((OOC: Yay. 2,000 words, anyone? My fingers hurt now.))
In Front of Meredith’s Inn
Kale
Asher Ikakois
Asher heard footsteps of a person coming up from behind him, but he did not turn to look. Instead, the purple spot on the on map distracted him. ’Why is that spot purple? Is there a large concentration of magic?’ It might have been merely a food-stain, but purple was an unusual color. ’The ink might have stained it if a liquid spilled on it, but the surrounding areas are green and nothing mixes with green to become purple.’
Ethan interrupted his thoughts, saying, “So you just gonna stand there and watch ‘im?” Asher looked back at the captain and stepped away from Artus to enable him to see the map.
’Ah, that was a mistake. Next time I must remain out of the way,’ Asher thought, displeased with himself. It was best for him to remain unnoticed and not remembered, for people rarely approved of what he was. Constructs were supposed to be unthinking and not stubborn, and Asher fulfilled the second wish, but it generally crept people out that he was able to think. ’I had better not reveal my weakness to water,’ he said to himself, and then noticed something about the map and the purple spot – it was near water. ’Water…I hope that we will not have to swim; my body will be ruined if we do.’
Soon after Ethan said that, the other party members followed Asher’s, Coelnar’s, and Artus’ leads, going outside to look at the map. Well, Coelnar was off in his own world, searching for something that he could not find. Artus noted Asher’s presence and said, “I don't believe I caught your name yesterday.”
Asher bent down and grabbed the metal plate from his bag and inscribed his response upon it, “I am called Asher Ikakois.” It was simple, but revealing much more about himself might give them hints as to what he was – Aime was fairly well-known for producing magical wonders, so a thinking construct might not be that much of a stretch.
“See any decent routes?” Ethan asked, engrossed by the map. The route that Artus seemed to want to take crossed a section of water and Asher was not enthused with the idea. Asher thought about skirting around the other side of the river, but that increased the likelihood that they would become lost, so he did not suggest that idea.
“I found this route. It looks safe, and there's no need to travel along the river." He held the map in such a way that everyone could see, clearly or not, what route his finger was tracing. "Although the river does intercept the route here at this point," he said, as he gestured at the purple spot. “I have no clue what it is though. It looks smudged. Possibly a coffee spill? Anyways, whatever, it seems like a good enough route," he said. Ethan was the next target of his gaze as he said, "Also, what was that other girl's name that was chilling with you Ethan? You know the quiet one, with the hood?
Asher more than a few misconceptions about the purple spot, but those were communicated only through the cryptic message of “Purple is an expensive dye,” on his metal plate. That flashed for only a few seconds and was then gone; the metal remained blank for the rest of the talk.
The blue-haired person echoed Asher’s suspicions about the spot, but the party was soon off to the prison.
En-route to Galvez Prison
Asher Ikakois
Their walk was long by Asher-standards, for he had been raised in a town that was fairly small and civilized. It had been weird at times, but never had any grueling marches. The construct was barely breathing more than when he had started, but Artus was dripping sweat. Keres, despite his dark clothes, seemed to be fine.
The group approached a house. Asher could smell an intriguing scent from where he was, but he could not identify it. It smelled slightly sweet, yet it reminded him of rotten meat. He was curious, but he would not take the lead in investigating it and so followed the rest of the party to the house. The other members leaned against the side of the house, in the cool shade, while Artus went around the back of the house. There, his curiosity got the best of him and he went to explore.
’I know that this is breaking and entering, but the law does not apply here,’ he thought to himself, trying to justify their break-in. ’Perhaps this is a house for people who are way-laid, and this was its intended purpose.’. Still, the house was subject to Asher’s suspicion, but his need to explore was far more powerful than his sense of self-preservation. He held his bag closer to him and went to investigate the house.
He ventured into the kitchen; nothing of interest was there in the immediate vicinity, so he decided to check out the pantry. It was a walk-in pantry and partially filled with foodstuffs, but some of them looked rather dubious. There was another compartment in the lower half – it was a cabinet. One of the doors was slightly jammed (the other was firmly stuck), yet Asher had very little difficultly opening it. Inside, there were many varieties of potions; Asher kneeled down and stuck his head and the top part of his torso inside it to investigate further. Unfortunately, the leather strap of his bag got caught on a hook on the inside of the cabinet near the door. He took no notice of that and continued to search the cabinet. He felt several different types of bottles, but he could not identify them all by touch – only one. It was the most common variety of potion and was always packaged in that sort of bottle.
Unexpectedly, Artus yelled, “Look out guys, here they come!”
Asher was surprised and nearly jumped into the air, except the cabinet’s top was in the way and he ended up hitting his head. ’Ow. At least I cannot get concussions, but who is coming?’ he thought, without frantically trying to escape the cabinet. ’Are they the owners of the house? I hope that we have not disturbed them.’ He paused for a bit to wonder, and then he realized what the scent he had smelled earlier was. ’I know that odor from before…or at least how it’s described in books – slightly sweet, but sickening. It’s a body.’ He knew about the world from books and people that he had met, so it was not wonder that he had guessed the origin of the scent so slowly.
Yells rang out from outside and Asher could hear some bits and pieces of originally-coherent sentences, but now all he could understand was that there was fighting.
He attempted to hasten his escape from the cabinet, but was prevented by the hook that had a hold of his bag. ’Why is there a hook here? If the owner of the house wanted a convenient bottle-opener, then shouldn’t they put it in a drawer?’ he thought, incredulous. He moved his hand to investigate the hook and was stopped by the amount of bottles. ’If I move my arm to get my bag’s strap untangled, then I’ll knock a few of the bottles over, and if they break or spill their contents will be everywhere. I do not know what they contain, so being cautious would be best. I know that I’ll be of no help if I am to fight, so this is probably the best thing for me right now.’ He gingerly maneuvered the bottle with the healing potion in it to a place where he could grab it easily if he got out, and then shuffled other bottles into the space that it left behind. He did that several times over, and by the time that the fighting was done, he was free to unhook the bag. He did so, took the potion, stood up, brushed himself down, closed the pantry door, and nearly ran outside.
Everyone seemed exhausted, and they would not be eager to read, so Asher pointed at the bottle and then back to the house, attempting to indicate that he had found the bottle in the house. Artus thanked him for the potion and took several swigs from it before passing it around the group. ’I hope that he is not sick; if he is, then we’ll have other problems on our han—wait! What is Keres doing?’ He stared at Natalia deliberately placing her hand upon Keres’ shoulder, which seemed to be damp. His clothes around the shoulder were soaked in a liquid, and Asher knew that he was hurt. The necromancer did his best to hid that, but Coelnar noticed and healed him.
Natalia attempted to touch Keres again and triggered a reflex in him, leading to her being pushed up against a tree-trunk and Keres threatening her. She cast a spell that blew Keres away. He got up as a cat would, trying to shrug off the humiliation and pretending that it had never happened. She looked smug, and Artus hurried over to the pair to halt any fights that might break out. Keres said something that ticked both off, as usual, and then the group was off.
Brimstone Cave
Asher Ikakois
The sun’s heat was relentless as the group walked on, and tempers seemed to be flaring, which did not bode well. The path to the house had been a wide, comfortable one, but it seemed to be shrinking, which worried Asher. They were headed into territory that was not often traversed. He wanted to know what lay to the side of the path, but going off to explore was probably a dumb idea, now that they had established that there were enemies. As they walked, their surroundings changed, becoming rockier, drier, and bumpier. Between two hills lay the mouth of a cave. There seemed to be no paths leading away from the cave, only a path leading into it. The entrance of the cave was suspicious, but Artus said, “Well, apparently, this purple blur thingy is a cave...I guess.” Asher did not like that “…I guess” part one bit.
The spider webs covering the mouth of the cave were easily disposed of by Artus’ sword, and, as they went deeper and deeper into the cave, Asher got more and more suspicious. But, as evidenced before, as the construct gets more and more suspicious, he starts to itch more and more for exploration. He wanted to know why there were giant webs covering the cave, why it smelled strange, and why the heck there was a path through it and not around it. The whole cave smelled like rotten eggs, which Asher thought did not bode well, and he pinched his nose to keep the scent out. Having better senses than humans came at a price.
Keres was being sarcastic and not helping their efforts, but Asher attributed that to having been injured, walking in the hot sun in dark clothes, and having had a small quarrel with Natalia. Artus apparently smelled the same thing that Asher did, and said, “Keres, you let one loose didn't you?” Asher began to move to immediately behind Keres to prevent him from launching an attack on Artus, but he seemed to have better self-restraint than that.
His response proved that he could, miraculously, communicate with words. The necromancer said, “I hope you die!” Asher grew even more worried that Keres would…assist in Artus’ demise.
The farther in the cave that the party went, it got darker, but only to a point. As soon as they could hear water, the cave began to get lighter. Asher suspected that it was because the group’s eyes had begun to adjust to the low-light conditions, but gaps disproved him. The water sounded as if it was a stream, but Asher thought that it might be the cave amplifying the sound. There was fungus on the ground, and Asher knelt down to poke at one. He was extremely curious as to what species it was, but he would have to take samples now and identify later, as they were coming to a fork in the path. He quickly broke some of the fungus off and placed in one of his bag’s compartments.
“Ummm...which way should we go?” Artus asked, stumped. Asher stayed behind him and remotely examined both paths. His eyes widened as he realized the implications of a stream underground, and the dry and hilly area around the cave. There was potential for a flash flood, so he desired to get as far away from the water as he could. The water was bad. At this distance from the water, though, he could not tell down which path the water was.
He dug around in his bag and pulled out his plate of metal. Quickly, he used his magic to inscribe, “We should thoroughly consider our options before deciding.” ’That is not what I truly mean to say, but that is perhaps the most polite thing to say, now. I hope that whichever path that we take is the one without water.’ He stood still, holding the metal, not forcing anyone to read it.
