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Tales Around the Campfire / Re: Joie de Vivre, Beauté de Mortalité
« Last post by MoonCrower on July 29, 2021, 10:17:20 PM »Almost Made It
He was late. Exhaustion from his numerous deliveries up and down Mt. Baratak had caught him finally; to complicate things further, his exhaustion was also of the mind. A day filled with fighting a stubborn ox along rickety bridges and treacherous mountain paths was strangling his mind and senses. As he approached the beekeeper, well after nightfall, he thought that nothing would keep him from a warm and cozy-enough bed somewhere in Vallaki. Oh how wrong he would soon discover he was! Ten paces from the Beekeepers doorway, Pierce’s senses halted his steps as he caught something in the corner of his eye; this something, just outside of the direct light of his hefted axe was lying unmoving and silent in the road to Vallaki’s southern gate. He slowly approached, the humming axe resting easily on his shoulder illuminating more and more. It was a body without effects… no weapon nor coin purse to be seen, he discovered, as he knelt next to it. “Perhaps it was the wolves prowling about that caught you cornered outside of a locked, city gate,” he mused aloud, glancing nervously over his shoulders. “Or perhaps you were forcefully robbed and left with your life slowly draining from your veins into the ground below you,” he muttered in a hushed tone. “Best not tarry,” he explained to the lifeless corpse. Using his axe for stability, Pierce lofted the lifeless half-elf onto his shoulders. Instead of turning West into the forest, Pierce does the exact opposite: Turns East and pads off into the nearby grove next to the farmstead.
Inside the grove, Pierce props the less-than argumentative half-elf against a tree, head tilted skyward so the unseeing eyes might gaze upon the beautiful, night sky. With a grunt, his body screaming with contempt, Pierce follows suit against another nearby tree. “Mmm…,” Pierce muses, producing a bottle of cheap, Barovian wine and two mugs. “Not fit for kings, mind you, but I wear no crown upon my head,” he chuckled, pouring two mugs of wine and fitting one into the stiffening hands of the male half-elf. “To life and to making our exit from the stage of life, remarkable or… otherwise,” he toasts, half-smirking towards his unresponsive drinking partner. Sipping from the wine, he closes his eyes.
For nearly two hours Pierce sat conversing with the deceased half-elf, but perhaps it was more that Pierce was conversing with himself; perhaps the dead half-elf was merely a conduit for him to search deeper into his own mind. When the bottle of wine ran dry, at last, Pierce hastily delivered the half-elf to the Morninglord temple for Lizuca or another of the clergy to take care of; taking one last glance at the body whose frontside was covered in a mixture of dried blood and cheap wine, Pierce departs the temple to find respite.
Pulling a chair up to his bedside table in his room at the Lady’s Rest, he sat quill to his book… but he wrote nothing at first.
His night ended with a single sentence written and a peaceful night sleep in a warm bed. His journal, left open on the table, read, “Perhaps it best to keep tonight unwritten.”
He was late. Exhaustion from his numerous deliveries up and down Mt. Baratak had caught him finally; to complicate things further, his exhaustion was also of the mind. A day filled with fighting a stubborn ox along rickety bridges and treacherous mountain paths was strangling his mind and senses. As he approached the beekeeper, well after nightfall, he thought that nothing would keep him from a warm and cozy-enough bed somewhere in Vallaki. Oh how wrong he would soon discover he was! Ten paces from the Beekeepers doorway, Pierce’s senses halted his steps as he caught something in the corner of his eye; this something, just outside of the direct light of his hefted axe was lying unmoving and silent in the road to Vallaki’s southern gate. He slowly approached, the humming axe resting easily on his shoulder illuminating more and more. It was a body without effects… no weapon nor coin purse to be seen, he discovered, as he knelt next to it. “Perhaps it was the wolves prowling about that caught you cornered outside of a locked, city gate,” he mused aloud, glancing nervously over his shoulders. “Or perhaps you were forcefully robbed and left with your life slowly draining from your veins into the ground below you,” he muttered in a hushed tone. “Best not tarry,” he explained to the lifeless corpse. Using his axe for stability, Pierce lofted the lifeless half-elf onto his shoulders. Instead of turning West into the forest, Pierce does the exact opposite: Turns East and pads off into the nearby grove next to the farmstead.
Inside the grove, Pierce props the less-than argumentative half-elf against a tree, head tilted skyward so the unseeing eyes might gaze upon the beautiful, night sky. With a grunt, his body screaming with contempt, Pierce follows suit against another nearby tree. “Mmm…,” Pierce muses, producing a bottle of cheap, Barovian wine and two mugs. “Not fit for kings, mind you, but I wear no crown upon my head,” he chuckled, pouring two mugs of wine and fitting one into the stiffening hands of the male half-elf. “To life and to making our exit from the stage of life, remarkable or… otherwise,” he toasts, half-smirking towards his unresponsive drinking partner. Sipping from the wine, he closes his eyes.
For nearly two hours Pierce sat conversing with the deceased half-elf, but perhaps it was more that Pierce was conversing with himself; perhaps the dead half-elf was merely a conduit for him to search deeper into his own mind. When the bottle of wine ran dry, at last, Pierce hastily delivered the half-elf to the Morninglord temple for Lizuca or another of the clergy to take care of; taking one last glance at the body whose frontside was covered in a mixture of dried blood and cheap wine, Pierce departs the temple to find respite.
Pulling a chair up to his bedside table in his room at the Lady’s Rest, he sat quill to his book… but he wrote nothing at first.
His night ended with a single sentence written and a peaceful night sleep in a warm bed. His journal, left open on the table, read, “Perhaps it best to keep tonight unwritten.”
