Dubhaine Family/Moira/Roleplays/2020/August

Dubhaine Family
Fame	40
Wealth	19485
Home Region	Ashforth
Home World	East Continent

Clan Dubhaine:

• Aednadh
• Aibhlidhn
• Aoifa
• Brigdha
• Cathal
• Ciarghuala
• Etain
• Moira
• Rhidhana
• Scein
• Threiginion

13th August

Summer Evening - Jyl

Moira

"It'll be good to sleep in a proper bed tonight," Reia sighed and shifted the pack on her shoulder as she backed herself against the tavern door, wearily forcing it open. At this time of year the journey from Ircymbar was a dusty trudge across the plains north of Lake Salaman, doing their best to avoid the rapacious toll collectors who seemed to be ever-present since the fall of Grehkia, and like many seasoned adventurers before them the two companions were desperate for a decent meal, a hot bath, and a soft mattress.

"Aye, it's been a while," Moira put a hand out to hold the door for her travelling companion. Reia always insisted on carrying their baggage even though they had ample gold for a horse or a good mule. Moira had long since given up arguing the point. You could take the woman out of the Paladin, but you could never take the Paladin out of the woman.

"Don't you ever miss it? You know, the silks and the servants and the sweetmeats?" they'd had this conversation many, many times over the years, and it stood as a proxy for many things. They'd formed their deep friendship long ago and far away, both exiles from the wreckage of once-glorious Fontan.

"Any fool can put on graces and command men in battle, and I've known more than my fair share who've done so. Anyway, I'm intrigued to learn what our good friend Brand's got himself involved in," Moira changed the subject as she always did, looking around for an empty table. Nobility had suited her well enough in her youth but she'd long since abandoned that life as hollow and meaningless.

It was still early in the morning and the Cock & Sparrow was getting it's daily scrub, but Moira was well known in these parts as an agent of Her Majesty and the hostess hurried over to greet them, a no-nonsense matron in middle age with arms like hams and a ruddy complexion, "I take it you'll be wanting your usual room Mistress?"

"If it's available," Moira unbuckled her weapons, resting them gently against the wall, "and hot baths after we've eaten."

"POTHRICK!! Come fetch these bags! POTHRICK!!"

A heavy-set young man with a scraggly beard and a mop of unruly hair emerged from the back rooms with a broom in hand, "I'm busy scrubbing out the kitchen mamy, can't it wait?"

"Don't you give me no lip you good for nothing lazybones, we have guests and they don't want to hear your whinging. Take Mistress Moira's luggage up to her usual room and tell Florry to boil the copper and set the bath up."

"Yes mamy," he propped the broom by the bar with a resigned sigh and wiped his hands dry on his apron. During the brief moments when he wasn't busy with chores he'd dream of running off to join the Angry Agyrians, or better yet making his fortune as a bold adventurer, but he knew he didn't have the stomach for fighting. Better to work for his mamy with three square meals a day and the prospects of one day taking over the business. Perhaps he'd even convince Florry to marry him when he had gold of his own in his pockets. They could have a huge brood of fat, rambunctious children to do all the dirty jobs he hated.

"Your lad's grown since we last passed this way," Reia handed Pothrick her pack and pulled up a chair.

"He certainly has Mistress. Twice as big and four times as ugly," her smile belied the harshness of her tone. Pothrick was a hard worker for all her jibes and bright to, quick with numbers and accounts. Jyl may not be a large city like those on the coast but it was the jewel of Jylmark with a constant flow of trade to the interior and she had ample coin to find him a good bride, a merchant's daughter at the very least. Maybe even a Magistrate's if she played her cards right.

"It's been a good hundred leagues since last had a decent meal," Moira sat opposite her companion, "what can you rustle us up at this time of day?"

"There's a side of beef from last night if you fancy cold cuts and cheese, or else I can have Pothrick fire up the hotpot once he's prepped your room. That's got a nice bit of hogget along with some tender pearl barley and there's freshly baked bread to mop it up with."

"We'll have two bowls of the hotpot then and some of that thick mead you're famed for," Moira knew Reia had a fondness for that but would never order it herself, "though probably best you dilute it or we'll be asleep before we've even eaten."

16th August

Summer Day - Jyl

Brand

Jyl, location 

the Cock & Sparrow

Brand sat in a corner, his bandages still red from fresh blood.

His last hunt brought him to 9 giant Beasts, lurking in a dark cave; Brand almost killed them all.

Almost.

31st August

Summer Day - Seven Rivers

Jacinda

All three books combined, and with enough time, the text starts to make sense. You read it, and it engulfs you. Techniques you never dreamt about enter your mind, and in your mind you follow them. Then you notice that you have started following them with your body as well.

In your dream-like state, you ambush a group of 13 monsters. To your big surprise, you start cutting them down, one by one. This one with a poison needle from the trees, that one into a spiked pit, those two with a trap, and so on.

Before you know it, the entire group has been wiped out.

As soon as you wake from your trance, you find that you have forgotten all this ancient lore. Worse yet, it seems that the book is nowhere to be seen.

Jacinda looked at the carnage around her, eyes wide. She had never seen this many alpha monsters, much less all at once, and all dead.

By her hand.

And she wasn't even tired.

She didn't know what to make of this. But she hoped the Queen would be happy.

Summer Evening - Seven Rivers

Brand

Jyl, location : the Cock & Sparrow

Brand sat in a corner, waiting for Moira; his bandages still red from fresh blood.

His last hunt brought him to 9 giant Beasts, lurking in a dark cave; Brand almost killed them all.

Almost.

Moira

"Looks like someone's been in the wars," Moira said cheerily, sitting herself down opposite her old friend and sliding a bottle of grain alcohol in his direction, along with some fresh linen bandages. Brand probably had ample of his own but the gesture was meant kindly.

Life as an adventurer was a brutal affair, sticking your nose into places sensible people avoided for fear of death. And whilst poking around in crypts and abandoned ruins was a far cry from the glory of the battlefield, without the watchfulness of their informal brotherhood life would be a damn sight less bearable for the common folk. She'd never asked Brand what had drawn him into this way of life, nor had she offered details of her own shadowed past and the exile which had brought her first to Dwilight's Zuma-haunted shores and then here to Beluaterra.

None of that really mattered. They were two rootless wanderers, scions of families who wouldn't or couldn't acknowledge them, and they did a dirty job no one else would do. That made them kin in a world that respected birth more than competence and gold more than courage.