Artemis rolled his pack onto his shoulders, and groaned at it's weight. He shrugged it into place, and drew the waist strap tight. He took a few experimental steps and found it not too heavy. Soot of course had the heaviest backpack of them all, it was he who carried the heaviest armor, and his hammer was almost too heavy for Artemis to lift, but he donned the pack smoothly and with ease. Artemis pondered at the mechanics of Soot's leg brace, and wondered if Soot would craft him a similar machine.
Lizbeth was wearing a chainmail dress, which had a hood of strange links sewn on, which she had said was her supplement for a helmet. She wore it against the advice of Soot, who was carrying his armor, forged from the hard chitin that was the local beetle's exoskeleton.
The tall halfling didn't carry a pack, just a belt pouch, much to the surprise of the others. He still wore his red coat, and when Artemis had seen three knives hidden in the lining of it, he gulped, if the red halfling's knife fighting skill was anywhere near the level of his lockpicking competence.......
Dex wore a small pack that couldn't have contained all the things that Artemis had, but when he asked Dex about it Soot had gruffly cut in and said that he carried some of Dex's things, on account of him not being able to carry them all. Artemis had realized that Soot had never stopped viewing Dex as his baby brother, and Dex had never stopped looking up at his big brother, almost a father to the smaller man.
Artemis looked around him, and winced. They hadn't decided on a better form of transport than walking, and Soot set a hard pace once Artemis had told him their target location. The damp grass was still burdened with dew, a mist that hung between this world and the next resided between Artemis' knees and nose, and he looked enviously upon the tall halfling who strode through the cloud without a second thought.
They had been walking for four hours at least, the start time of the venture moved forward on account of everyone arriving early. The break they had just had was ending with a silent groan from Artemis, for while he was a master assassin, he was hardly a fit one. His usual method of getting his job done including either excess invisibility or extensive teleportation. He remembered one time when he had teleported into a room full of goblins, stabbed the leader, then teleported out again. He chuckled at the memory.
'Something funny, Artemis?' said Soot.
'The river Oostle is not far. We should reach it soon. I organized a boatmen .... acquaintance of mine to pick us up from there.' Artemis said, not quite ready to share the stories of his younger days. Maybe he should retire from assassination, and just rule his city? Artemis looked down at his stomach, which had once been a flat, hard knot of muscle, and grumbled at the swelling hillock there.
Artemis had been right, the had reached the river at roughly noon that day, rolling the packs of and stretching out the kinks and cramps slowly.
The ferry stop was no more than a log platform that ramped down into the water. There were four-foot tall reeds banking the river, and on the land-ward side of these was flat, soggy grass stretching out for at least a kilometer. The platform was the only break in the reeds along the south-western bank and the group could see no such facility, or even a break in the reeds on the opposite side. The river was wide enough to be treacherous for an incompetent swimmer, but the river was sluggish, though Artemis know further down it would get faster. Artemis silently commandeered half of one of the large benches, his three foot frame allowing him to lie flat on the bench, and only take up a bisection of the seat. Soot sat next to him, his hips and shoulders almost taking up the same width as Artemis' length. Lizbeth and Dex sat on the other, Dex constantly shifting his weight, suggesting to Artemis that he was uncomfortable with his proximity with the pulchritudinous priest.
The tall halfling sat in the middle of the platform, and it looked like he was sitting cross-legged, but his feet were above his knees. It looked unnatural to Artemis, but he didn't comment.
'Say there, friend, what'd be yer name?' said Soot to the Halfling, relieving Artemis. He hadn't heard it the day previous, and he was starting to wonder at how much of himself the halfling wanted to keep to himself. From his minimal speech that day, Artemis would wager quite a lot of his gold that the halfling was not the chatting kind. 'I didn't catch it yesterday.'
The halfling had his eyes closed, and his hands in some weird position on his knees. He paused just long enough for the four to just start thinking he had fallen asleep, then he said; 'Many things I have been labelled as. It would seem childish to pick a new name from the bucket, and so I shall be known to you as Derst.'
Soot frowned, unpacking the sentence until a look of dawning graced his dirt-smeared features. 'Well, Derst, it's good to meet yeh.' said Soot.
'Honored.' came the response, though Derst didn't open his eyes this time.
'When does the boatmen arrive?' asked Dex.
'I told him to be here at twilight, since that was when I thought we'd get here.' said Artemis, and Dex nodded.
Dex pulled from his bag a set of half- and quarter-rings, a full band would've been three centimeters on diameter, but none of the interlocked rings fitted together to make a complete loop. Dex clinked away at the puzzle, shifting the rings first this way and then the next, and Artemis started to watch the shifting rings. He frowned, wondering at it's nature.
'What is that?' he asked Dex. Soot answered.
'That would be one of the nine Eluminai, puzzle games of this country. That one however is none a legitimate Eluminai. I replicated it and gave it to Dex to shut him up one day. Two years and he hasn't been able to solve the puzzle.'
The Eluminai were nine puzzles in various places around Avalon, which had been crafted during the Age of Beings and the Brotherhood. Some, like the one Soot had reproduced were configurations of metal, two were riddles, and was a hill. Of the course the hill wasn't the puzzle, it was how to reach the top. Artemis had heard of the Eluminai, they were hardly a secret, and there were laws in place that stopped anyone from taking the Eluminai from their resting places. They were, upon completion supposed to impart some kind of wisdom on the participant.
Artemis watched Dex play with the puzzle for many hours, for even though he had not solved the puzzle, he had learned to create many patterns with the set of metal links. Artemis watched, entranced as Dex weaved the links in and out of place, making the piece first resemble a fish, then a bird. It was almost twilight and the sun was brightening into a ball of orange flame on the horizon. It had been at least five hours of sitting there, Derst meditating, Soot seemingly turned to stone, Artemis and Lizbeth watching Dex, when Lizbeth laughed suddenly. 'I have solved the puzzle.' she exclaimed.
Dex immediately turned to her with a pleading look and begged 'Tell me, please. It's been two years since Soot gave it to me, and I still haven't got it.'
'You'll have to work it out for yourself, little Dex.' she said, ruffling his hair, leaving it looking like a dead parrot.
Artemis frowned at Dex; his ruffled hair, his put-out look, and his pale skin, then at Soot. His stocky frame, tanned skin, musclebound shoulders and arms, and a balding head, coming down into a beard that was fairly sized, and yet it seemed that Soot could have grown it in a few weeks. There was a definite resemblance in the cheekbones, and the way their lips petered out, but there was also so much different about the two brothers that Artemis' curiosity was piqued. 'How old are you, Dex?' said Artemis, sitting up and emitting a groan as he did so.
'I'd be nineteen in twelve days, Sir.' said Dex.
'Soot, how old are you? If you don't mind me asking, that is.' said Artemis wondering at obviously large age gap that separated the two.
Soot didn't respond until he had retrieved a bottle of assumably liquor from the top pocket of his pack and took a swig. 'It'd be true that we're not full brothers. Me father was not Dex's. He was a dwarf of the White Cliffs,' and Artemis suddenly understood the build difference between the two. 'Me father raised me right, a credit to him, and when Dex's dad died o' the plague I was already a man, so I raised him on me own after our mother died, six months after Dex's father. It be true that we're only half-brothers, but anyone who can see the relationship between people can see that it ain't blood that decides family, it's you.'
Artemis thought over the wise but coarse words of the Mul, -half dwarves- then asked; 'Where did your father end up, Soot?'
'The dwarves have a bigger lifespan then a human, withou' magic involved o' course. He'd probly still be in his mine, chattering with the stone.'
'So it's true then, that dwarves can talk to the stone.' said Artemis, as much a question as a statement. He had heard such things, but had never heard confirmation, nor seen it.
'Oh, that be true enough, dwarves can hear the stone and speak back, though I can only hear it. I was too young when I emerged from me mine to have really learnt the language of the earth. I've searched for them, you know. The dwarves. It's high time they took their sorry arses out of the ground and stood up. I respect the leader's choice to retreat into the stone, but if the dwarves stood now, they would find themselves to be made of sterner stuff than they thought.'
Artemis nodded, taking in what Soot had said and thinking about it, masticating it, until Soot offered Artemis a sip of his liquor. Artemis took it, bringing the cured leather flask to his lips. He struggled to keep a straight face as the spirit burned a path down his throat. 'It- it's definitely got flavor.'
Soot roared with laughter, 'That'd be the spirit, Halfling! It be true that the drink has a unique flavor; husqvarna, the drink of the dwarves, made with the grit of the sandstone mined there. Tis the taste of home.'
'I would like to try this drink.' said Derst, surprising them all by his voice.
'Tis good that I brought seven flasks isn't it?' said Soot, throwing a second bottle to Derst. He offered a third to Lizbeth who refused saying,
'Later.'
'Suit yerself.' said Soot, passing his to Dex, who took a swig and made a similar face to Artemis. It was far from being bad-tasting, -after his third swig, made a mental note to bring it to Undercity- but it was the strongest alcohol concentration Artemis had found in his time, and that included the two weeks he spent in Bair hospitality, bartering for his three enforcers.
'It has quite a kick, does it not?' said Derst, who hardly seemed as affected as Artemis and Dex.
It was twilight, perhaps quarter to eight when the sound of a craft approaching could was heard by the group. Soot judged it to be at least six hundred meters away, and hardly a vessel built for speed. Indeed, the vessel Artemis had arranged for them was a barge of luxurious dimensions and decadent occupants. Such craft were rare though not unheard of, and were used by the cream of society to navigate nautical holidays or sometimes by people who weren't concerned with going anywhere in a hurry. Indeed, the sound of the party that was occurring had hardly grown closer. It gradually lumbered around the corner, and Soot chuffed at the un-pragmatism shown on the barge. It was not much more than a floating rectangle of wood, hardly even hydrodynamised, with a raised quarterdeck where a few men where playing twanging on string instruments. About fifty people were on the large deck, some of them quite drunk, judging by their dancing, and one man was standing at the bow, hood up and cloak wrapped around him, hardly more than a shadow on the prow. Suddenly he turned, and stared straight into Artemis' eyes, and Artemis frowned. The hooded man's face was disfigured, three stripes of reddened skin running down his face symmetrically. He turned back to watching the water in front of the barge, leaving Artemis with that night's nightmares.
'Put your packs down. That's not our boat.' said Artemis glumly, though he was partly glad he wasn't on the same boat as the man with the facial disfigurements.
'Whatnow?' said Soot, looking up from his securing of the flasks.
'That's not our boat. I thought it a bit far fetched our skipper had had so much success since I last saw him, but when I saw the helmsman on the barge I knew. That is not our ship, and our will be significantly less palatial.'
'Hmph. It looked pretty slow anyway.' said Soot, and Artemis sighed in relief that he wouldn't be asked about their real skipper. He was quite disreputable and his ships were always dirty and vermin infested.
'Probably riddled with rats as well.' said Dex.
None of the group knew the extent of Dex's statement; for the barge was riding so heavily because of the few thousand fat rats in the cargo hold.
'So,' said Soot, the barge forgotten, 'who's up for King's Chalice?' he said already pulling fifteen small and compatible mugs and a tankard from his bag.
'How'd you play?' asked Lizbeth, scooting her bench with Dex's help to finish the circle. Derst rose slowly and sat on the end of her bench.
Soot filled every mug then handed three to each player. 'I have in my hand twenty cards, labeled one to fifteen, then A,B,C,D,E. I shuffle them like so, and Lizbeth chooses one, and from the drink labelled that number the owner drinks. If it is a letter, A, B, or C for example, then everyone pours one drink into the chalice. If someone draws a D, everyone pours all their drink into the chalice. Now; if someone draws E, then they have to drink all that is in the chalice. It's a drinking game I played when I spent time with my dwarfish kin in the White Cliffs. They were very good at it.'
'How do you win?' asked Artemis, who had had some experience with drinking games, though the strength of the drink intimidated him.
'You the last man standin'! Or lady, o' course.' said Soot roaring with laughter.
Derst accepted the rules and his three mugs without expression or speech, as was his way, and waited for Lizbeth to draw the first card. Soot had them shuffled and was holding them in the middle of the circle, fanned out, offering them to the person whose turn it was. Lizbeth seemed to find a higher plane of understanding in her first mug, for she stared into the bottom of it without a thought, and Artemis was waiting with bated breath for the game to begin. Suddenly, though not quickly, Lizbeth drew the seventh card from the left. It read nine. Dex downed his mug in two gulps, then took his card from the deck, and it read seven. Dex took his second shot and Soot filled up his mug. Dex seemed shaky when he was holding his mug out for Soot. It took five more shots for Dex to feint, and Soot's frown seemed to lighten a little.
'Tough bastard. Must've been drinking behind me shoulder. I always try and get him out first.' he finished to the others.
Derst took his card, and Artemis reluctantly drank. The husqvarna burned a trail down his throat and he blinked rapidly to kill Soot's twin. Artemis took his card and Derst drank.
The game continued for quite a while, for both Soot and Artemis had experience with drinking games, Derst was mysteriously alcohol resistant as was expected by Artemis, but Lizbeth was also showing substantial fortitude, which didn't surprise Artemis, but neither was he expecting it. Lizbeth didn't seem like a pansy or a "girly-girl", she had taken the leech off Dex's terrified calf and poured some salt on it, watching the parasite shrivel to it's death.
It took some time, but they all eventually became drunk around the same time. Soot became even louder, guffawing with laughter at everything said, Lizbeth kept trying to re-focus her eyes, Artemis felt his reflexes growing sluggish and even unresponsive at one point. The game paused when Soot started talking about his trip to the White Cliffs,
'It was no' long ago when I took up the pack and wen' to the White Cliffs, trying to bring out the dwarves. I always knew they were stronger than they thunk, and I was gonna bring them out of hidin'. But their king, Grimff Half-crown, decided to keep them in their holes. They were almost wiped out by the plague o' rats, ye see, and he wants to make sure that they are strong enough before they come out.' said Soot, the drink affecting his speech slightly.
'But why not leave them in their holes, and let them become strong by your kingsh standards, wouldn't that be better?' asked Lizbeth, frowning and concentrating very hard on keeping her eyes from crossing.
'Becaush there's a storm brewin, and she's the biggest Avalon's seen it years. I can smell it. The rock is alive with movement, and the birdsh.' said Soot.
'What about the birds?' said Derst, the drink having no affect on his speech, though it occurred more often.
Soot didn't reply to Derst's question, and Derst never found out how the birds told Soot that a storm was coming, for Soot rolled off the bench, thumping to the ground, and starting to snore. One of Derst's eyebrows rose slightly, and he said 'Do you want to continue the game?'
'I'll go to sleep.' said Lizbeth, rolling out her sleeping mat. Artemis nodded, rolling out his sky-blue sleeping mat and producing his sleeping bag. He climbed into his bag and was asleep in seconds, as was Lizbeth. Derst crossed his legs and put his hands on the same strange position on his knees, and started his meditations. 'When's your boatman coming, Artemis?' he mumbled.
'Morning.' Artemis murmured back.