#theweaponsmaster

@twicebetrayer, @theweaponsmaster

“What they don’t tell you when you start being sent places,” Iswen told the acolyte Doomguide as she trudged back through the swamp paths of the Mere, “is that armor will save your life, and in turn, will take hours to clean.”

The abandoned temple had gone deeper than either of them had expected; they’d had to check every room, looking for just what had gotten the local dead stirred up and generally unhappy. And of course the artifact was on the very lowest level, but at least it had only been tedious to work their way through every room and not truly dangerous.  

Once they’d descended below-ground, it had been both colder and damper, the waters - and worse - of the swamp seeping through the walls and floor, dripping onto them both. Now her chainmail felt nothing short of clammy and thick and heavy on her shoulders, and she dreaded the time it was going to take to get the mud and slime out of the links.

When they’d finally emerged from the temple, she could see that it was lighter - even under the thick trees of the Mere - and her shield had felt too damn heavy on her arm; he couldn’t have been in much better shape even if he was more used to the hours.

As it happened, her camp had been closer than his home, and she’d gladly offered him at least a respite after the work of the night.

She had just a moment to be relieved when she scrambled up the low slope and looked down on a meadow that was not covered in swamp water, her camp tucked on the far side, by the treeline. Then she looked at the two horses grazing, and realized just what that meant. “Oh, fuck,” she said without thinking.

Nobody tweaks /my/ ears.

Room for three~?

The mercenary lets out an unnecessarily long sigh of exasperation. “Truly, you wound me, my friend. I’d thought that in all of our decades of association, that you’ve paid me sufficient attention to know the answer to that! Alas, it appears that I am wrong, and I’ve apparently been too loathsome for you to gaze upon for prolonged periods of time. Nonetheless, in honor of those many decades, I shall entertain the trouble of demonstrating the answer to you.” He turns to face the weapons master fully and tilts his large hat back to offer an unobstructed view of his face. Then, slowly, and with great exaggeration, Jarlaxle widens his uncovered eye, then just as deliberately closes it, squeezing it shut until the corresponding side of his face wrinkles. He holds that expression for several heartbeats, and finally, although still very gradually, his eye finally returns to its usual state of openness.

@theweaponsmaster

"I barely believed it myself, but it really happened. The drow seemed ... almost gentle.” The petite redhead was surrounded by a half dozen gossiping villagers who were discussing the arrival of a certain drow visitor and what to do about him.

“So, you think we should give this one the opportunity to cut us down in our sleep then?” The elderly gentleman peered toward her and huffed. He had a bulbous nose and puffy redness in his cheeks that darkened with his mood. Ayane didn’t like him much. He had an irascible manner that made him impossible to reason with. Worse yet, she could hear the grumblings of agreement in the crowd. She was losing them fast.

Fëanáro knew three things of this elf: that his name was Zaknafein, that he was a warrior worthy of wielding his swords, that he had once dwelt under the earth. Knowing these three things had been enough, for Fëanáro did not seek friendship, being at peace with his convinction that he would find none, here or elsewhere.

Now Zaknafein returned to him holding a blade. Two pieces of a blade, to be precise, which Fëanáro recognised as the work of his own hands --- broken, as if the edge had hit something directly, something that had revealed itself too hard to be cut. He blinked, not hiding an astonishment that dangerously turned into outrage by the second. 

« And how did you do this? What did it, pray tell? »

Although he wanted to know, nearly wounded in pride, and a wounded pride made him impatient, restless in energy, that story would not be told on his threshold. Zaknafein was hardly a guest, but only enemies were kept from passing through his gates. So he turned and invited the other elf in with a gesture of two of his fingers, cutting and quick. 

His house was a forge, built next to a forest so that he would never run out of wood to feed to the flames. It served as a warehouse in its part detached from the rest, as a living place in its closed rooms, as a smithy in its half open ones. The tools were his, the apron thrown upon a chair was his, the decorations were his, the very charcoal dust staining the table like burn marks was his. He moved in the spaces of what he had built like the a wave of heat makes the air tremble above the ground. 

Devon shotsa look around to be sure that nobody is truly going to see them, and he returnsthe bro fist in an equally dignified manner.