In Bloody Scales
Day of Rule, 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)
Though you have taken many a perilous wagers in this world, this is not one you are willing to contemplate and so with sword of bronze and flame raised high you give your answer, and so you strike the foe's head from his shoulders, blood strutting upon you dreadfully warm.
"Sidu!" the tinker fey calls, a word, a
name ripped from his lips in agony, but agony does not keep him back as he draws back his cloak as he had done when he had fled before, but as the smoke gathers this time another speaks: Esha and her words are hollow yet filled with spite, a darkness not seen but felt. The last you see of the thief as he vanishes are his eyes turned red and blood without pupil or iris, blinded by the woman his ally had almost killed
One more shot rings out from the hideout, dispirited it seems to you and then as the Lawgivers make themselves known again the shooting stops, though the winged guards are quick to press their attack now that the most dangerous of foes are dead or gone. You bite back vitriol that would do little. At least you have the spear... at least you hear Swift Pebble in your mind telling you she is coming back.
Then at your feet you hear a dreadful gurgle and looking down you see that it spews out of the troll's neck stump as the hand of flesh reaches out for its head. More from sheer instinct than intend you bring the sword down again, severing the hand, but fire does not seem to be enough to end it.
"Here, let me," so saying Esha reaches out with one slender hand still covered in her own drying blood and touches the twitching mass of flesh and steel.
Color leeches out of the world
Sound is sliced from being
in the stillness all seems wrought
Only to crumble
The troll does not move anymore and you are gladder than you aught to have been that Silver tosses his head in his own unease, giving you a chance to turn your gaze aside while you gather your wits. It had not been the first time you had seen someone kill with magic, not by far, but always there had been some intermediary, ice or fire or silver light, this had been different. Even in your own mind you do not have the words to say how, or even if those words exist in any tongue you speak.
Before you can consider the matter any more deeply Zaia calls you over to the two other bodies, the ones that had attacked from behind with blades of True Iron. "These are not fey..."
And indeed he is right, though the hooded figures are no larger than the Little Folk of Glimerdale they have about themselves none of the arcane grace, the spark of unreality that even the least of the fey seem to share. Instead they seem like some odd joining of man and lizard, for their faces are scaled, all white and grey now marked with blood and with an odd black symbol across the cheek like a three sided claw.
"Dragonspawn..." Esha breathes as Swift Pebble comes to stand beside you, "For someone so worried about the hand of the Old Ones the thief seems to have been quite willing to deal with them."
"Keep away from that!" the sharp voice of the head lawgiver comes from above. "You have your spear, the Wingless shall see to the rest!"
"We slew them in honorable battle, should we not look upon the face of our foes." It does not take knowing the man as well as you do to know Zaia cares not a whit about how honorable or not the fight might have been, he is curious about these new strange creature.
"You were given leave to seek justice, not scavenge where you will. You have what you came here for!" The pixie actually sets foot on the ground between Zaia and the corpse, the first time you had seen one of their kindred other than their lord set down at all.
"We were not the only ones to be robbed," you point out reasonably. "In exchange for passage to this realm we swore that we would return that which was taken from the workshop of the smith..."
"Yes... yes, go in there, the craven-fools have all fled and they took little with them in their haste," he waves vaguely at the hideout, in marked contrast to the swiftness of his words. "Take what you can from the pile, but this was not stolen from any smith, nor did any child of the deep earth forge
that." With a single finger he points at the cold iron blade, as though worried that it would taint him in its mere nearness.
It is only now that you realize there are markings on it, similar in shape to the one on the face of the 'dragonspawn'. Perhaps they have some magic of their own, but it is the misery not the power that draws you. Where did such beings come from and why were they here?
What do you do?
[] Press to keep some spoils of the battle from the kobolds, be it a body for Zaia to study or one of their weapons
[] Leave the matter be, there is still the matter of Mengin to settle and she is in the hands of the Wingless still
[] Write in
OOC: Turns out seeing someone burn up the last scraps of a defeated foe for power looks creepy. Who knew... Seriously though, it is fun to write a non-magical's view of magic. 
