Chapter 31: 29 – Drunken Folklore

Festivities of decadence such as the one which would inevitably come in the next few weeks were the best time to resupply, to get some interesting new trinkets and go unnoticed all along.

That was not to mention the child-like curiosity that the implication of Kargarian merchants reignited in him. He’d seen the weapons of this era, he had scavenged a few of them from skirmishes that had taken place in his forest. Skirmishes that had resulted in single-handed Ikesian victory, even when they were outnumbered and outflanked.

Indeed, his favorite loot came from skirmishes that had ended by his blade. It was a shame, he didn’t like wheellocks and the sharpened metal sticks that the western barbarians called swords. Ikesian blades were what truly appealed to him, even if he only had a few - knowing that these “War-knives'' were what foot soldiers got was the greatest of motivators to conduct his rare visit to civilization a little early.

Back in his day, even well-made blades could be shattered if one didn’t know how to wield them properly. That was just the nature of metallurgy back then. But these… These things were rusted, dented, abused by undertrained teenagers, and still they held onto a respectable edge. 

Who was he kidding? He wanted to visit his comrades, to see how little the people had changed in their disdain for nobility. More than anything else, he was in need - in need of one who could wield his legacy without the blood of thousands to stain their deeds.

This was as good an excuse as any. 

---

Indeed, Udar had grown well-versed in the language of violence… But this woman spoke it as naturally as she breathed. It was not judgment or logic that made the sabre-wielding interloper sheathe his blade and quietly scurry out of the speakeasy, but the primal flight response of a yellowjacket faced with a real hornet. 

The last he saw of her before he turned tail was that insufferable grin, and it now remained inexorably burned onto his retinas.

---

The speakeasy had grown notably less noisy in reaction to this brief conflict. Zel’s amusement at the stranger’s near-instant retreat was punctuated by the feeling of myriad staring eyes and ever so slight disappointment. A small part of her would’ve preferred the slightest of conflicts, even just a few understated threats and insults.

She sat back down and returned her blade to its holster, and found the curious looks of the patrons leaving her within mere seconds. In moments she was back to idly sipping her cider, but Strolvath wouldn’t stop looking up at her with a weird look in his eyes that told her he had something to say. 

Just meeting his gaze was a sufficient signal to make him grin childishly and facetiously remark: “Don’t go usin’ that line too often, might end up sproutin’ a dick when you swallow some beast’s Azoth Stone.”

The first thought that shot through her head - and one that she vocalized alongside a raised eyebrow - was “What?” 

Right after, she put two and two together - the subtle slur to his words, the bloodshot eyes, the flushed nose. “He’s drunk already,” she thought. “How long has it been, twenty minutes?”

It was a curious thing, seeing someone that normally fakes a drunkard persona in a state of genuine inebriation. Almost as curious as that bizarre joke he had made.

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“I mean, y’gotta know that consumin’ ‘nother livin’ thing’s Azoth in any form is gonna have more consequences than some new traits,” he gravelled in his half-gone voice, leaning in and lowering his voice even further before he continued. “When you’s riled up like just now I can damn-near see a maneater’s silhouette behind you, not to mention the pointier teeth.”

“Really? You can see the thing’s silhouette behind me?” she questioned, her mind already being pulled in three different directions by the drunken counter-propagandist’s remarks. 

He nodded, taking a sip of his booze before he gestured to his Brass Eye, “Ol’ buddy Sigma made it so it helps visualize the immaterial if I try. I wouldn’t worry ‘bout it, probably just fuggin’... Azothic bleedoff when you’s usin’ the thing’s main trait. Wendigos’re walkin’ vengeance curses, after all.”

“Alright, then what’d you mean by that dick joke? You really think that’s possible?” she steered the conversation back to the part that befuddled her most. 

“Yeah, there’ve always been stories floating around about this sort of thing,” he nodded. “A little repressed fetish here, an Azoth Stone pulled out of a rutting male beast there, n’ an accident can happen. Even heard of some half-Ankhezian noblewoman what was so desperate to produce heirs that she got an alchemist to grow her a homuncucock and went ‘round dickin’ human women to try an’ play the odds. If it’s one in a hundred, just gotta bed a hundred wenches.”

For every answer he gave, another question sprung in her mind. She was just glad the alcohol made him spill something like this instead of actual dangerous information. 

“...Right, first of all, what the fuck is an Ankhezian?” she continued questioning.

Strolvath finished one tankard, slammed it down, and got to work on the other. A long glug was followed by a violent burp and a brief coughing fit that made rivulets of blood stream down his chin, and he continued talking as if nothing had happened. 

“Old, old empire in the north, I’m talkin’ “referred to as ancient even in six-hundred year old texts” old. Used to rule mosta the continent with their, fer the time, real advanced grasp o’ alchemy,” he began, and Zelsys knew a prolonged ramble was coming up. Always with the big sip, the deep breath, the cleared-up pronunciation. It still manifested even in his tipsy, ragged-voiced state.

“If the surviving ones are to be believed, the government at the time wanted to bring the people together n’ restore trust in the ruling class by pullin’ a big stunt like makin’ everyone immortal, so they did this big huge thaumaturgy ritual n’ unintentionally traded away most of their fertility for immortality.”

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