West Marches - Beneath the Surface, Quiz's Counterpoint

West Marches - Beneath the Surface, Quiz's Counterpoint

There was no indication of time in the Estate House of Moray, but somehow, the Dwarves all seemed to have some internal clock to their rhythms. Celebratory drinking and song eventually gave way to sombre storytelling and the dull clink of passing coin and card. Over time, the dwarves came to a drunken state of rest, emaciated from their predicament as they were, their constitutions yielded to strong drink. Around him, Sedriks idly plucked at the Viola like a guitar, watching and nodding as handfuls of small brass and silver coins were deposited on the table before him.



When all finally came to silence, the Bard rose to his feet and made a way through the estate halls. The dull rumble of snoring covered any sound of boots, dwarves were packed into the estate in the passages, some sleeping upright propped against doorjams, laying in arches, even with heads tucked beneath art and curtain. It was truly a state of tension that had been loosed, they had lived for so many unending weeks in misery and horror, now given hope. A kind of easing that allowed them to cut loose.

Sedriks paid it little mind, instead fingers idly traced over the newly repaired Kruekella plates. An industrious crafterdwarf had already restored the armor, almost with Sedriks’ still in it. But the fingers still beheld the just-healed wounds, tracing what should have been very final gashes. A duelist, a fencer, a killer, all of those voices and lives in the Bard’s mind had known as that hound’s fel bite tracked into the stomach. Fatal. Only by miracle and Oadira’s talent had she lived. Luck. Cursed luck.

In the quiet of the Estate garden, Ceridwen found what she was looking for.

This greenery space was off-limits for the dwarves. With good reason. For until the outsiders had come, it was their main source of food. Carefully lined beds and troughs of mushrooms were cultivated, lichen, plants, vines, strange dwarven roots and tubers that trundled their way through precious soil. The food stores were carefully guarded by a pair of dwarves in plate armor, but Kullae had proclaimed the Whiskey Riders heroes, and so they simply shrugged and allowed the Bard free roam.

Not that filching a potato was ever on Ceridwen’s list of tasks anyway.

Instead, the center of the garden had a tree. A twisted grey-briar. Probably gifted dozens of generations ago to the family by elves, how it grew in the darkness and torchlight was anyone’s guess, but it had not only grown. But thrived. It now towered an easy thirty hands tall, gnarled thick branches expanded in every direction, thorny and sharp. On the surface, it might’ve cast shade for a dozen picnics. But here, far below the light of stars, it anchored itself in every direction with branches and root, a subterranean heart that all other plants seem to bow in benediction to.

Ceridwen picked her way, careful and methodical to its massive trunk. Knelt, and with bare hands, cast her mind over the tree.

A tune rose, unbidden in her voice. Eerie and sonorous at once. It took no effort, like breathing.

“Jack. Help me. I need more power. I almost died today because I was too weak, too unlucky. Help me. Help me. Help me.”

How long she knelt there, in the darkness with her own song, no one would be able to say. Silent small tears fell, as the almost voiceless please became countertone to the musical refrain.

But some time later, she rose. Muscles creaked and there was a cool ache. Ceridwen stepped away, with iron and darkness in her gaze.

And as she walked away, the grey-briar’s branches brushed softly through her hair in love for its most precious daughter.

Quiz’s Counterpoint
Quiz watched his friend from the shadows, stretching and closing his tired muscles around his staff. Some of the others had come off the worse at the Aqueduct battle, but the one javelin scratch he'd taken had been smoothed and sealed by time, fire, and Oadira's skills.

So he was alert and sharp, watching Sedriks make his... her... whatever. Make their way to the manse's largest tree. (He still wasn't good at telling when the Sedriks side was out and when his fencer friend let her hair down, so to speak.)

The prickly grey tree Sedriks had found wasn't anything special in Quiz's eyes — maybe the largest plant in the stunted underground cavern, but it had a sickly, malnourished look. Still, he didn't have the best eye for trees. His element was fire, not earth.

So what was Sedriks', then?

Quiz had long suspected his friend of musically manifesting geomancer talents, which didn't surprise him — raw elemental magic seemed to beacon around him. Azais. Shamhat. Now this. The early magic lessons at Gilham Manor had confirmed it.

Or had they? Sedriks' spells during the Aqueduct fight had been potent — speed manipulation, one-way dark fog, a bewildering fear aura — but they weren't of the earth. Whatever path the bard was walking, it did not follow the elemental limitations of Quiz's magic.

Even now, watching the bard muttering softly beneath the still tree — praying? There was no divine named Jack, and he couldn't make out many words — he felt a pang of sympathy for Sedriks. Magic was painful and confusing sometimes. He would just have to watch over his friend, do whatever it took to help the magic grow and bloom into whatever form it ultimately took. They were in this together. The Riders were the closest thing he had to family.

He slipped away before Sedriks arose. Let the bard have her privacy. She had earned it.