"Uhhh… Never mind! False alarm!" Darrof changed his tone, "Nothing to see here. Just move along. But um, send over any asura you find on your way back. That's all! No need to come any closer. You can stop now!
...Please?"
Darrof hid himself behind the beacon just as the figures finally came into full view.
He cautiously peeked out at them. They certainly weren't asura, but they weren't norn either. They were hairy, with long arms and strange faces. Several of them were holding primitive-looking weapons.
Altogether, they numbered about 13, plenty more than Darrof thought he had seen.
One of them spoke, "We've found it, Shaman. Our salvation from this storm!"
Several of the creatures jumped up and down, whooping ape-like noises.
A tall one with an extravagant headdress, probably the shaman, stepped forward and raised his hands toward the beacon.
"Long live Fokoko. Your call has led us to your flame." it said.
The others raised their hands in worship, "Long live Fokoko!"
It seemed like they were just here for the beacon. Good, that meant they hadn't noticed Darrof yet. He stayed hidden and planned his next move.
He'd only read about such creatures before, but this is what he knew: They were called grawl. They were a tribal race of ape-like beings who would travel throughout western Tyria. They were known to worship any depiction of a deity they found, different tribes creating their own gods based loosely on what other races had already built.
Darrof wasn't sure what this 'Fokoko' was supposed to be, but it was clearly some kind of fire god.
What Darrof did see was an opportunity.
Surely these creatures were stupid. Even norn seemed to look down on them. That meant, with Darrof's superior intellect as an asura, it should be a trivial matter to manipulate this tribe into helping him.
As the grawl continued worshipping the snow mound, Darrof climbed out of hiding and stood proudly in front of the beacon. From atop the mound, he looked down at his soon-to-be servants, and said in as deep a voice as he could muster,
"Fear not, loyal followers, for it is I! The Fire God, Fokoko, given flesh!"
The grawl fell silent and stared at the little creature standing atop their newfound idol. Darrof laughed in self-satisfaction. This was his most brilliant idea yet.
"Yes yes, I know you're speechless. You've been given a great honor to come face to face with your god. But let it not distract you. This fire is my gift to you, for your great virtue. You may bow to me now, if that is your wish."
The grawl gripped tighter on their weapons, but Darrof was on too much of a roll to back down now.
"My only request to you, as proof of your faithfulness, is to carry me down to Metrica Province in the east, so that I may spread the message of Fokoko there as well. Oh, and grapes. I like grapes. And if you have any sort of fancy crown-"
"You are not Fokoko." one grawl interrupted.
"What are you talking about?" Darrof countered, "Do you not recognize your own god? Followers, shun this non-believer!"
"Not Fokoko!" the rest of the grawl voiced their opinion.
"Oh yeah?" Darrof said indignantly, "Well, if I'm not Fokoko, then how do you explain this?"
He grabbed a single burning stick out of the beacon and waved it around menacingly. The grawl were unconvinced. The small creature atop the idol was just waving a stick at them.
Darrof continued shouting gibberish and twirling the burning stick around, until he stumbled, and accidentally set his sleeve on fire. Darrof's chanting turned to panicking as he threw down the stick and frantically rolled his arm against the snow until the fire was extinguished.
He looked down at the grawl sheepishly and said,
"... ta da?"
The grawl shaman smiled. Perhaps Darrof's ruse worked after all. The shaman said slowly but firmly,
"You are… sacrifice."
Oh. That wasn't good.
"Sacrifice! Sacrifice!" the grawl started chanting. They circled around the snow mound and began dancing and chanting.
"Hear me brothers!" the shaman declared, "Fokoko has provided us this creature to use as an offering. With it, we shall appease mighty Fokoko, so that he may bring an end to this storm!"
"Sacrifice! Sacrifice!" the rest continued chanting. Some of the grawl left the circle to start climbing up the mound.
"Stop!" Darrof wailed, "You are making your god very angry!" The grawl would no longer listen to anything he had to say.
As one of them neared the top, Darrof tried as hard as he could to kick him off. Not that he probably could have succeeded anyway, but he was starting to feel weak from the cold, which made it extra difficult.
This grawl reached out to grab the asura, and Darrof jumped away reflexively.
That's when he lost his balance. The mound wasn't wide enough to support him jumping around like that.
The moment Darrof was about to fall off the mound seemed to stretch on forever. The grawl were waiting directly below him. It would be certain death if they caught him.
As he slid off, Darrof clawed at anything that could be a handhold. At the last second, he caught hold of the beacon itself. He heard the sticks creak as he hung off of them.
More grawl were trying to climb on the mound, pushing against it to try and shake Darrof off. The beacon could only take so much. The sound of wood snapping told Darrof that the entire mound was about to topple over.
One grawl was now standing on top of the mound and jumping up and down, not realizing the danger he was in.
Darrof, not wanting to be crushed under the mound, swung to the side and threw himself off the beacon just as it finally lost balance.
The tiny asura hit the ground hard as the beacon came crashing down. It wasn't until he forced his eyes open that he realized how narrowly he'd avoided an even worse fate: the torch had fallen onto the tent, setting the entire thing ablaze, and a couple of the grawl that were too slow to jump off the mound had fallen right into it.
Darrof wanted to throw up at the smell of burning fur and the panicked, primate screams. But he was too weak to even wretch properly.
Even as dazed as he was, he recognized that this was the best chance he would get to escape.
Adrenaline got him up to his feet, but he only made it a few steps before his legs gave out and he tumbled face down in the snow.
He couldn't move legs.
Oh Alchemy, he couldn't move his legs!
He used the last of the strength in his arms to roll onto his back, and then frantically rolled the other direction to avoid a grawl hatchet hurtling right towards him.
The hatchet hit the snow mere centimeters from his head, and nicked his ear. That probably would have really hurt, if he could still feel his ears.
He was still alive, but he certainly wasn't safe. If that hatchet had been thrown at him, then that meant the distraction of the burning tent had no longer occupied the surviving grawl, and they had returned their attention to their sacrifice.
He had to flee. Now.
But that maneuver had taken its toll on his arms, which were now as unresponsive as his legs.
Was it the fall? No that couldn't be it. It wasn't a high enough drop to paralyze him.
No, he knew what this was, even if he'd been trying not to think about it this entire time.
Rolf was right again, an asura just wasn't built for this extreme weather. He may have been able to endure it for a short time, but his fate was sealed the moment he left the safety of the tent. Darrof's entire body was on the verge of frostbite, and he knew it.
He dragged himself closer to the blazing tent, desperate to get any warmth he could. He tried to scream, but his throat was dry and scratchy. And he could feel ice crystals forming on his tongue. A small part of him even considered rolling into the fire. Darrof wasn't sure if it would hurt less to burn to death or freeze to death. Neither sounded pleasant.
The fire was behind him, the cold was all around him, and the grawl were in front of him.
Oh right, he'd nearly forgotten about the grawl in all of this. Not that the grawl had forgotten him, of course. The progeny was almost relieved as the lead shaman stood over him, dagger in his hand and rage in his eyes. Even if he could resist, Darrof wasn't sure he would at this point.
More than anything, he just wanted the pain to stop.
The asura closed his eyes as the grawl shaman raised his dagger, but the blade never came down.
Slowly, Darrof opened his eyes. The shaman was still standing over him, dagger still in hand, but he seemed distracted. The shaman, no, all of the grawl were staring at something beyond the flame.
Darrof couldn't move his head to see, but he felt a familiar rumble in the ground. Time seemed to stand still. Then all of a sudden, the intruder made his move.
A giant humanoid beast, with an upper body like a wolf, leapt through the fire, sword in hand. Almost like magic, the flames seemed to follow the creature, surrounding it like a protective ward. No, it was definitely magic.
Before Darrof could even process what had happened, the grawl shaman that was standing over him one moment, had been replaced by this beast in the next. The shaman lay on the ground, with a sword through his abdomen, and barely had time to cry out before a vicious claw slashed his throat.
In this moment, Darrof recognized the creature. "y-You came back…" the asura wheezed as darkness clouded his vision.
Then he blacked out.