(Also on Ice) Anzelm Levethix

[Cowpies77]

ChronoWarrior

"Hmm.... can't be too safe."

Anzelm takes out his dagger, and slices across the orc's throat, beheading the creature. He cleans his knife in the snow, and quickly returns to the group. He also takes the orc's equipment, as well as the pouch of money. Anzelm then returns back to where the wagon was.

"Sorry about the wait. I had to make sure the fleeing orc wasn't going to call for reinforcements. Anyways, I took from the orc some equipment we can use to better gear up the town militia. Anyone here mind carrying the scale mail and axe? Also, didja find anything worth noting by the wagon?"

heading back to the wagon, Anzelm sees that only Bansky and Jolla remain.

Jolla is standing by the wagon with her arms folded, looking upset. Bansky is looking at the ground on the other side of the wagon from where Anzelm is coming from. The bodies of the 6 townspeople are wrapped up in a pair of blankets a little unceremoniously with rope, but Jolla just says "I thought it'd be best if we sent them back home. Along with that creep. He did it again... that whole pop-up-behind-me thing." Shuddering, she says "I HATE that. And he does it all the time. One time, he had a religious question and did it to me while I was in the bath!" Bansky, turning his head a little, just looks at her inquisitively. "He didn't see anything, you pervert. But when I'm sitting and reading a book while soaking, I don't expect a cold, blue hand to tap me on the shoulder and whisper stuff into my soddin' ear!" Bansky and Anzelm both let out a small sigh of disappointment before returning to their tasks. Thankfully, Jolla didn't seem to notice either of them, instead saying "We took the armor, the axe, the crossbows and bolts they had left here. The orc had 20 silver. We should probably divvy that up later over some herbal tea. I sent that sodding creeper up ahead to go tell the townspeople about what happened. It's better than him just sitting in the snow. He should be back with some more villagers in like, an hour or so if we don't move the horses there in the meantime."

Bansky, meanwhile says "I find tracks. Orcs and puny human come from that way." Pointing south-west, he says "Snow make easy tracker. We go?"  

[NaturesProfit]

"I'll admit that guy can really be creepy, but he does mean well. At the very least, it's a good thing he's on our side. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of his voodoo magic."

Listening to Bansky, Anzelm nods. He puts down the gear and money he took from the orc, and places them on the wagon.

"Alright, back to the matter at hands! Tracking down the human can be a good idea. Jolla, ya think we should pursue the human while the track is still fresh, or should we wait here for the villagers to recover the wagon first? You're the boss. Also to be fair, we won't really be able to recover from any mortal wounds should we suffer any while looking for the human. Plus safety in numbers."  

[Cowpies77]

Bansky says "Oh, right. I guess I track him too...? I found where they all come from."

Jolla says "I just want this stupid thing to be over. Voodoo or not, he creeps me out, so the less time I spend with him, the better. I say we go back to town and maybe see if someone else can come with us other than Silvari. I'd rather deal with Sly's rudeness than having Creeper pop up all over me."  

[NaturesProfit]

"All right, all right, I'll help talk to hex boy if he's fine with switching out with Sly."

After a while of backtracking, Anzelm sees Xessus back in town. He quickly jogs over to him, waving in a friendly manner.

"Hey there, Xessus. Hey listen, I got word from our leader that she wants to get Sly to help us try to find the runaway human. She thinks ya can help out the townspeople bringing back the wagon, while we trek into the wilds. Is that cool with ya?"  

[Cowpies77]

It's hard to tell where Xessus is staring, but he gives a few moments before saying "Alright. If that is what you think is best."
handing over a large wineskin, he says "Here. Soup. Still nice and hot for you to eat later." With a slight bow of the head, Xessus joins with the other villagers in taking the wagon, as Anzelm rejoins Bansky and Jolla and rush ahead back to the village. Bansky opts to hang out with Mortimer a little bit at the gate, and Jolla heads off to freshen up due to drinking a bit too much tea this morning.

Slicatao Chirein, a traveling Elven flirt and currently what most girls think of as an Elven Heart-throb, is a well-known jack-of-most-trades. He is rather well known for entertaining people nightly with near-comical level of self aggrandizement when he recounts stories, but even D'Marcus admits that sometimes Sly's spins a good tale, and Anzelm has often found himself itching to compete with something, driven by such fanciful tales of inspiration.
The only other elf in town, Sly has had a rather long time to develop a wide array of "hobbies" and seems to know a little bit about everything. However, instead of using his talents to say, help with patrolling the town, he often uses them to woo girls. It's not uncommon to say that he's often found at the shrine, but it's usually not to pray (much to Jolla's irritation). Despite the frost of winter, he's rarely spent a night alone in the cold.

This particular morning, he's sitting at a piano in the tavern lounge, softly singing a love song to a small group of rather enthralled girls. Anzelm approaches to talk, and Sly heads him off, changing the lyrics of the song without breaking the tune to say

Quote:

Now Anzelm, don't worry I can see you~
I'll get to you soon, don't look so darn blue~
Go sit at the bar, get a drink, maybe two?
And you know, that I'm right, I'll always be true~

playing a rather simple tune with one hand on the piano, he shoos Anzelm away and takes a couple more minutes and verses, finishing and making some of the girls giggle and swoon a bit as he stands up and saunters over to them to flirt a little.

D'marcus has plenty of time to serve Anzelm a fair amount of drink before Sly's done with the gaggle of giggling girls and moves over to Anzelm. "Gooooooood Morning!" He says, cheerfully. "I'm going to have a nice night tonight. At least two or three handfuls of fun. So, what's up? I heard you were bopping around earlier today. Were you looking for fashion tips or something to start wooing the mayor? I think she likes you, y'know. Like shootin' orcs in a bucket, it'd be. Eh? Eh?" he ends with a bit of playful elbowing before ordering some berry mead and slapping down a couple of gold to pay for Anzelm's and his drinks.  

[NaturesProfit]

Anzelm gives a funny looking grimace as he sees the smooth elf work his charm at easily wooing the ladies. He can only wish he has such charm. He does however smile as he orders him a drink of berry mead. He forgives his antics and drinks with Sly.

"Thanks, pally. So yeah, here's what's going down. We found the wagon that was coming to town got attacked. People died, couldn't find survivors. We did however, found two orcs and some mysterious human trying to take control of them horses and wagon. The orcs got eliminated, but we lost the human. We, and by we I mean mostly Freid, were hoping that you may have some time off your busy day to give us a hand and find out what or who is trying to stop our food shipments from arriving. There's me, her, big and green Bansky, and then there'd be you. Whaddya say?"  

[Cowpies77]

ChronoWarrior

"Thanks, pally. So yeah, here's what's going down. We found the wagon that was coming to town got attacked. People died, couldn't find survivors. We did however, found two orcs and some mysterious human trying to take control of them horses and wagon. The orcs got eliminated, but we lost the human. We, and by we I mean mostly Freid, were hoping that you may have some time off your busy day to give us a hand and find out what or who is trying to stop our food shipments from arriving. There's me, her, big and green Bansky, and then there'd be you. Whaddya say?"

Sly blanches a bit as Anzelm starts to describe the situation, but becomes considerably more interested when Jolla the priestess is mentioned.

"Weeeeeell, I was going to politely decline, as my ideal evening isn't spent with a bunch of sweaty men tromping through the wilderness, but if Jolla's going... I think I'll go. That girl? On a scale of like, One to Ten, Priestess there's gotta be an eleven, maybe twelve." Stroking his chin a bit to muse to himself as he drinks a bit of mead, he says "Good thin she's a servant of the Gods, 'cause she got blessed growin' up. She's got the grace and face of an elf, but the Va-Va-Voom of one of these human girls~"
He sits there and enjoys his daydream a bit, but snaps out of it after a few minutes. "I love it when my little muse plays hard-to-get, but I'm sure in the cold, drafty nights, she won't mind bundling up to me to keep warm in my tent... That'd be a nice night."

Enjoying his plotting, he finishes his drinks, and says "I'll be at the village gates in like, three shakes of a cat's tail. Don't let her leave without me, got it?" And with that, he promptly leaves and heads to his room to pack.

Anzelm heads out and finds Jolla again with Bansky and Mortimer, the three of them playing a game of Three Dragon Ante, with Mortimer having a large pile of copper and Bansky looking like he's about to punch Mortimer.

Jolla sees Anzelm, and says "Levethix, are you ready to go? And were we going to sell that bloody armor and axes? we could probably get some decent gold to divvy up between us."  

[NaturesProfit]

Anzelm slightly blushes hearing Sly describing Freid in that fashion, but he quickly mutters to himself, waves his hand over his face, and any signs of blushing got quickly covered up.

"So you coming? Sounds good! Meetcha outside then. Also, thanks for the free drink, Sly Cooper."

After making sure he finished up Anzelm then pats Sly on the shoulder, and then sprints out to meet up with the group. He waves to everyone once he's close.

"Good news, Sly will come with us, so we can get going once he's here. For the bloody equipment, we can sell them, no problem. I'll just help clean it up while Sly comes here."

Anzelm waves his hands over the equipment. Slowly but surely, the blood begins disappearing from the armor and axes as they begin to regain their original shine. He then casts another spell as the armor and axes lose their dents and nicks, restoring themselves back to their original conditions. He smiles to himself.

"Haha. I love my spells!"  

[Cowpies77]

ChronoWarrior

Jolla does a Face-palm, saying "Great... One creeper for another."

Going to the blacksmith's shop with the now restored gear, Grom the Blacksmith looks displeased at seeing Anzelm's entrance. The Dwarf is going through some of the winter rations for the week when the elf enters. Grom usually looks to be in a bad mood, and is usually gruff and short with most people, smiling only when bad things happen to other people (although never fatal). He's partially blind in one eye from an accident one of his sons caused nearly 80 years ago, giving him a near constant look of suspicion and disbelief when talking to people. (He has 2 sons, one of whom is currently traveling and the other helps out at the forge and with cooking, as well as a wife and daughter, both of who spend most of their time doing things like gemcutting and sculpting. They're actually rather talented. Grom refuses to let them do blacksmithing not so much out of sexism as much as he just would prefer them to practice silver-smithing instead. Grom also has a grumpy cat that likes to sit and glower at customers.) It's a little amusing that the only person actually known to intimidate the elder dwarf is Xessus' mother, who is widely regarded as the creepiest/scariest person in the entire village, taking the title from Grom after giving him a taste of "The Stare". 0_0

Grom looks over the equipment and says "There ah' notches missin' out o' 'dis! Listen well elf, Yeh better no' be tryin' ta cheat meh! I go' mah good eye on yeh! Now, lessee heuh... we got... hmm... judging bah the depth o' da cuts, did dat lunatic Bansky cut 'dis guy down o' somethin'? It'll take some work tah fix dis back up for service. And dem axes, dey be chipped! I'd need to recast 'em to have 'em 'old a nice, sharp edge 'gain. I give yeh a fair price for 'em though... 20 gold fer both dem axes... I don't tink I can afford the armor right now though. Hold 'em for me for a week or two and lemme see if I can fill some orders first, then I'll pay for these Scale mails. Sound fair, elf?"  

[NaturesProfit]

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I ain't trying to cheat nobody here, Grom. I just wanted to spiffy up the equipment so ya don't have to spend any expensive chemicals or valuable water to clean the blood and stuff. As for the dents, I did the best I could to make them a little better. And 20 gold pieces for both axes?? Hmm...... I think that seems fair if you're all uppity about da dents and such. For me though, I think it'd be possible to get juuust a little more gold for both. Whaddya say?"  

[NaturesProfit]

((Diplomacy, -1. Wheee!))  

[Cowpies77]

ChronoWarrior

"And 20 gold pieces for both axes?? Hmm... I think that seems fair if you're all uppity about da dents and such. For me though, I think it'd be possible to get juuust a little more gold for both. Whaddya say?"

Grom grumbles loudly as he looks over the axes a second time. Little Grom, the Cat, hisses at Anzelm.
Eventually, he says "Fine, since I'm makin' yeh wait de week 'fore I can buy de armor offa yeh, I'll pay a li'l more fer dis. 25 gold fer both axes. Final offer, elf. Take it 'er leave it!"  

[NaturesProfit]

"Hmmm... done!"

Anzelm then waits for Grom to turn in the gold, before he places down the rest of the armor in the shop.

"I will just leave 'em here so no one is gonna hijack them, and so you can also have more time to fix em. Pleasure doing business with ya, Grom!"

Anzelm then leaves the blacksmith shop with the gold pieces, and meets back up with the group.

"Good news, we got 25 smackers for the axes. He was about to give us 20, but I talked him into giving a little more. For the armor, he said he'll give the money for them once he makes some more sales. Say, is Sly here yet?"  

[Cowpies77]

Alzelm returns to find Sly is sitting there on a corner of the table, strumming a tune on a lute as he sings rather sweetly to Jolla, who is averting her gaze and trying to focus instead on wining Three Dragon Ante. Apparently, in the several minutes that Anzelm was away, Jolla was doing rather well at the game, although she appears to rather be playing without the minstrel right next to her.

Bansky, who seems to have been eliminated out of the game, lumbers over and says "We split gold, Or go now?"  

[NaturesProfit]

"We can split it now if you want. Know what? For this, I'll just take one gold. You guys can have 8 each."

Anzelm hands eight gold coins to Bansky, another eight to Freid, and then holds onto the remaining eight gold to give to Xessus.

"I'm holding onto the remainder, sans one gold coin, for Xessus. He helped out quite a bit during that battle. Hope ya understand, Freid."

Anzelm moves through town to look for Xessus, waves to him, and takes out eight gold coins.

"Here ya go, buddy. Consider this your portion for helping us out back there. Well I better get back to our leader. I'll see ya back in a bit."

Anzelm then moves back to his group.

"All right, that's that. Let's head out then!"