Gods Chosen- Tyrus Honondo
#5 of Gods Chosen
And the last of our main cast has joined the foray. He's obviously the muscle of the group insomuch as the group needs muscle. But he's a fairly accomplished mage in his own right, being a spell cracker. Barriers and shields are very effective means of protecting your troops so naturally everyone does it. And in a world where almost everyone can cast magic, armies are very well protected in this manner. What a Spell Cracker does is someone who will magically punch a hole in a barrier right at the location just before something else goes through. So one way to think of it is a combat mage specialized in removing the ability of the enemy from defending themselves.
And a little bit of exposition regarding some of their religious views. I want to very much restrict how much I exposition is given to the extent that even if it is helpful, if there's no reason for any of the characters to ever give it, then the reader is not explained it.
Aliquinn and Jase turn the corner and see a tall luphein currently in the process of loading up a wagon while Bo seems to be talking with someone nearby. The dark gray furred luphein stops what he's doing and turns to stare at the two of them. After staring at a moment he gives a soft growl of disapproval. Alliquinn doesn't seem to find anything wrong with his act and walks forward anyway, her Rooqa on hand while the Bol just trails behind her, pulled by needing to stay in proximity despite her efforts to simply ignore its presence.
"Don't look like much," the luphein eventually says.
"Wasn't raised strong," Alliquinn answers the apparent observation. "Was raised fast."
He stands up more fully and faces them. Though nowhere nearly as bulky as the Thaal, he's still quite large and dwarfs Bo and Jase and makes it very apparent that he has put a lot of effort at keeping his entire body at its peak state, a large battleax hanging off his back. He reaches down and picks up a small rock. "Prove," he says simply before reaching back and throwing it as hard as he can in a fairly high arc. Alliquinn instantly turns and chases after the thrown rock, showing the worth of her training. Soldiers of her kind were raised for their strength, workers were raised for their ability to handle the tools in front of them. Rooqayla were trained to be messengers. And a good messenger that was supposed to be exempt from any combat had no need of strength, but a high need for speed. Alliquinn has to dodge a few items but she's still able to barely catch the rock as it bounces off the ground. She then takes the rock and begins walking back, breathing heavier than normal, but not quite out of breath.
"You'll do," the luphein nods then goes back to finishing his preparations.
Bo seems to suddenly notice them despite everything and waves over to the two of them. "Ah, lady Alliquinn, sir Jaselan. So good of you to join us so promptly. Allow me to introduce you to Tyrus Honondo. Mistress Dilani has been gracious enough to loan us his expertise and skills with the direct task of protecting our precious individual. Tyrus, lady Alliquinn is to be your charge."
"Kind of guessed," Tyrus grunts.
"Hmm," Bo shrugs. "At any rate, Tyrus is really good at what he is being paid for, Mistress trusts him completely for that task. Though I am skilled enough to handle myself and will be tutoring you on how to use vit, I am not that skilled in close combat as Tyrus is, nor was I trained by the military to be a spell cracker."
Alliquinn walks up and hands over the rock to Tyrus, having already returned to breathing perfectly normal. She actually stands a few inches tall than him, though she's easily half as wide. The luphein takes the rock and casually just tosses it behind him, having no real interest in the rock itself. He gestures his large, lupine head over at the Bol. "You should carry that."
"Don't want," Alliquinn says in response.
"Bol breaks, one who breaks it dies," Tyrus states the common fact back at her. "That Bol breaks because you don't take care of it, you broke it by negligence. You die. Don't care if you want it or not. It will follow you. Your duty to see it taken care of until god takes away. If we have a wagon, put it in the wagon, won't break there. I'll see to it. If we don't have wagon, hold it or strap to back. Will get strap for you next chance."
Alliquinn doesn't really respond verbally, but instead stares him down for a moment longer, then turns, looks at the Bol and picks it up. As much as she'd rather not have to ever deal with the thing, Tyrus' logic was sound and it would be pathetic to die because she was too stubborn to hold a stick. Since they seem to have a wagon at the moment she then just moves and places it along the far wall where it wouldn't move around or catch on anything.
"You know, as thorough as I'm told you are," Bo says, flying up to the top of the covered wagon. "I'm surprised you made no comment to the lack our miss Alliquinn's clothing."
"Does it change anything?" Tyrus asks. "Was told protect Alkilraen female. Contract made absolutely no distinction on her being clothed or otherwise. I'm not paid to care about how she looks, only to protect you all and most importantly, her. Anything else can happen when it does."
"Ah, how nice it must be to have the simplicity of the luphein," Jase quips. "Though I guess I can ask the obvious question. Why don't you wear any clothes?"
"Was said not," She responds simply.
"Who told you to not wear clothing?"
"Learners. Teach things. Say can't ever clothes. God say. Long time, no clothes here."
"I suppose I understand, if she was raised in their library, no clothing would be a way to prevent anyone from stealing or tampering with their writings. Doesn't change the fact that you are the only one I have ever seen just casually go around in the nude."
Alliquinn shrugs. "Never wore. Other selfs never see problem. Only non-selfs did."
"Anyway, it's about time we head out. We have a long way to go yet." Bo says, hopping down into the driver's seat.
"And where are we going?" Jase asks.
"The Fields of Jurein."
"And we're going there to do what now?" Jase asks again.
"No clue, but that's where we're supposed to go and so that's where we will go. We'll just have to figure out the what and why later on." Bo reaches into a hidden compartment in the cart and pulls out a small bag of money. "Anyway, here's your earnings for the next week. Well, for the both of you. She'll grab her cut when she feels like it."
"Though about that, why are Alkilraen so strange when it comes to money? It just seems too silly to me that they'll behave in such a manner."
"That has to do with their religion. Which I guess from a Saren would be almost antithetical to most Saren religions. With your kind, often the way to heaven is bought from what they earned in life. Some sects even allow you to buy other peoples' right into heaven. With the Alkilraen it's the opposite. I'm sure she could describe it far more accurately if not as succinctly but with the Alkilraen religion when one dies they stand on a pedestal held up on two sides. Everything they've earned builds up one side. Everything they've done builds up the other. If they can get high enough they get into heaven. Else they can reincarnate and try again, adding more onto their pedestal to try and get into heaven after the next life. But if the two sides are not balanced, they'll fall off and have to start all over from the bottom. So to an Alkilraen, getting more or less than what they feel they are owed may potentially doom their soul to hell and ruin all the progress of multiple lives."
"Well that seems just all sorts of insanity. An entire race duped into the silly belief that it is acceptable to kill someone rather than let them overpay you by a single dran."
"Never kill for more," Alliquinn says from the back of the cart, having been helping Tyrus finish the preparations. Though not strong for her race, she was still at least competent. "If more, just give. Death is act. Death is less. Can't give when get less. Doesn't work."
"Doesn't change the fact you're okay with killing over not being paid enough."
"Many die for worse reasons."
"As invigorating as this discussion is and I would always love to discuss religion. The fact of the matter remains that we have a long way to go and will not be getting there arguing at the front gate of the town. Sir Tyrus, are we ready to make leave?"
"Ready enough," Tyrus says as he lifts himself into the back of the wagon and then offers his arm to help Alliquinn up. She takes the arm and takes a seat at the very back of the wagon, staring off back into the town.
Seeing the two of them in the wagon as well Bo nudges at the reigns and the two lumbering beasts they had purchased begin to make their way forward. Not as good as horses when it comes to speed, but the two narilen are all the things one would expect from the Thaal empire, big and slow. But they are fairly docile creatures and don't really seem to mind being told to pull things for prolonged periods of time. After about an hour of sitting in the wagon with nothing at all happening Jase speaks up, trying to start a conversation with Tyrus.
"So you're a Cracker, huh?" he asks.
"Yup," Tyrus says in response, not bothering to turn to face the saren but rather still looking out the back of the wagon. Alliquinn had taken to cleaning her Rooqa, in which Tyrus had taken it upon himself to clean the Bol, since he's pretty sure that she won't be doing that. But as the Bol is far less delicate than the Rooqa and far less sophisticated he isn't really looking down at what he's doing, instead just rubbing the rag up and down and occasionally pulling some water out of the air to either rinse off the rag or get it wet to clean some more.
"So what is a luphein cracker doing on this continent? Let alone working for Her?" Jase asks, trying to get more of an answer.
"Things happened. Went here. Needed money. The mistress pays for honest work."
"Hah, honest work," Jase snickers at the notion.
"Need I remind you," Bo says from the front, "that you are currently under the employ of Mistress Dilani as well? There is a lot of legitimate work to be had. Everything we will be doing, for instance, is entirely on the up and up. We will be acting in perfect accordance to all of the laws and you will be paid while doing so."
"And I'm to then assume that you have never broken any laws yourself?"
"Depends on how you define breaking the law," Bo shrugs. "Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely no problems with taking matters into my own hands. But there is simply a line between what is legal, and what most would be okay with. Take a snapping. To some that would be considered an assault. It very much is me attacking someone unprovoked. There is no denying that fact. But it is a very valuable tool for assessing the power of a vityla or Jhi. There is also no denying that either. So the act of snapping is very much a grey area of a situation in which someone is allowed to legally perform something that would otherwise be illegal. Does that answer your question?"
"Not particularly," Jase responds.
"Well that's all you're getting."
Jase somewhat fumes at the comment for a little while, and fidgets here and there, apparently not used to having to travel a long time with nothing to do to occupy himself.
"You know," Bo says an hour later after Jase had started to try and pace along the inside of the wagon, "normally it's my kind that get the stereotype of being constantly restless, not yours. Yours is always shown as being the thieves that will sell their own god to make a quick buck."
"So why are we heading to these fields again?" Jase asks.
"I already told you, we're going there because that is where we go."
"So you're expecting me to believe that She is shipping us off to some field a few days away from town, with no reason why she's doing so and felt the need to send a cracker with us, and yet what we're doing is totally going to be one hundred percent legal. Gotcha."
"As far as you're concerned, yes. I know at least a bit more about what all is going on. But I have to admit that that I'm not entirely certain that I believe it and I know that telling what I do know will impact how things play out. So we are going to the Fields of Jurein because that is where we're supposed to go. And if things play out as they are supposed to play out then I will let you all know of what I know. But for now I want to see if things play out as they should without any interference on my behalf."
"And you two are okay with that answer?" Jase asks Alliquinn and Tyrus.
After a moment of neither of them really feel like making any more response than a simple shrug Bo speaks up again. "I think you're going to find that those two are going to be the least likely to really have much of an opinion about why we head to any location beyond if it's legal. Well I take that back. Sir Honondo may care quite a bit about how safe that location may be so as to help him do his job. But as he said earlier, he didn't care that Lady Alliquinn isn't wearing clothing because it isn't in his contract. Why we go anywhere isn't in his contract either. So all he'll care about is 'is Alliquinn going there?' and 'is it safe?" Tyrus nods a few seconds after Bo says this. "And as for the lady. You'll typically find that Rooqayla generally don't put much thought into where they go so long as they get paid or if it'll conflict with their ideals. Like I could take just about any Rooqayla and walk them into a literal war zone to record everything they see there and they'll go and not bat an eye so long as they are compensated for their time. Can't ask them to ever kill anyone or break the law because that would defy the Gods Commandments regarding the Rooqayla. But to do what they're trained to do they won't care where we go so long as I can put up at least a decent enough guarantee of protection for them. I could have us go deep into the heart of the Thaal capital and because I gave her Sir Honondo for protection she'll go willingly. Tyrus would have words if I did that, but she wouldn't."
Jase stares at him in shock, surprised at such an accusation about his own travelling companions while they're visible. But Alliquinn doesn't really make much of a response and doesn't even stop in her maintenance of her Rooqa. Tyrus stops and turns to look at Bo and Jase, but doesn't make any response himself. After a moment of no one else making any sort of counterargument Jase sits back down and sulks. And he's left with choice but to accept not being given any further information about their trip and wait to see what happens when they get there.