RP:An Elf With A Job Part 2

Part of the Home Sweet Home Arc

Location: Northern Sage Forest

Synopsis: Gilwen wanders the Northern Sage forest, inspecting the trees for signs of rot, and crosses paths with the Warrior Krice. She manages to recruit his help for her attempt at infiltrating Trist'Oth.

In Northern Sage Forest

Groping branches reach out across the pathway, leading both east and west. The view is clear here in all directions. The dirt beneath is hard packed and lined by heavy logs. Off the road, however, the forest becomes more rugged, and much more difficult to circumnavigate. It would be advisable to stay upon the set path, though anyone with guts could expose themselves to the mystical intrigue of the deeper eaves.

Krice walked along the northern outskirts of Sage, taking a slightly off-path trek through Kelay. He was dressed in his usual attire, black button-down with the collar open and sleeves rolled to his elbows, two katanas strapped to his back. His pace was unhurried but purposeful, naturally quiet. The stoic man kept his senses tuned to the cacophony of his surroundings--birds, citizen chatter, cart wheels across gravel--but his gilded eyes focused ahead.

The southern section of forest was still marked for death with a growing swatch of decaying trees and foliage, and some of the elven populace that had returned following the retaking of their ancestral home had made the return trek back to Frostmaw to live in the small, but thriving community that had taken root there. Despite many the many efforts made, the curse had spread, slowly creeping along until it had taken, root and stem, the trees from the elven enclave to the border of Enchantment, and west from the Xalious mountain path to the eastern hills and meadows. With no room to grow up upward, the path of destruction reached toward the small village of Kelay, and patrol units comprised of foot soldiers and druids often circuited the northern most section of the forest, to take a multitude of samples to ensure the curse hadn't spread beyond what they had temporarily quarantined. The knowledge that her druids and more scientific minded kin often delivered to the small council didn't prevent Gilwen from often making trips throughout the woods to ensure, with her own eyes, what had been reported to her daily. It was why she had found herself on the same path, at the same time as Krice, the two walking toward each other from opposite directions. Having only met the man once, Gilwen's eyes met his briefly before sliding off to peruse the parchment she had been using to take notes of her own; the quill she had been using was tucked into her mane of red hair. A second passes, a halting step taken, and her eyes fly wide and back toward Krice. "You. I've been meaning to find you." Her expression is one of surprise mingled with a touch of anxiety, and even smaller than that, hope. "I was told your name was Kri-Krice?" She had started to pronounce it as 'k-rice', but quickly corrected herself.

Krice didn't go where the cursed trees had died, where other cursed strees still stood. He kept on the outskirts of the afflicted forest, but a flash of crimson hair in the morning sunlight caught his eye and he glanced toward it before realizing that he was. A few seconds later, those gold-streaked eyes settled on a distantly familiar face. It had been a long, -long- time since he had seen Gilwen. When she reacted with realization that she had been meaning to find him, the stoic warrior changed his trajectory to approach her, though he would halt if she remained behind that invisible line of the curse. Standing tall with shoulders relaxed and eyes attentively fixed on the woman's face, he asked, " What's the problem?" He didn't speak to her inquiry after his name. Perhaps she was right. Maybe he just didn't care.

Gilwen was well removed from the current boundaries of the curse, so Krice was able to approach her, and once he did, she rolled up her parchment and tucked it carefully into a hip pouch. "I was advised that you might be able to help me with something." She glanced about the road and at its slow, but sparse traffic; they'd be safe enough to chat here. "The council was reminded that you were at our encampment months ago when we had Laezila with us, and we were also informed of your escape from Trist'oth during the war. I was hoping you might help me with a little cartography. I need to get into Trist'oth."

Krice wasn't a disrespectful person to people who didn't deserve it, but he -was- a man who was focused on all things, preferring the point of the story to the fluff that led up to it. 'I was led to believe' came from Gilwen's lips and he waited for the punchline, but it didn't come in that sentence. " Get to it," he murmured frankly,  thereafter holding his silence to let her describe what she needed from him. Something shifted through his otherwise tempered expression upon her mention of Laezila, jaw stiffening at sound of 'Trist'oth'. In the end, with his chin slighty lifted, the man asked of the pointy-eared woman, " What do you expect to achieve by going to Trist'oth?" Of all places.

Gilwen's expression hadn't changed when he told her to get to the point, nor had it changed when he asked her about Trist'oth. "The former Archmage Tiphareth had a hand in laying the curse that's on Sage now," Whether it was only him, or if he had help was currently unknown. "I need to get into the D'Artes house and look for something that might help me unfurl the curse." Be it book, or magical artifact, she wouldn't leave there without -something-.

Krice's brow twitched and he diverted his gaze, staring at an indistinct point beyond Gilwen's head. She wanted to get into D'Artes? " Hysterical." But he wasn't laughing. A shake of the head precipitated his reply before he stepped forward to continue on his way. " Sorry - can't help you."

Gilwen's hand flashed out to try and grab a part of Krice, be it shirt or arm, to halt his departure. "I was told you might know how to get there. I've never been to D'Artes house itself. And the passage we took to the Underdark has been collapsed. I just need help with map making. I have a healthy budget, you will be paid." She would have to find another to help her through Trist'oth, but she just needed a map.

Krice's right sleeve was nice and bunched above the elbow, easy to grab for a hand that lept out for that very purpose. He halted, shot an indifferent stare down at the elf's fingers wrapped in black fabric, and then slid his stare upward to meet the depths of her eyes there. He didn't like to be touched; happily his skin had been spared the contact. Lifting his chin again, the warrior angled his eyes to hers and added, with slightly evident regret in his tone, " I wasn't in a condition to pay attention to where I was." He had been held captive for weeks, injured to near-death. Didn't her informant tell her as much?

Gilwen removed her hand as soon as Krice had stopped; she didn't like touching people anymore than he liked being touched, but time was quite literally running out for her and her people. The knowledge that he wasn't in a state to be attentive to his surroundings, let alone remember them after all these months had her biting down on the inner side of her cheek out of frustration and desperation, though none of it had been directed toward him. "You were just a suggestion made. We weren't told of the circumstances or details of your escape. Thank you anyway." She'd allow him to leave then, without another attempt to halt his progress, and turn back toward the diseased forest and her notes.

Krice had to think outside of the box that was himself. Though his time in the Underdark had been hellish at best, though his memory of its layout was sketchy and in parts completely missing, the survival of an entire forest and its people relied on Gilwen retrieving information from Trist'Oth. He studied her pensively when she released him and turned away, for reasons that were his own. After staring at the eastern shadows with a forlorn expression that told of his want to forget about the world and keep to himself, the man said, " You'd need to find a functional entrance. There's at least one, somewhere in the northeast of Vailkrin. Have you send scouts to search?" Oh, the duties of a reluctant hero.

Gilwen was aware that Krice hadn't yet moved on, and she silently prayed to Olric that he might yet offer some help, in some way. The quill had been plucked from her hair leaving a stark, contrasting streak of black in its wake, so that she could cross off a word on her list, but before she had struck out the word entirely, Krice had begun speaking. She turned back toward him quickly, hope clearly etched across her features. The mention of the entrance however, dimmed her expression into one of thoughtfulness, and she tapped her cheekbone with the stiff feather of her quill for a few silent seconds. "We were hoping that we might be able to find a separate entrance to the Underdark, we've sent out scouts twice before, but none were able to make it to Trist'Oth, or make it back at all. The forest there is incredibly dangerous." All of this is said more so to herself, than to Krice, and after a second more, she blinked away whatever was occupying her thoughts. "It appears that we only have one choice then." She'll have to hire help in getting there.

Krice turned back toward Gilwen when she answered him about her scouts. Well of course they hadn't returned. The Underdark wasn't a walk in the park. " The whole area, above ground and below, is dangerous." Not just the surrounding forest. In reply to her accepting words that only 'one' option was left to her, the enigma squinted pensively and asked, " What's that?" There was something swirling around in his head, if the thoughtfulness in his eyes was anything to go by.

Gilwen shook her head slightly in reference to the dangers within the Underdark, not in disagreement however; an employed illusionist, or a magical draft would provide enough cover to get in and out of the city. Whether it would be enough to get in the D'Artes house or not was yet to be seen. "Unless another means of entrance to the city is provided, I'll have to take the passage in Vailkrin."

Krice didn't waste time stating to Gilwen, " Don't go alone." Even though he knew that he couldn't tell a grown woman what to do, especially a proud elf, his tone was one of succinct warning. It was too dangerous for anyone to travel singularly through the forests of Vailkrin. Talk of illusions used as cover for her entry to the Underdark inspired a nod from the warrior, who then added, " Let me see what I can dredge up about the layout of the place. Wait for word." Hopefully she would delay her visit to Trist'Oth until he could provide her with details of the Underdark - or a map, or -something- she could use whilst down there.

Gilwen hadn't planned on venturing into the Underdark or Trist'Oth without a highly skilled team to aid her, and while she had hoped to add Krice to her team, she understood his refusal. So when he stated that she shouldn't go alone, she merely nodded in agreement, and his agreement to help provide a charted map, or something of equal help, was met with the smallest of smiles, one bred from hope; whether or not the trip proved fruitful, she'd at least be able to get in to look.

Krice dipped his head in an acknowledging nod, accepting Gilwen's acceptance of his minimal offer to help, and something indiscernible passed through his eyes before he turned to leave her to the dying forest, moving a little more briskly to the east.

Gilwen allowed Krice to leave this time without hindrance, and turned back to her parchment to scribble a few extra notes. Time to start planning the excursion.