RP:Engineers, Adventurers and Cats

Part of the The White Hunt Arc

Summary: Linn is preparing to leave Frostmaw fort and head to the tavern to fetch some ale and food when Alvina comes calling. The Silver Bard, as she is known, has heard the rumours of Orikahn and Linn's latest venture and ventures to the fort to make sure they're both all right. WIth her checks performed, the bard offers to pay for dinner and the two catch up in the fort before heading off.

West Hall

Linn would be found wearing his usual armor, pack, and other gear as he made his way down the hallway, the major thing out-of-place being a damp rag that he held to his forehead. He looked a little pained, but overall quite at peace and satisfied with the day’s events. Alvina may have already heard some of the rumors and conversations among townsfolk of the man who walked in with the Hunter of Frostmaw to get him to the fort, and if she pried for information the descriptions would match him. For now he was just looking to get to the tavern to call it a night though, he’d sort out whatever rewards may have been in mind for him tomorrow.

Alvina had heard the rumors, and had been rushing around like a mad woman since then, looking desperately for signs of either Linn or Orikahn. The stunted heels of her boots clicked loudly as she moved down another hallway in the fort, her dark blue cloak casting a long shadow behind her until she saw him. "Linn!" She called after him, picking up her pace until they were side by side. "Are you all right?" She was panting, eyeing the cloth at his forehead, and examining him visually for further injury. "I heard there was some trouble." She smiled at him, thankful that he was okay. Worry seeped into her features with her next question. "I also heard that Orikahn might be with you...?" Was it true? Her emerald optics asked him, was the Hunter okay?

Linn turned and blinked to find the source of the footfalls on stone, giving a nod of recognition when he saw the engineer. “Hey Alvina” he called back as she pulled up beside him. With a weak smile he dismissed the worry, “I’m fine,” taking the cloth from his forehead for a second to reveal a bruised welt that had appeared. “I got a little bump on the way back here.” As she mentioned Orikahn he became a bit more concerned, but gave another nod of agreement. “Yeah, I had to drag him back here from the forest. He’s in pretty bad condition, but the healers are seeing to him now.” A pause before he explained the nature of the wounds as he knew them. “As far as I can tell he got attacked by some undead out west, some of the wounds got infected and he passed out later. I had to pull him back to town after that, but he’s still alive. We got him back here soon enough to get him patched up and seen to though I think. He should be fine given some time.”

Alvina flinched playfully at the sight of Linn’s own injury, but her smile wilted to a worried frown as he continued to explain. Orikahn was badly injured, but he was being seen to. “Thanks the gods you’re both okay,” she sighed with relief, throwing her arms around Linn and drawing him against her. “Thank you, for helping him.” Orikahn, for all his teasing and almost murdering her for dinner that one time, was very important to her. The bard’s arms fall limb and she backs away, a smile overshadowing most of her concern. “I’m so glad we got here when we did. Hudson and I, I mean. We were bringing our latest contraption to Hildegarde. We’d just finished when I heard.” Thankfully, words were wildfire in the fort. Everyone needed something to warm them against the chill of Frostmaw. “Are you sure you’re all right? Are you in any pain? Let me see…” She doesn’t wait for his permission, but draws the cloth in his hands into her own like some sort of mothering hen. The mixture of excitable youth and doating elder was a little overwhelming; she never seemed to notice the back and forth herself.

Linn gave a halfhearted smile that they were both okay. He certainly was, the hunter right now definitely wasn't okay, but the odds were pretty good. As he suddenly found himself hugged he couldn't help but warm up and return the gesture, giving a single nod. "Couldn't just leave him out there. He certainly wasn't going to come back here to get help, even if he was well enough to walk." A chuckle, the damn cat was so stubborn that the enchanter had to wait for him to pass out before he'd even dare do what he did. "Well, if the healers will let you see him he's down the hall. I doubt he's in a condition to talk right now though. He's gotta warm up and they have to deal with whatever he's come down with. Hopefully he'll be up to protest the help in a day or two" he jested to lighten the mood and maybe convince himself that he got the hunter in soon enough for sure. he sighed as she took the cloth from him and gingerly touched the reddened bump on his head. "It smarts a little, but that's it. Just a surface wound" was his dismissal of his own injury in the face of Alvina's mothering.

Alvina narrowed her eyes at the injury, looking very critical, and then smiling. “Did they give you something for it? The healers I mean.” Again, her enthusiasm doesn’t permit her to wait for a response. Both fleshed and metallic hands are digging through her satchel to produce a vial of clear liquid. It’s so transparent; the vial appears empty until you twist it in the soft torch light of the corridor. “Put this on it tonight, before you sleep. And you had better sleep,” she warned him with a smile. It’s hard to intimidate or force people to take care of themselves and she wasn’t threatening in any capacity. “Bend down and close your eyes.” Her gaze misses his, waiting for him to comply. If he doesn’t, she’ll touch the place on his face carefully, moving her lips to silently summon the bardic magics she is trained in. It was the least she could do. The injury would tingle and itch ever so slightly, feeling warm and less tense. The throbbing would ebb. The same would happen if he did heed her instruction and bend down but the healing effect would be a little greater, because it would be her lips pressed to his forehead like a motherly kiss of affection. Her magic was stronger when it steamed from her lips. It wasn’t anything perverse! She did have a boyfriend that she loved very much, after all. “There.” Linn is handed the vial, the mark on his head remains but the swelling has gone down a considerable amount. The pain would slowly decline as his evening progressed. Smiling, she reached out to shake his hand again. Alvina’s lack of physical barriers made her pro contact in almost all scenarios. Obviously, not during arguments. That was just silly. But they weren’t arguing. She was thanking him. “Let me buy you a meal tonight,” she insisted, handing him a few gold pieces that she’d secretly dug from her satchel with the balm. “I insist.”

Linn nodded and was just about to respond to her question before she was already finding something of her own to help with it. Any indignation that he had just broke with an apathetic sigh. There was no stopping these people from helping him it seemed. "I got something like this, but some more is always nice. And yes, right now I'm ready to call it a day and get some rest." He chuckled just as she gave her next command. With brows raised inquisitively he shrugged and obeyed, figuring nothing too bad could come of the order. With the kiss he flinched a little bit in surprise before relaxing, the magic that charged his body interacting with her spell and amplifying its effects. Already the pain had stopped, replaced with a pleasant, if hazy and somewhat numb feeling of relaxation. He had to fight a bit to keep the effect from spreading to the rest of his body and mind though, lest he wind up collapsing in a sleep again like the last time someone decided to use magic to make him relax. Looking back up he blinked a couple times as if clearing a daze, "Thanks, that does more than you'd expect I think" he responded with a chuckle as he shook her hand as well. As she offered some money for a meal he just sighed with another good-natured smile. He'd tried arguing with this before, it doesn't work. "Well I didn't have much bigger plans tonight other than getting some food and rest." Looking at the money and the balm he just smiled sheepishly. "I'll be back soon to see Orikahn again, and what he thinks about me forcing help on him when he can't refuse" he finished with a chuckle.

Alvina lifts her hand as he moves to depart. “I’m sure he’ll be grateful, in his own way.” Only after she’d given him everything she can think of, does she stand there, reconsidering all her mothering. “Sorry,” she chuckles, tilting her head with a smile. “I know I can be a little much, I just want you to know how relieved I am that you’re okay. Last thing we need is the trading of lives. There’s already too much of that around here, if you ask me.” Her eyes open again, her head straight on her shoulders. “Good friends are hard to come by. Go. Rest. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be around until the morning, I expect.” The bard had to resist the urge to give him another of the silver bracelets in her satchel. Don’t be silly! That was where she drew the line with herself apparently, handing out money and random medicine made sense. More Jewelry or ornate objects? Not so much. “Next time, we get to talk about building something together okay?” She half asked, half hoped aloud, waiting for him to start back on his way before dashing down the corridor to peek in on Orikahn. There’s no way he would ever know she’d been there. Her scent was all over this fort.

Linn just grinned in response. "Maybe not just after waking up but given some time I'm sure he will be." At her mothering he just shrugged with a somewhat melancholy expression. "You just care for people, nothing wrong with that. It's how we keep everything going forward much of the time" he said with a weak smile. "Have to see you then, hopefully the big guy will have improved enough to entertain a conversation. He's stubborn enough I wouldn't put it too far past him." With the farewell he gave a single nod, "We'll have to find something to build for, but sure! Curious to see what you can do with metal yourself!" was his own. Alvina was likely well known enough to be allowed to see to Orikahn, who was tended to by a few doctors. The hunter had several strikes of dull crimson crossing his form, cuts and wounds already scabbed over. But if she got to see his back she would find what the real concern was; a couple bite marks were cut into the back, around them pustules and sores oozed a sickening black ichor, some of which bulged under the pressure of the fluid while others had already ruptured. The cat was lucky to have the medical aid of Frostmaw, as much as he disapproved of the idea back out at his lodge.