08-21-2016, 09:34 PM
Back from a long day battling the Legion, Zlinka walked tiredly toward the guild hall. She noticed the singed grass first, and was instantly alert. Infernals, here? So close to home? She knelt to examine the sign, but there was no fel stench. She wrinkled her nose. Not fel… but something else, something familiar… was it… hair? Burned hair? CAT hair? And there, just beyond, were those paw prints?
She followed the prints up to the guild hall and found a pike jammed into the ground with the remains of a roast beast around it. And carrots, artfully arranged and untouched. And just beyond, a keg of beer, with… what were those marks on the wood? Little circles all in a row, the mark of a tentacle.
Zlinka stood up. Burned cat hair, roast beast, beer, and tentacles.
There was only one person who could have left sign like this. She scanned the edge of the forest behind the guild hall.
“Nganga!” she called, “Where did you slink off to?” The words echoed through the woods, but there was no reply.
Then, just beyond the keg, she glimpsed something else: a familiar polearm, chipped and stained, lying on the ground in front of the guild hall. Nganga had borne this weapon for years and she knew just how it flashed in the light of battle. And here it was, in front of the Ironsong guild hall.
Zlinka smiled from ear to ear, eyes crinkling at the corners.
She flipped the polearm up into the air with a foot and caught it easily in one hand as she strode into the hall. Past the great stone fireplace, past the trestle tables, past the oak shelves with their leather-bound volumes of guild records, she carried it, to a warm, stone-flagged hallway. Doors lined the corridor there, with names by each one. Zlinka leaned the polearm next to one of the doors, took down the wooden nameplate, drew her dagger from her belt, and carved the letters N-G-A-N-G-A into the wood.
Then she hung the name over the door.
“There,” she muttered to herself, “you rascal, come home."
She followed the prints up to the guild hall and found a pike jammed into the ground with the remains of a roast beast around it. And carrots, artfully arranged and untouched. And just beyond, a keg of beer, with… what were those marks on the wood? Little circles all in a row, the mark of a tentacle.
Zlinka stood up. Burned cat hair, roast beast, beer, and tentacles.
There was only one person who could have left sign like this. She scanned the edge of the forest behind the guild hall.
“Nganga!” she called, “Where did you slink off to?” The words echoed through the woods, but there was no reply.
Then, just beyond the keg, she glimpsed something else: a familiar polearm, chipped and stained, lying on the ground in front of the guild hall. Nganga had borne this weapon for years and she knew just how it flashed in the light of battle. And here it was, in front of the Ironsong guild hall.
Zlinka smiled from ear to ear, eyes crinkling at the corners.
She flipped the polearm up into the air with a foot and caught it easily in one hand as she strode into the hall. Past the great stone fireplace, past the trestle tables, past the oak shelves with their leather-bound volumes of guild records, she carried it, to a warm, stone-flagged hallway. Doors lined the corridor there, with names by each one. Zlinka leaned the polearm next to one of the doors, took down the wooden nameplate, drew her dagger from her belt, and carved the letters N-G-A-N-G-A into the wood.
Then she hung the name over the door.
“There,” she muttered to herself, “you rascal, come home."