They climbed up the muddy path to the village. The rain had made the ground uneasy and unstable as they walked through the heavy vegetation to the foothill, trying to avoid the main entrance and sneak around the eastern part of the place.
Though the climbing wasn't really long, it was made difficult by the downpour and Mereana was hanging behind everyone else. Wyll was leading the way ahead, followed closely by Shadowheart who had packed her shield and weapons in her back to facilitate the ascension. Though she wasn't really gracious, the cleric managed to take the effort with just a dire scowl on her lips.
I wouldn't mind taking a pause from adventuring, thought Mereana grimly, thinking about all those goblins that needed slaying and who awaited them inside the village. I'm not athletic enough for all this.
As she was struggling through the muddy path, Astarion purposefully slowed down to meet her.
" - And how are you doing now, my friend ?" he asked amicably. The friendliness of his tone was somehow contradicted by the distant way he was eyeing her efforts.
Damn vampire spawn. Maybe he's looking for another bite. Mereana grimaced, frustrated. She was still not over the incident of the previous night and was pretty certain that the blood loss was responsible for her tiredness today, and was in no mind to pretend to be happy about it.
" - Stop staring at me like some vulture. I'm not going to just drop down and let you nibble at me."
He sighed, holding back a groan, and crossed his arms. " - And to think that this morning, you asked me to avoid any puns regarding my condition. But now I guess this has become a sort of competition within the party. It's growing tiresome really fast. "
Mereana glared at him, and pushed through the mud stubbornly, while the elf gracefully followed her around with ease.
" - I would sympathize, but truth be told, I still have half the mind to set you on fire for academic research purposes", she replied wryly, purposefully ignoring Astarion and how stupidly effortlessly he followed around.
" - And I would probably worry, if you weren't having so much trouble catching your breath right now."
" - At least I still breathe."
That seemed to make the vampire react at least, as his expression slided from condescending amusement to offended displeasure.
" - I'll have you know that - "
" - Psss ! The both of you, be quiet ! " That came from Shadowheart, who surprised them at their next turn by emerging from the shadow suddenly in front of them. The cleric seemed pretty annoyed as she gestured them to something they were supposed to see ahead the path.
Mereana squinted her eyes, trying to focus on whatever Shadowheart pointed at. She then realized that she could hear snores ; heavy, gross snores, that only could be made by something very drunk. A goblin was laying down on the path ; probably the sentinel they had spotted before. Wyll had bypassed the goblin to check if it was safe to move forward, and was signaling them, in a very eloquent gesture, to cut its throat now. She hadn't realized that they got so close to their objective while bickering with Astarion. From the look of it, the rogue hadn't spotted the goblin either and was pretty riled up too. He sniffed with elegance and slipped back the two of them, advancing towards the sleeping goblin with grace and, more importantly, silence.
While Wyll and Astarion took care of the dormant sentinel, and went on to assassinate another one nearby, Mereana took the time to catch up her breath and Shadowheart and herself hid behind the block of a house. Mereana was busy pacing around, intrigued by the nearby presence of an old altar she couldn't quite make up entirely in the shade of the house.
" - Did something happen between Astarion and you ? ", suddenly said Shadowheart out of nowhere, avoiding to meet Mereana's eyes.
Surprised, the mage stopped her pacing, and managed just in time to avoid the urge to scratch at her neck in response. Not going to talk about that.
" - Why ? Are you interested ?" Mereana asked back, putting on a devious smile. She knew the question would irritate the cleric and truth be told, she enjoyed it, plus she was in a bad mood and found it quite agreeable to share her grumpiness around. It was probably immature as well, but well, "mature" wasn"t usually the first adjective that came to mind when talking about herself anyway.
Shadowheart scoffed in response, her face showing nothing of what she was thinking, though her lips slightly tightened up with disapproval. As it was her most common expression when talking with Mereana, the wizard didn't think much of it and it seemed more natural. She would question herself if Shadowheart ever did smile at her or reveal any sort of emotion in their exchange.
" - In you ? Please. Let's stay serious."
" - What if I am serious ?" insisted Mereana, mainly because she knew that track of conversation greatly displeased the cleric.
" - You don't have to make any more a fool of yourself that you already had. I strongly advise you not to pursue this train of thought", answered Shadowheart sternly.
" - So, maybe it's Astarion you're interested in ? He does seem quite open to having you for dinner", she replied, in a fakely innocent tone.
From the look of it, she now had managed to fed up Shadowheart completely as the half-elf turned towards her to face her in a more aggressive stance. She took a few steps in her direction, and Mereana calmly crossed her arms, waiting for her reply. She wasn't expecting to get a reaction from the cleric, as she was always so guarded and careful not to show anything about herself. But she must have said something that went under her skin somehow.
Their quarrel didn't go further, though. As the cleric took a step towards the wizard, a strange, flickering silver light appeared suddenly on her right hand. Mereana immediately stepped out of her stance, checking to see if there was anything or anyone around that could be responsible for this. But there was nothing, except an old altar and a dusty, metallic helm on the ground she had not taken any interest in before.
Even Shadowheart seemed really appalled and surprised by this, as the half-elf twisted her hand to observe the light. But as suddenly as the dancing light appeared, it vanished. Shadowheart's expression grew blank as she observed her surroundings, and her attention was drawn to the helmet.
That was just the time Wyll and Astarion returned to them. They immediately noticed Shadowheart's strange attitude.
" - What happened ?" asked Wyll casually.
" - Nothing", snapped the cleric. " - I just have a hunch that something hiding in this wilderness might help us."
The way she purposefully avoided the topic of the strange light in her hand attracted Mereana's suspicion. Wyll and Astarion seemed as unconvinced as she was by Shadowheart's reply, but something in her attitude warned her not to reveal what she had witnessed.
The wizard kneeled and picked up the helmet, examining it with a quick spell. " - I sense no magic in this", she said. " - We were wondering about that altar", she lied calmly, pointing to the nearby homemade altar. She slipped the helmet in her backpack. The thing truly had no magic, but it had seemed important to Shadowheart for a second so maybe it could be useful later. Otherwise, she could probably sell it to someone.
Wyll tried to insist a little bit more about the cleric's intuitions, but she made it clear that they were not going to get any answers.
" - If we're done here, then let's go", suggested Astarion, being the wise one for a change.
They all agreed and quietly climbed up the roof, heading for the windmill.
Astarion led the way, as he had reckoned the path before. They kneeled and crawled their way above the heads of the sentinels guarding the main entrance, who were busy heavily discussing something they called 'the Absolute.' One of them was painting the walls in red paint with various figures. Some other ones were looting and tearing the place apart. They made such noise that the party had no trouble sneaking past their very limited attention to their surroundings.
They arrived on the verge of the last roof overlooking the windmill. As Astarion had described, someone was tied up to the windmill and was desperately calling for mercy. Mereana watched in awe as the poor prisoner nearly got crushed to death in his spiralling descent. Some goblins, down the place, mesmerized by the show, had decided that throwing rocks at the tied up gnome as he was passing down was a fine addition to the already entertaining cries of pure horror of the prisoner.
The goblins weren't the only ones enjoying the fate of the gnome. Astarion gladly chuckled as the prisoner yelped desperately when nearing the ground, and threw up on himself.
Wyll turned his head to consider the rogue. " - Seriously. This is making you laugh ?"
" - Believe me, I would enjoy it even more if it was you all tied up in there", purred the rogue smoothly in response, and Wyll rolled his eyes, muttering something very unflattering to himself.
We're really just a bunch of assholes, thought Mereana, fighting back a smile at the boy's quarrel. Strange thing is, we seem to love it.
" - There's the leader of the pack, here." Wyll pointed to one of the goblins that indeed seemed better armed than the others. " - Maybe he'd know where the others are."
" - How do we approach this ? They are numerous", noticed Shadowheart.
" - I can put a small group to sleep. Maybe the archers, over there. You can bless us during this time. And maybe Astarion could take care of the priestess there before she causes us any trouble. Wyll, you do your magic stuff and blast the worgs to death as they'll climb towards us. And no jumping alone in the thick of the fight, for anybody," suggested Mereana. The last sentence was mainly directed at Wyll and herself, since they both have shown tendencies to be rash and suicidal before.
Shadowheart and Astarion nodded, but something she said upset Wyll.
"- Magic stuff ?" he asked. " - I don't do magic stuff."
" - You know", precised Shadowheart. " - Your warlock talents."
That's when Wyll did something very strange and started laughing as quietly as he could, but in a very forced and unnatural way. He pretended to dry up some laughing tears at the corner of his valid eye. " - I don't see what you're talking about. "
Astarion raised his delicate eyebrows, and added : " - We're talking about that time you threw supernatural blasts from your hands at a harpy. Very effective, entertaining, and also, you're really far better at this than at swordsmanship. Someone has to tell you the truth."
However overwhelming were the various proofs that Wyll was a warlock - from the spells he had launched in front of them to the sending stone both Mereana and Shadowheart had noticed in his wounded eye - the Blade refused to acknowledge it, and served them a tale that he kept some magical trinkets on himself to use such magic. The way Wyll thought that he could fool them while he was lying so badly and with so many twitches was somehow amusing, but also slightly worrisome : what was the hero trying to hide so hard ?
So, both Shadowheart and Wyll were trying to conceal something mysterious and probably magical and probably wrong with them. Mereana sighed, and whispered to Astarion's attention :
" - Who would have thought that you, the vampire spawn, would be the most forthcoming one ?"
" - I did say you could trust me. It's not my fault if everyone assumes otherwise", he replied, grinning slightly as to reveal the tip of his fangs.
They met no more success prying away at Wyll than they had trying to make Shadowheart talk about herself, so they soon turned their attention back to the fight ahead as they all took positions to strike at the same time on their unsuspecting enemies.
It turned out that taking the initiative on the goblins and handicapping them heavily on first contact was a pretty good strategy, and also that their little group of four wasn't actually bad at cooperating during fights. Mereana herself was impressed by how easily they seemed to communicate between each other without even talking. If one of them was in trouble, they all re-organized to protect the weakest one of the gang ; if there was an opportunity to, say, put fire on an oily surface made by puncturing through barrels of alcohol, the wizard would always find her way to do it, as if called out by some supernatural intuition.
Maybe it was the tadpoles that did that. They had somehow weakened some of their past abilities as individuals - at least in the case of Wyll, if his heroic tales were true - but provided them with a sort of link. Mereana didn't even try to use hers actively, as she was distrustful of the thing. But maybe it could aso act on its own. She would have to submit her hypothesis to Gale.
As Mereana had fun shockwaving goblins around, a sudden quarrel broke out behind her back between Wyll and Astarion. From the sound of it, someone was really unhappy, and it was Wyll. Of course.
She finished up her goblins homework, and was happy to emerge not only victorious but also with only just a few scratches from the battle. She was getting better at this. Also, their enemies seemed to favor going after Shadowheart, as confirmed by the wounded cleric that was busy trying to heal her own wounds.
She advanced towards Wyll and Astarion, who were each standing on one side of a corpse. The goblin leader's corpse. She understood the scene easily : Astarion's mouth was still dripping with fresh blood, which seemed to horrify Wyll.
" - Astarion, what were you thinking ?"
" - I felt a little peckish."
" - You killed him !"
" - Well, that was the point of coming here in the first place, wasn't it ?"
Wyll cursed under his breath and facepalmed, which in turn made him wince as he got heavily wounded during the fight. Mereana watched over the squabble with interest as the vampire delicately stamped his chin to clean up his face.
" - The point of coming here was to question the leader", explained Wyll with exaggerated patience. " - And no we can't question the goblin. Do you know why ? Because you felt "peckish", and now he's dead. Dead people don't talk."
For all his bad faith, Astarion didn't have an intelligent come back for that, though he was obviously annoyed by Wyll's patronizing tone, and so he settled for : " - Next time you're agonizing with a nearby enemy, I'll just let the goblin do whatever he wants to you, so you can have a chat as he clubs your stubborn head to mash."
" - Urgh ! Gods, help me there", said Wyll, turning towards her. " - I'll go ask our cleric to heal my wounds. Maybe that would refrain me from doing something I might regret."
Wyll left the corpse with obvious exasperation, that Astarion clearly made a show of ignoring as he pretended to pick his fangs behind his back and kicked the corpse innocently.
Mereana sighed and looked up at the gnome tied up on the windmill, who was bellowing them to help him. Fortunately, the day wouldn't last long anymore and they would soon go back to camp, if only to recover their spells. Gale had wanted a chat with her, and she now felt eager to talk to the sanest and most sincere person in the party. Surely at least Gale wouldn't have a nasty dirty secret to hide.