Monster Party Book Seven: There's some things you're never gonna help or change, but hunger is something we can turn around!
Chapter One: Hungry like the wolf.
The mists swirled deep and heavy, gathering together so thickly that if you held out your hand you wouldn't be able to see your own fingers.
People avoided such thick mist whenever possible, if you entered it there was no telling what sort of danger you might end up blundering into blindly. Even if you took the precaution of standing completely still, you might still be transported halfway across the Core. The Mists did as they pleased, and even the mightiest mages in the world had not yet discovered a spell that could thwart their will.
So those who could avoid the Mists did, and counted their blessings every time they avoided an unknown and likely unpleasant fate. Those who would not be allowed such mundane niceties as always waking up in the same realm in which they had fallen asleep, strove to face such bizarre events with good humor, or at least stoic acceptance. It was nothing that could be planned for or plotted against, so one had best simply roll with the punches.
As one such rolling fog bank passed through a desolate land of skeletal trees, a woman who saw it approaching let out a shriek of horror.
Then, knowing full well she had no chance of flight, the woman threw herself into the rolling cloud of mist, prepared to accept her fate.
A pair of strong arms seized her roughly, and then suddenly the cloud of mist was gone, and the woman could see who held her.
It was a tall man in a black vaguely martial uniform which had been marked with a few strange silver symbols. His hair was likewise a shinning silver and grew unnaturally long, falling well down past his shoulders. His left eye was bright green, but his right was covered by a black eye-patch.
As the man in turn was finally able to see exactly who and what he had seized, his black gloved grip loosened slightly, certain that the woman posed no threat to him.
Indeed, the woman seemed to be barley clinging to life. Her clothes and hair were a hideous matted ruin, stained by both mud and blood alike. Her brown eyes were wide with shock, and her weakened limbs did nothing to try and resist the man's grip.
"Seek Mard. Mard will know what to do. You can find her towards the sun's rising." The woman whispered, turning her head back the way that she had just come.
"Florence, healing now!" Alexander insisted.
In response a woman clad in a strange green leotard like outfit stepped forward. Her eyes, like the man's were green, but a deeper green, like the color of leaves in summer after a long rain. Even her skin had a faint green tinge to it, and her blond hair was rough and almost straw like in its texture. In her hands she gripped a wooden staff, and pressed it gently against the wounded woman, while rapidly whispering words.
She could not speak them fast enough though, in fact before she could even properly begin, the woman's eyes had rolled back in her head as she abruptly perished.
As the corpse sagged in the man's hands he sighed and slowly knelt to the ground before letting go of her.
"She's gone..." He sighed despondently.
It would not be the first time Alexander Diamondclaw had been forced to watch someone die while being utterly helpless to save them, but even so…
"Well, that isn't a bad omen at all. I bet today is gonna be a great day!" Declared Callan Wright, a dirty blond haired blue eyed (said eyes were made to look all the more icy blue by the lenses which they lay behind) man with false joviality.
He was dressed in a brown cloak, beneath which could be seen a blue outfit of some sort, and red tie. On his belt he wore many differently colored potions, and strapped his back was a strange almost unnaturally slender firearm.
"We've seen worse omens." Answered Devi Skye, a brown eyed, blue haired woman.
Looking closely a said oddly colored hair it was possible to see a pair of pointed ears poking out of it, suggesting she was not human, but an elf. She wore a flail gently wrapped around her right arm like a metallic serpent.
"Are you sure that there's nothing you can do Florence?" Piped up a the voice of James Firecat.
He was a young looking man dressed in red jacket and pants. Atop his head he wore a red wide brimmed hat that covered nearly all of his hair, but from the back it was possible to see that indeed it was also scarlet.
His brown eyes went wide and sorrowful as he also got down on his knees to helplessly inspect the dead woman.
Florence Bastien could only lower her staff and slowly shake her head.
"I can kindle and encourage the flame of life, but once it has been extinguished..." She lamented.
"So, our mysterious woman is dead. What should we do next, stand around and gape at how depressing everything is?" Mirri Catwarrior called out in a tone of inappropriate good cheer.
She was a tall woman (though still shorter than Alexander) dressed in a white jacket and black pants. She wore a white hat tilted back slightly so it was possible to see her might black hair that was parted in the middle by a streak of white.
Her eyes were a strange ruby red color that were captivating in the extreme. She wore a pair white of gloves and was currently resting them upon her hips in a state of utter indifference.
"What do you think killed her?" James half whimpered, his lip quivering slightly.
Alexander began to carefully probe the dead woman's outfit, trying to determine what damage had been done to it simply by the passage of time, and what had a more recent cause.
The woman's body was gaunt in the extreme, as if she had been on the brink of starvation, and it clearly wouldn't have taken much to cut her life short. There were red gaping wounds on her legs, and as Alexander ran his gloved hands along the wounds he nodded to himself.
"Wolf bites. She was thin enough to be half dead already, but wolves finished the job." He declared with the utmost confidence.
"So what do we do with her? It is too wet to bury her..." James worried.
Indeed the soil they now stood upon was half mud, any attempt to dig a proper grave would have been an exercise in futility.
"We'll take her with us, if we find the 'Mard' that she was so interested in, maybe they will be able to take care of her remains." He decided.
Then Alexander picked up the dead woman's corpse and slung it over his shoulders in a somewhat rough manner.
Luckily (for a given value of the term) the rain which had dampened the ground so recently had ceased before the adventures arrived. A weakly shining sun poked out through the heavy clouds giving them a path to be followed.
They struck out towards the sun, hoping that they'd be able to find the "Mard" person that the dead woman had spoken of.
The first thing they found was another nearly decrepit tree, beside which rested a bundle wrapped in swaddling clothes. A gaunt wolf was nuzzling at the bundle awkwardly, but no sooner did the group begin to approach than it let loose with a pathetic whine and retreated. Alexander laid the corpse down, and inspected the bundle.
Inside it, he discovered a small child's skeleton.
"Well, this place is just full of amusing and delightful discoveries..." Mirri Catwarrior snickered.
"At least now I know what we need to do with this corpse..." Alexander declared solemnly.
A slow mournful howl went up from their surroundings. Any theories of how the wolf's near starving state might suggest that it had recently been chased from its pack were promptly proven false.
An entire pack full of half starved wolves began to slowly approach the group. They looked like they had more mud and fur covering their bones than anything else.
Alexander slowly got down on his knees, and began to inch towards the largest of the wolves. It was a great black beast with a white blaze across his chest.
Slowly a smile came to Alexander's face as his green eye looked directly into the wolf's orange ones.
"You're trying hard aren't you? Wherever we are, there isn't much to hunt? Even as the alpha, you still haven't been getting enough to eat. Here, you earned this kill..." Then he rolled the corpse across the ground towards the wolves.
"Um, Alex, are you sure about this…?" James couldn't help but quibble slightly with his commander's choice.
Alexander straightened up and gave a profound sigh, followed up with a heavy shrug.
"Burying her remains wasn't an option. Besides, what have worms ever done for me, that they should be given first claim to this woman's flesh?" He added as the pack began to gather around, eager to feast.
"Is there still time to request a proper traditional burial, or are we all going to inevitably end up feeding your furry friends?" Cal couldn't help but ask, trying to look away from the happily masticating predators.
"Cal, what difference do you really think it is going to make, to you? You'll be dead. Whatever other faults it has, death will inevitably solve all your problems." The silver haired man shot back.
"If you're lazy." Mirri huffed in disapproval.
"Florence, why don't you explain to the others exactly what happens to people when they die?" Alexander suggested, and just let the matter hang there for the moment.
"How about she doesn't, and we just pretend she did?" Cal abruptly suggested, having a pretty good theory of how that lecture would go.
"Do you think they'll leave us alone once they're done eating?" Devi pondered, rubbing a blue gloved hand against her flail.
"As much as wolves ever leave me alone." Alexander answered with a small touch of a smile.
"They're some of the hungriest look wolves I've ever seen..." James awkwardly noted, striving to not have his normally upbeat mood be crushed by their less than optimal situation.
"Yes, they're hungry." Alexander insisted, his one eye locked on the wolves.
While they were busy eating, the lupines staid still enough that Alexander could have counted their ribs… a testament to their desperate need for sustinence.
"Wolves aren't like tigers. They don't develop an insatiable taste for human flesh just because they've had one meal of it." Alexander insisted, crossing his arms calmly.
"They are like tigers in one way… they typically only attack humans if the humans is especially easy prey, or they wolf is hopelessly hungry." Florence countered.
"Given how starved that woman was, and how starved these wolves are, I think it might be a case of 'and' rather than 'or' at the moment." Devi pointed out.
With still more snapping of jaws and crunching of bones the wolves finished up devouring the woman whose name was still a mystery to the group. Then they turned to face Alexander, who could only hold out his hands, showing that they were empty and devoid of further nourishment.
"I'm not a god, I can't make food for you just by wishing it." Alexander told them.
The wolf pack looked momentarily dejected by this news, but only for a few moments. Then the black wolf with the white blaze suddenly lashed his tail, and tilted his ears.
A moment later Alexander was knocked to the ground as the black wolf and another slightly smaller gray furred one pounced upon him. The wolves were not especially well fed, but their combined weight was still more than enough to knock Alexander flat on his back beneath their paws.
At which point the two wolves began to pant heavily and run their tongues affectionately against Alexander's face, dampening it with their saliva.
"Cubs today..." The silver haired man sighed affectionately.
He raised up his hands to gently rub the beast's muzzles, he was careful however to always place his hands upon top rather the bottom.
The wolves wagged their tails in delight and continued to caress Alexander with their tongues as their paws kneaded affectionately at his body.
That particular greeting done, Alexander began to twist and writhe on the ground, tossing the wolves off of him, but being soft and gentle with the less than hale lupines.
"I swear, you'd think it would get to be one of those ho hum things eventually, but nope, every time I see it, it just gets freakier." Cal muttered unable to tear his eyes away from the bizarre interaction of man and beast.
"Big deal, I could do that if I wanted to, I just don't want to get wolf slobber all over me." Mirri insisted, completely unshaken by this turn of events.
When Alexander managed to toss the two wolves away from him, the rest of the pack leaped in, eager to join the game. Just like their leader these wolves showered Alexander in affection and had no desire to harm him in the slightest.
"They know their alpha." Florence reflected, her voice a mix of pride and good humor.
A moment later Alexander managed to win free of the wolves long enough to rise to his knees. In response the wolves immediately ceased with their playful romping.
Instead, they began to slowly approach Alexander with new found reverence in their posture. The silver haired man said nothing, but no words were needed.
One by one starting with the black wolf, they rubbed their muzzle (always using the bridge of their nose) against the underside of Alexander's chin. When the ritual was completed, he stood up straight, a faint smile on his lips.
"You can come with us if you want, for a while at least, I'll share what I can share." He promised them.
"Just don't share too much of my stuff..." James insisted.
Then the young man flushed nearly as red as his outfit.
"I mean, we're trying to use the jars of preservation to keep meat fresh for the first time, and I'm not sure if it'll really work..." He muttered softly, his eyes downcast.
"Don't worry about it Kitten, we've been with him longer so he won't share and share and share alike too much. Your food is my food after all." She insisted.
It was hard to say how much of the conversation the wolves understood, but evidently the meaning of Alexander's offer had been perfectly clear to them. They wagged their tails and yipped in agreement, all too eager to obey.
Looking around at the wolves, Alexander did a little quick counting.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven twelve, thirteen. Thirteen?" The silver haired man was bemused by the realization of exactly how many wolves he was dealing with.
"There shouldn't be this many of you hunting together not unless..." The sad truth struck him quickly, for it tallied perfectly with everything else he had seen so far.
The only reason why a pack would end up growing quite this large would be if the hunting was so bad that two separate packs had been forced to merge together and share hunting territory. These wolves were having an especially rough year, assuming it wasn't "several especially rough years" instead.
The group struck out again, marching in the direction of the sun, alongside their new lupine companions. The big black wolf took pride of place at Alexander's right side, with other smaller gray one (who was female and thus obviously the black one's mate) right beside him.
"So what are their names?" James asked, as if worried about needing to win his way back into the wolves' good graces after his prior display of selfishness.
"Surehunt and Swiftpaw." Alexander answered at once.
"Really?" The young man inquired enthusiastically.
"James, I've been over this before, wolves don't have names the way that we do. Only egotistical werewolves go around calling themselves by such extravagant titles." Alexander sighed in irritation.
"Clearly you speak from great experience on the subject Mr. Diamondclaw." Florence Bastien pointedly interjected.
"Hey, I earned my ego the old fashioned way, by maiming or mating with everyone who challenged it." The silver haired man insisted defensively.
"Shocked as I am to say this… but getting back to the original topic, do wolves just call each other 'hey you' all the time then?" Cal Wright chuckled to himself.
The black pelted wolf barked something.
"He goes by Gavin." Alexander explained to the others.
"Pleasure to meet you Gavin, I'm James Firecat." James introduced himself.
It is not easy for wolves to convey complete and utter exasperated derision, but somehow Gavin managed it before he barked something else.
"No, you can't chase him, even if he is an omega. He's my omega, and that makes him the most important omega in the world." Alexander insisted.
The wolf whined in disappointment.
Suddenly the group's ears were filled by the sound of a cracking whip, the creak of wheels, and the neighing of a horse. Every single one of the bakers dozen worth of wolves accompanying the group suddenly went still.
They sat down on their haunches, and turned their heads in the sound's direction as a ragged looking wagon came bouncing into view. Its driver was in a great hurry, too great a hurry.
A single wheel struck a single stone at exactly the wrong angle and the wheel came loose. It rolled away from the wagon, which promptly spilled over on its side.
The pathetic nag that had been pulling the wagon instantly began to tug and yank at its harness with a desperate urgency. It could see the oversized wolf pack that lay directly ahead of it, but it could do nothing to move the wagon now, leaving it completely trapped in place.
The wolves approved of this. They approved of it so greatly that they began to thump their tails against the ground in delight and a joyous howl broke out amongst the pack.
"No, I didn't do it, I already told you, I'm not a god. It was just luck. Besides, you're not allowed to eat it. Not unless I can convince its owner to let you." Alexander insisted.
What he left unsaid was given how ragged the beast looked, being eaten by wolves might be a net decrease in how much it was suffering.
Alexander and the group approached the fallen carriage, with the wolves keeping a few paces behind him. The carriage's driver proved to be a woman of considerable years, and surely considerable hunger given how loosely her clothing lay upon her. The woman's hair had gone white with age, and her blue eyes gazed carefully upon the six approaching adventurers, paying particular attention to their leader.
"The wolves love you, but I do not believe you are an akara..." The old woman declared, squinting slightly.
Alexander for his part gave the woman a close examination of his own, then turned his eye on her fallen carriage.
Though he had never met the woman before, he could recognize the make of her wagon, it was a vistani vardo.
"I wish I could have deeds worthy enough to match the love and loyalty they show me. As it stands, I just try my best." Alexander declared, bending down slightly to ruffle Gavin's fur.
"If you and your friends mean me no ill will, perhaps you could help right my carriage? I have precious little to offer, but will do you honest service for any assistance you can spare." The vistana explained.
"I like to know the name of a woman before I do strenuous acts of physical exertion for her. I'm Alexander Diamondclaw." The silver haired man introduced himself.
"Marda, sister of Callian, one of the few of my people who remain in G'Henna." Marda likewise introduced herself.
"Two points, and then I promise I'll help. One, did your sister call you Mard, and second, we're really in G'Henna?" Alexander pressed the woman.
"Yes is the answer to both questions." The aged vistana replied quickly.
An irrepressible smile came to Alexander's lips as he turned to his own companions.
"James, Mirri, help me get this vardo righted. G'Henna! After all the years I've wandered the Core and the strange places beyond it, I've finally found my way to G'Henna!" Alexander declared exuberantly.
"What's so great about G'Henna, wherever it is? Honestly we've been to some pretty horrible places in the past, so while this may not be the worst, it is still right up there with Keening for the most desolate!" Cal pointed out, though he was unable to keep a small note of pleasure out of his voice.
Most likely because he hadn't been selected to take part in said strenuous acts of physical exertion.
"You want to know why I'm so enthusiastic about being in G'Henna Cal? Because G'Henna is the land of milk and honey. Okay, that's a poor choice of words given that all the wolves, people, and horses we've met look like they haven't had a decent meal for days. So instead, let me just say that G'Henna is the land of hops and barely.
All of my favorite alcoholic beverages have come from G'Henna! Okay that is a bit of a lie also, there have been some especially wonderful lagers that brave heroes managed to smuggle out of Falkovnia.
Still, Falkovnia vintages tend to be very hit and miss, while I've almost never drunk a G'Hennan vintage that I didn't like. Alas, just as I was seriously getting into drinking, G'Henna stopped exporting the stuff.
Then when one day it suddenly vanished from the Core entirely. Do you know how horrible it is to love a vintage that is impossible to find? Now that we're actually in G'Henna though, we're not going to leave before I get a chance to purchase a hundred bottles and store them in Devi's bag of holding! We might run out eventually, but not for a very long time!" The silver haired man declared, a wide smile on his lips.
"You are, and always have been a great inspiration to us all Alex..." Florence Bastien reflected.
"Hey, I'm a simple man with simple desires. Besides, acquiring the local vintages is something that I'll actually have to make an effort to accomplish. It is not like having a showdown with the local darklord, the Mists will take care of that just fine even if I only sit around and twiddle my thumbs.
Not that he, or she, doesn't have it coming. Especially if they're the one responsible for why this place stopped exporting liquor." Alexander Diamondclaw insisted.
Then he placed his hands upon the edge of the overturned wagon.
"That's not much of a horse you have there, but it is better than nothing. Can you get it pulling while we push?" He advised Marda.
The vistani woman nodded, and did what she could to encourage her mount while Alexander, Mirri and James got to work.
Between the gaunt horse, the tall man, the young man, and the woman the four managed to heft the carriage off the ground momentarily. Marda swiftly attached a new wheel to the vardo, and managed to attach it tightly enough that the wagon would remain upright.
Once that task was completed, the horse began to paw the ground nervously, looking out at the oversized wolf pack who looked back at it all too eagerly.
"There, now that my vardo is fixed, now how did you meet my sister?" Marda inquired.
Ten awkward eyes and five silent mouths turned in Alexander's direction, happy to let the group's leader handle that particular question.
"We ran into her as we came out of the Mists, but she had already been mortally wounded." The silver haired man explained.
He did not say who or what she had been mortally wounded by.
"We were just minding our own business in Lamordia beforehand, trying to visit my folks in fact. A real shame too, there's nothing like a Lamordian summer to make a man feel like there's no need to shoot yourself in the head before he'll go crazy from cabin fever..." The alchemist added, hoping to change the subject before Marda could ask on the obvious question.
There wasn't much to be gained from his efforts though, the old vistana seemed more than canny enough to deduce the cause of her sister's death.
"You must be no stranger to hard choices, but that is all to the good at the moment. G'Henna is not an easy land for anyone. I never would have stayed here so long, but my nephew Petchko chose to become a priest of Zhakata." She informed them, though her eyes were focused mainly on the still bloody muzzles of the nearby wolves.
"First you met my sister in her final moments, and now you have helped me. This was not a chance encounter, the forces of Fate have surely touched us all this day. Come inside and let me cast the Tarokka for you." She offered.
Alexander knew better than to refuse to have his future told by a Tarokka deck, at least when it was in the hands of an elderly vistana woman.
Such women were all too likely to have only reached such a ripe old age because they possessed some measure of future sight. That said, the longer that Alexander gazed at Marda the more sure he became of something.
"Would you like some of our food first?" He finally asked, feeling unsettled by just how thin the woman was.
"Yes. Please." Marda gasped without a moment's hesitation.
There was no trace of vistani mysticism in her response, only raw, naked, hunger.
Devi reached into her bag of holding and from it produced an only slightly stale loaf of bread. Before she could get a chance to hand it over, Marda quickly snatched it up, then began to gobble it down with great abandon.
She managed to consume about a fourth of the loaf before Devi's hand seized those of the older woman in a vice like grip.
"No, that's how you kill yourself. Eat slower." The elf insisted.
Marda looked back at Devi, but the elf's brown eyes did not waver in the slightest. She was willing to match Marda gaze for gaze, waiting for the vistana to back down and admit her mistake.
People who did such things often needed the lifespan of an elf if they wished to have any hope of success.
At the moment though, Marda was perfectly willing to swallow her pride, so long as she also got to swallow some more of the bread.
Her body relaxed, and slowly so did Devi's. The elf next retrieved a small canteen full of water and passed it over. Marda ate at a more sedate pace, and washed the bread down with water, consuming every last crumb and completely emptying the bottle.
"Your gifts are much appreciated. I will do what little I can to repay you… now then, shall we enter my vardo so that I might preform a reading?" She offered, her voice more confident now that she'd gotten something to eat.
"Wait here..." Alexander informed the wolves, pointedly refraining from using the phase "stay" to instruct them.
The wolves began to paw at the ground, clearly upset by the prospect of having to sit and starve while perfectly edible horseflesh (even if the 'flesh' in question looked to be little more than skin and bones) was less than a dozen feet away.
"Be good and I'll share some of our jerky with you. It is not as good as fresh meat, but I won't make my Omega give what he has little enough of already." Alexander offered.
Gavin growled something back in clear irritation.
"Yes I realize they're supposed to eat last, but his diet is a little different than yours." The silver haired man insisted.
Then he followed Marda into the vardo.
Inside the wagon was cramped, and its owner choose to sit before a small table covered with a ragged edged black cloth. For the moment Marda was busy sorting out various little nicknacks and items of some doubtlessly occult purpose, trying to restore some sense of order to the place's oh so recently over turned interior.
"The tarokka is an ancient tool, a powerful tool, but it is also a delicate tool. Everything must be in balance first." She insisted.
As the others followed after Alexander, he held out his hands calmly.
"Take as much time as you desire. I know better than to try and rush a vistani." He replied.
Precious few were those who found themselves in a position to coerce one of the wandering people, and even fewer still were those who did not come to regret the decision to do so.
Instead, he simply sought to make himself comfortable, as did his five companions, though between them and the vardo's owner it was growing increasingly cramped. After having carefully arranged several newly lit candles, positioned a cheap pewter medallion, along with a few other minor totems and icons upon the table, Marda was finally ready.
With one bony finger she drew an invisible circle over her heart.
"We begin. Please, shuffle the cards until they are ready." The white haired woman instructed.
Alexander gingerly picked up the deck of Tarokka cards that she passed across the table to him. The cards were warm to the touch, as if alive. The adventurer knew that being asked to personally shuffle a vistana's deck was a surefire way to make the reading especially portentous to the one doing the shuffling.
It was also a show of great respect, for a proper Tarokka deck could only be crafted in the light of a full moon, some took months to complete, others years. Alexander shuffled the cards until the comfortable warmth their touch brought his fingers vanished, leaving them feeling no different than any other pieces of paper. Taking this for the appropriate sign he passed the deck back.
Marda did not shuffle or even cut the deck herself for fear or disrupting the delicate state Alexander had left the cards in. Instead, she began to lay cards one by one in a circular pattern, with a sixth final card in the center.
"Let us turn to the future. We open our eyes to that which awaits, so that by seeing our path more clearly, we will not stumble on it! The path you tread is a circle of life, of death, of deceit and hope. You have been brought here because of one in G'Henna who currently languishes in despair." The aged woman declared solemnly, then her calloused hand revealed the first card.
It showed the horrific sight of a man with the head of a beast seated upon a throne grasping a scepter of some sort. Every single visible bone in his body seemed to bend at odd or unnatural angles, from his elbows to and knees to even his fingers.
"This is the focus of your struggles, and I am not surprised to see you have drawn the darklord upright..." She reflected, her voice growing more powerful and confident as the ritual continued.
"I am, this means that it can't show up reversed at some other point in the reading. Unless your deck decides to suddenly gain a second copy of course." Alexander chuckled.
It was common knowledge that a Tarroka deck contained only one of each card, but it was not unheard of (at least in campfire stories) for it to suddenly gain extra copies of a card should it be needed for a particularly portentous reading.
It was even whispered that in some strange cases, cards that had never been in the deck to begin with would emerge.
"In the upright position this card depicts a figure of both great evil and great power. There is only one such man in all of G'Henna: Yagno Petrovna, the High Priest of Zhakata." Marda insisted.
"He's still the High Priest? He must be in what… his eighties by now? Or do you mean he had a son who took over for him?" Mirri Catwarrior cut in.
She'd had a few interactions (which was still more than any of the others) with worshipers of Zhakata in the past, and so their High Priest's name was familiar to her.
"It is the same Yagno Petrovna, there has only ever been one high priest of Zhakata. Yes he is growing older, but age alone has not been enough to dull his wits, or his appetite to see Zhakata exalted above all other gods. Do not take him lightly, for there are many who serve him, both openly and in secret." She cautioned the younger woman.
"Including, possibly, you? The Vistani have a cozy enough relationship with the Darklord of Barovia." Cal Wright pointed out, earning him an elbow to the midsection from Devi Skye.
"My sister and I were fleeing from more than just wolves before our paths crossed… Yagno's patience for those who are not utterly beholden to him is extremely thin. He has decided recently to deal with those few of my people who live in his land.
I was forced to flee the city of Zhukar scarcely ahead of a vicious mob. There is no love lost between myself and Yagno Petrovna. It would bring nothing but joy to my heart to see him brought low, his temple desecrated, and his high altar smashed. Alas, there are powers in this land that can turn aside even a Vistani curse, and at the moment they choose to grant Yagno their protection." Marda insisted.
Alexander nodded slowly, though Vistani might often choose to hide their true meaning behind carefully chosen words when dealing with giorgio, they would not make such a plain spoken declaration of hatred unless they well and truly meant it.
"If I might continue?" She coughed, already fingering the next card she planned to reveal.
Alexander gave her a small nod and she at once continued.
"This card represents the past..." She declared solemnly as she flipped it over.
The card depicted a hooded figure with skeletal hands making arcane gestures over eight tombstones as rotted corpses began to rise from their graves.
"Hmmm, the Necromancer card. It represents dire magics, yet such spell work always claims a price, and it is always more than its caster expected. Some great evil magical ritual must have been worked in G'Henna's past, perhaps before I even first arrived." She warned the six.
Then seeing that this time they had no commentary of their own to offer she continued revealing the third card.
It bore the imaged of a silhouetted man looking out from a high tower window. The window was barred and no other light was visible except that cast by a crescent moon in the sky.
"This card, the Donjon is the present. Alas, its meaning is unclear. Does it speak of a particular prisoner currently in Yagno's grasp? Does it say that all of us here in G'Henna are already his prisoners? Perhaps some even seek to make the priest himself a prisoner! It would be no more than he deserves!" She insisted with a wicked cackle before revealing the fourth card.
Upon it was the image of a skeletal horse rearing up, perched upon its back a skull faced rider in a black cloak. The horse itself snorted fire while its rider carried a wicked looking scythe that had just claimed the head of a corpse resting at the horse's hooves.
"Here is a window to the future, and through it we can see the horseman. He is a harbinger of great destruction, Yagno's final hour could be at hand, or perhaps he is preparing to bring about the destruction of another." She warned them, unable to hide a tinge of fear from her voice.
Marda sought solace in the revelation of the fifth card.
It depicted a Vistani vardo, futilely shining a lamp into an impenetrable fog bank as it rolled along to some unknown fate.
"This card is the season of Fate, the strange powers which will influence your path. See? The circle closes with the Mists card. Everything you see will be obscured, yet you have the power to shape your own destiny if only you can perceive the truth." She insisted, comforted by a card that was at its worst simply ambiguous.
Slowly she laid her hand on the final card which lay amid the other five.
"Here is the final card, here is the key to the future, hidden among smoke and mirrors. Here among the despair that pervades this land, hope ignites like a tiny flame in the dark of night." She whispered so softly that all of her guests had to lean forward to hear her clearly.
Then she flipped over the card.
It showed a colorfully dressed young Vistani woman walking down a crowded street. With one hand she was stealthily lifting the purse of a very plump man in an overly extravagant outfit, while the other tossed a coin to a shabbily dressed man sitting with an empty bowl before him and a look of abject misery upon his face.
"The Swashbuckler. A thief by in name but not truly in deed, for they steal only from those who have too much already. Its presence here means that only the most clever will succeed, and even then only by stealing what others ignore or use for ill to instead serve a more noble end." Marda finished her reading.
"You think I am the 'swashbuckler' who has come to G'Henna, and who by some noble theft will set right all the land's ills? I doubt it will be a simple matter of pilfering Yagno Petrovna's fanciest cloak and hat, then declaring that I am the new High Priest." Alexander pondered, his voice a strange mix of rue and amusement.
"No, it will not be easy. Nothing in G'Henna is easy, even simply surviving. Still, you are the first band of travelers fresh from the Mists I have encountered in far too long." Marda insisted.
Then she suddenly leaned forward and rested her bony hands upon Alexander's cheeks. Her cold palms slowly shifted their way across his face, taking special care to rub several times up against the black eye patch he wore over his right eye.
"You have the face of a man but the soul of a beast.
Alas I have no such easy way of knowing the nature of your heart, other than by your deeds of course. Go further into G'Henna, go to Zhukar, the starving city that serves as its capital. If you do nothing else there, my nephew should be told of his mother's fate so that he at least does not suffer the pains of uncertainty." The white haired woman insisted.
Then she began to gather up the six cards and shuffle them back into the deck. As she did so however her aged fingers slipped slightly, and one card from the deck slid free to land face up and properly oriented.
The card depicted a furtively dressed man in a dark cloak who was silhouetted by the light of a full moon.
"The traitor..." Hissed Marda in anger and fear.
"That's not a good sign is it?" Cal asked, even though he already knowing inevitable answer.
"No. While many cards in this deck require great wisdom and the gifts of a seer to interpret correctly, that card alas speaks for itself all too plainly.
You will be betrayed in the future. Guard yourselves as best you can against the inevitable and seek to limit the damage done to you. Do not seek to prevent the betrayal though… what the Tarroka deck has spoke will come to pass one way or another, and to seek to thwart it is to make an enemy of Fate itself." She warned them in her most dire turns yet. Then she began to shuffle the card back into the deck and this time no mistakes were made.
The group of adventurers shuffled around so that Alexander could be the first one out. Gavin and the other wolves were waiting for him, still clearly upset (but not hostile) over the fact that they hadn't been allowed to eat Marda's horse.
"Well done." Alexander greeted him cheerfully.
Gavin barked something at him.
"A fair enough point. Do you know the way to Zhukar?" Alexander asked the wolf, as if he would prefer the animal's directions to those a vistana might give him.
Gavin tilted his head to the side slightly and Alexander clarified.
"Lots of humans, high stone and brick walls,, impossible to hunt?" He explained.
Gavin's barked out something that "sounded" extremely confident but refrained from any frivolous tail wagging this time.
"Splendid, if you can show us the way I promise I'll hunt anything I find on four legs that doesn't belong to someone. I'll even hunt prey on two legs so long as it isn't sentient." Alexander promised the wolf.
Gavin now turned that lupinely sardonic expression he had once used upon James Firecat on Alexander Diamondclaw himself.
"Really? That bad? Why am I even surprised, a place stops making beer and everything goes straight to hell in a handbasket. Come along all the same, I'll try and find food for you if I had to shoot down a bird, leave its carcass out for the jackals and vultures, then kill them for you to feast upon." He promised.
Gavin still seemed far from convinced, but he and his pack mates struck out into the sounding desolate landscape inviting the adventurers to follow.
End Chapter
AN: Wow, so much longer than most of my opening chapters. What can I say, I had a lot of stuff I wanted to cover with this one. Also yes the wolves react to Alex differently here than they did in Book 2.
Blame that on the wolves of Vorostokov being more surely than most wolves due to them constantly being mind controlled and used as shock troops by Gregor Zolnik (it is no fun for humans to be chased by wolves, but it is no picnic for the wolves who just to hunt breed and survive being forced to attack heavily armed humans), or Alex was purposely doing whatever he could to tone down his "charm wolf" aura so that Mikhail would have a chance to learn how to stand on his own two (well four at the time) feet.
Also the word "akara" is the Vistani equivalent of "vampire". I may have misspelled it however, because I'm spelling it phonetically based on my audio book of Vampire of the Mist. If any of you have the actual book and know how it properly spelled, let me know and I'll change it.
Finally the long delay of this chapter being published brought to you by me getting the Twilight Struggle app and playing it a lot.