RP:Hunt The Beast, Not The Pixie

Part of the The White Hunt Arc

Frostmaw Tavern

Having finished his chat with Hildegarde, the pixie known as Irthos prepares to depart.

Irthos goes in for another quick hug on Hilde. "Thank you kindly for letting me talk with you." He waves over to Orikahn, he sure the big cat wouldn't notice. "Good bye again Sir." Turning again to the Knight, "What ever you think I can do to help then. Anyways I need to get back to the Library for further studies. Anything I should know before leaving?"

Hildegarde said to Irthos, "Nothing in particular. Off with you, go back to your studies."

Irthos reaches deep inside looking for a thread of magic to use for his take off. He finds it and soon rapidly increases in temperature. Right when he was about to radiate heat, he passes out from the shock of raising his temperature too quickly, from cold to hot in an instant, and falls to the table unconscious.

Irthos vanished before your eyes, perhaps never to be seen again.

Orikahn sneaks a glance over to the table, intrigued by the sudden silence. Ears perk bolt upright at the sight of the pixie's unconscious body, and he licks his chops. Looking then to Hildegarde, he hesitates and clears his throat, pointing at the morsel in the table. "You weren't going to..." he lightly shakes his head, "eat that... were you?" Kahn's brows raise hopefully.

Hildegarde , like Orikahn, finds her eyebrows rising though not hopefully. “No, I wasn’t intending to eat him, but that doesn’t mean you can either,” she told him firmly. “Didn’t you hear? He’s a citizen of Frostmaw,” she said in regards to the unconscious pixie who was being lifted by a waitress and taken away to get some undisturbed rest. “Besides… Plenty of hot food in this tavern.”

Orikahn feels his expression lift, then fall at Hildegarde's words. Dismissing his eager visions of pixie-on-a-stick, he clears his throat get again. "No, of course, preposterous, yes," the cat breaks off muttering. In silence, he cleans several seconds longer, then speaks up again. "That beast," he casually begins, "by the way, I managed to get a good look at him."

Hildegarde said to Orikahn, "That so? Tell me about it."

Orikahn continues dutifully cleaning and polishing, and even allows himself to smile at Hildegarde's words, knowing he has his back to her. "It is so." The cat nods a bit, forgetting the way it makes his ears bounce. "I managed to find it outside a shrine, or..." a moment's hesitation, "...what used to be a shrine. It's all powder and rubble now. I barely would have known, except, well," Kahn stops himself, swallows, and pushes himself back to subject. "It's a bull. Like a ox-sort-of-bull, but bigger. Much, much bigger. Big..." His eyes narrow and he shakes his head, searching for an adequate description. "At the shoulder it stands," the cat raises a paw above his own head, leveling it with fingers straight, "... maybe twice my height." He sets his arm back down. "Strong enough to crush stones like paper... like sand. Hmm."

Hildegarde listens carefully to his description of the beast, certain she had heard tales of such before. “I think the term is auroch… A massive ox like beast, with horns so sharp and vicious they’d rip a man in two,” all was explained rather thoughtfully, as if she struggled to recall the information from some piece of text. “But you say the shrine was reduced to rubble?” she asked now with evident concern. “That’s not good. Not at all… The spirits of Frostmaw are restless ones and I can’t imagine that this destroying of their structures – intended or accidental – will be of any good. Hunt it down. Put to an end to it,” she said with finality, yet with a hint of sadness. The woman did not like to spill blood if she could prevent it, particularly that of an animal who had no ill intent. “I shall inform the priestess of this. But… kill the beast and I will reward you well. Kill it quickly, for it should not have to suffer and you are, after all, a skilled hunter so you should be more than capable of such. In any case, take as long as you need to prepare for such a hunt.

Orikhan furrowed his brow, listening and repeating after her. "Our-ox?" It seemed like a strange term. He made a face. "Our-rock. Arrrr-rock." After several tries rolling the word around on his tongue, the cat contents himself with 'R'-rock and leaves it at that. "Pulverized." Kahn interjects when Hildegarde speaks of the shrine. "Unrecognizable as such. Like somebody make a bas relief on the ground that *looked* like a broken shrine, and then they broke *that.* Unsalvageable." He sets down the piece of armor he'd been working on and stands, stretching in earnest this time, his muscles visibly twitching beneath his thickening coat of fur. Now that the thought of pixies had worked up his appetite, he would have to find something else to work it back down. "I was hoping you'd say that." Kahn answers Hildegarde's order to kill, "yes I was. Very glad to hear you've made up your mind." Sauntering up to the bar, he leans over, studying whatever sumptuous spread might await. He paws over a handfull of coins as he looks.

Hildegarde frowned at his explanation and elaboration of the state of the shrine. Absolutely pulverised was not a good way to leave things, that was a certainty. “Well, when the deed is done, return to me and you shall be rewarded as I have promised you. And if you find the hunt and Frostmaw to your taste, perhaps I will give you more to hunt.”

Orikahn completes a quiet transaction, sliding Drargon some coin and taking a tall ale and a leg of boar in exchange. "It's growing on me," Kahn admits as he swirls the mug, sniffing it with relish, "not the cold, but something else. I can't put my finger on it yet." With a heady swig, Kahn tosses back his head, foam dribbling down his whiskers. Several eager gulps later, he sets the mug back down half-empty. "But.." his voice is a little harsh and thin. He clears the carbonation from his throat. "Yes. I like it. I've got the northern madness, whatever it is." Gripping the leg of boar firmly by an exposed bone, he noisily tears off a mouthfull and chews in contented bliss. He could almost purr.

Hildegarde rolled up her map and grasped her writing implements, rising from her seat as Orikahn confessed that the tundra was growing on him. “Oh, it has a way of doing that,” she confessed with a wry smile. “Find me if you need anything to aid in your hunt or to tell me that your task has been complete. I’ll be around Frostmaw, which isn’t hard to guess, but if you’re looking for me I am certain someone can point you in the right direction.”

Orikahn grips and tears off another strip of unctuous meat, nodding his nonverbal assent as boar grease drips from his saber fangs.