Rogue wrote:Rogue steps up to the White Lotus Witcher next, hoping his higher skill in the Nifel tongue'll pay off.
"Hedwig of Beauclair, fellow Witcher, escorting villagers and archeologists. Sorry about those clowns over there, not much to do out in the middle of nowhere, sense of humour gets a bit warped. We will not cause you any more trouble, brothers, you look like you have your hands full."
The hooded figure stared at you for a while, before he let you through. You got the feeling he was trying to remember your face.
You're fairly sure you pronounced most of the words correctly, but the accent was still very vivid.
Rolo uncomfortably quacked in the depths of your soul and bit his lower lip, falling in thought:
"
..we're making progress, but we'll need a lot more weeks before we can loose the accent and speak fluently. At least we can somewhat communicate now."
Twilight wrote:"Perhaps a strange thought, but we shouldn't stand in the open like this together a lot. Inside a secluded place it's fine, but several people speaking a foreign language with the sound of the enemy? I would be quick to apprehend them as well."
She looks at Ursula. "Be careful in that conversation. If they find out about your connection to us, questions can go any way."
"Right" Ursula grimly nodded: "I shouldn't be long" she looked around with worry and stiffly walked off, trying to blend in. She was seemingly trying too hard and it made her stand out even more.
Rain wrote:Rain finally meets with Johan, "you have to try these fruits!" She holds the fruit out
"T-thank you" Johan took the fruit and absentmindedly ate it. He had a thousand mile stare, thoughts almost visibly swirling around in his head. After a while he snapped out of it and nodded to you a few times:
"..it was good, thank you"
"Come on" Kaylee quietly waved: "Lets find a place to rest"
She began head across the ships deck and down a few flights of stairs. The floors below were seemingly once used for storage, had no been converted into makeshift rooms for refugees.
There was little in terms of furniture in each room. The beds were hand made out of anything that was laying around at the time, hammock made out of an old sail, stretched between two support beams, a mattress on the floor, a wooden bed built out of old boxes. A tiny drawer was present, but not in every room.
It seems the priority was to fit as many people into the ship as possible, at the cost of personal space and comfort. By the time you arrived, the upper most decks were already fully packed with people, with all the rooms taken and people starting to set up in the hallways.
Going down a few more floors, you managed to find a tiny room with eight makeshift beds in it and Kaylee thought aloud about setting up there. Most of the gear and provisions from the convoy was moved into ships storage on the bottom most floor, to leave more space for people to settle up top. Apart from a small bag of essentials, nothing else could really fit in the new living quarters.
Johan found an old oil lamp in the corner and lit it with a small flame from his fingers, then hung in the lamp on a rope from the ceiling.
Ursula wasn't back for a good fifteen minutes and Johan climbed into one of the hammocks hanging just under the ceiling and began drifting away. Kaylee and Tim sat down on one of the makeshift beds and began quietly talking about Kaylee's prosthetic leg - its metal surface was beginning to show through her torn, leather boots and Kaylee wanted advice how to hide its machine features from sight.
When Ursula finally came back, she looked even more grim and miserable than before. Hauling a cart with a calibration stone in it, she slowly walked into the room and closed the door behind her. Then leaned with her back on it and just stared at the floor. She looks like she's about to burst into tears.
"Ursula what's wrong" Johan called, sitting up in the hammock. Ursula wiper her eyes and looked up:
"...I spoke with the captain. He said we will be departing within the hour. The scouts reported that the parasite horde is moving much faster than anticipated. They'll be here by nightfall, so we need to catch distance from the shore, before they do.
The captain also provided me with the magic calibration stone, stacked with their combat arsenal. And the local maps of the region. The maps are out of date though, they don't reflect the parasite horde's current positions"
She looked away and wiped her eyes again.
"..Ursula, why are you crying?" Kaylee quietly asked.
Ursula shook her head: "...the captain and his crew made me understand, that they view me as a traitor to my people. When I asked for help, they gave me the gear begrudgingly, acting as if we'd taken their ship hostage and forced them to give us what we want.
They never said it outright, but it was heavily implied.. the way they talked to me.. the disgust in their eyes, the jabs they threw my way- I don't understand!" She covered her eyes and suppressed a sob:
"I didn't do anything wrong, why are they acting like this? I just wanted to help" she covered her face with both hands, quietly crying.
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