino into the air on her skinny arms, but does so  neighing  like a horse.  Gino, airborne, seems to think this is the greatest thing that has ever happened.  And it might be, since he hasn't lived very long; letting out peals of laughter that are almost screams with their delight before he calms down.   "Bring us back a flying horse, if you find a spare."  Bellina asks; now, finally, defrosting from her prickly defensiveness enough to smile a little. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia had not come so far from her origins that she looked down on Bellina's situation, nor what scant little she was able to offer. Just the simple bread with olive oil would have been a flavour-filled banquet several years ago, and the free ability to simply sit and talk with others a luxury that had been denied for so long. Often the shepardess could be caught looking at the little baby son, her own face bright and cheerful as she blew raspberries at it and giggled when the little thing returned them with a devilish little giggle, before Taalia would comment on how adorable Gilo was. She even took a moment to ask: what was it like? Carrying and pushing it out, what happened, what changed? Taalia knew the physical elements involved, obviously, but she couldn't converse with her ewes or sows, and Bella had none of her own (that Taalia knew of).

The revelation that Bellina and Isabella might...be a little closer than friends, threw the shepardess a slight curveball. She had  not  expected that, nor had even considered it, and to ponder it further in the realm of her own mind was only to invite confusion. But...how? She would ask herself in perplexity. Men and women were two wings of the same bird, their personalities different but complementary... how ? She did not approve, but nor did she condemn, instead she simply privately filed it away and hoped that happiness would arrive into their lives. Maybe loneliness drove people to do peculiar things and find close allies where they could?

 "Flying horses?"  Taalia asked with a disbelieving smile, as if Isabella was leading her own, even shooting a glance to Bellina as if to catch her smirking as an agent of an inside prank.

 "Non, Singora, you're trying to have a laugh at my expense!"  she laughed playfully, wagging her right finger at the girl in gentle jest. When Bellina then held out her arms to seize Gilo under his own and swooshed him around with the sounds of such an equine beast - the baby squealing in delight as its little arms flailed at its side, creepy little baby hands squeezing in and out.

 "Are  you  the flying horse she speaks of?"  Taalia teased, pointing at Bellina and laughing softly as she watched, a clear affection in her eyes as she enjoyed the image and sound of the little one being so happy.

As time went on, Taalia likewise became more talkative. Not that she was initially guarded, but more she just wanted to ensure she didn't say the wrong thing. She had come here, after all, to thank Bellina, and the fortuitous moment that the trappers daughter had spotted her emerge from the hole on that tower. If that had not of happened? Well...

Which prompted Taalia to just think on the spot, and float an idea: she would be absent, but Gaulfredo and Polo are managing her farm, teaching Vitorrio with the four troublemaker boys proving themselves capable and well-paid farmhands. Gaulfredo and Polo will spot opportunities in the years to come and expansion will happen, while managing hundreds of animals multiple times a year was a huge job. Bellina and Isabella could manage the household and a planned chicken coop, their younger brothers would find stable employment helping the farm, and Gaulfredo's mere presence might be the local father figure they needed to look up to. The work wasn't easy, but the pay was quite good and reliable. At least for her younger brothers sake who could move down some terrible paths here in the city, and her other employees and Gaulfredo might even appreciate some more hands to lighten the work, surely it was worth considering?
MrAbdiel
  "Tiring, and nautious and awful sometimes, but also so wonderful..."  Isabella offers, contradictorily, on the topic of pregnancy.   "It wouldn't be worth it if you didn't have a little person to keep at the other end of it all... but you do!"   She cuddles Gilo, kissing the top of his head and even giving the fine hair on his head a lippy little nibble, like she's fighting some bizarre urge to gobble him up.   "He was part of me; my heartbeat kept him alive inside me, and now he's here.  I just... wish he could talk already." 

He objects, with an inarticulate burble, and reaches spontaneously with his creepy little baby hands, quite commandingly, for Bellina; who hears, and obeys by taking him.  She doesn't mind being considered a winged horse of myth.  She has been called worse!

Isabella's expression seems to lighten at the idea of moving to the farm; but Bellina begins hunkering her shoulders a little more, and offering again that noncommital shrug.

 "Maybe, I guess.  We like it here; and I have work here already.  I'll give it some thought." 

This is said in the tone of someone who does not intend to give it much thought.  Stubborn; resistant to help that might threaten her sense of self sufficiency.  You have helped many people in your time in Bella Collina; but you can only help those who are willing to accept it, and only as much as they will dare; perhaps you can make Polo and Gaulfredo aware of the possibility and see if, when the time comes, Bellina has managed to justify to herself what she needs to. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

The shepardess smiled as she listened to Isabella's description. The idea of generating and incubating new life within her that would go out into the world and make its own way...it was a momentous thought!

But, sadly, Bellina would not take her up on her offer. Not yet anyway, hopefully.

Taalia nodded, understanding Bellina's apprehension. In a way it had reminded her of some of the interactions she'd had with Gaulfredo, a man who could be stubbornly prideful at times, though she typically found it endearing as he usually saw good sense (or she saw his!). Nevertheless, it had taught her that some people had to convince themselves of an idea, and Bellina was no different. That sense of self-reliance was a powerful motivator.

 "Si,"  Taalia said,  "life served us both bad hands, but sent some luck our way too. I like to think that good deeds receive good deeds in turn. When your brothers need to begin working, you know where to send them,"  she smiled warmly.

And that was about the best she could do; make the offer.

Later when she returned to Bella Collina, she told Polo and Gaulfredo both where she had been and who she had seen. She mentioned Bellina's plight, and though she sympathised with Gaulfredo's position that she had turned to thievery, she also countered with the girls actions of informing them of her own trouble with the law, and that if she had not done so, Taalia would likely be considerably shorter by now. It was likely the farm would expand under their tenure, so if they came to them in search of making good on Taalia's offer, she would like the pair to give them at least one chance.
MrAbdiel
You leave Verezzo behind for now, leaving Bellina, Isabella and their strangely knit family.  Once you've told Gaulfredo and Polo your plans for them, there's no more to do - but you can hope that when you return to Bella Collina, you will find they have seen reason and become enriched by simple, self-driven, self-rewarding farm work like you were.

 * * * * * 
Viletta is recovering well.  Her father has doted on her all through her recovery; which is a change, because she is typically his business partner, assistant, and best friend.  You don't need an explanation - he brought her into a battlefield because he had to, and he was very close to having lost her forever.  Despite the unsanguine circumstances under which you met the man for the first time, behind it he is not much different to most fathers - a hard, protective exterior supported by a heart completely dependant on those who depend on them.

 "I have to argue with him to let me help him with anything, now."  Viletta huffs, but doesn't seem to really mean it.  A period of time in which she gets to be a little girl with time to dream and think about her life outside of working is good for her.  Though she's not a little girl anymore - not really.  She was a little younger than you when you were too young to be called a woman; but she has grown in wisdom and stature just like you have over these last ... almost three years you have been on the surface.

Adolpho tends his dogs at the rear of their house while Viletta refreshes your coffee.  But she also produces something and sets it on the table beside you - a small book, with twenty pages, bound with string and a panel of wood the size of your palm for its front and back covers.  The first three pages have sketches on them - pretty good sketches even, from Viletta's hand.  The first is a Tylesian Corso, like those bred by her father.  The second is a Tilean Sheepdog - not exactly Rocco, but close enough to be easily recognisable as a breed.  The third is the cross of the two; probably one of Corvo's sisters who remained here after that strangely fated litter was born.

 "Can you... do something for me, when you travel?  I have seen so little of the world - I've never even been to the water.  And I know I will not likely go very far to many places, like you are.  I have wondered what the dogs are like in Bretonnia, and Estalia, and in Sigmar's lands.  If you meet any breeds in your travels... will you draw them for me, in my book?  It doesn't need to be a very good drawing - you can always tell me more details when you come back, but if you think you will have time, I would like that very much." 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

The Shepardess smiled from beside Vilettes bed. She had always had a soft spot for the girl, having grown up 'apart' but not fully ingrained with Bella Collina, much like her father. They were definitely a member of the community, but that they lived together, slightly off the road, it created just a slight distance. Nevertheless, they had done their part and done so admirably, with Villete entering behind her father wielding nothing but a shield...for all the good it had done her. To be honest, at one point Taalia had wondered if the girl and Vitorrio might have...well one day, as they were quite different in personality to the point of being complementary. But that was just Taalia speculating and giggling with Bella over some wine.

 "You're lucky to have such a dotting father,"  Taalia returned with a warm smile.

The Shepardess then spent some time talking with Adolpho over everything and nothing. They didn't have much in common outside their knowledge of animals and Taalia's ownership of Corvo. When Villete came out and made the request of her, Taalia seemed visibly surprised. Not displeased, just surprised, before a smile crossed her face. She opened the book up and went through it, nodding and  "Ah..." 'ing in appreciation at what Vilette had created so far.

 "As long as you're okay with scribbles a little better than stick figures, it would be a pleasure!" 
MrAbdiel
 That forewarning does not dissuade her.  The girl loves dogs; and your scribbles will be the window through which she expects to see the dogs of the world.  Viletta has only excitement for you.  Adolpho has an awkward, loosely paternal worry.  Tower over him though you may do, you are still a woman the age of his daughter, or thereabout; and the idea of zooming off into the world triggers a cascade of questions about whether you've thought about this, or that.  But he means well; and before you go, he takes you to the kennels to give each of the dozen dogs in training, many of whom you are acquainted with now, a farewell pat.  Oscar, who looks terribly lonely without his partner in crime Pierre who gave his life against the pirates, has special sniffs and appreciation for your attention.  He has fought with you in two major battles, now; there is an interspecies veterancy between you that his big sad eyes seem to understand.

 * * * * * 
The Madre Angeletta takes the opportunity of this dinner with you to brush off her cooking skills.  She mostly cooks for herself, and so has little reason to experiment; but this time, she bombards you with a superfluity of dishes and a consummate responsibility to try all of them.  The result ultimately is a bloating and ache in the stomach as pronounced as the starvation pangs you knew in the Skaven pits; but atleast you can feel this reclining on the rug in the company of someone you trust.

 "Well, you can throw up if you want to.  I won't take it personally.  But you're about to head north, and into Bretonnia and the Empire; and it's all cheese and frogs in one, and cabbage and pickled fish in the other."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taalia took Adolpho's advice on board. She understood his concern, particularly given that his similarly-aged daughter had almost just been taken from him. But ah...Taalia would not be so restrained. Other things dwelled on the horizon of this trap, more than beyond her trip to Nuln, and she would not see them brought to the fore if she didn't act upon them.

And so, for Adolpho's insistence and advice, Taalia took it in stride, accepting what she could, playing her game of gracious acknowledgement where able. When she brought her along to the kennels, she wasted no time in hugging and kissing the broad foreheads of the dogs she was able, particularly Oscar. Rubbing his big, hulking skull, kissing it and hugging his massive shoulders, she also then took the time to greet Corvo's mother and wish her the best.

 oOo 
Singora Madre's veritable buffet was a food-stuffed gorging session for the shepardess. Tall as she was and cabale of intaking thousands of colaories per day, and even more when she was in a 'working' day on her farm, the tall girl inevitably ended up strained back against her chair, her tummy bulging out as if she were with a food-baby.

 "Oh Singore Madre..."  Taalia laughed gently, struggling to take a sip of wine that had been provided. Of the past three years within this community, she spent a good chunk of it within these walls, learning from the woman before her how to tend to wounds and concoct potions appropriately. The former skill had been on that she had dispensed to the injured in the  battles she'd been with, assuredly retaining numerous lives within this side of Honorable Ancestor, all thanks to Madre's tutelage.

 "Fish?!"  Taalia balked, laughing softly, before strawining and whining in self-depreciating amusement at the pain it sent across her tummy for doing so.

 "Bella told me about the heavy influence of pork on the Imperiual diet; pork knuckle, Bötel, Schäufele, pork schnitzel, Kassler, Schweinshaxe..."  Taalia would laugh gently, taking another sip of wine. Even just saying the names of the dishes was...unusual for the Shepardess. She had gone from the rapid fire dialect of the Skaven, to the gentle and pleasant flowing music of Tilean, to the harsh yet oddly flowing Reikspeil.

 "When I return in the years to come, Singora Madre,"  she said, gesturing to her teacher and veritable adoptive grandmother,  "I will cook for you the most delicious of these dishes and you can judge for yourself. Deal?" 
MrAbdiel
 She laughs softly at this promise, good naturedly.

 "That sounds wonderful, Taalia.  You can bring back all of Sigmar's secret pork dishes, and I'll tell you which to send back." 

But there's something weak in the smile; soft, emotional, reluctant, grandmotherly.

 "But if you  don't  come back, you know it's alright.  If you go out there, into the world, and find it's all so big and different and interesting and you want to keep seeing it, that's alright.  Or if you find someone out there you want to stay with, that's okay too.  You're so strong and talented and wonderful, Taalia!  It's a dangerous world, and everyone else will be worried that you're going to hurt; but you've hurt so much that all I'm worried about is that you'll miss out on something important out there that is waiting for you, because the first kindness you found was in Bella Collina.  But Bella Collina owes  you , Taalia!  You don't owe us anything.  We're all so proud of you..." 

This is as far as she makes it through her remarks, perhaps with more planned when she rehearsed it in her head, before her voice trembles and trails off; and she closes her eyes and firms her lips against crying more openly. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia put her arms around the other woman and hugged her thankfully, her eyes closed and a smile across her face.

 "Think of this brutal world and where I would have ended up had I not been delivered by Myrmidia to this town and its people - not anywhere desirable! Simonuccio would've put me to the pyre were your combined efforts not on my side, and what you have taught me kept many men here alive during the towns time of peril. They'll have sons and daughters that will come into the world thanks to your lessons. You're right that I don't owe you all much - I owe you all everything!"  she smiled, hugging her aged mentor again, dew forming across her own eye-lids.

 "Besides, do you think I'd let Polo shovel duri away into the bank every year for no reason? Just to be generous to the bean-counters?"  the girl laughed gently, getting another wine for the both of them.

 "I will be back one day, and if I do bring with me a tribe of little ones, I'll introduce them all to the woman who saved my arm and from my fight with goblins,"  Taalia beamed sincerely.
MrAbdiel
 The Madre Angeletta embraces you.  She's more emotional about this than almost anything, as far as you've seen; with the possible exception of those times when she has spoken obliquely about another live - one where she had three daughters and a son by a man she never married but dearly loved; a situation that dissolved more than twenty years ago under specific circumstances she does not really broach in detail.

 "I know you've become enchanted with Verena and Myrmidia.  And that's fine, really; they have much to offer, as gods.  But please, before you settle anywhere and look about having a tribe of little ones, keep Ishea and Karnas in your home - our homes are what we reach to wisdom and war to improve and protect, after all."
 
She takes a pair of carved wooden idols no taller than the length of your index finger from a shelf nearby.  They seem newly carved, and somewhat amateurishly anchored in abstract likeness of their divinities; not like the bronze rendering of Myrmidia, or the grand marble statuary of Verena in Verezzo.  But it is appropriate for Ishea and Karnas to be carved by inexpert hands; they are gods closer to the ground, and the brute facts of the world - a little more country, than city.  She likely has carved them herself, and she makes sure you pack them away in your belongings before you go; a little of her folksiness to go with you, on your journey to the big and fancy places of the world.

 * * * * * 
Andreotto is actually bound out of Bella Collina before you are, and has packed up on his horse and cart to return to Verezzo.  But you've made no secret of your plans to journey, and he seems to be a man of his word.

  "You're set to go over the mountains, then?  Not all the way to Estalia and around?  You're probably right.  There are fewer orcs in the mountains than Estalians in Estalia."    He makes this small talk as he fishes a scrollcase from his belongings in the cart.  It eludes him for a moment; his arm digging around in his bags.  The young wizard's expression changes a little after a moment, and his bright eyes hunt back to you with a slightly worried expression on his face.

  "That's, ah... A joke, of course.  It hadn't occurred to me you've probably never met an Estalian; and just soaked up the local prejudices.  Has someone made that clear to you, while you've been free?  The grievance Tilea has, with Estalia?"   
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia received the carved wooden idols with a sincere warmth as she beheld them and looked up at Madre. She was the closest to a grand-mother she had, and seeing the effort and thought she had put into working a craft for her spiritual protection and health so that she may take that token with her, Taalia returned the affection with another tight embrace.

 "I love you Madre, I will return one day!" 
 oOo 
The shepardess had managed to catch Andreotto before he departed, but didn't have any thought that he was doing so deliberately to deprive of her what was promised. However, she couldn't help but remember back to the battle with the pirates and how he had accompanied the other regiment, his sheer presence inspiring his fellows with the idea that they had a  wizard  on their side. He merely had to think the correct phrases and his hands would burst into incindiary flame! Yet he...Taalia couldn't remember him doing much at all, really. She had expected fireballs and infernos, but instead he had drawn a magical sword out of the ether and didn't hit a pirate with it.

Perhaps we all have off days?

Nevertheless, to his question, Taalia smirked as her memory dredged up a moment early into her situation with Gaulfredo on her first trip into town. He had set up a small trap and caught them several fish, which the girl had watched him cook, learning by insinuation what he was doing, and receiving some of his words.

 "I barely understood a lick of Tilean at the time,"  she starts,  "but during my first trip to Bella Collina, I remember Gaulfredo mentioning what a band of scalliwags they are, and that I, as a good young lady, she fortify my heart with iron against the lecherous swine who were well-versed in promising maidens everything at the cost of their honour,"  she laughed towards the end, a genuine, friendly chuckle.
MrAbdiel
 Andreotto laughs a little.  He has come to like Gaulfredo, particularly since they fought together in the battle against the pirates.  But there is a reluctancy about his features, as he unpacks the old rivalry.

 "Ah... Well, I have met my share.  They are not so bad.  Hooked on personal honor; easy to duel; prone to the bickering of their local  dons  as we are to our princes and senators.  It's a religious divide that has lasted long enough to become a cultural one - the cult of Myrmidia is stretched between their land, and ours.  They say she was an Estalian who conquered Tilea; we say she was a Tilean who conquered Estalia.  Only they say she was never human at all, I think..."   He shakes his head.   "It's a complex issue.  Since you're going by vaunted Remas on your way north, you might care to stop by the great heart of Tilean worship of Myrmidia while you are there.  I'm sure one of her devotees would give a better account of the differences than I would.  What I mean is..." 

He finds the scroll case, plucks it out, and looks relieved before finishing his thought.   "I don't mean to devalue your suffering with the Skaven... but it has occured to me that part of the slim advantage of growing up away from human community is that you get to learn about these things as a grown woman with a mind, and with reasoning powers.  Everyone else you meet is prisoner to the presumptions of the world, graven on their minds by their parents who had it graven on theirs by their own; and it's the work of a lifetime to unlearn things wrongly learned.  You have a capacity to see the world in a way few people are afforded the opportunity to do so - almost entirely without learned prejudice.  When you get to Altdorf, and when you are given access to the Writing Room, you should consider writing a book on your experiences.  People would read it.  Perhaps, learn from it." 

Finally, he extends the leather scrollcase to you; a slim leather tube, bound shut with a brass chain and a small padlock with a wax seal pressed over its keyhole.  The symbol upon it features, recursively, a keyring, with one selected key in the foreground with its odd arrangement of teeth and shapes meaning nothing to you particularly.

 "In Altdorf, you'll find a district called the Hexxerbezrik - it's the place with all the magical colleges, though... don't try to find them, you'll only get lost, or get hurt.  But there's a tavern there, the  Baffled Rook.   It's in the same plaza as the  Thaumodivinator , for landmark's sake.  Go there, show the seal to the barkeep; a halfling called Tad Rumchilde.  Tell him you are making a delivery to  Gerung Flansburger .  Gerung is my friend; he'll read my letter, and walk you through the process of deciding which college to make an application to, and will write a specific endorsement.  His endorsement is worth more than mine.  Is that all clear?"   He smiles faintly as he releases the scrollcase into your possession.   "...But if you decide at any point you can live without it... you can burn the whole thing.  There's nothing in it that will explode or react strangely, I promise."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 

Taalia pursed her lips a little and appeared in thought as Andreotto proposed the idea that she was, in some way, a tabula rasa of human belief, her ideas and thoughts not bound by the cultural impressions of those she grew up with - because she had none. She had entered Tilean society not even knowing who Myrmidia was, nor Verena, yet now she carried a printed book from a priestess of the latter, carved wooden idols of a salt-of-the-earth fertility Goddess from Madre and a superstitious belief that her discovery of the shrine and her efforts at restoration ultimately clearing her name at trial. Besides, if the Priestess was simply a witch doctor peddling her snake oil, from what source did she derive her divine power to ascertain the truth in Taalia's words? That had to have come from somewhere, certainly?

Or perhaps Andreotto was speaking more materially: Taalia herself had nothing against the Estalians. She'd never met one. All she had were Gaulfredo's warnings, and as much as she loved the man, she knew he was a good example of the honest, hard-working but sometimes-prejudiced Tilean man. Maybe her lack of some pre-dispositions would help her ingratiate herself into whatever society she travelled through as she was able to see the good in all and flew no flag to arouse another's ire? Maybe. Though the idea of compiling her experiences into a book for others to read was momentous! To think that long after she was gone, she could still speak to and share her thoughts with someone by having them open the pages of her tome and begin the process, was a type of immortality, really.

Mentally, Taalia jotted everything down and when she returned home would immediately put it to parchment. Offering a smile to the wizard whom might possibly be one of the most influential people in her life, despite how little time he had been within it, Taalia did her typical thing and put her arms around the mans shoulders and hugged him, followed by a platonic kiss on the cheek.

 "Thank you for everything Singore Andreotto,"  she said.

 "Life has thrown so many new paths before me these past few years, I make no guarantee that when I return I will be bedecked in robes and have flames licking at the tips of my hair,"  she grinned gently,  "but in whatever form I take when I return, thank you, and please look out for the people here, they deserve it." 
MrAbdiel
 He returns the hug, loosely but genuinely, and doesn't mind the kiss on the cheek either.  The surface of his skin is, predictably, hotter than it ought to be, but not painfully so.  He smiles at your joke about returning with wizardly affectation - though he has been vocal about his preference that you do not take such training at all, he is not yet old enough to be the curmudgeonly kind of wizard who cannot appreciate it.

 "That I will do.  And you mind old Maso and young Bella, on your way.  And remember the cardinal rule of travel - keys are forged from brass and iron, but silver and gold open most doors."   He gives you a wink, and gets underway.

* * * * *

You have been feasting quite sumptuously these last days; and here, in Gaulfredo and Arianna's house, you find no exception.  Arianna has had Gaulfredo set up a spit in the backyard and has roasted a whole pig - on the smaller side, but just as well for the few of you - and its crispy, carved remains sit in the centre of the table, destined to be dealt out for breakfast, and the remnant salted.  That is, if Vittorio doesn't pick it apart, one surreptitious strip at a time, to feed to Elmo and Corvo under the table.

 "We'll miss you, of course, Taalia,"  Gaulfredo confesses plainly as he lets his food settle; leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced together over the small paunch pushing against his shirt;  "but your farm is in good hands; and it'll be waiting for you when you get back.  We're so proud of you." 
 "So proud!"  Arianna repeats, lest it be thought too small an admission.  She has been plenty emotional about your departure already, and is able to face it with composure now - how far away she is, from the guardedness with which she treated you when you first came to this house.   "But we understand.  Are you planning on going as swiftly to Altdorf as you can, or will you be... stopping at places on the way?" 

You understand what she is driving at.  She wonders if you are going to be seeking out your first family; the one that vanished into smoke when the Norscans came; or at least, seeking the mark they left on the world, somewhere at the southern rim of the Sea of Claws. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


For once, Taalia was thankful for her tall, amazonian stature, as several days of gluttonous goodbye feasting would likely only soon manifest on her body as half an extra inch around the waist. Or maybe her arse getting a little wider. Whatever the case, it was nothing that wouldn't be easily burned off over the coming months of travel! Now if she were a shorter and slender girl like Bella...one may fear the contraption would not be able to gain lift!

Taalia had arrived in the late morning to help with preparations, taking the opportunity to cook in the kitchen one final, sentimental time with her adoptive mother. It was amusing to the shepardess to think of those years ago when she was a skinny, shaking girl from the woods who Gaulfredo had just so happened to bring in like some stray, and the suspicion in Ariana's eyes when she met her. It was serious back then, but now it was a source of amusement. And so, Taalia helped with this and prepared that, the two women working magic that generated the most seductive of alluring scents that could make anyone with taste-buds float across the air in search for the delicious source. And when combined with the aroma of the roasting pig? Forget about it, generational disputes could be put aside to enjoy such cuisine.

Vitorrio, too, received Taalia's attention, having fallen into a Big Sister role with him. He had been the first to teach her any words, as she would sometimes hold up an apple to him and point at it,  "Mela?"  with a cheeky smile on her face. He had possessed the natural sweetness of age, which had been 10 or 11 when they first met, but now he was a mid-teenager, coming up in height and developing a personality of his own. It wasn't unusual for Taalia to smirk as she listened to either Ariana or Gaulfredo confess their parental frustration at a particular behavior their boy displayed, with the typical rebellion and pushing of boundaries and greater comradery with his own growing circle of little male devil-friends doing what rambunctious boys did. But at the end of the day, she was as close to him as anyone, having taught him to read and showing him parts of the trade for the farm, as well as offering a non-judgmental ear for him to vent some frustration or espouse some great experience. She had even taken to showing him how to use that wooden sword she had given him, before gifting him the blade used by the mutant on the road, as well as regaling him about the happenstance of its acquisition and the bravery displayed by his father while doing so. But, it had served Taalia well these past couple of years, having been repurposed as a weapon of defense, while the shepardess had her own new blade bought by her deeds and labour. It was his, and now that he was coming up through his growth spurt height, she even 'knighted' him with it, christening him  "Don Vitorrio" , followed by a teasing-playful hug and assurances that she would miss him. And maybe, just maybe, when she returned she might bring back an Imperial princess for him to woo.

 "We'll miss you, of course, Taalia. But your farm is in good hands; and it'll be waiting for you when you get back. We're so proud of you." 
 "It better be here when I get back, Papa,"  Taalia responded, clear playful cheek in her voice,  "if I come back to a pile of ashes and sorry excuses, I'm going to take you to court!"  she'd joke. By now they had reached a point where such gentle little teasings were a regular part of conversation, with the clear affection beneath them understood between adoptive father and daughter. Of course, the monetary value of the farm that Taalia had promised to Gaulfredo, 10% of its revenue each year, would likely make him one of the wealthiest men in the region, and the spot for Vitorrio, when he was capable enough, guaranteed his family name due to the assortment of likely suitors the boy would now draw in. It was an interesting path Gaulfredo's entrepreneurial road had taken him and the symbiotic relationship the two of them had had on each others lives.

 "So proud! But we understand. Are you planning on going as swiftly to Altdorf as you can, or will you be... stopping at places on the way?" 
 "Singore Cestie has crafted a route for us to follow,"  Taalia answered,  "we're to along the Lothern Forest and then head North-East towards Nuln, and then North-West towards Altdorf,"  she smiled. She caught the intention behind Ariana's words, perhaps the other woman having a deepseated worry that Taalia may reconnect with her blood relatives, where-ever they were, and not wish to come back.

Reaching out and holding one of Gaulfredo's hands and one of Ariana's hands, Taalia squeezed both tight.

 "When I escaped that cave I could not have asked Verena herself to deposit me anywhere better than here,"  she spoke,  "I don't know what I will find out there, but I know that here will always be home." 
MrAbdiel
 Gaulfredo and Arianna hold your hands, and put each an arm around you; and savor your presense a little while longer.

Vittorio is a little more sullen.  He is growing into his responsibility; even to enjoy it.  But he is still too young to have the maturity to easilly release your presense, having been a staple in his life for these last couple of years.  While you and his parents speak fondly and talk about the future, he focuses mostly on the dogs, until it becomes obvious he is avoiding speaking, and his parents watch him, in a silent moment, provoking him to be more forthcoming.

He furrows his brow into a flat line like a dam wall against any sentimental expression and then asks, somewhat pissilly,  "...Will you write to us?" 

Given that he played a part in teaching you to speak, and you taught him to read, it is not an idea without some poetic fairness. 
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 


Taala had a sympathetic look on her face, moving her nearest hand to grasp the lad by his shoulder and hold it affectionately.

 "Every month,"  she answered with a gentle smile.

 "Hopefully when the path through the mountains open up, you'll get a whole heap at once, so you'll know where I am each time!" 

A little bit later the best bottle of spirits came down from the shelf and toasts were had, some thoughtful, some warm and sentimental, another heartfelt but all of them a little mix of all three. Even Vitorrio, entering his mid-teen years as he was, partook in some of the alcohol-based social ritual. Though doubtless a stranger to ale in these times, the rush of 44% alcohol into his mouth for the first time allowed everyone a good-natured laugh at his expense, with Taalia once again affectionately rubbing his shoulder.

 "Took it better than my first time!"  she chuckled.

As time passed and Taalia and Vitorrio were alone in the main room as Gaulfredo and Ariana insisted on tipsily clearing things up, Taalia mentioned over to the lad, her voice low.

 "Don't go getting married before I can get back and make sure she's right for you!"  with a teasing smile, giving him a nudge on his shoulder as he rolled his eyes.

 "Hey, really though, thank you, Vitorrio. For everything,"  Taalia's voice was lower, more sincere,  "I never felt welcome anywhere before here. If you hadn't been so kind to me, I might have run off during the night, and who knows where I'd be. I thought though, if this is their son, surely they have to be decent people, and look how right I was, thanks to you." 

She would give him one of her big, tight hugs, and, while her face was away, wipe some dew from her eye lids as she squeezed his warmly. It was her last night with her adoptive family, and she wanted each to know how much they mattered to her, and how she owed them everything and would return one day.
MrAbdiel
 It's a night very much for such dew-eyed hugs.  Vittorio sulks less with your tender focus; though he grimaces at the grown-up drink's assault on his palate, and coughs a little, though maintains verbally that it tastes good and he likes it.  He is grateful for the sword (Arianna is, of course, mortified but not objecting) but mostly pleased that he will now have two dogs; it goes a long way to resolving the fact that he will, atleast for a long time, not have a sister anymore.

A knight with two canine squires is a knight to be respected.

The night ends too soon.  Not supernaturally so; just in that after a handful of hours and then the blink of an eye of blissful sleep, you are waking up and loading up Jezzabella to travel into Bella Collina; there to meet Cestie and Bella and, the morning following, to take flight.

 * * * * * 
Arianna has Adolpho watch the farm so she, Gaulfredo and Vittorio can come with you and see you off; so it's a familiar journey alongside the family in the cart pulled by Tomaso the whole way.  But you do have one more encounter on the road - the elf bounty hunter, Iyaseanna, whom your family must regard with soft suspicion but whom you know to be atleast outwardly decent.

 "Kuorous guide you on your way, Taalia-Trollslayer,"  she offers as her cool, minimal salutation; word of your coming journey having travelled, it seems.  But she also imparts to you a scroll case to go with the other you have; this one sealed with wax to waterproof if, but not with a symbol of any kind.   "The Matrona bid this come to you - a copy of the markings in the Shrine of Verena Triumphant, if you would care to bring them to the library of Clio in Altdorf where more may be known of them.  Perhaps there will be something valuable enough in their historical nature to prompt a reward of some kind."  
BananaPhone
   Taalia Giovanni 
 "And you,"  Taalia coo's to Corvo, holding the big dogs massive head in her loving hands as she drew forward to kiss his forehead and hug his broad chest.

 "Look after Don Vitorrio until I get back!" 

Taalia fell asleep that evening with her big pooch nestled upon her lap, his considerable bulk having drawn an  "Oof!"  from Taalia when first he leapt into it at her beckoning.

 oOo 
Oh the road, Taalia had come to appreciate Iyaseanna, and so when she spotted the elf she was already wearing a small smile by the time she drew within speak distance.

 "Well met, Iyaseanna, has everyone heard?"  The shepardess chuckled slightly, a little blush crossing her face at the idea of being the talk of not just the town, but the region.

However, Taalia's eyes widened slightly as she received that scroll and held it protectively in both hands. If the contents were true, she was carrying a precious piece of history within her grip, and one that spoke well of the prior alliances between man and elf against the common darkness.

Grinning,  "No, no reward is necessary. I'll donate it to an orphanage or something,"  the girl shrugged, eyes still fixated on that scroll.  "I would be considerably shorter or more crispy were it not for Verena's guidance to that shrine. I am more than happy to make the delivery as best as I am able. Tell the Matron I will do my best to get it to where it needs to go!" 
MrAbdiel
 Before you know it, the day has come.  You and Signore Cestié check over the flying machine (several working names - the  Cesti-copter , The  Whirly-Fly , the  Miraclebird  - all have fallen by to lean on the wordier name on the blueprints:  Maso's Magnificent Flying Machine ) while Bella checks over some other luggage.  She has taken it upon herself to oversee the non-essential gear taken, given that she has nothing to offer the operation or maintenance of the machine itself.  When she meets you on the south road outside the Madre's house, she has taken a cue from you and wears a smart, functional set of pants and riding boots; a radical departure from her skirt-centric lifestyle, and as revolutionary in her life as the flying machine.  Her hair is pinned back in a bun that won't intrude on the helmet prepared for her, and she has brought a cute, collapsible mess kit that involves a pan and bowl that clamshell together under a wire frame, and a few other bits and pieces in case you need to eat outside of civilization where there are better facilities.

You take one last hug from the Madre, so does Bella.  Cestié embraces her and gives her a kiss on the forehead - twenty years his junior, she must seem a young woman to him; and it's a little strange seeing the Madre briefly disarmed of her aura of 'village elder'.

But then these final goodbyes are out of the way, and the unrestrained future expands before you with all its uncertainties. You wrack your brain to make sure you haven't forgotten anything; but your holdings are secure, your family knows you love them, and all your goals now require this courage and adventure from you.

 "All devices check!"  Cestié runs through the devices at his disposal - the bell, the horn, the front and rear breaks, the flap adjusters, and a dozen other functions.

 "Helmets, check!"  He slaps the bulbous, hardened leather shell, packed with springy hay between its layers, as it sits upon his head, and waits to hear you do the same.

 "Passenger, check!"    He calls over his shoulder.  At the back, in the snug little seat behind you where Corvo's pod once had been, Bella calls out:

 "Passenger O-kay!"  You have taken her up in test flights before this, so it's not all new to her; but this being her only 'line' in the production, she delivers it with such enthusiasm and conviction that it's almost comical.

And then you are pedalling down the familiar road,  this country runway with the machine's four wings pumping in their revolving pairs; pulling you up off the ground and into the sky, where Cestié lets out his customary aviator cackle of triumph over gravity, and nurses the yoke to bring the machine smoothly around.  You wave to the Madre below, who waves back with one hand while she holds the reins in stewardship of Bella and Cestié's donkeys, Landuin and Lazlo.  Then on to perform a lazy flyover and around Bella Collina, where the village is assembled almost in full to wave and cheer as your trio zooms by above.  Marco, Nogrom, Gheradino, Emio, Polo, Fenicia, Gaulfredo, Vittorio - even all four of the troublemaker boys have made it to see you off, trusting the farm for a short time to worthy minders from a nearby farm in exchange for a similar loaned labor performed later down the track.

There is Istuccio, Ernesto, and Antonuccia; the younger brother seated in a wheeled wooden chair braced and pushed by the older; all raising hands in delight to salute your soaring passage.

Over there, as you circle, you pass over the Bella Collina School for the Young - the building mostly complete now, complete enough that some preliminary childcare has started; and a squealling mob of children bounce in place and wave frantically up at you.  They have laid out sticks in the yard at the direction of their teachers, to form large letters readable from your height.  They spell  'Ciao!' .

The Rampollo Damio leans out of the window of his house, and offers his own smile and wave along with the rest; once called upon to help free you from a prison high above the streets, now warmly pleased to see you soaring freely above even the highest tower in Verezzo.

 "Arrivederci! Arrivederci, Bella Collina!"   Bella calls out, her words lost on the distance, but perhaps more for her benefit to say;  "We will be together again!" 

Signore Cestié turns his flying machine north, and you begin your departure, angled to follow the Silo road, for its first leg.  Down below, a familiar  rooroowooroowoo  echoes foggily to your height; you can see the blurry bolt of your canine companion charging up the road, now past Nogrom's hops plantation and small brewery, not content to let you vanish into the sky without his final say.  Behind him, another furry blur - Elmo, probably following his brother by instinct - and behind both, Vittorio running after them.  The boy is energetic enough that he will be able to keep them in sight, as the dogs chase you; and you have no doubt he will round them up when they finally give up the chase.  The flying machine is a magnificent invention; it does not take long.

 Rooroowooroowoo! 

A little further...

  Rooroowooroo! 
 
  roowoo...  

And then they are out of earshot, and finally out of sight.  Bella Collina and its comforts are behind you, now; you will not see them again for a long time.

But oh, the things you  will  see, before then.

  
  End of Part 1 - In Sterquiliniis Invenitur.

Taalia's Story will continue in Part 2 - Transire Benefaciendo  