Dreador's Story

Anaïs’s robe swept lightly above the cobblestone road leading to the western watchtower, dust lifting in tiny clouds with her footsteps. This particular structure sat at the very edge of the city, and it showed; few buildings sat nearby, and much of the limestone which served to mark Arc en Lume was crumbling or absent. There were no crowds, or really anyone of note aside from the occasional pair of guards circulating between patrol shifts. Anaïs pulled her back close against her as she drew near to the large, imposing wooden door, rehearsing her lines once again in her mind.

She was not suspicious. She was not suspicious. She was not suspicious.

Anaïs reached to push open the heavy door of the tower, unsure of how much force she would need to move it, and yelped quietly when it instead fell off its hinges and landed on the floor with a bang.

“Who goes there?!” A guard demanded, pointing the end of a sword in her direction. Anaïs reflexively put her hands up.

”I”m so sorry! I just touched it!” She immediately replied.

“Are you with the University?” the guard interrogated, taking a step forward and lowering his weapon slightly when he spotted the symbol on her robes. “What are you doing here?”

”Y-yes, I’m an archivist with Sainte Pucelle’s Memorial Archive, I was here to…” Anaïs finally took in the scene around her - guardsmen running to and fro, collecting armor, weapons.. siege supplies? She squinted, straining to see what could have happened here. Echoes of something big and green, storming through and heading down to the cells… a troll?

The guard grunted in frustration when he noticed her distraction. “If it isn’t important, leave. A big damn orc just invaded the stronghold, likely probing us for a larger assault. It isn’t safe here.”

An orc?

Anaïs stepped around the fallen door, turning to get a better look at the hazy ghost of the tower’s intruder. Yes, an orc, she saw it now, and a big one… an old one, if that explosion of white descending from its face was any indication. How many orcs got that old? Would a warband even allow him to stay…?

An old orc…

”That’s why I’m here!” Anaïs stated cheerfully, wheeling around to face the guards again. They all froze where they were standing at her declaration. ”He’s a guest of the University, you see - he must’ve gotten confused. You know how old people get.” She chuckled in a way she hoped was convincing.
“The orc… is with you?” a different guard spoke up, halfway through donning his greaves. “A guest of the Royal University?”

”Right, right!” she insisted, stepping her way carefully across the room. ”We’d heard rumors of an old orc wandering around the wilderness, outcast from his warband, and, well, how many opportunities do you get like that? Imagine everything we could learn about them! I was supposed to guide him, but he slipped away when I wasn’t looking. Crazy how quietly they can move, despite that size! So he just went down here, right?” Anaïs slipped through the door to the holding cells, careful not to touch it lest it come free of its last, incredibly tenacious hinge.

Anaïs descended the steps quickly, ignoring calls for her to wait as she jogged down the lines of holding cells until she saw a large mass blocking the floor. ”There you are!” she called out, praying silently that the orc was not in fact the vanguard of a larger war party, as the guards had assumed. ”You went the wrong way!”

"Hmm? I did not!" Answered Orcimedes indignantly, sitting up and turning towards the new arrival. "My room is thither, across the way," he explained, gesturing vaguely towards a cell that appeared to be empty... at least until the enormous wolf-rat leapt out of a shadow at Anais and thrashed against the bars shrieking. Orcimedes nodded.

"That's right, she didn't bring the washtubs we requested! And do you know how long this young lady has been trapped in her room?" He asked, motioning to Iz'Hana. "She's even become tangled up in her erotic swing! And look how upset Georgina is. This is outrageous! I demand to see the manager!" Huffed the orc, as he pushed himself to his feet.

"This used to be such a nice establishment..." he muttered, putting his hands on his hips with an air of disappointment.