Gods and Men

Ashera stood by the crossroads, glowing faintly in the growing darkness. She seemed to be the first one there, as she had been told there were four others coming. She was nervous, not sure when the others would come, and slightly uncomfortable in the darkness alone so far from her village. The forest beside her looked dark and foreboding. She kept thinking she saw the shape of a man in the trees out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned to face the spot, there would be no one there. She shivered slightly, and pulled her soft cloak closed, covering the silken looking dress underneath. She thought she could see someone coming down the road in the distance.

Jocasta had been making towards a faint light for about twenty minutes now, one hand leading her horse by the reins and the other hand resting casually on her sword. As she lifted her head to look into the light again, she was surprised to find that the light was in fact a person. Her grip on the sword hilt tightened. People with obvious blessings tended to make her nervous--if they were powerful enough to show it, they were usually powerful enough to do some serious damage. Jocasta slowed her pace slightly while she did the calculations.

Glowing. Means either Maellora or Zath. Maybe combined with something else. Not much of a problem if she's Moon on it's own--what's she going to do, heal me to death? Night would be more of a problem. If there's anything else in there, there's no way to know it. She sighed, taking her hand off of the sword hilt to run it through her hair. Watch for flying, watch if you start to get sleepy. Either way, wouldn't hurt to be ready at a distance.

She casually shifted her bags on the horse and loosened the straps holding her crossbow down before resuming her previous pace. By now, she was close enough to see the figure more clearly.

It's not that glowy-girl's looking like much of a threat. Or that Maribella want to get me killed. Probably. But there's no point in getting into bad habits.

As she approached the girl, she briefly cupped her sword hand around her mouth to shout, "Oy there! Spirits' blessings, and all that."

Ashera watched as the person and horse came closer. The girl she saw looked rather intimidating, and she flinched a little when the girl called out to her. She gave a little wave of her hand in response and waited for the person to come closer.

Myrddin walked towards the location he had been told to meet the others at by Caladry. He didn't know what to expect, or why he was even asked to leave his home. He'd been on the road for about a week by this point, having had to walk, as he'd never learned how to ride. He was tired and sore, and really needed a break. As he walked along he muttered to himself under his breath "Oh, I do so love to walk. Spirits know, I'm just the most athletic guy around. It's not like I have anything better to do than to walk along this thrice-accursed road, like, oh, I don't know, perhaps deal with a whole village's finances or anything. And even if this is important, couldn't she have gotten the meeting point to be a little closer to home? Because seriously, if there's another soul at the meeting point with as little skill adventuring as me, we'll be a sorry lot indeed."

He continued on for a good half-hour like this, an unending torrent of complaints flooding from his mouth before he looked up from his feet and saw a glowing figure no more than a few hundred metres from himself. She was looking off towards somebody leading a horse and waving. well, this would be the spot, he thought, I guess that makes these people my... what? Companions?

"Good evening!" Trying to sound as friendly as he could (not particularly), "I gather that you are two of those I have been sent to meet? Do you have news of the others?"

Ashera jumped as Myrddin called out, and turner to face him, quivering slightly.She gave a tiny nod in response to his question and shrank back towards the forest, looking back and forth between these two new people coming at her from both directions.

Jocasta looked at the willowy, glowing figure and raised an eyebrow.

"Yir's thunder, I'm not going to eat you, girl. Stop jumping about."

She turned to sum up the new arrival.

No obvious power, young, scrawny. Looks too footsore to do much but whine about it. Probably a bookworm. No threat.

Aloud, she said. "Seems we're the ones all right. You'll have to ask the girl, though--haven't heard a squeak from her yet."

A squeak might be all she's capable of--looks like she's about to jump out of her skin.

"No news of the others," Jocasta added, "If they don't show soon, we'd better set up camp."

An unpleasant thought struck her as she looked at the new arrival, with his pale skin and pronounced lack of muscles.

"You... do know how to set up a camp, right?"

A thought hit her all of a sudden. I'm going to have to keep this pack of wimps alive somehow, and for long enough to find a missing spirit. Seven hells, we'll have to deal with whatever took out a spirit in the first place.

"I can't speak for her, but I'm familiar enough with the theory of setting up camp. Granted, I don't have a great deal of experience, as I stayed in inns on my way here, but I did see a spot about half a kilometre back that looked suitable. Well, actually, it was 648 metres back, but you get my meaning. It was just off a bend in the road; there were some rocks around it that would hide us from the road while still granting us both easy sight of and access to it. Furthermore, it's not actually under the tree cover, so our visibility won't be limited, and we should be able to see something coming a ways off." Myrddin said confidently Caladry said to prepare for danger. At least information is something I can deal with. By this point Myrddin was within a few metres of the others. "My name's Myrddin, by the way."

Ashera flinched back a bit at Jocasta's harsh tone, but tried to pass it off as a shiver. She wrapped her arms around herself to make it seem as though she was cold. She gave a very shy smile when Myrddin introduced himself, and tried to do the same, but when she was about to open her mouth to do so her throat closed up, and she gave up the attempt. Instead she looked over at Jocasta and waited for her reply.

The theory of setting up camp. Great.

Aloud: "Myrddin. Jocasta." She reached out a hand to grab his and pump it firmly up and down once. "Use Joc if you have to shorten it. Sounds like you've found a decent spot. We'll have to wait for the others, so let's set out for the camp at moonrise if no one else has shown by then. Okay by you, glow-girl?"

Ashera nodded, and whispered quietly,
"my name is Ashera..."
As she turned her head to look around for more people, she thought she saw that same shape in the trees again, and like the first few times, as soon as she looked at the spot directly, the figure was gone. She took a step away from the trees and shuddered.

"Ashera. Jocasta. Cool" Myrddin said. "The plan sounds good. I presume from your attire that you are a professional combatant of some form. Mercenary?" he asked Jocasta.

Ashera continued to back away from the forest, turning her head to look down the road, trying to see if the figure appeared again. As her nerves escalated, she stared to glow more strongly until she was quite bright.

Jocasta grinned at Myrddin.

"You got that right. Captain Jocasta Blain, Black Lake Mercenaries. On leave, of course."

Ashera flared up again at the corner of her eye and Jocasta found she had automatically reached for the hilt of her sword. Sighing, she dropped her hand.

"Would you quit flickering, glow-girl? You're making me jumpy just looking at you."

Ashera shuddered again and glanced over at Jocasta.
"I'm sorry" she whispered, "I can't control it..."
She thought about mentioning the figure she kept seeing, but decided against it, not wanting them to think there was something worn with her.

"Well, it's good to know we've got someone here who actually knows what to do." Myrddin said, "I've read everything I could find on adventuring, but I'm all to aware of the necessity for experience in such matters. At this point, I can find whatever we need, but I'm afraid I'll be going entirely on the wisdom of others. Furthermore, I haven't any experience fighting, so I'm afraid my contributions will be somewhat limited should there be a need for combat. On the positive side, though, I know about any recorded properties of every variety of vegetation discovered, so that might be useful."

Still glowing brightly, Ashera looked over her two new companions. She knew that she would be almost useless in a fight, and she had hoped that they would both be able to fight to make up for it. One person who could fight would not be of much use on an adventure...she could only hope that the others would be able to contribute.
"I can't fight either..." she whispered hesitantly, "I'm a healer..."

"Effectively making my knowledge of medicinal plants redundant." Myrddin said, "seriously, I don't get why I'm here. Besides the fact that I don't much care for walking, I'm basically a glorified, walking library!"

Ashera smiled shyly, then getting another fleeting image of a man in the woods, she jumped back a step and started to shiver uncontrollably. She made a small whimpering noise and moved to hide behind Jocasta.

Axel watched the group from a distance, unsure of weather or not to approach. This stange assignment from the village cheaf had required him to travel many miles to reach his spot, and here he was. He did not look forward to having to interact with these people. Not one bit. He had noticed another in amoungst the trees, but they were elusive and hard to follow. Axel wondered if they might also be part of these summons. A hand reached down to scratch the head Of Asher, the wolf who stood by his side. Asher looked up at him and let out a quiet, questioning noise. Axel reassured him that everything was fine. Taking a deep breath, Axel drew himself up out of the low crouch he was in and started to make his way towards the people on the path. Asher skirted through the underbrush not far behind him. Gethering his courage, he emerged from the woods and approached the group, Asher staying in the bushes behind him, quietly watching.

Ashera noticed the man moving through the woods, a very different figure from the shadowy one that she wasn't sure even existed. When he stepped out of the trees her eyes widened at his size. She also noticed something else that seemed to be staying in the woods, a pet dog perhaps? She peeked her head (the only part of her besides her hands that could be seen glowing due to the rest of her being covered by more than one layer of clothing) out from behind Jocasta to look at the man. By now, she was glowing enough to be lighting up an area around her of a few feet.

This glowing...child(?) must be a fellow blessed, thought Axel. Zath, perhapps? The Woman standing in front of her seemed to be of strong body and mind. The boy...he seemed too frail to be venturing acroos the countryside. The lot of them looked ratehr ill prepared, in his mind. Perhapps their blessings made up for that, if they had any. The only one he could certainly tell was blessed was the glowing girl. Pushing thoughs of worth out of his mind as he drew nearer the group, he took in a deep breath, and let it out to calm himself. People always made him uncomfortable. He came to a stop a few feet away fro them. "Hello."he said in his smoothe, baratone voice.

Ashera moved her hand out from behind Jocasta and gave him a tiny wave. She was still very intimidated by his size and gruff manners. Her eyes darted to the animal in the trees then back to him. She continued to hide behind Jocasta, with only the tips of her fingers and the top half of her face poking out. The glowing also seemed to have lessened somewhat.

"Hi" Myrddin said, "You would be the fourth member of this party then?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

"I guess." was the only response from Axel. He was still glancing from person to person, sizing them up, trying to guess their strengths and weaknesses, and feeling generally out of place and awkward. He glanced over to the bushes where Asher stood sniffing the air around the party, probably doing much what Axel himself was doing.

Jocasta smiled unconvincingly at the newcomer.

Damn that glowing fool. I've got no night vision at all.

As the man approached, she casually slid her sword a few inches out of the sheath, using Myrddin's greeting to cover the sound.

"Well, looks like you're in the right place. Jocasta Blain." Noticeably, she did not make any move to shake his hand in greeting and omitted her military title.

Zath and Shara above, I hope he's on our side. He's big enough to give me a lot of trouble.

His obvious nervousness was not reassuring. Neither was Ashera's increasing interest in the woods nearby. This was not shaping up to be a good night.