Hail Horrors! Hail Infernal World!

Father Boravdgaz was having a quite wonderful day to be quite honest

teskandashtryn:

solemnott:

Solemn clapped hir hands together again, and bowed to the company of passengers. “And there it is comrades and gentlefolk, the Father speaks true. I and the Cap’n have business to see to.” ze gave them directions to the ship, adding “If you see a grumpy bag of metal around these parts what answers to the name of Talxerx, you might want to introduce yourselves. It always pays to be friends with artificers. We’ll only be a tick or three.”

As ze turned to follow the Father, ze laughed, hir lower-Cage accent replaced by the plummy tones of one who has the Lady’s Ward to call kip. “There’s no way they weren’t playing it up? My good fellow, clearly you haven’t had cause to wander the Hive recently. Cant every second word; you can barely understand any of the bally sods, whether you’re Sigilian or Sigilite.”

More people. Always more people of course. But that was good. That was interesting. Tesk watched Astaero carefully, watch the shopkeeper snatch the opal comb back when Astaero tried to pocket it. Tesk grinned and kept their eyes on the shopkeeper, letting the words, the arguments, drift off just a bit. Sol would call them back to themself if they were needed. Grab their arm or something. Sol was very good at the demanding focus out of Tesk thing. Probably a useful skill.

Tesk snuck just far enough away, waited until the shopkeeper was slightly occupied, reached out a hand and grabbed the comb from where the sop keeper had put it after taking it back from Astaero. Tesk turned around casually, pocketing it swiftly and careful. Nice little trinket. Tesk would give it to Astaero when they were back on the ship, a proper welcoming gift or something. No point in being so good at stealing stuff if you couldn’t occasionally gift things to people right? Had to be more out there than personal gain and fun. Well fun was a big part of it.

Sol introducing them as captain again (so many introductions Tesk really should look into getting Captain stamped on their forehead or something. Save them all time, especially since it seemed to be a habit of people to question the title and ask Tesk for conformation). And Tesk was just about to respond to Zerchai when they felt a hand on their shoulder.

Tesk tilted their head back. Oh big creature. That was interesting. Sort of grey and lumpy and dressed all fancy. Yeah interesting. And the creature was speaking to Tesk, telling them not to steal ships and such. Hell and all that, like Tesk had never been threatened before and stolen stuff anyway. Tesk wrinkled their noes. “I’ve already got a ship and we get along quite well,” Okay maybe that was an exaggeration but Tesk considered the bickering to be getting along. Tesk liked the bickering. “Why would I want another one. But hell… now that’s interesting. Might have to go there some day, bet there’s loads of interesting stuff to steal.” Tesk grinned. Really they didn’t have a whole lot of sense for avoiding danger or any of that. Being scared and avoiding disaster, sort of boring really. You never got to have any fun that way.

“Hey, I’m the leader,” Tesk said as the creature sort of scanned the others as if picking out the most leader-y of them all. Which was probably a test Tesk would fail. But they were the Captain. They had the title and everything. “Captain Tesk, that’s me.” They said with a frown. But Tesk followed Father Boravdgaz and Sol, scuffing their feet a little and grumbling about how ‘of course i’m the leader, i’m the captain aren’t I’ and wondering vaguely where the hell they were going

Father Boravdgaz lead the group towards the back of the market hall, to a section of stalls that seemed conspicuously unvisited by the marketgoers.  The reasons weren’t entirely clear, though unlike most of the marketplace, a number of weapons seemed to be concealed around the stalls and on these merchants, though admittedly not especially well.

Father Boravdgaz lead the group past the stalls, and, in the back corner, to a large stone door cut into the back wall of the hall.  It was flanked by two more creatures of similar build to Father Boravdgaz, albeit dressed in a way much more stereotypical for a lumpy giant; which is to say, loincloths and giant clubs.

“The patron had an appointment with these individuals,” Boravdgaz said, gesturing at Sol and Tesk.

“Appointments?” the greener of the two guards said, raising an eyebrow “Does this mean that the scryers caught someone nosing into our territory again?”

“Oh no,” Boravdgaz said, “Though were the human not favored by our patron, I probably would not allow him to leave the market without searching him.  But this is Solemn Ott.”

The guard looked a little shocked, and said “An Ott? In person?” They quickly turned and began sliding around a series of latches on the door.  ”You three should probably just go on it then.  And tell the boss this cliche troll garb is fucking cold, I want at least some decent armor and an actual weapon not, some random tree limb.”

“Do that yourself,” Boravdgaz said.  He turned to Solemn and Tesk, “I do believe my patron will see you now.”  He gestured towards the darkened hallway beyond.