Runelords 12.7 - Civility and Adventure

A few days after returning to town, Luna walked down the hallway of the Rusty Dragon towards Aldern’s room, only to find Eamon standing at a loose attention by the door. “Ummm?” Luna intoned curiously as she approached him, getting his attention. 
“Oh!” Eamon said, straightening. “Is it time for your shift?” he asked, voice low enough that it was unlikely that it could be heard through the door.
“Yeah…” she replied hesitantly. “What...are you doing in the hall?”
The angel pursed his lips. “Mr. Foxglove declined my entry rather vehemently when I began my shift, so I have been maintaining vigil here.” He shook his head slightly, his expression mildly disapproving, “He has not left, but I am unsure as to what his reasoning is to bar us so.” He stood aside politely, “Perhaps you will have better luck.”
Luna pursed her lips in turn, and moved towards the door. She rapped the wood lightly with her knuckles, “Aldern? Hello?” A muffled noise of acknowledgement came from inside, confirming Eamon’s statement. “...Can I come in?”
“No! Please!” Aldern replied quickly and sharply; trepidation clung to his voice. 
She pleaded gently, “Please?...Is something...wrong?”
“Ye-no!” he cut himself off mid-word, changing his mind. “Don’t come in!”
“Hmm.” Luna frowned. Eamon stood patiently, waiting to see if she could make progress where he had been denied. “Can I please come in, to see?”
His reply was immediate and fearful, “No!” 
“...Whatever it is, I can probably help…?” she offered.
“You can’t…!” he started, but cut himself off. Pressing up to the door, she could hear what might have been him muttering to himself. 
Meekly, she offered, “...Can I see, so I can try to help?” After a long pause, he said something quietly. “Pardon?” 
He repeated more clearly, “You can...come in…”
Luna exchanged a curt nod with Eamon, and opened the door just enough for her to slide in before closing it behind her. Inside, the room was in pristine order, suggesting nothing out of the ordinary. A large mound of blanket on the bed suggested that Aldern was sitting there, but he was entirely obscured from view. Luna walked up slowly, made timid from the uncertainty of the situation. “Aldern?” At his name, the blankets shuffled about some and his face peered out, his once-handsome complexion gaunt, greenish and marred by rot, and his expression full of fear and more uncertainty than even the timid woman before him. “...What’s wrong?” she offered, trying to sound comforting despite her trepidation.
He faltered with hesitation for a moment, mouth opening and closing a few times in a failed attempt to explain, before his expression crumpled slightly and he merely opened the blanket. His clothes had been undone, out of necessity it seemed, to accommodate his stomach, which had become swollen and bloated from rot. Aldern couldn’t look at her as she scrutinized him, instead staring down and away, so disgusted and fearful of the development that he couldn’t even vocalize his thoughts. Luna took a few more steps forwards, more bold now that she was presented with a concrete problem, and tapped at her lips through her scarf as she considered the issue. After a long minute of silence, she declared, “...Give me a bit of time, and I’ll see what I can do.” Aldern silently and despondently covered himself again, obviously despairing as Luna turned and left. She passed by Eamon in the hall and asked, “Keep an eye on the door for a little longer? I need to go read up on something, and probably get some things.” 
Eamon nodded, “Is there a problem?”
“Hopefully nothing I can’t deal with,” she replied, and added as an afterthought to herself, “I hope they have a book on rot...”
After a trip to the book and general stores, Luna returned to the inn and re-entered Aldern’s room. He glanced up with shock when she stepped in, but immediately returned to despondency, staring sadly at nothing. Luna steeled herself, trying to mask her nervousness with professionalism, “Alright. I think...think I know what to do.” Approaching the bed, she asked, “Can I…?” Aldern nodded slowly, and she perched on the side of the bed, placing down the items she had purchased for the task: a scalpel, some gauze, and some particularly strong-scented but pleasant herbs. She pulled off the blankets, sitting so that she was more behind him than beside, and said with hesitancy, “So...I read what’s causing it, and, I can’t stop it, but I think I know how to fix it, or some of it, but, I’ve never really done anything like it because I’m, well, I’m drying out, because the magic is different, and the magic that made me was, I guess, trying to make like a mummy so I’d like, shrivel, but…” she shook her head, “I’m sorry, I ramble, kind of. I think this should work, so...so, I’m just going to try, ok?” Aldern didn’t respond, but didn’t argue, so she set up her task. “Just...trust me, I guess…?” she muttered, as much to herself as to the man. Respectfully, and with asked permission for each somewhat disgusting task without any description of what she was doing, she punctured a series of small holes into Aldern’s abdominal cavity on his sides and back where he couldn’t easily notice them. Gently but efficiently, she pushed out the foul, fetid gases that had been accumulating in his body, making a rancid smell that neither of the undead found they much minded. A viscous liquid oozed slowly from the holes, the rotting by-products of his organs, which she wrapped with the herbs and gauze, preventing the weeping ichor from staining and helping to mask the smell while still allowing his body to aerate. When she finished, he was back in his proper shape. “There,” she said, wiping her knife, “That’s...that’s better, right?” Aldern had a look of profound and utter relief as he exhaled, though he was still too overwhelmed to respond. She smiled slightly, "That probably happened...well, because I healed the cut from Virgil's sword. Lordship probably got other holes in you before that healed, and these will heal up too, but I can do this again, and prevent that from happening in the future. Ok?" He nodded slightly as he began to rearrange his shirt, but struggled bitterly with the six-inch claws that now grew from his fingertips. Luna interrupted him quickly, “Here,” and shooed his hands away, completing the task for him. Straightening and fastening his layers of shirts, she stood back and gave a small smile, “There. Back in order.” 
Aldern’s eyes flicked up towards her finally, “...Thank you.” He returned to staring at the distance, “Really. Thank you.”
Her smile suffused with relief, “Not at all. Let me know about...things, and I’ll do whatever I can to make it better.”
He nodded a bit absently, “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” she said, and after packing away her things, she sat in the nearby chair with a book, as Aldern continued to stare at nothing, though with perhaps a greater calm than earlier.
------
Luna greeted Foxglove cheerily as Eamon left the room feigning fatigue; they still had to keep up the illusion that most of them needed sleep, unknowing that Luna had revealed their secret to the fallen noble. For his part, Foxglove had made no mention of his clandestine knowledge, and Luna vaguely wondered if perhaps he had forgotten it amid his trauma.
She had let the subject of eating slide for the first few days, as Aldern had obviously had enough on his mind as it was, and he didn’t seem to be being bothered by it. He quickly dismissed her gentle implications of the topic as the days wore on, but as the sixth day came and he still hadn’t mentioned anything, she thought it best to press the issue. “...Are you feeling hungry?”
“No!” he replied quickly. “No. Just fine.”
She winced, “Are...you sure? Because it’s been awhile since we got here, and you haven’t eaten anything. It’s...going to catch up with you, if you don’t.”
“I’m fine! Really. Not hungry at all,” he said, just a bit too quickly.
Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, she asked, “...Are you feeling a little hungry? Because you can’t just go forever.” He was resolute in his assertions, so she tried to press gently. “It’s ok if you are. I mean...it’s just, eventually you do have to eat, and it’s not that bad.” He still refused, and she scuffed her foot against the ground awkwardly. “...I’ve been eating, so it’s no trouble for me to get something for you...Chicken, probably. It’s usually chicken…”
That statement caught his interest immediately. He whipped his gaze towards her and asked, “You eat chicken?”
“...Yes…? Or other birds, sometimes rabbit...” It took her a second to register the meaning of his words. “...Oh!” she exclaimed. “You don’t…! Ahem,” she paused and brought down her voice to a more comforting level, “You don’t have to eat...people…” she said, stumbling a bit on the last word. “We can eat animals just fine. That’s all I eat.”
It seemed like a weight was lifted off of Aldern as he exhaled loudly with relief. He commented, “I was wondering how you were staying in such a small town with no one noticing. That’s excellent!”
Luna nodded, glad that he had perked up. “Though…” she said hesitantly as an afterthought, “they do still have to be alive…”
Aldern paused before sighing with resignation, hopes dashed as quickly as they had been brought up. “Oh.”
“It...did take some getting used to,” she admitted. “But, it’s really not that bad, once you get over it. And it’s so much better than the hungry feeling.”
He sighed again, then said primly, “Tell the kitchen to send up some chicken. Lemon and thyme should be good.”
It was Luna’s turn to be off-guard. She blinked and stammered at the request, “You...it’s not going to...it’s just…” Eventually, she trailed off, looking about the room uncomfortably, trying to consider a solution. “Well...you know what, ok. I’ll...go see what I can do?”
Informing Virgil, the current alternate, to keep an eye out, Luna went back to their shared room. There was a chicken there, kept in a tiny wire cage and meant to be her meal for the day. She had left it, knowing that sooner or later Aldern would have to eat. Taking up the cage, she looked at the bird that squirmed and clucked nervously, trying futilely to escape from the unnatural thing that eyed it. “Hmmm…” she considered what she knew of anatomy and cooking, evaluating her options. “I’m going to need some supplies…”
When she returned some time later to Aldern’s room, she had a particularly nervous look about her. Aldern looked up from the book he had been idly flipping through and greeted her. “Where did you go off to?”
Luna had borrowed a place setting from the kitchen, along with a particularly sharp knife, and went about making the desk in the room into a table. “I...tried to go about what you asked for? But, make it work? You’ll see...” Stepping out again, she returned presently with a serving tray. Aldern sat at the desk, waiting with interest to see what had been made. “So...I don’t know if it’s good, or what you wanted…? But I tried?” Her face, like it so often did, suggested she would be blushing deeply had she any blood. “I’ve never tried to do anything like it before so…” Presenting her handiwork, she revealed the chicken, plucked and arranged it such that it resembled one that had been prepared for a human meal. Its feet had been removed and bound about much like a bird for roasting, but its head remained, eyes glazed over; with the garnishes around it, it looked very much like a sorely undercooked chicken dinner.
Aldern looked a bit surprised, but smiled. “You did this?” She nodded. “This looks perfect!” Without a trace of the hesitation or squeamishness that might have been expected from someone with his upbringing, he took up his napkin and silverware and began to eat as though it was nothing different from an average meal. After the first bite, he began to eat with speed and subtle fervor, commenting, “This is excellent! What did you do?”
“I...just administered it some drugs,” she explained. “They won’t affect you at all! But, yes, I sedated it, and dropped its blood pressure. Then I severed its spinal cord, so it couldn’t feel anything or move. Then it was just a matter of being decorative,” she shrugged.
“This is wonderful!” After a few moments, he stopped himself and apologized, “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten my manners.” He slowed down his pace significantly as he continued to eat.
“That’s fine!” Luna said brightly. “I’m glad! Glad it’s good. Don’t mind me.” He continued to eat, and she stifled a small grin. In his attempts to maintain proper form he was chewing his food, but the cruel fangs they shared were not designed with that function, rather shaped instead like a carnivorous theropod’s, meant for tearing and swallowing whole. She held her tongue; he could certainly tell that chewing was not effective, and he could come to that conclusion himself rather than have her bring it up and risk embarrassment. As he finished some time later, he complimented her efforts again, and she smiled, “I’m glad it met your standards. I’d never tried anything like that before. It...was actually a bit fun? Like cooking. I haven’t done any cooking in forever.” She moved to clean up the dishes, continuing, “So, you don’t have to eat everyday, which I guess you figured out already, but I always think it’s better to eat when you can, in case you find you can’t later. It...can get pretty bad, and it’s not worth risking, so I usually eat every day or two, even though I don’t feel hungry yet.”
“Do you always eat alone?” he asked suddenly.
Caught off-guard by the question, she stuttered, “Oh! Um...yes. I...guess so, yes. I never...well...it’s…”
He smiled and spoke, ending her flustering, “Join me tomorrow! It’s a terrible shame to eat alone, and you’re the chef.” Luna was reminded of their first week after meeting him, and how his passion for dinner parties and elaborate meals was apparent even then; she was reasonably certain he hadn’t eaten alone once while in Sandpoint, and never in a small way.
“O-oh…” she stuttered, embarrassed. “That’s alright, really. I’m fine.”
“Please, I insist,” he said. “You’re not here to wait on me.” Luna flustered a bit more, but he continued to be adamant until she agreed.
When the next day came, she did as asked and prepared two animals rather than one, setting the desk for two to eat. Instead of hovering nearby as she had done previously, she sat down adjacent to Aldern, who seemed pleased at the proper company. She fiddled with her hands and muttered, “I...I haven’t really...done this before...”
He smiled and waved away her concerns. The sheer vehemence of his adherence to polite protocol and civility in the face of his situation was almost surprising to Luna, who had so readily abandoned dining decorum upon her death with fatalistic resignation. She exhaled slightly, steeling herself against her decades of learned shyness, and very precisely removed her scarf, folding it primly as she did. Foxglove blinked in a mild surprise, “I haven’t seen your face before.”
“Well, I can’t eat very well with the scarf on…” she mumbled, trying to keep her lips closed as much as possible, out of habit.
“You’re a very pretty girl,” he offered politely.
Luna wrinkled her nose, suppressing a smile and looking embarrassed. It appeared like she realized something, as she glanced up at him and grinned in humour, “...You were thinking I was missing half my face or something, weren’t you?”
He didn’t miss a beat, retorting, “Never! I assumed it was religious in nature, like Khyrralien.”
She rolled her eyes, “Hardly. Unless ‘people are unsettled by our faces’ is a religion now.” She grinned shyly again, “And you can stop calling me ‘girl’; I’m older than you, even if I don’t look it.”
Foxglove chuckled and gestured towards their food, “Shall we, before it gets cold?” Luna agreed, and the two began to eat, one glad for the semblance of normalcy and the other for mutual company that had been so long absent.
----
It had been a while since they had returned to Sandpoint, and Aldern had progressed from a catatonic state of despair to more of a morose moping: there were frequent sighs and lamentations of activities and avenues that were surely closed to him. However, what they had learned of him from their time spent together a few weeks ago had been reinforced: he was an easily-distracted man, and as long as he was being engaged in an activity, he became more lively, sometimes almost chipper.
It was on one of these mornings that Virgil shrugged, “Well, what would you like to do?” Aldern gave a melodramatic sigh, looking despondently out the small window, but no other reply came. Rolling his eyes, Virgil went on, “Come on, it’s a nice day out. You like hunting. Let’s go do that.”
Foxglove turned to look at him, “...I don’t know…”
Virgil stood up. “We could all do with some fresh air. Luna’s been sitting inside with Quint, and Eamon just hangs around the church.”
With another sigh, Aldern said, “I’ve sent away all the servants…”
“Psht, what do we need servants for?” he laughed. “My father and uncle, well, they weren’t strictly professional hunters, but they were a step down from it. They went large game hunting all the time. Practically every week in the summers, and a fair bit in the winter too. Never once had servants, and never used animals either. I didn’t even realize you could use animals until I was a teenager.”
Raising an eyebrow, Aldern replied, “...But, if you don’t have servants, who carries the kill? And handles the arrangements?”
Virgil opened the window and looked out; with a bird call, he summoned the ravens, passing a note to one of the females and asking them to take it to Luna, instructing her to come and bring the hat. Romeo didn’t seem to be around much; though the other two, apparently named Juliet and Rosaline, were often hanging about town, Romeo seemed to be spending much of his time with Shadliss. He turned back to Aldern, “We do!”
“I...I don’t know about this…” Foxglove said, uncertain.
“Hey, worst case,” Virgil grinned, “we waste a day running around in the woods. Better than wasting a day staring at a wall, isn’t it?”
Aldern sighed again, then nodded, “Alright. Go get the horses.”
“Nah, we’re going to do this the old-fashioned way. No animals,” Virgil said. In his head, he was glad for the first time in years for his family’s hobby. While he had personally never really enjoyed hunting, he had engaged in more than his fair share of it growing up in Mirilarin, and that wasn’t including the amount of time he had spent camping in the woods with Lucca. Though he had forgotten most of his knowledge over the years, not least of all from his rebirth, he had enough left to remember the theory if not the skills. The key was to sell Foxglove on the theory, since Virgil also knew all too well that neither horses nor dogs would take kindly to an undead, particularly to one as powerfully negative as a ghast. This wasn’t something he wanted to come up, nor to put a damper on Foxglove’s mood.
Of course, he wasn’t immediately sold on the idea, “How are we supposed to track things without dogs?”
“Ourselves! It takes a bit longer, obviously, but it’s so much more of a challenge, more engaging. Dogs feels like cheating, honestly, and horses get in the way.” True to his statement, Virgil had in fact abandoned his horse every single time they had hunted together last month. “It’s how we always hunted growing up.”
Aldern raised an eyebrow in suspicion, “Where did you say you were from again?”
“Mirilarin!” he replied brightly, and launched into an animated explanation of the different hunting styles of the natives that he knew: the plains gnolls, the mountainous hobgoblins and the Yetomen, none of which relied on horses, and very infrequently on hounds. By the time the others arrived, Foxglove had agreed that he would give it a try, though he still had reservations on how it could be fun. Virgil smiled: an ulterior motive lay hidden in his intentions, masked by the gesture of keeping Foxglove’s spirits up, and he had accomplished the first step. They would see if, and how much, becoming a ghast had improved the man's abilities.
----
The five gathered themselves up and made their way out of town that morning; some were slightly less enthusiastic about the endeavour than others, particularly Luna, but there was an unspoken consensus that all four were needed to watch Aldern, in case Lordship took over and he either fled or overpowered one of them. When they were well out of town and heading into the trees, Aldern muttered that this would certainly be faster with horses, to which Virgil asked if he was tired. When he denied any fatigue, Virgil grinned smugly and replied that there was no rush, the whole reason they were out there was to have a pleasant day outdoors, enjoying the weather before they were fully into the rainy season, and to relax, since they had no other engagements. Aldern huffed, but complied.
While looking for evidence of larger animals, Virgil described the theory to finding tracks and trails. Foxglove quickly proved himself very handy at the task, much more so than expected from what they had seen from his skill before, and a month ago he was certainly no amateur. While on the hunt, they came across a rabbit’s path; at Virgil’s insistence, Aldern managed to approach it stealthily and take it out with a single well-aimed arrow. As he did this, the three other men gauged his abilities: while it might not have been immediately obvious, his physical capabilities were almost certainly improved. Everything from his awareness, to his skill at tracking, to his endurance, aim and stealth, had been markedly increased with his transformation. As he returned with the slain rabbit, all three praised him heartily, and even though he was still reluctant, a hint of pride lingered about Foxglove’s demeanour. Luna cleaned and gutted the rabbit while they spoke, the most skilled among them at butchering, and soon they were on their way again.
The group carried about their task until they tracked down their quarry: a brown bear. Aldern was hesitant at best to engage a bear in hand-to-hand combat, but Virgil goaded him, assuring him that there was nothing at all to be afraid of: a common animal was no challenge at all to any of them. Eventually, he was swayed, agreeing to not run away if the bear turned on them, but not to getting anywhere near it. Eamon and Virgil played rock-paper-scissors; Virgil won the chance to fight the bear hand to hand, while Eamon stood as a reserve so as to not overwhelm the battle and cut it short, Khyrralien and Aldern shot at it from a distance, and Luna continued to vaguely watch and enjoy the scenery as she had been doing. With that, they attacked the bear, first chasing it as it fled from its attackers, then fighting it down when it felt it had been cornered. Aldern proved himself a powerful and accurate shot with Khyrralien’s bow, using it just as well if not better than its owner.
When the beast had been felled, the three combatants congratulated themselves heartily. Foxglove grinned, “Alright, I will admit that was exhilarating.”
“Isn’t it though?” Virgil returned the smile. “And you’re really on your game today! Did you see that shot?” he asked to Khyr.
“Indeed I did!” Khyrralien gushed. “You are a fine archer, Foxy!”
Aldern grinned wider, appreciating the compliments. “I was in good form today, wasn’t I?”
“Excellent!” Virgil declared. His smile took a shifty slant as he asked, “Remind me again why you aren’t an adventurer? Because you certainly have the skills for it.”
“Oh, well, you know,” Foxglove replied self-consciously, “It just never really worked out, you know.”
“You should try it again,” Virgil suggested.
This surprised the man somewhat. “Oh! I don’t know.” He twiddled his hands, “Who would I adventure with?”
Virgil and Khyrralien glanced at each other, and Virgil laughed, “Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel a bit put out.”
Aldern pursed his lips and said quickly, “Well, I didn’t want to presume!”
He continued chuckling as he said, “You’re right, I’ll try again: you are awesome and you should adventure with us.”
“Really?”
“Of course! Right, Khyr?”
The fey nodded his head emphatically, “Oh yes! That would be splendid~”
Virgil added, “If you’re interested.”
Aldern considered it for a moment before smiling again, “I would love to!”
Virgil grinned brightly, “Excellent!” He punched his palm for emphasis, “First order of business! Eamon!” he shouted over to where the angel stood by Luna, as she inspected some moss. “Come over here and arm wrestle Foxglove!”
Eamon was confused, “What?”
“Just do it...Look, there’s a log over there, it’s perfect!” Virgil replied.
“Is this an initiation or something?” Foxglove asked hesitantly.
Khyr accepted this immediately, “Oh yes!”
“Have to arm wrestle our current strongest!” Virgil explained brightly, excusing his ploy to test whether Foxglove’s strength had been enhanced alongside his aim and senses.
Aldern shook his head slightly, “Alright…” The two men positioned themselves on either side of the fallen log, situating themselves for arm wrestling. When they were set, Khyrralien called for them to begin. The two strained against each other for a moment, but it was Foxglove who pinned his opponent in the end. He smiled slightly incredulously, surprised that he had succeeded. “Is that it? Am I in?”
“Oh yes!” Khyr gushed. “Most certainly~”
“In what?” Luna asked dryly, skepticism dripping from her voice.
“In our team!” Virgil said brightly. “Foxglove wants to adventure with us, and we are lucky to have him.”
Luna raised an eyebrow, but the excitement of acceptance on Foxglove’s face was legitimate, so she shrugged and said resignedly, “I don’t get men.”
“Would you be an absolute dear and help with the bear?” Virgil asked of her. “You are so much better at it than any of us.”
“Sure sure,” she said, starting off.
Foxglove stepped to follow her, “Let me help with that.”
When they were a few feet away, Eamon asked quietly, “What is this about?”
Virgil was still grinning, the sly slant back again, “He’s leagues better than he was when he was alive; we’ve all seen it. The man is at least on par with any one of us, and that’s not counting any abilities he might have but doesn’t know about. He’s as resilient as Luna, as good a shot as Khyr, as strong as you and as well-spoken as me.” He turned to Eamon, “We can’t let him out of our continuous custody until we know that Lordship is completely contained or banished. So, instead of a morose prisoner, we get an extremely capable, willing teammate.” He looked back towards Foxglove’s back. “I think this will work well, don’t you?”
Category:Rise of the Runelords