LibriumArcana.Games

Ashvale, considered by some a hole filled with uncouth barbarians and the people who had invited them in, while to others it was a beacon of civilization at the edges of the kingdom, the last stop before the untamed wastes.

Once one saw it the vale part of the name became somewhat apparent as the town was straddling a sloping hill leading down to a sluggish brown river headed for the sea thousands of miles to the east. The lower portions of the town, including the small docks for the small trading boats capable of making the journey, were definitely in a danger zone for flooding, hence why the town had grown uphill. Still, the occasional flood seemed to have not harmed the overall farming in the nearby plains next to the river, and had perhaps even helped it.

The first part of the name however required attention not to the geography, but to the elements. If one paid attention to the air, the occasional flake of volcanic ash could be seen floating in the near eternal breeze, more on a particularly cloudy or still day. If one dug into the earth, the thick black and grey ash could be found, mixing with plant detritus to make a rich soil. Tasting the water, a non-native might notice a slight metallic or acidic tang. And on a clear, moonless night, if one looked out towards the broken, craggy foothills to the west, they might see one of the great, nearly invisible mountains alight with red and orange fire.

Whether arriving via boat or via the muddy, unpaved dirt track that lead nearly to the other side of the continent, the town of Ashvale was protected by a brick and stone wall, assembled over many years from the thin supply of resources available for such things to provide some protection. Alert guards in maille and wielding halberd watched over the gates, and for good reason. For in the queues to enter the city there were more than just the basic farmers and traders and trappers, but also barbarians from the wasteland to the west, from the source of the fires.

In comparison to the staid, no-nonsense guards, these were hard, wild looking beings of many different races and mixtures of races. They wore many things, from rough leathers to fine armour of indeterminate origin, some seemingly captured in raids while others seemed crafted by native smiths of considerable talent. Some had extensive tattoos that seemed to sculpt their features into fearsome, beastial designs, while others had no need of such enhancement as their heritage did that for them. Still, they often brought fantastic items with them, things of great value for their exotic nature back east, so they were welcomed in, if somewhat suspiciously.

For those arriving at Ashvale, the only thing it promised was that only the most jaded of travellers would find it boring.

Walking with the long strides of one used to walking long distances on foot, Fehl Inzeti saw the town getting larger in the distance. Wearing simple, but hardy clothes, his breastplate and the sheathed greatsword on his back marked him as one who followed more martial occupation. Slightly pointed ears, despite his human build and height marked him as the child of an elf and a human - though his mannerisms and appearance suggested a much stronger human influence. Over these ears and the rest of him was a long, thick dark blue traveler's cloak, with the hood up and over the top of his head.

Walking alongside him was a huge adamantine golem, bristling with weapons. The construct stood somewhat taller than Fehl himself, and made the ground shake slightly with each step, though its steps were measured to move at the same speed as its more living companion.

They walked in silence as they neared the town gates, though stopped when commanded to by the town guard.

"Halt!," the one of the guards yelled out into the light rain surrounding the two approaching figures, watching as they did as asked. He continued. "State your business in Ashvale!"

The shorter figure spoke up, his voice carrying strongly. "I am here for trade, and for mercenary work. My golem follows me."

After some looking through of spyglasses, and some discussion, the gates were opened to allow them entrance. Continuing at the same pace as before, the two walked right through the gates, Fehl nodding in respect to the guardsmen as they walked past the guardhouse.

Stopping for a moment to get his bearings, the two began walking toward the inn. Once they were established there, then the two could explore the options available for sellswords.

(EDIT: Corrected Eight's height)

The construct moved in time with the man who was with it. The beast was a head taller than most, it's mostly featureless face impassive to the rain and the guards. The blue glow that came from the eyes never wavered and the construct gave away nothing that would make it seem like anything other than another stupid construct. Not that even if it started acting oddly that the guards would immediately realize what it was.

Eight carefully scanned his surroundings, looking carefully at the wall they were coming up to and the way the guards acted. They were well trained, and the wall was thick. This certainly was a military town. As they passed through the gate, Eight could almost feel the eyes that were staring at him. The construct was used to it, and simply continued to examine his surroundings. There was nothing particularly impressive yet, but the layout of the town was wrong. This town was meant to fight back against raiding parties and the occasional collection of simple barbarians. A fully organized and trained army would find only minimal difficulty in taking it.

The Construct continued to follow after Fehl, ignoring the even more blatant stares of the civilians.

Bartel's cart came clattering down the dirt road, his mule carefully picking her way through the mudholes resulting from the rain. The crumpled hat characteristic of the cleric's faith was pulled low over his eyes to keep the water off, but it was beginning to soak through even in the light drizzle. As he approached the gates, the obvious (to those who knew his faith's manner of dress) Cuthbertine jumped down from his seat, seizing the thick-headed walking stick also characteristic of the faithful of the Saint and walking to his mule's head to lead her into the town. He looked with distaste upon the barbarians for a brief moment, but paid them no further mind as he hailed the guards in response to their challenge.

"Hail! I am Bartel Conaghan, billet cleric of Saint Cuthbert, and I come on church business. I am expected at the temple."

As they passed through the gate, one of the guards, his helmet bearing a small plume, approached them and said, "We ask all armed visitors to report to the town hall to present registration and identification and to be logged in the books, so that if anything untoward happens we will know who to contact." Obviously all behaviours would have to be accounted for. "If you follow the main road here you will head straight for the town hall, it is in front of the main market square, you can't miss it. Be well citizen and keep your golem under control. We've got a lot of visitors in right now and not all of them like seeing new faces. Good day."

Inside the town the roads were a touch better than in the wilderness outside, showing a bit of paving in comparison to the dirt road, but it was still a slippery, muddy mess in the streets, with people walking about with their heads bowed. Up close, new construction was quite identifiable from the older material as the older a building or a part of a building got the paler and more thin and worn looking it appeared. A few houses had some paint, but anything that was not shielded from the sky was runny and bleached, the rain obviously having an adverse effect on it.

As the warrior and his golem passed into town, the plumed guard immediately jumped to attention and said, "Hail good father! Our own Father Almos told us to be expecting a fellow priest in sometime this week. Please, come in, out of the rain for a moment while I send one of my boys to tell Father Almos of your arrival," the guard motioned to his shack, a little wooden building that offered some leaky protection from the miserable drizzle. "I must say, any man of the faith is a welcome sight around these parts right now. Big spot of trouble went down these past few days, and there are a lot of folks looking for a priest to talk to. Our good father has been working day and night trying to make everything right, but he's meeting problems at every corner."

"Spread the word, strengthen the heart, Sergeant," Bartel said with a warm smile. "I'm here to help. Thank you," he added as he stepped into the guard hut. "What kind of trouble?" He had a feeling he already knew the answer to the question as he asked it.

"It's the barbarians. Gods damned whoresons the lot of them. They hit the little village of Greyknoll just three days ago, fortunately most of the people got out, but there was a whole lot of burning and looting going on. It was the Redrage or the Redclaws or... bah! I can't sort out all the different clans, you all look the same to me!" The guard shouted angrily at a tribal looking man hauling a large cargo on his back, to which the tribal just responded with a dirty gesture but kept going. "The bastards claim that they're not responsible for the actions of those not in their tribes and clans, but they're always talking. I tell you, the merchants come into our lands just to figure out where the best spots to hit are and then tell their cousins were to raid. Father Almos, he wants to get together the militia and smash them right proper, but the merchants here in town, they're not liking that. Say we can't afford to strip the town of its defences to do that, and if we move too strongly on them we'll just rile 'em all up, including the 'peaceful' ones. Bah! I say we take a cudgel to the lot of them and remind them what it means to mess with the followers of St. Cuthbert!"

As they were talking, the man sent off returned and said, "I talked to Father Almos, he will see you at your soonest convenience good sir. Would you like me to take you to the temple?"

"Sounds like someone needs a right good cudgeling," answered Bartel grimly. "The merchants are right about one thing; sending off the whole militia to deal with them is a risk. But if it isn't done, then the raids will never stop. I'll see what we can do." He turned to the returning guard. "Thank you, Armsman, that would be helpful. Lead on." He stepped out of the guard hut and took his mule by the harness to lead her through the streets.

Academia Nut wrote:As they passed through the gate, one of the guards, his helmet bearing a small plume, approached them and said, "We ask all armed visitors to report to the town hall to present registration and identification and to be logged in the books, so that if anything untoward happens we will know who to contact." Obviously all behaviours would have to be accounted for. "If you follow the main road here you will head straight for the town hall, it is in front of the main market square, you can't miss it. Be well citizen and keep your golem under control. We've got a lot of visitors in right now and not all of them like seeing new faces. Good day."

A small smile appeared on Fehl's face after the guard with the plumed helmet had spoken. "Very well. Thank you, I'll do that now."

The two walked further away from the guardhouse, and out onto the main path when Fehl remarked quietly under his breath, but loud enough for Eight to hear. "There's a story to this town, but what, I wonder?"

As the two approached the town hall, the two slowed their pace as they approached, Fehl taking off his hood as he did.

Leading Bartel through the streets and making sure everyone got out of the way for the priest and his carted mule, the man quickly brought Bartel to a low but broad temple to St. Cuthbert, made from large slabs of imposing stone clearly brought in from some distance. The rains kept all but the most heavily engraved embellishments from staying for long, but the symbol of St. Cuthbert could quite clearly be seen above the main entrance.

"You go on inside father, I'll make sure your mule is put away and no one touches your gear," the armsman offered while gesturing to the door.

Inside the temple it was dimly lit and crowded over with people, clearly refugees from Greyknoll, huddled amongst the pews. A man with greying brown hair and a full beard, wearing the vestments of a settled Billet of St. Cuthbert, hustled up and down the aisles, looking over the displaced congregation. Upon seeing Bartlet, he exclaimed, "Ah brother! Your arrival is most welcome and fortuitous, although I must admit that I wish you had arrived at a happier time."

Eight glanced down at the man who was his 'charge'. There was a sound as if of rocks scraping against each other and reverberating through a deep tube, "Barbarians. Like all frontier towns the relationship is a mixed one." The voice itself was clear, though impossibly deep.

Noticing the approach of the two figures, particularly the imposing construct Eight, one of the guards standing before the front door to the town hall announced, "Hail there fellow. I see a sword across your back, are you here to write your name in our books?"

Glancing at Eight, he mused for a moment before he said, "And, while you are at it, bring your golem with you. I am sure the magistrate will want to see it and record its presence along with yours... I think the floor will support it."

Smiling somewhat at the greeing, Fehl replied with an even cadence. "Hail in return. And yes, I am here to register myself and my companion."

His smirk grew a bit wider as the guardsman noticed Eight. "I'm glad to hear the floor would support my companion, as that was my next question."

With that, the two walked beneath the overhang on the way inside, Fehl wiping his boots before going inside.

The wooden floor creaking slightly as Eight stepped on it, eliciting slightly amused and wary smiles from the guards, the inside of the town hall was dimly lit by dozens of candles trying to fight off the gloom of the storm outside. A particularly large concentration of candles were about a desk off to one side where a clerk sat filling out forms, humming and hawwing over what he was reading. Shifting his gaze up from his forms, he looked at Fehl and Eight and with a sigh set what he was working on to the side before pulling a large, leather bound tome out of a protective cubby on his desk and opened it up. "You two must be here to register your presence in town, seeing as how I have seen stranger pairs, but not by much. Come, come, let me get you down in the books so we can make this all right and proper... not that much in this town is these days"

Eight tilted his head as he looked at the deskclerk. It was obvious the construct had heard him, but without self-sentience no golem would be able to remark on the clerks mutterings. The construct was completely still while he waited for Fehl to fill out the forms.

Walking up to the candle-lit table, Fehl approached the clerk with a smile. Digging within his pack pocket, he withdrew a somewhat worn, but current badge for the Freeman's Military Alliance. "But, that's only half the badge," Fehl said with a smirk. "I'd also like to declare my greatsword. I carry no other weapons, though this golem counts as one that walks with me."

Signing his name in the ledger with his usual, concise script, Fehl looked back up to the clerk when he had finished. "Is there anything else?"

Looking over everything with the utter disdain of total familiarity with the process, the clerk said, "No, I think we're mostly done here... oh wait... just a second..." The clerk then shuffled about his papers for a moment before he held one up and said, "Ah yes, a few of the inns have given notice that they are currently full so travellers should be directed elsewhere... we've had an unexpected influx of people in the past few days... hmmm... oh dear. Well, I suppose it's not so bad..."

Glancing up, the clerk glanced at the Fehl and the construct next to him and then said, "I'm afraid all but one of our establishments are full at the moment, including the local temple of St. Cuthbert... except for one. And the reason for that one place not being full is two fold. The first is because it has what is best described of as a 'rough' reputation. The second explains the first in that it earned that reputation by catering specially to travellers, in specific the tribals that come here to trade."

The clerk then leaned conspiratorily towards Fehl and said nervously, although it was clear that his whispered tone was more out of embarassment than fear, "They call it the 'Spanked Tiefling Tavern'. Dreadful den of sin and excess, of drinking and gambling and whoring, but the tavern itself doesn't break any laws and it pays plenty of taxes, so we here in Ashvale just have to live with it. Terrible place, terrible. They even hire beastly creatures from out of the wastes as staff... hence the deplorable name. I truly am sorry though, it is the only thing my records show as having room available, and the inns are usually loathe to say they are full unless they really are at their absolute limits."

Looking as if he were restraining his irritation, despite smiling inwardly at the description, Fehl sighed. "Very well, I suppose that will do. Thank you, good clerk - I'll go test the hospitality at this...'Spanked Teifling Tavern," he said, pronouncing the words as one might tentatively hold up a vomit rag.

Nodding to the guard and the clerk with a straight face, Fehl chuckled once he and Eight were walking out in the rain, out of earshot. "Well, that really couldn't have gone better," he said, still chuckling.

Eight displayed no emotion on the featureless face, and perhaps that had been a good thing. Deep chuckles echoed out of the metallic hulk as they walked down the road. "Yes, and I rather look forward to our stay there. It sounds like my kind of place, well, closer than most others." The construct chuckled again, which got a series of very confused looks from passers-by.

The Spanked Tiefling Tavern lay next to the gate next to the river docks, in the poorer, more flood prone section of the town. A ramshackle, sprawling structure made from bleached wood and pitted volcanic rock, the architectural style was clearly not the norm for Ashvale, or any part of Eastwind for that matter. It looked somewhat like someone had taken a tavern, an oversized hut, and a cave and done horrible things involving lots of sutures, forbidden alchemy, and lightning.

In fact, an ungenerous soul might even point out that it looked like the gods had taken a couple of potshots at the place.

Hanging from a post above the door that exitted onto the main street was a crude, luridly painted if bleached sign that proclaimed the identity of the place, both in the common tongue and by the design of the sign, which featured a barely dressed tiefling girl bending holding a frothing mug of ale while bending over scandalously to reveal all of her infernal curves.

Flanking the door were two bouncers, one short and one tall... relatively speaking. The shorter bouncer was a half-orc, and taller one had an indeterminate fraction of ogre as he was looking down at the top of Eight's head.

Leaning forward from his slouch to try and get out of the waning rain, the half-orc bouncer asked, in oddly eloquent speech, "You two desire entrance to this establishment?"

Reaching the entrance to the tavern (which looked like several demigods had just finished having a month-long drunken brawl here and it had been hastily patched up over a period of minutes), Fehl looked somewhat surprised by the "shorter" guard's question. However, he was not without his wits.

"Yes, I desire and hereby request entrance to this establishment. The golem is mine."

The half-orc took a long moment to process this while the ogrish one put his head in his hand and grunted, "Youse has to talk more slow. Gring here talks pretty, bu' he don't listen fast. Stupid Gring."

Insulted, the half-orc, apparently named Gring replied, "Good sir, you know that I was taught this fair tongue by an aristocrat at a tender young age and I know not how better to speak it, despite the fact that I hear the low form so much more often."

"How's long did it takes youse to come up with that one?" The half-ogre asked slyly.

Frowning, the half-orc responded, "Verily! My intellectual capacities are not so low that I cannot find insult in your words."

Shaking his head, the half-ogre pointed to his partner and said, "He's can onlys speak if he already memorized a line."

"Verily! My intellectual capacities are not so low that I cannot find insult in your words."

"See? Anyways, we's gots rooms in dere. Da rules are simple: only steel dat comes out is for eating what we gives ya, or Gring and I crump ya; ya take a swat at da ladies we don't like, we crumps ya. Fight breaks out, we crumps everybody we catch, so don't go crying. Oh, and ya tries ta stiff anybody in da bar, we crumps ya double. Youse gots that?" The half-ogre asked.

"Forsooth, what of his metal companion? Is he not naked steel?" Gring asked.

Shrugging, the half-ogre said, "We lets Garxon in alls da time. We's even lets in dat skinny guy and look what's he did afore Garxon gots to 'im. And I think youse ain't using youse words right again."

Thinking on it, Gring eventually said, "My grammar and vocabular are impeccable. The comparison between Garxon and these two travellers is fallacious because you are comparing them to Garxon."

"True dat," the half-ogre said before turning his attention back to the relatively ignored Fehl and Eight and he asked, "Dat metal man o' youse gonna make trouble if you take 'im inside, or if youse gonna leave him out 'ere?"

Listening to the exchange between guards, Fehl managed to keep a straight face. "Fair enough. The golem here follows me, and will not cause trouble if no trouble is caused with him - same with me."

Nodding to the two, Fehl went inside, sweeping back the hood of his cloak as he did.

The inside of the tavern opened up into a great room that might have possibly once been a barn that was now relatively brightly lit by a large chandelier in the centre featuring dozens of candles and a dazzling array of cheap, clear or reflective rocks and crystals that created a bizarre, faceted and multicoloured pattern of light that shifted and changed crazily with the slightest sway of the chandelier. Along one wall there was a massive hearth that was half lit to provide some extra light and heat against the cold of the rain, but not enough to make the place excessivel hot or to waste fuel as there was little being cooked at the moment. Other doors and stairs along that wall indicated that it lead further into the building where the rooms probably were.

Along the opposite wall there was a long bar stuffed with the various paraphernalia of the hospitality industry, not least of which was the jars of pickled preserves no one quite knew the true nature of, to say nothing of the various poorly labelled bottles of liquor gathered from unknown corners of the world. Above the bar, connected to the ground floor by a ricketty looking set of stairs was a food preparation area the layout obviously saving space for paying customers but requiring a longer hike to bring food to the fire for cooking. At the moment a single half-elf stood looking bored at the bar, examining a stone offered by a man dressed in tattered leathers and bearing intricate tattoo work over his face.

And spread out between the bar side and the hearth side were dozens of round, wooden tables half filled with a strange assortment of beings, and one would be hard challenged to find a pure blooded anything in the entire room. As the sign promised, the waiting staff was apparently composed entirely of female tieflings, all of them scantily clad, although perhaps less so than the sign might have indicated as on none of them could the point where their tails connected to their bodies could be seen... although for a few of them their kilts were cut so short it was not hard to extrapolate. It seemed, in fact, that most of them were hired off the streets fresh from the wastes and their work clothes were the same sort of high mobility, low heat retention articles they wore in their original villages.

Seeing newcomers inside, the bartender waved them over and said to Fehl, "Half-elf with a tin man following behind him... can't say I've seen that recently. So you looking for a room here?"

Eight dutifully followed after Fehl, ducking his head slightly to avoid taking off the top of the frame. The construct took one look around the bar and was apparently unimpressed. The blue eyes flickered for an instant as the construct took a closer look around at the contents of the bar then the faceless head turned to look at the bartender. Still the construct remained silent.