Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » The Scent of Adventure (1x1)

Outside the city walls, a pony grazed. It wore a harnass for clipping in to the nearby wooden cart, but for the moment, it was unrestricted in where it might wander and chomp. It was also utterly oblivious to its former owner. But at the sound of approaching hoofbeats, it raised its head, and flicked its ears in anticipation of its new owner arriving.

Cavalia came racing out of the city at a full gallop, kicking up dust behind her. She barely slowed in time to avoid running into the cart, immediately banging on its sides. "Skag! Skag! Get out here! I have great news!" Her cheeks were flushed, and she was grinning. Even before she is seen, her mood can be heard in the soft whumping of hooves dancing in place.

Not far off, the pony tossed its head and began to dance in place as well. If nothing else, Cavalia had a good rapport with her stolen animal companion.

The aforementioned cart is not terribly large, by human standards. Smaller than a carriage that noblemen might use, but larger than an apple cart. It is fully enclosed, and looks like one human could sleep inside, or two if they are very familiar with each other. At first glance it appears to be a sturdy, four wheeled cart with a rear door that drops down like a pickup tailgate. Further investigation reveals that there are more doors, poorly concealed on the sides and on top.

A door on the side of the wagon opens, it is flush with the roof of the wagon, but is very small and only goes down half way to the bottom. The reason the door is only two and a half feet tall is that it is sized for the Kobold who stands in the doorway. He is wearing a bright orange silk bathrobe embroidered with flame from head to tow. He also appears to be frothing at the mouth.

“What do I have to do to get a little privacy around here?” his hand comes into view from inside, and sticks a toothbrush into his mouth, slowly generating more white foam. The astute might notice that he is wearing fine fur slippers similar to moccasins, with the fur on the inside and no sole.

Her companion's rabid appearance is lost on Cavalia. So too is his irrate tone, and though she might frequently choose to ignore poor Skag's (often legitimate) complaints, this time there is no conscious decision involved. She simply misses what doesn't fit in with her celebration. By the time the door bangs open, she is cavorting in the grass, kicking her hind legs out behind her.

"They're wearing yolk on their wrists, Skag! You won't imagine what they'll pay for it!"

Skag rolls his eyes, which he clearly likes to do a lot, especially for Cavalia. He pulls the toothbrush out and spits a great wad of white suds onto the grass near Cavalia's cavorting hooves.

“What in the world are you going on about? I realize you are prone to some wild and crazy ideas, which I have become accustomed to, but what are you talking about? Who is wearing yolk on their wrists, and certainly more important, how are they wearing it on their wrists. One does not wear yolk, one eats it, or pours it. That would be like wearing water for earrings.“

"They're mixing it up with a bunch of other gunk and smearing it on as perfume," she crowed, with a final gleefull buck. Then she turned to face the wagon, and bent her neck to look at him. "The yolk of eggs laid by giant eagles, to be precise. And there's crushed flowers. Pixie dust. Maybe a little oil. Some nobleman set the trend and now they're all doing it." Her face was shining with youthful exuberance, but after the initial excitement began to wear off, her lips pressed together as she focused.

"So. Obviously we're going to need some giant eagle eggs, some pixies, and a bigger cart to carry all the gold. Whaddya got?"

Her hooves were finally planted on the solid earth, though the back left occasionally pawed the ground with unsuppressable eagerness.

With the dancing apparently over, and the conversation turning to dry business it cared nothing of, the pony went back to grazing.

“Giant eagle eggs are tricky business, but not impossible. You have to get close enough to watch the nest to wait for the mother to leave, but far enough that she doesn't spot you first. And they live on cliffs high in the mountains. Pixies are entirely different. They're naturally invisible, so you have to trick one into appearing or build a concealed trap into a room with some bait, preferably a dwarf, they like pulling dwarf beards and braiding them into their armor while they sleep. I'm not sure how much they're paying for the perfume, but I'm sure we can fit the gold in this cart. I built this cart so I don't have to pack up to move and I don't plan to change that now.” Skag goes back to brushing his teeth, this time with the other hand because his snout is too large to reach the other side with one hand.

"So we need a dwarf before we can get a pixie?" Her eyes narrowed, perhaps calculating how much of a cut she might have to give to willing dwarf bait. Or perhaps calculating how much trouble she might get into for using unwilling dwarf bait. It's difficult to tell where Cavalia's mischief limits lie.

Then her tail swished, and she seemed to change tracks. First things must come first, after all. "Don't eagles see for -- for miles? How can we watch her without being watched back? Do you have magic glasses in there?"

Skag slaps his scaly red forehead with a scaly red hand. “No I do not have magic glasses in here. We don't have to be far enough that the eagle couldn't see us if we were out in the open, that's where we are now. We need to get close enough so that /we/ can see the nest and get to it before she returns. The trick is building a proper eagle blind, so she can't see us while we wait. And of course doing it without attracting her attention. How do you live with only yourself to keep you company in there? It must be lonely.”

"Well we should get some magic glasses," Cavalia insists obstinately. "What do we need for an eagle blind? Wood? Rocks? Cleverly draped moss?"

“I'll get right on those glasses, but they're going to be expensive and it'll take a while.” From the exasperated tone in his voice and the shake of his head, most observers would realize that Skag has no intention whatsoever of looking into magic glasses.

“That will depend on where we find the eagle's nest. If they're on a cliff face we may just need to hop holes and ledges until we get close enough, then just hide in an already existing cave or crag. And when I say we, clearly I mean just me, since you couldn't sneak up on a rainstorm.”

Cavalia grins toothily, waggling her eyebrows at Skag. As they raise the second time, they simply remain up, giving her a slightly crazed look. "Getting into the adventuring spirit, are you? Maybe you'll earn that ten percent this time."

Trotting around to the front of the wagon, she whistles for the pony, latching him into the harness before pulling the yoke across her own shoulders. Apparently, Skag's house will be switching locations now. "There are mountains to the east. Will those do to begin the hunt?"

Skag sighs and rests his head in his hands. “I'm just glad I live here. If this wasn't my house, I would never get to sleep in my own bed, not with you around. Yes, any mountains will do, that's the easy part. I'm going to go look into designing some pixie traps and a yoke extractor. Let me know when we get there.” Skag spits white foam once more then goes back inside, closing and latching the door behind himself.

Cavalia has never owned a bed, much less slept in one. Like many other four legged creatures, she sleeps standing up, wherever she happens to find herself. Though she appreciates shelter from the elements, it turns out not to be strictly necessary, especially when she and the pony can lean on one another for warmth as they slumber. So Skag's complaints about her wanderlust are lost on her, forever and always.

The journey to the mountains takes several days, as the two four-leggers keep up a birsk but comfortable pace. Finally, there comes the day when they both refuse to pull the wagon any further up the incline, insisting that Skag pack what he needs for his mission and ride.

The only think Skag hates more than riding a pony is walking. Skag makes sure the wagon is pulled off the side of the road, into the brush. Perhaps he always had a go bag packed, or maybe he saw this coming. Regardless of the reason, Skag only takes a minute or two to direct Cavalia in loading up the Pony with two stuffed saddle bags, three rolls of stuff to go on top of them, and a saddle that looks more like an armchair.

If he weren't so small, there would be no way the pony could carry everything. Even though it only takes a little while to get loaded up, and Skag isn't actually doing any of the loading, he spends a great deal of time complaining. “Why do we always have to go somewhere off the road? I built a wagon so I could travel the roads, see the world, but you always have to find the one place my wagon can't go.” Before they leave, Skag reaches into the wagon and pulls a cord. The cord releases a mechanism and camoflaged nets roll out a compartment in the roof of the wagon, making it look like just another bush, from a distance.

“I hope this stupid perfume is worth all these shenanigans. If you can't make it work, I'm going to make you eat omelets for a month.”

Cavalia is characteristically immune to Skag's complaining. Not because she is serene or patient, but because she possesses (nearly) endless enthusiasm and single-minded focus. "I love omelets. Just so long as the eggs don't hatch before we can use them all."

"Then again," she muses, as she works the buckles of Skag's special saddle and loads things into saddle bags, "I bet giant eagles would really attract a crowd if we incorporated them into the act... How much do they have to eat? How warm do the eggs have to be kept to hatch? Could you sit on them in the wagon?"

“No, no live giant eagles. They don't attract a crowd, they eat the crowd. Do you have any idea how large an enclosure an eagle that size would need to fly in? And you can't let it fly in the open, there's no way to contain it or keep it from eating people.” Skag shakes his head in his hand while the pony keeps up with Cavalia on it's own, he is as usual not so much directing his mount, as along for the ride. “Your eggs and pixie dust idea is fairly likely to get us killed anyway, so there's no reason to worry about live capture of a giant eagle, since we won't even get that far anyway.”

"Oh, I'll be fine. It might eat you. You're probably the right size to go down easy for a hatchling." She lifts Skag gently onto the pony's back, then turns and begins picking her way up the steep incline. The pony follows, much less sure-footed than she but coping.

"And of course we'd have to train it if it hatched on us. I wouldn't let it grow up wild. But raising from birth is what you do with otherwise dangerous animals."

Skag takes offense at a missed step and slight slip of a hoof from his pony. “It's not that hard you hoofed fleabag, just step exactly where Cavalia steps. Don't think for yourself, you're even worse at it than she is, just follow.” clearly the pony will never do anything Skag tells it to do, but that doesn't stop him from berating it. Finished pony bashing for the moment, he returns to his conversation with Cavalia. “No, you don't have to train a giant eagle hatchling, they taste like a cross between chicken and lamb and go great in an omelet with pixie dust.”

Cavalia casts a dark glance back over her shoulder as Skag is cranky at the pony. In taking her eyes off the path, she nearly misses a step herself, and her hoof has to paw at the ground a few times to find purchase again.

"Why are you intent on eating all my money? If we get both pieces we're making perfume, or cologne, or whatever. We're not eating it. And besides, I think we could sell an egg all on its own for buckets of gold."

“Like I said, if you can't make this work, we're going to have omelets for a month. How far are we from the cliffs anyway? You know how much I hate riding the pony.” All this talk of food has apparently made Skag hungry. He pulls some jerky out of his pouch and tares into it greedily.