15 Chirreb 4385: Sudden Departure

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Soooooo ....

We're not in Ulmarn any more.  

Maybe I should pick up where I left off.  Or a little earlier than that actually.  

See, Mirhandrax has decided he likes Outcast and has been doing stuff with him like going out drinking and visiting the Ulmarn Adventurer's Guild and what not.  He and Outcast had been at a pub when I was writing my last entry.

Mirhandrax says they don't talk about Elisia or at least not by name or species. Outcast is still planning to find her and I guess Mirhandrax isn't trying to talk him out of it. So they talk about spells which doesn't get them anywhere because DUH if you don't know where she is within a thousand miles even a nendrai or Sythyry isn't going to be able to help. But they don't just talk about finding Outcast's lost love: they swap adventuring stories too.  Outcast and Elisia had been adventurers in the Verticals before they got enmeshed with the bandits, because adventuring is about the only legitimate line of work open to a prime/nonprime couple. Even other mewellicaps think it's disgusting and unnatural.  I guess they were pretty good at adventuring although not good enough to avoid getting captured by bandits.  Mirhandrax says they were tricked.  They were hired by Moika's family -- remember them?  They're the same Rassimel family we rescued -- to rescue Moika from the bandits. But instead of helping Elisia and Outcast fight the bandits, the Rassimel separated them on a pretext and then led Outcast into an ambush.  When Elisia tried to rescue him, they caught her too.  Originally they used Elisia as the captive to control Outcast.  Then Outcast worked with one of then-lieutenants, Sharone, to foment a successful mutiny in the bandits against their current leader. In exchange for his support, Sharone had promised to set Elisia free.  Which Sharone did, but not before locking Outcast up.  "She's free to go whenever she likes!  But I'll kill you if she leaves, of course." Outcast told Mirhandrax that he begged Elisia to leave many times, but she wouldn't. She'd say stuff like, 'You did not leave me when you had the chance: do you think I'll do any less for you, my love?'

Anyway, so on this particular occassion Mirhandrax and Outcast were at the adventurer's guild pub talking about blee-fighting strategies or whatever and minding their own business. But one of the (many, many) problems with being a nonprime lover is that when other primes find out -- and someone always does -- they remember and abhor you for it.  THIS is what I meant by 'ruining his life'.  You can't make people forget what you've done.  (Well, not without Mentador and THAT will make people hate you even MORE.) So this new group came into the pub, including an Orren girl who recognized Outcast, and she had found out about Elisia and Outcast years ago. She started in with him about how his kind weren't wanted here and how dare he sully their guild with his unclean presence blah blah blah I kinda relate actually but she sounded obnoxious even to me. 

Outcast just apologized and started to leave, but Mirhandrax stopped him like the big Gormorror IDIOT that he is. Mirhandrax told the Orren girl that Outcast was there as his guest, and Outcast hadn't broken any of the guild rules, so what business did she have harassing him? She responded with something about lawbreakers being unwelcome in the adventurer's guild, and Mirhandrax said, "He is not breaking any law now, and do any of us really want rumors of past misdeeds preventing us from using the guild?"  The other adventurers who'd looked like they might get involved up until that point suddenly lost interest.

Then the Orren girl said, "You expect me to let monsterlovers like you hang out with decent folk?" Yes, she actually said 'decent folk'.  I don't think I've ever heard of anyone describing adventurers as 'decent folk' before.

"... what did you call me?" Mirhandrax asked in a low voice.

"You heard me, monsterlover.  What's your taste, big boy?  You like mewellicaps too, or are you more into wherriwheffles? Oh wait, I know." She snapped her fingers.  "Mherobumps, right?"

So that's when Mirhandrax started the brawl.

He only killed the girl once and he didn't even maim any of her friends, who jumped in to help her once the fighting started.  But one of her friends started using Pyrador in the fight so the guild called for the Ulmarn city guard. An adventurer's guid won't normally get the guard involved for an ordinary no-weapons, no-magic fight, but once cley and steel are involved it can get pretty dangerous.

Outcast and Mirhandrax surrendered without trouble to the guard once they showed up.  The guard took them to Ulmarn's Dangerous Court to set bail and hear charges. The Orren girl charged them with Assault and Improper Conduct with Nonprimes. Mirhandrax swore on his honor that his conduct with nonprimes was proper and that he'd only attacked the Orren because she had insulted his honor. Nobody else at court opted to insult his honor some more by disputing him.  The judge said Mirhandrax and Outcast could wait for a trial to be set, or they could pay a fine and agree to a year's exile from Ulmarn and its Mene.  Since (a) they were planning to leave anyway and (b) they were guilty, they went with the fine-and-exile.

Which came out of Mirhandrax's share of the loot. They had to leave the city by sunout, and Nightbloom and Trust wanted to go with Mirhandrax, so I contacted the way-too-low bidder and told him this was his last chance to come up with something reasonable before we took the Cupboards away with us. I managed to negotiate an amount that wasn't ridiculous and so I sold them to him. Then we all hiked out of town because it was too late to get passage on an airship or coach before sunout.

We spent the night in a Herethroy farmer's barn, and then the next day we bought passage on a coach traveling through a little village. Outcast is with us because Mirhandrax insisted even though all this trouble is because of him. Gah! I hope he's not coming all the way back to Vheshrame with us.