Hydaelyn Role-Players

"You're gonna draw attention if you don't stay low, kiddo," Thal grunted and stepped around K'aijeen. "I'm not really a fan of killing people anyway. So stay quiet and preferably out of sight while we get through this."

"Not a fan of dying." K'aijeen uttered in frustration. "Or being dead." She fell in line behind Thal, however, keeping herself bundled up and concealed.

*

Baoht Zuqqa Roh lingered, glaring at the wall that had arisen in front of him. This was not luck. This was not the will of Ifrit. This was the magic of the children of Men, the lesser elementals, the dirt and the dead. Weak but cleverly employed. Undeserving of triumph. Baoht Zuqqa Roh was insulted, and he slid a metal shaft across his bow. He would hunt them down before they even left Zunr'ak.

However, when the Roh turned around, he found himself face-to-face with the Priests of Embers, a collection of dusty-scaled Amal'jaa Chahs with their staffs grinding between their hands and their small eyes glaring. Before the Roh could even think to respond to their sudden appearance, the foremost among them barked, "The Bowl lies open! The sacrifices smolder. Soon Ifrit's fires will turn to tempering, and I hear that you have murdered Shan'Gai Chah."

Fist tightening around his bowstring, Baoht Zuqqa Roh growled. "Do you see the corpse of a Chah?"

"I see a molten dais and no living Chah." The Priest looked at his fellows, collecting nods of ascent. "In a moment, however, I suspect I will see the corpse of a Roh."

"No one is."

He tried not to look around too much as they walked, keeping to unpopulated paths and judging north as best he could. A few Amal'jaa looked their way, but he kept his head down and did his best to look as slave-like as possible. Hopefully it fooled them all. As the fortifications and encampments thinned out so did the cliffs and canyons, until Thal found himself faced with largely flat land, dotted with sparse shrub and the occasional low barrier or camp. "Might have to break for it soon," he muttered.

Following Thal dutifully, K'aijeen was silent and restrained. She kept her face down and the rags of the robe bundled about her. The Amal'jaa's own stink and the pervasive sulfurous fumes would kept any of them from noticing the pervasive stench of death that still clung to K'aijeen, as if it were in her very bones.

Once they were far enough out that Thal was willing to speak, K'aijeen let her ears pop up to hear him and lifted shrouded face to look at him, able to see decently through the thin cloth stretched over her face. The feeling of the rag on her eyes was the least uncomfortable sensation she was currently contending with. Rolling her chin to loosen the muscles in her throat, she croaked. "I can call a wind. Dust."

"Great, cover. Be my guest," he shrugged his shoulders against the weight of the Tia he carried, and wondered just how long the guy would remain unconscious. "Because if they do notice us, it'll be when they see supposed slaves to Ifrit just walking right off camp." He kept moving as he spoke, his voice as low as he could manage. The hood over his head cast a shadow over half the mask and completely hid his eyes in inky darkness.

K'aijeen did as she'd proposed. she used the staff as a walking stick for a moment, keeping her pace up while working one hand in slow circles to conjure up subtle green lines in the air. The power grew and the dirt around her moved. She stopped walking and brought this power to the head of the staff, where it was magnified greatly. She couldn't help the rags from blowing out from her, revealing her for a moment as a dead body wrapped in a shredded shroud, but this vision passed quickly. As she moved the wind, she worked her conjury into the dirt as well, upsetting the foundation and pitching a fine dust into the firmament. She made sure the cloud did not focus on them, but spread crookedly towards the cliffs behind them, slicing with a subtle bite of skin and scale before wrapping back outwards over the outlying fires and ironworks they were walking past. When she was done, she trotted forward to catch up with Thal, letting the winds she'd stirred up move on their own, the heat of the ground dancing with the cooler winds. It would settle quickly, but not immediately.

Thal let his own steps quicken as the wind picked up, trusting that the girl would keep up on her own. The shroud of dust made it difficult to see, but he kept himself going in the same general direction towards which they'd already been moving. He could make out the dark silhouettes of short ramparts, or the occasional large shape that must have been Amal'jaa. But dust storms were common here, and he heard no sounds of alarm that would suggest the beastmen considered the winds to be anything other than natural.

After a short time, his feet his wood that creaked beneath his weight and swayed, and he froze for a moment. A bridge? He recalled passing over canyons with the hunter and grimaced. Ducking his head at the dust, which had begun to thin, he continued across the bridge at a somewhat more hurried pace. It was a good thing his body did not tire.

K'aijeen paused once they were beyond the bridge, lifting herself to her full, modest height, to look back at the Amal'jaa "city" of Zunr'ak. The cloud she'd made was beginning to fade, and the firelight she made out seemed distant. She turned to look towards Thal, "We are almost away. Should be safe soon."

As long as that hunter didn't send anyone after them. Or come after them himself. But Thal didn't voice these concerns; they were just unnecessary worry for the kid. He could handle keeping them moving easily enough.

He didn't speak again until the fires of the Amal'jaa stronghold were only vague, nearly invisible glows on the horizon, leaving the two of them in shadow and moonlight. "On the bright side," he began, forcing a chipper note into his voice, "I've got you some new clothing." A pause. "Well, not new. But it's better than... that."

Following after Thal in silence, when he said this, her ears stood up in confusion, and then lay down flat. She tugged at the rags around her. "A dead slave's tattered death shroud."

Around this time, K'ile's tail shifted, and his ears twitched, the first sign that there might be come life left in the man.

K'aijeen gestured towards the derelict Tia's firey head. "I want his shirt."

"I'm not gonna undress some guy just because he might have a better shirt." Thal shook his head. Blue eyes followed the slight twitching of a red tail in silence for a moment, and then he let out a sigh that rattled his chest. "Besides, it would just make him angrier, and I kind of want him not trying to kill us." The cloth shroud was also uncomfortable, blocking the clear desert air from his skin. He spent so long shrouded by the forest, it seemed ridiculous to wander around in a blanket when he didn't have to. "When we get past the canyon ahead, we'll stop and you can change."

K'aijeen growled at that, or as close to such a sound as she could make with her neck wound exposed and filling with sand. She emitted a scratchy gargling.

The Tia over Thal's shoulders remained stationary for a long time. Too long to be a good sign. His ears and tail continued to move for awhile before finally his fingers started to flex, his limbs stirring in confused numbness.

There wasn't much Thal could do about the girl's anger. Some of it he probably deserved, for leaving her with the Amal'jaa perhaps - or at least, for agreeing to help the hunter in the first place. But then he had every right to be angry at her, so a part of him wasn't too impressed with how quick she got pissy at him. He didn't point this out, however, choosing to walk in silence, and when silence became too boring he hummed a few, quiet tunes he must have picked up from somewhere but could never place.

They reached the pass north in an unnatural time, having no need to stop for rest, and Thal's steps even gained a bit more energy as they made their way through it, happy to have some distance between them and Ifrit's children. The end of the pass was in sight when the Tia hung over his shoulder began to move in ways more noticeable than the occasional twitch of tail or ear, and it brought a frown to Thal's face. He said nothing to the man immediately, though, instead commenting apropos of nothing, "You and I are going to need to have a long talk at the end of this, kid." The "talk" didn't sound particularly friendly.

As K'ile's strength began to come back, he began to struggle. His weak arms moved against Thal's back and his knees pushed against Thal's wounds. The Tia's tail shivered and his voice couldn't manage much more than an angry groan.

Watching this, K'aijeen gripped her staff tightly. She glared at the shifting Tia, appearing prepared to do something about him.

When Thal could no longer ignore the Tia's stirrings he tightened his grip around the man and muttered a warning, "I'll knock you out again if you keep squirming." They were nearly free of the pass, which would lift a good chunk of the weight on Thal's chest, so he picked up his pace a bit despite the shifting body over his shoulder. "I'm gonna get you back to where you belong. But I wouldn't mind your help."