Of Tests and Trials

The night has grown deep in its length and you stand atop a hill marked with a great tree. Winter has shorn the tree of its leaves, leaving it empty and bare. A silent sentinel watching over the group of you as you stand waiting in a small semi-circle for Lord or Lady to arrive. As of yet, neither has. The paladin Eli was early however, standing beneath the tree well before anyone else was told to arrive. He is kitted out in full armor and bristling with weapons. A grim look upon his face as he waits for either to arrive.

Even with the weather improving, it's still cold and a bit uncomfortable. Even for wargolems. Khepri keeps shifting, its armored frame making a faint clinking noise as the plague-doctor mask hiding its face turns back and forth carefully. Its shield is strapped to its arm, and its right hand rests on the hilt of its polished khopesh. Whatever thoughts are going through the Executor's head, it does not share them with the others.

Carver was not the first to arrive. Something that surprises her, visible right through her warpaints. She does not feel it necessary to engage into conversation with the paladin, but instead, led her mount to the left of the great clawing fingers of the shorn tree. A short, brief command is given to Deathless who does as bidded, staying in place sternly.

She adds paint to her friend's hide as well, before unrolling a layer of hide, and beginning to cast a ritual. Small growth begins where Deathless stood, before the horse seems to... merge into the plantlife, losing her shape as a horse, and becoming a tree.

A sapling now cowers in the shadows of the first great oak, Deathless in Treecoat.

She quickly rolls her ritual supplies up, tucking them away. She gives one look to the others, and nods, "Shoul' some of us hide our presence or does it matter?"

GAME: Carver casts Tree Shape. Caster Level: 12 DC: 16

Haggerty opens the top of his tunic and stretches with a smile. It is a nice evening out and not that warm. Yet. He mumbles to his undersized bulldog companion, "Spring should not start before the end of Hattanan." The all black canine casts a dubious look up at the wizard. The talk is banter, though. The narrowly dimensioned Aesir takes in the tree and its roots with magic feelers in his blue eyes. When there is none it is the time to look in other directions.

GAME: Haggerty casts Detect Magic. Caster Level: 5 DC: 15

There is nothing good to be said of whistling in the night. The wind picks up a little, which means it whistles through the branches of the great tree on the hill, and that seems to be a signal of some kind.

It proves to be a portent. A woman steps out from the shadow of the tree. Only standing an inch shorter than Carver, she has pointed ears like a sildanyari woman might, but the resemblance ends there. Her skin is seafoam green, and her sapphire eyes complement her aquamarine hair that tumbles all the way down to her feet in gentle waves. She wears a rather plain dress that is ornamented by her lovely shawl, knitted from an iridescent color that reminds one of the cresting of a wave at midnight under the light of a solitary lantern.

Yet for all of her loveliness, the woman's features are contorted in irritation. "Speak," she says. "For the night is not so long here as it is in my domain. Who among you is Eli, and why does he wish to kill Lord Ahu?"

GAME: Khepri rolls knowledge/nature+3: (5)+9+3: 17
GAME: Haggerty rolls knowledge/nature: (2)+9: 11
GAME: Carver rolls knowledge/nature: (11)+16: 27

Eli steps forward then, his eyes narrowing at the visage of the woman before him. Her status as an outsider is very well confirmed by her seafoam green skin and the very words she speaks. "A show of force I think." He murmurs to Carver, but then it's rather too late to hide much beyond the horse. He draws his sword then and points it at the Lady.

"A bit of deception on my part, though not entirely-" His words are cut off as Lord Ahu himself runs into the clearing quickly.

"Run Mori! It's a trap!" He draws his own sword as he moves, glaring at Eli who smiles thinly.

"A trap for you Lord Ahu." Eli closes the space between himself and the Lady, holding her at sword-point. "I intend to test you to see if you are a foul creature of the undead, and leverage you to obey at risk to your lady-love."

GAME: Khepri rolls sense motive: (14)+10: 24

Khepri tilts its head, dispassionately. Still... there is the question of Lord Ahu's life. "Such a thing is easily determined," the golem intones, as it strides forward. The scarab charms around its neck rattle softly, as those yellow eyes bore down on Lord Ahu. "Please lower your sword and stand fast. Should you not be undead, this discussion will change quite a bit."

"Yous a long way from home, Brine Kiss." Carver says, eyes tracking the woman intently, the second she stepped free of the shadows of the great tree, mere feet away from concealed Deathless. "Mus' be a mite important investment, ah."

The ranger turns as the last of the Persona Dramatica arrives in timely fashion! She sidesteps to keep all members of the impeding conflict in sight, whistling a low long tune as fingertips brush against the crimson feathers of her arrows.

Haggerty snaps out of his magic gazing and nods to Carver, the masked Executor, the good Daeusite. He wants to acknowledge the horse, but it would be un-tactical. The clearly unearthly entity's arrival the blue clad man anticipated. Yet he distracted himself. Four eyes view that way. Enter the Ahu. The four eyes flit that way and back to the sword motioning. Mori and the apparent features should ring a bell, if there are any legends.

GAME: Haggerty rolls Knowledge/Local: (5)+9: 14
GAME: Haggerty rolls Knowledge/Local: (7)+9: 16

The 'brine kiss' (as Carver calls her) visibly bristles at Eli's words. Mori, as Lord Ahu has called her, lifts her chin up high in a defiant posture. "You are a fool, mortal," she intones. "What do you hope to achieve by this?"

Without turning her head, she glances off to the side at Lord Ahu. Somehow, her gaze becomes all the more volatile for it. "_Deyben_ and I have not been an item for years." It seems 'Mori' might be a pet name or nickname of some type by the way she rather vehemently says the fullness of Lord Ahu's first name. "He does not truly care for me. You will not move him into action. You will merely only skewer me on your sword, you pitiful creature, and then what?"

Lord Ahu lowers his sword, his blue eyes sad. He looks at 'Mori' with sorrow and regret written on his features... And proves her utterly wrong. "How can I do anything but accede when my love is at risk? You have me at disadvantage. Please. Do anything to me you wish but do not harm my-... her."

"Khepri, if you would not mind taking my holy relic and offering it to Lord Ahu to hold? If he is undead, the touch of such a holy item should burn his flesh." Eli doesn't turn his gaze away from Lord Ahu and the Lady 'Mori' whom he has in his sights firmly, but he does take his holy symbol off from around his neck and offers it to Khepri.

"I'm sorry my love. For all of this. For every harm I have done you." Lord Ahu looks at the woman he loves with stark adoration in his gaze. It's clear that apologizing is not easy for him, but that his love is greater than his ego.

Eli meanwhile gives the Lady a somewhat embarrassed look. "I apologize for the necessity of this."

The living construct turns to regard Eli blankly, before taking the symbol from the paladin. The relic looks oddly wrong in Khepri's hands for some reason -- perhaps as it is framed against the scales of the Harpist imbedded into its breastplate. Smoothly, Khepri approaches the nobleman. "Hold out your hands, Lord Ahu," it intones. Should Ahu do so, the golem places the symbol in the man's hands.

Carver licks chapped lips, looking between all parties. As the test is announced, she actually does slip an arrow slowly from her quiver, turning it between fingers with a practiced gesture. Not to string yet, but the fiddler is ready to play should it be required.

Despite herself, she can't help but lean forward a little to try to get a closer look, to see if steam rises where holy symbol touches lordly flesh.

Haggerty probed his learnings in vain. Nope, no cautionary tales or grand stories of a 'brine kiss' saving mussel collecting children from treacherous tides. The development is very interesting. He sighs and is told there are troubled individuals in this interaction. He glances to the 'brine kiss', the Lord, the holy knight. The tension increases with the test happening, spurred by the arrow snagging and the grave presentation of the Executor.

The apology that Lord Ahu delivers appears to slightly defrost Mori's expression. Those sapphire eyes blink, and she looks at Lord Ahu for an overlong moment before she says, "I accept your apology, but then what is the purpose of this... _pageantry_?"

She looks at Eli and Khepri, and there's suddenly an anxious movement in her arms, a widening of the eyes. "Do _not_!" she barks. "Do not--put that symbol on him! I will not stand for this--"

Lord Ahu holds his free hand out for the holy symbol. It touches his hand as Khepri offers it to him but there's no rise of smoke from his flesh. Lord Ahu looks down at the symbol and wraps his hand around it gently, reverently. "I once served Daeus too sir. I served him my years and then I found love and left to serve my heart." He smiles faintly and offers the holy symbol back to Khepri.

Eli seems greatly surprised that the holy symbol doesn't burn Lord Ahu. "It must be a trick." He frowns deeply at the development. "I will cast Daylight. For surely none that are undead can withstand the holy light of Daeus."

Lord Dayben Ahu frowns back at Eli, but the expression fades to a smile as he looks at the Lady. "You still care about me Mori’amana? My love? That means more to me than anything... Even so, I must ask how many tests I will be forced to endure before I can retrieve her. My patience grows short."

With absolutely no humor in its voice, Khepri intones, "I could just cast Disrupt Undead, shoot him in the chest with it. It won't harm the living." The golem takes the symbol back, and bears it to Eli. "This situation may not be what you perceive," Khepri says. "Consider that your information is in error."

Carver disappointment is legendary. Uncertainty bleeds into weakness. That forges irritation, building long. Shoulders stiffen beneath her hides and fur, taking a few steps forward, "Cast the spell. Make sure you include the Nereid."

Haggerty chews on his lower lip and marks off the touch detection list. Silver? Likely in the beautifully made holy symbol of the veteran knight? He draws a Northlander make dirk of some quality, gloved hands on the blade. The redhead presents the grip when he steps up, "This one is hammered from iron without the lick of flame. Be the most patient and touch the flat to your cheek, your highness, please." Your lordliness? The wizard recalls to lower his head. There! Nereid…

"So does my own patience wane," Mori'amana replies, folding her arms in a rather closed-off manner as she glares at Khepri. "You will do no such thing to Dey."

And then her cheeks color a little. It's a neat trick, considering the seafoam-green of her complexion. "Deyben, I mean. Lord Ahu. Again, none have answered my question. What is the meaning of this? Why are you subjecting Dey to such cruel experimentation? What will you do to him if you do not like the results?" She scowls. "_I_ can certainly tell you everything you wish to know about him. He snores at night, for one thing. He has dreadful taste in waltzes. He looks like a soggy puppy when he is denied what he wants. And..."

She glares at Lord Ahu for a moment before her gaze softens. "I have forgotten what it was that drove us apart to begin with."

Eli seems to take Khepri's words to heart. He nods once. "I will cast only this one spell, and then you and your Lady may be on your way." He determines, and recites a short prayer. "Holy Daeus, light my path." The sword begins to glow with a bright light.

Lord Ahu does not turn aside it nor does he fade away at the light. Instead he looks at Haggerty with displeasure and snatches the knife from the man's hand and touches the dagger to his lips, kissing the iron blade and then tossing it furiously into the dirt. "Unhand Mori'amana! I have done everything you have asked with patience but no longer! You have no right to hold her hostage and I have passed your foolish tests!" He looks at her with such love. "I have forgotten as well, and remember only that I love you endlessly."

Eli lowers his sword in embarrassment and nods. "It is as you say, and you Khepri. My information must be wrong."

Meanwhile Lord Ahu has returned his attention to Lady Mori'amana. "Once upon a time I was a fool of a man, now... I want nothing but your love. Will you take me to your lands my love? Will you forgive me, and allow me to be with you as I long to be?"

A number of things suddenly -click- into place for Khepri. Suitors. Gifts. Interference. "There is one other thing." The golem turns to look at Mori'amana. "At this time there is a mage held in Alexandria. He calls himself Cerberus, and it was his interference with Lord Ahu's shipments -- shipments, I suspect, meant to win you back -- that drew our attention."

Khepri opens its hands. "Cerberus insisted he was contacted by one or more members of the fey courts, offering to sponsor him and let him return to Quelynos in exchange for his deeds. Perhaps someone did not wish for you to return to Lord Ahu's side?"

"So, going to run off an' leave the horse-drowning asshole half-fey to rot in prison?" Carver asks, as the least likely of the expected results seems to be running its course; she would not have picked true love on the board.

So that leaves the nettling burr that stuck with her through most of this zany investigation that started with just a lovely bunch of winter strawberries. "Why's yous bloody cat slipping into dreams, hirin' folks to disrupt whatever weird courtship ritual you two are frolicin' over?"

Haggerty bows to Lord Ahu and moves back. He waits, but listens closely. He wants to gripe about the dead equine, but there seems to be a lot more happening. "Your Lordship, when you join the waves, who will take your place, please?"

Mori'amana blinks once, and there's the undeniable glint of warmth and affection in her sapphire eyes for but a moment as she drops her hand out for Lord Ahu to take. There is the briefest hint of a smile upon her lips. "I forgive you, but there is a long road ahead of you... Deyben. Don't think you can come in and out of my lands so freely as you once did. Trust must be _earned_."

She looks at Haggerty, considering this for a moment before looking back at Lord Ahu. "Do you still have that manservant of yours? Nasir? I'm certain he can look after the place while you're in my Court for... say, a week?"

The mention of the cat and Cerberus has her confused. "Cerberus? I have never heard of such a man. He sounds dreadful. Perhaps there was a plot..."

She quiets significantly as she looks at Lord Ahu again. "That reminds me. I have your cat. Lady Alarka mentioned that the last time she saw it, it urinated on the lilies that you gave me... what was it, sixty-five years ago? I asked her to retrieve the creature for me to prove her suspicion that the cat might be something more. Yet... Lady Alarka informed me today that Miso went missing. And so, too, has the necklace you gave me."

Haggerty's question draws Lord Ahu's attention for only a moment. "My manservant Nasir is a fine man and shall manage all that is mine in my absence." Deyben has no heirs to fight over the land, and his manservant is well equipped to handle affairs. "It will irritate the other nobles to have a commoner amongst them and that pleases me as well."

As for Carver's inquiry, it causes only confusion from Lord Ahu. "Miso? My cat?" Lord Ahu takes Lady Mori'amana's hand and smiles at her warmly. "It seems that perhaps there were many trying to keep us apart. No longer. I think it is long since time we left."

With that, he turns his back on the group and leads the lady away. It seems that perhaps Miso was the culprit all along? Strange as it might seem to blame a black cat for a breakup, and a plot to keep two lovers apart.

Haggerty bows to the fey noble. In this weather! And he is not old! He mentally books a sesh with the grumpy jotun massage experts. "Thank you, Lord and Lady. Clearly there is much to inquire about the thieving feline's loyalties, attentions from the noble or merchant lord fey, yet more else. Is there anybody to notify, please?"

Carver watches the two stroll off, their impromptu matchmaking successful! Ah, young love. As for her, the frustration ascends and she begins to kick large mounds of snow up into the air, spraying arcs of white powder in beautiful lines in celebration of the Lady Mori and the Lord Ahu.

Deathless steps out of the tree, watching the nereid and her paramour stroll off. She nods. Approvingly. At least the horse understands how beautiful this was, in its strange way.

-End