Flashback Crashed Course [Graded]

[Kuvarakh]

Summer 17, 463

'The Kitrean Mountains! Aaaah...what magnificence!' Kuvarakh thought with appreciation. Truly, the stately peaks were worthy of thousands of canvases, poems and songs. Rich colors rising in peaks of power, bracketed by blue marbled skies, touched by the soft feathering of cirrus, or swathed in the awesome violence of thunderheads. Winds rushing in harmonies of treesong, a chorus of a billion leaves and needles swaying in exhilarated celebration of their glorious mountain home. It was the teeth of the gods, gleaming in a smile of brilliant, blessed isolation. Reserved for only a very few willing to brave the elements of tribulation.

It was no wonder the Isur were an isolationist people. Proud of their independence. Guarded in the purity of their culture. Kuvarakh had some understanding of how they felt. When he was a living human, living in Zeltiva, he had spent many bells staring in rapt adoration of the neighboring mountains. So powerful, so sturdy, so reliable. Even with the color changes of passing seasons, there was a permanence that transcended mortal achievements and goals. There was a changelessness that made nearly everything suffered or celebrated seem petty by comparison.

'Nearly everything' he thought sagging with the memory of his daughter's death. That was his mountain, his changeless vista of eternity. He had chosen to become the Nuit he was now, the ever-searching river spanning the world, driven to find meaning for the dark emptiness that still kept a measure of his decaying soul festering in anguish.

He had given up on the hate that had motivated him in the early years. To think he had become a Nuit to gain the time to continue searching! A Nuit, of all things. One of THEM! But he no longer numbered them among the enemy. It was a part of how he identified with the Isur. To all the rest of the world, they seemed cold, sullen and withdrawn. But what cause had the Isur to embrace a world that rushed to judgement of what they didn't know.

As a Nuit, he understood that perfectly. Yet, he also knew his own guilt in that regard. A Nuit had been the one that murdered his daughter. The cycle of hate and the refusal of understanding had nearly broke his humanity. But he had come to finally see the desperation that had led to his daughter's death. He did not excuse it, not by any means. But he understood it, now. And with understanding came identification. Identification with the loathing that the warm bodies now held towards him. That drove them to pack mentality, determined to assume rationales of preemptive defensive extremes.

The Nuit had been pursued through Zeltiva. Only certain death awaited him in the face of any living citizen. He came upon the girl. His hypnosis, a quick solution to any resistance. A cellar, to spend the needed bells while he claimed her stilled body and made his way to the ships to slip away before the darkening tongue and bags beneath his eyes appeared to betray his true nature.

Kuvarakh had had this debate with himself so many times it had worn ruts in his emotions. He still despised that Nuit as his daughter's killer, but also he blamed the humans that drove him to seek such harsh means of escape. Then again, he hated the other Nuit that had betrayed the first to the mob in the first place. Kuvarakh had no doubt that the betrayer Nuit did not concern himself with what consequences of exposing his fellow. And then he had killed the one in his daughter's body on the ship ride to Sahova. So it was all in perfect, flawless, vain.

[Kuvarakh]

What purpose, then, his transformation into the ranks of the Nuit, himself? Simple, or so he had thought. To give meaning and purpose to her death. To raise the senselessness of it to a goal worth achieving. To create or discover the means by which Nuits could keep a body intact longer, perhaps permanently! If they no longer needed to jump to new bodies every few years, the living would have far less cause to view them with the caustic attitude understandably given to that which could be hatefully considered to be no more than humanoid vultures and parasites.

In fact, Kuvarakh considered himself a sort of Nuit ambassador to the living. Unfortunately, he had been denied this grand status by the rest of the party he had been traveling with. He had joined an expedition, heading south out of Taldera to trade with some of the Isur's northern outposts.

Kuvarakh had hoped to make an arrangement with the mountain people to trade services for goods. He had hoped to find some task he could complete for them, one which would be served by his virtual immunity to disease and poison. In exchange, he'd hoped to receive a small sample of Isurian Steel, imbued with whatever mark is was that was rumored to grant a special endurance even beyond that which was already celebrated in this extraordinary metal. He'd hoped to use this metal in alchemical experimentation, to unlock its quality of permanence, in hopes of somehow imbuing Nuit bodies with it.

One of the men in the party had hinted at some sites held in some superstitious dread as harboring diseases and mystic maladies of all sorts. "Lost Colonies" or "clans" or something like that. Thinking this was the exact sort of thing he could do for them, he joined the party.

Naturally, he was no mountain man, no hardy guide through the unforgiving wilds. Nor had he claimed that he was when his offer was accepted. So he assumed the small contributions he made to the party effort would be good enough to assuage any notion that he was not "pulling his weight".

He knew that was falling short of an equal share of work, but he thought his lack of need for food, and the offer of additional payment was more than reasonable compensation. So he did not understand the sudden upsurge of resentment that focused on him after they reached a point in their journey that was long-past "no return" parameters for him. It seemed as if the party had maliciously encouraged him to accompany them, with the deliberate purpose of abandoning him to the certain death of the untamed wilderness.

They had set upon him and he had had to rush blindly into the upland forests with only a general direction towards this 'High North Kitrean Trade Post' as he had heard it was called. It was only his independence of the ravages of hunger that sustained him long enough to relocate the trail his party had traveled days before.

But as he found that trail, so did the dire wolf find him. With relish and eagerness.

[Kuvarakh]

Like in human society, some types are meant to be assassins. They approach with stealth or misdirection, striking from ambush, placing no importance on honor or openly displaying hostility as fair warning.

Then, there are the warrior types. They will face you from safe distance acknowledging their intent without disguise. They may even salute you with the weapon they intent to kill you with. Perhaps they will go so far as to back away if you drop your own weapon, finding no satisfaction in killing an unarmed opponent.

Then there are the brutes. They do not disguise their hostility, but they may suddenly surge in anger with a cheap shot and kick you while you are down. Honorable enough in their agreement that all is fair, they will not hate you for doing the same to them, but neither will they feel it anything but a fool's delusion to fight fair if they can gain advantage by cheating.

A wolf is akin to the brute. It's only concession to fair play is that, when alone, it is unable to circle you as the pack would do, exploiting every opportunity to hamstring you from behind while your focus is forward. But at least it does not disguise its approach. Its howl sent Kuvarakh stumbling in apprehension and inexperienced foolishness into the bushes to hide.

A portion of the woods moved from behind a tree, two baleful beacons of gold glaring its purpose at the bush reeking of unnatural flesh. Scorn for the insolence of this loathsome figure of a two-legged-thing to claim a right to exist bringing a snarl of contempt, a snort of relish for the dismemberment it would visit upon the cowering abomination before it. This was not something it was going to kill for food, or for the establishment of its status among its lesser kind.

It knew, in its limited capacity for reason, that it was unlike its brothers. Larger, faster, stronger, it was meant to rule its kind, and it did. But it was not unnatural. Not in the sense that it was unnaturally created. Not, at least, in the same way this two-legged walking dead thing was. The force of change which swept down upon the wolf's birthing was borne of natural forces in the world. Gone wild and out of balance for a time, perhaps, but still OF nature.

This thing before it, standing upright in the fashion of the man-things born in these mountains was an insult to them. It was as one of them, stripped of strength and then stripped of life, but made to walk the land in mockery of them. The wolf respected the men of the marked arms. They were worthy prey. This false-man was just death waiting to be realized. And its time was now.

Glorious, wailing terror filled the ears of the dire wolf with urging as the sound tore from the cold throat of the corrupted thing, as it rose and fled blindly, and in vain. Two leaping bounds and it drove the cursed thing to the ground. Normally, it would give its prey, so swiftly dispatched, the mercy of a snapped neck. But it felt hate for this cringing vessel of impurity and decay and wanted it to know the degree to which the natural world, represented by itself, loathed it. It was as though an inner force of nature, within the wolf's soul, wished to send the unnatural source of this tainted thing's existence a message that it would not be tolerated. Wherever its filth arose, nature would abhor it and seek its end.

It allowed the false-man-thing to roll in its back to look up into the hand of nature sent to destroy it. It met its face, eye to eye. The message clearly sent. Now you die...

[Kuvarakh]

So close... so very close. The "salvation" of the cliff's edge had been mere yards away when the weight of the huge beast had slammed him to the ground. Kuvarakh felt the weight release him and he rolled over to see what had transpired. He had anticipated drooling spikes of Ivory to tear the back of his neck open, to rip the upper end of his spine out from the collar of his jacket.

He had entertained a flash thought of simply rising to his hands and knees and trying to launch himself still closer to the edge, but knew without looking that the beast was hovering over him. It had lifted itself off his back, but not from any change of intent. It was not turning and leaving, he could somehow "feel" the unforgiving hostility, as well as the hot breath on the back of his head and neck.

He felt as if he'd been invited to turn over and look into the face of his doom, so he did. Terror and awe smote him in equal parts. The creature was a microcosm of the power and marvel of the very mountains themselves. Were it not for the absolute purity of destroying hostility in every facet of the creature's demeanor, he might have hugged it.

The ground rumbled, the air trembled in dynamic harmony with it. There was no quaking of the ground beyond that generated by his own trembling as he realized it was a growl from the massive beast. He resigned himself to awaiting whatever harm this monstrous carnivore intended. He saw no sense in trying to "play dead" as one heard was effective with bears. The sheer violence and resolve radiating from this creature negated that hope.

The snarl seemed to bubble up from the very ground beneath them, flooding through the bone and vein and sinew of the creature, ending in a roaring shriek of teeth and tongue. But Kuvarakh did not cower from it. There was no purpose. A different tactic, surely folly, came to mind as he saw his reflection in the amber orbs that seemed to draw all the focus of the world inside them.

He had nothing to lose that was not about to be lost anyway. Eye to eye, he brought his djed to the surface of his face, allowing a bubble to swell across to engulf the face, the mind, the awareness, the focus of the wolf's aggression, reflected in its eyes as Kuvarakh himself. He had hoped to hypnotically implant some sort of instinctive sense of "No Threat" in relation to what it was seeing, but the sheer unassailable feral nature of its demeanor backlashed violently with stunning intensity.

But here, luck was with Kuvarakh as the equally instinctive nature of the shock and stunning impact of its own ferocity also rebounded back against the wolf, causing it to rear and leap back in repelling aversion. Kuvarakh responded to the compulsion to scramble in a frantic, backward, heel-and-elbow crabwalk for several feet.

Reasoning awareness suddenly returned to him as he saw the wolf shake off the disorienting effect and instantly swing its face in lethal intensity towards him. He spun to get his feet under him and half dove, half rose to propel himself towards the edge, where a merely impersonal fall would await, as opposed to the hateful, remorseless savaging promised in the glowing eyes of the beast now leaping in fury for him.

Grinding spikes of agony closed on his ankle as Kuvarakh grabbed hold of stout growths of viney shrubs, leveraging himself to scissor his legs and kick the dark, snarling face with his booted heel. Half his foot remained among the teeth as the wolf anticipated the oncoming second foot, eluding the impact and slipping past the low cuff to snap his jaws on the lower leg unintentionally offered.

A gory spray of dead flesh and ichor misted the air as the creature shook Kuvarakh's leg like a rat. Desperation and agony surged like adrenalin as a vine broke off in his hand. He swung it whip-like at the wolf's face, defiant luck bringing the rough end painfully across the wolfs open eye. It yelped in surprise and pain, freeing the maimed leg as Kuvarakh pulled it back as he writhed to twist it under, thinking in vain that the now nearly fleshless leg, cracked bone and maimed half foot would somehow miraculously support his weight.

Seeing his intent, the wolf leaped in renewed fury for where the loathsome false-man-thing would be when it rose to run. The unspeakable agony of the ruined legs brought Kuvarakh's stance low before it had even begun and the wolf overshot, catching its legs in his jacket. The impact brought the hem of the jacket inside-out over Kuvarakh's head at the same time as it swung the wolf down on its face and chest.

The beast writhed in fury to get its feet under it as Kuvarakh fought with equal frenzy to get his jacket oriented. Again he instinctively tried to rise, only to have the leg bone give out completely with a loud ugly snap, followed by his shrieking bellow of pain. He tore one arm loose as he pulled the jacket free of its restraining hold and got his head free just in time to see the wolfs head close upon the now empty sleeve.

The power of its shaking lifted Kuvarakh off the ground, even as the sleeve tore off in the wolf's mouth, sending Kuvarakh flying over the edge of the cliff.

[Kuvarakh]

Wind whistled in his ears as the face of the cliff raced by. It was not a sheer rock-faced cliff. There were protruding bulges of rocks to bounce from, bushes to tug at arms, feet and clothes, trees to crash through, snapping as many bones as branches. Mostly, his descent was a high-velocity cartwheel, interrupted by impacts with sticks and stones.

He hit water at the bottom, the impact bringing a blossom of pain which transcended all the combined fractures, torn muscles, lost fingers, scrapings of tissue from cheek and chest, his jaw a shattered ruin, a broken branch protruding from both sides of his torso. In the dazed agony of wracked despair, he had one clear thought: he wished he could drown.

Nothing was whole, no part of him could be used without excruciating pain. He floated a few inches below the surface of a slow moving river. The cold water doing a small favor against the pain. He had thought a catastrophic fall somehow more noteworthy and less drawn-out than a savage dismembering at the hands of a beast. He wasn't so sure now. Though the coolness of the water numbed the countless tortured nerve endings to a degree, the current was an endless tug on maimed limbs and shredded sinew. He would call it a draw.

He lost track of time, expecting any time to hear the rush of a waterfall and plummet to a final, blessed, crushing extinction. Instead, he was brought back to a more immediate awareness by a body-wide surge of pain. The water no longer supporting his mangled body, he found himself washed up on a narrow strip of a sand bar extending from the shore.

He lay on his back, the weight of his shredded clothes adding to the pain as wounds were pulled just a bit further open, sharp bone ends bent just a little bit more. He lay contemplating his wretched situation. He couldn't starve or die of infection. Eventual decay would claim him, as would exposure. perhaps some animal would come by and tear his throat out. But the chances were they would avoid him, smelling the wolf smell and wanting nothing to do with that pecking order.

He felt something digging into his shoulder. Not actively, but something sitting there, that the gentle wave action of the shore was causing him to brush against. He reached with what was left of his left hand over to his right shoulder, appreciating that he had at least one limb that didn't have multiple broken bones. His hand closed on cold flesh. He pulled as best he could, gritting his teeth against the pain and very slowly eased his head to turn that way. It was a hand. And judging by the resistance, it appeared to still be connected to the arm.

'Perhaps there's an entire body.' he thought hopefully. He knew it was a long shot, but what he could see of it had no blemishes or wounds visible, no bulges from broken bones, no torn skin or even a cut. He was only able to see a small portion of one arm, so he was aware that there was still a good chance that what he could not see would turn out to be a gory wreckage. But it was not as though he was pressed for time.

Bit by bit, much of his effort done with the mostly whole left arm, he dug at the ground on his right side to allow gravity and water to eventually ease his shift to a semi-floating roll onto his right side. His patient effort was finally rewarded with a good look at an entire body. The eyes stared in death, but the body looked intact. VERY intact in fact. The skin of the arm had a blue color where he could see it and he recalled that he had heard that the race of men in these mountains HAD odd colors to their arms, blue being fairly common.

This cadaver was in remarkable shape. It was clearly not old age that had done this man in. There was no indication of any mortal wound. No broken bones from a fall like he had taken. He could not believe his luck. He spent the rest of the early morning bells and a good portion of the growing light of morning simply positioning himself and the body to begin the body jumping ritual. He knew he still needed some way to scribe the glyphs onto the points of extremity to encompass the transfer.

He finally had to settle for sticks with a mossy or algae like slime to scrape off on the skin. He tried with dark wet soil, but it dried and flaked off too easily. The lichen matter dried as well, but seemed to leave a sufficient stain on the skin. It was late afternoon by the time he inched himself atop the body and began to let his ichor drain into the open mouth of the receptacle corpse vessel.

[Kuvarakh]

He found his way out of his ritual daze in the darkness of deep night. The stars gave enough light to move to, but this body was strange to him. It was so much denser and stronger that what he'd been used to, it was difficult to figure what to adjust to gain a measure of coordination. It felt so heavy, he was compelled to compensate, but the innate strength drove him headlong in the dirt as he applied more effort. Over and over he pitched himself on his face just trying to stand. A bit of adjustment and he found himself on his back instead.

It took an entire bell just to get to where he could walk without feeling like he was about to wrench his knees or get a cramp. Trying to make his way through forested slopes along a riverbank did not help any. The foliage was thick and every step was contested by viney growth, shoulder level branches and muddy ground. More than a few times he found himself back in the river, or backtracking to go around a impassably thick copse of trees.

Roots were a constant assault on his balance. Stepping over one just to catch on another, slightly higher one, just beyond. Or finally anticipating a firm step only to have a buried root turn his ankle painfully as the soft ground gave way beside it. One would be an immovable block to a clear step, while the next would seem to catch and pull, entangling his leg with springy resistance. Bells passed as the darkness slowly gave way to gray dawn.

Progress was slow, but even though he still had yet to cross the river, he knew he was retracing the basic track of his original journey on the trail to the 'High North Kitrean Trading Post' as his treacherous companions had called it. According to them, the trail they had been following was one of the few through the actual mountains. There were several trails, some wide enough to be called 'roads' down in the foothills, but none of them were given to contest with the trees to allow passage of anything beyond a backpack up here.

He finally came to a point where he could ford the river. A scattering of stones rested in a bed of gravel over which the water rushed quickly, not more than a foot and a half deep. It's not that he was worried about drowning, but to submerge his entire body passing through a deep channel would be freezing cold, even in summer, at this elevation. Nor did he have any illusions that his feet would somehow stay warm by leaving the boots on while he made a knee deep crossing.

He removed his boots and socks, rolled up his pants and took a step. The force of the current surprised him and he might have retained his balance had he not thought that the larger stone would give the soles of his new feet any purchase. Like an oiled slide, his foot slid off the far side and down he went. He was not soaked higher than his stomach, but it felt like ice injected itself into his spine. His shivering only made it worse and by the time he reached the far bank he had drenched everything up to his shoulders.

He attempted to compartmentalize the discomfort and resume his travel, but met with only partial success. As clumsy as he already was, the clinging fabric of his new clothes added surprising resistance and he was again falling constantly as he reached the base of the cliffside face. It was not unscalable, but it was going to be slow going indeed. It was already early afternoon by the time he brought his gaze level with the top of the ravine. He rolled himself over the crest of the hill and lay, panting at the sky.

He ached everywhere. He suspected he was still not using the muscles properly. He was hesitant to fully engage the strength he felt within this body. Long ingrained limits of what he could do in a lowland human's body without spraining something were habits that didn't fade in just a single morning of hard travel. He pushed his way through the foliage to find the hint of a trail leading at an oblique angle towards the shoulder of the mountain before him.

He had not gone far when he heard something a few dozen yards to his left. Stopping to listen, there was only the wind and some birdsong. He thought about the wolf that had brought him to this predicament. Would it stalk him in stealth, or simply burst through the bushes and tear him to pieces? He was not going to wait and see.

He started to run. As best he could anyway. His coordination was far from natural. His steps were awkward, alternating between too long from his legs being so strong, to overcompensating and stepping short, which came close to tripping him over his own feet. But it was unexpectedly advantageous that his mind was more on the fear of imagined predators behind him and not on the deliberate attempt to coordinate his steps. Instinct took over and soon he was running.

[Kuvarakh]

He suddenly burst upon a clearing, an apparent trading post built into the cliff on the far side. There was a hint of a road breaking through the foliage on two other sides. He stopped as several people looked at him. Those that did not share his colored arm, turned back as though his presence was no surprise. But the man in the crafted window in the cliff on the far side of the clearing kept his eyes on him as though waiting for something.

Voices sounded from above and Kuvarakh looked up to see a pair of archers staring down at him. After a few seconds one of them nocked an arrow while the other called something in a language Kuvarakh did not recognize. He shook his head. The sounds were perfectly distinguishable, but he realized it was a different language, not just a strong accent. "Uy carnekt undlersktarnd hyoog!" Kuvarakh shouted up. Shocked at his own unintelligible blather. His tongue would not respond properly. He couldn't understand it. He'd never had this trouble after a body jump before. Not to THIS degree anyway. Was there something wrong with this body?

The archers in the defensive overlook were talking among themselves quietly now. Something was wrong. "Hee!" he shouted, meaning 'hey', "Doorn shoolkt!" Kuvarakh cursed himself and his uncooperative tongue. It was as though common was some foreign-...'Oh good preachin' gods...that's it. That's what's wrong! This body is from someone that has never spoken common. it's tongue is not used to the automatic forms of syntax I've taken for granted. Whatever language these men are speaking is probably all they know.'

Great apprehension stole over him at the thought. As far as he knew, the Isur were not enemies of any common speaking races. Yet, their agitation was becoming clearer every moment. It puzzled him why they should be upset. So what if he didn't speak their language? There was obviously trade between themselves and other races.

'Other races! Of course! That's what is upsetting them. They were seeing a man of their own race that isn't understanding their language. That explains why they are suspicious.' The thought sprang into his mind. 'If I could just get enough words of common clear enough, I could explain.'

But that had not worked out so far, and there was no reason to think a few chimes would make any difference. Every body he had occupied before this had been from a common-speaking person. The tongue had been used to the kinds of movements necessary to make the words. This was like a man who has spent his life playing a lute and then being thrust into a spotlight at a piano. He knows scales, chords, note tab and theory, sure. But his hands are not in the least practiced at the movements and positions required to generate the notes.

Still, if there was trade, there must be a place for common in their dealings. He quickly deduced that this people might speak common, but only to foreigners, probably only for trade. It could very well be that they did not use it among themselves. Even if he got his tongue trained in the next chime, it was not going to forestall their hostility.

To stall for time, he staggered a moment as though dizzy, and pointed at his ears, shaking his head. The man in the cut stone window, got a concerned look on his face. "Wait one moment." he said to the human-looking traders on the other side. Kuvarakh was greatly relieved to hear that he DID speak common, but kept to his charade. He put his hand to his throat, coughing with a fake gag and staggered forward a few more steps. AS the other Isur reached him, he sagged into his arms and made a show of needing to be assisted to reach the doorway into the cool dark rooms cut into the cliff.

'Okay...I'm good for now...But what next?'

[Kuvarakh]

In the dark of the stone room, Kuvarakh sat in apprehension. Those archers had been considering him worthy of being shot simply for the contradiction of being an Isur that could not speak the language. It didn't seem likely that they would think him a spy. He would be a poor spy indeed if he went in the guise of an Isur but overlooked the inability to speak the language. But clearly they thought something was seriously wrong with him. Something wrong enough to merit execution.

Right now, he couldn't even speak common! Well, at least he could work on that. He spent the next bell speaking quietly to himself as he listened for the approach of the Isur stationed here. He spoke his thoughts softly aloud to practice his common. Coming to the grim deduction that those guards must have suspected he was somehow not a true Isur. Else, why would they level such a threat simply for lack of communication in their language. They spoke common with foreigners, after all. There was obviously a protocol he had blundered and it was apparently of capital importance.

Once or twice, the soldier that had been manning the trade counter came in to look him over. He felt his head and pulled back in dismay. On a hunch, Kuvarakh faked a severe shiver and coughed a few times. The man bolted from the room calling something Kuvarakh didn't understand. Later he came in with a thick blanket, which Kuvarakh was genuinely grateful for and sighed a delirious-sounding wheeze as he nestled into it.

This seemed to accomplish the immediate goal of getting more solitary time to practice his common. By nightfall, he had gotten his tongue wrapped around the basics fairly well. The man came in with a pair of others and they stood over him, talking quietly in their language as Kuvarakh feigned a deep restful sleep. They seemed to come to some sort of agreement and left. Kuvarakh waited a few chimes and resumed his practice of common.

By morning he was back in control of his common speech, but his predicament was not improved. There was no hope of finding his way out of these mountains and his charade of illness would not hold out much longer. The man came in with a bucket, for waste or vomit Kuvarakh did not know, and he knew none of either would be forthcoming. Then again, he thought if there was food in this dead man's stomach, he ought to purge it before it began to rot more than it surely already was.

He waited until the man left and went to the bucket and gagged himself repeatedly. The muscles still worked and he had some success. But when he took a moment to regroup for another round, the door opened. A question was directed his way which he didn't understand. He stood up and weaved on his feet, trying to maintain the look of feverish delirium. The man leveled an unsympathetic gaze and said something sharply. Kuvarakh flopped back onto the bed and shook his head in dismay. Hoping to squeeze another day out of his charade in hopes of coming up with a solution.

"It's okay, stranger, I won't shoot you." the man suddenly said, his expression one of a researcher's hope for a successful test. Kuvarakh very nearly fell to his knees to thank the man and the gods, but caught himself, realizing it may be fatal to slip up now. He managed to look puzzled instead. The man went to the bucket and stood over it a moment making a face less of disgust and more of curiosity.

"This...stuff...has not digested, so much as it has rotted. There is no stomach acid smell. How do you account for this." Kuvarakh still said nothing and maintained his puzzled look. The soldier's expression grew impatient and he started to raise his voice, but caught himself and went on quietly but insistently. "Now listen here, you are in some very serious trouble here. Your stalling is only going to serve to get you put to the question. And when you are finally reduced to begging them to stop, it will be in common that you will be doing it. Am I right?"

Kuvarakh finally broke his facade and dropped his head in his hands. "Yes, you are right. But I am no threat! I was driven out of my traveling party and then beset by a huge wolf! I am a Nu-..."

The man interrupted him, "A dire wolf? You escaped a dire wolf?" his amazement was plain to see and hear.

Kuvarakh rolled his eyes at the unheroic recounting of the events. "Escaped? If you want to call having my mutilated body hurled unintentionally off a cliff by the beast an 'escape', then yes." He went on, "I was further shattered in the fall, but lived long enough to find this body."

The soldier's face grew suddenly grim, "to...find...this body? You lived in a different...and now...Uldr's Breath! You are a NUIT!" he took a step back, his eyes wide.

Kuvarakh tried to decide if it was best to stay seated or jump up to add sincerity to his claim to be no threat, But surprisingly, it didn't matter as the soldier sprang to shut the door. He turned back to Kuvarakh, hissing insistently, "Lie back down, and keep up your act. I will handle this."

[Kuvarakh]

The soldier returned several chimes later with the two others he had been quietly conversing with earlier, when they believed him still asleep. The man introduced himself as Klendor, his partners as Ilisambro and Trovillo, and informed him that the name he would need to go by was Colomar.

The other two burst into a quiet but intense tirade, which Klendor quickly halted by moving to stand by "Colomar" and waving them over. In turn the two others knelt and listened for a heartbeat and felt for a pulse, their jaws dropping in identical fashion as they both realized that what Klendor had told them was true. One of them also pulled a small square of polished steel from his uniform and held it under Kuvarakh/Colomar's nose.

Kuvarakh was smart enough to figure out that it was a test of his need to breath, so he simply stopped. After five chimes or so, the soldier rose uncertainly to his feet, his eyes wide in superstitious revulsion and took a few shaky steps back to join his equally anxious friend. He then stood, holding his hands up and out in the universal "I come in peace" fashion and took an obvious, exaggerated breath.

"I DO need to draw a breath in order to speak." he clarified, "My true name is Kuvarakh. I assume 'Colomar' is the name of the man whose body I currently occupy." The two new conspirators' eyes narrowed and he added hastily, "I swear by the soul of my murdered daughter that this man, Colomar, was dead when I found him. I am no murderer. In truth, I wished originally to present myself as an man that could brave the maladies that effect the areas that rumors hold to be locations of lost colonies, and the like, to your leaders."

He then sighed and his eyes drooped momentarily, "But now I just wish to find my way out of your mountains. They are magnificent and awe-inspiring, but I am finding no feeling of welcome here. I mean no offense, but my time here seems to grow steadily worse."

The two new arrivals began to confer in their language, but Klendor interrupted them. "Speak common for our friend here. If we are going to help each other, we need to communicate."

"But that is the point." One of them, Trovillo, he believed, spat back. "WE can not be seen speaking common amongst ourselves." he said the word as if it hurt his mouth. He took an instinctive look around. "You saw how the guard reacted to his lack of proper response when he first appeared. We can not get drawn into their suspicions along with him."

"He will be out of sight and communication most of the time, Trovillo. And I am coordinator when no one from administration is present. And they only come a few times every season. They don't care to make the trip if they can avoid it."

"And what of the Tower, Klendor?" the third man said, his partner Trovillo nodding his head vigorously in agreement. "If there is even a hint of an abnormality among our crew, they will be here with their aurists and their mind mages and he will be discovered. And we will be quarantined and suffer reorientation!"

Klendor was already making a dismissive gesture in response to Ilisambro's use of the term 'Mind mage'. "That's just a rumor they invented to keep the gullible in line. There is no such thing as 'mind mage'." he snorted in derision. "Someone that can control your thoughts and implant memories and emotions to control your beliefs? That's ridiculous!"

There was the briefest of moments when Kuvarakh considered making a demonstration of hypnosis, thinking it to be the very djed-craft Ilisambro was concerned about, but decided to keep it in reserve. You never knew when you needed to play an ace. Apparently, hypnosis was a rarity among the Isur.

Just then, one of the soldiers Kuvarakh had not met, knocked a signal. There was a brief exchange of questions and answers and all three of the Isur grew expressions of near dread. Kuvarakh felt his stomach dropping as he asked what was wrong.

"The administrator is early. You must be present for his inspection. Come out with us, do what we do and we will say you have a throat infection. Say nothing."

All four men exchanged looks that clearly spoke their belief that this was surely going to go wrong.

[Kuvarakh]

The four men hurried into formation. It was not a strict military corp group, but they were still required to attend to formalities. Kuvarakh/Colomar immediately caught the administrator's eye with his confused stance. He barked several criticisms, none of which Kuvarakh understood, but it gave him a chance to better duplicate the rigid positioning of his body. It was not as difficult as he feared, as the body WAS in good physical condition, and had been formerly trained to achieve these stances with ease. He had the wit to keep his eyes forward.

The administrator made a demand and Klendor stepped forward and gave an apparent account of progress or something. It was in Isur, so Kuvarakh could not be sure. There followed a question that was obviously about Kuvarakh, given the gesture towards him that the man made as he asked. Klendor's answer was hesitant and featured a great deal of 'hemming and hawing'.

The administrator let him finish, but answered back with more questions. There was a brief exchange, with Klendor's answer's becoming less and less confident. Kuvarakh had no doubt that the executive could see in the entire group a confusion and near panic in the short time this went on. He could see it easily himself, and when the man barked "Colomar", he almost fell over.

The man loomed over him, his eyes narrowed, appraising and dissatisfied. He issued a stern question and Kuvarakh looked at Klendor, who immediately threw his gaze forward. The administrator shouted two words angrily, and somehow, Kuvarakh just knew it was a command to face front. It may have been an exact translation because the man seemed slightly mollified with the swift response.

But still the question was repeated. And again. Being in Isur, Kuvarakh had no idea what was being asked. Strangely he did worry over his own fate, but rather the fate of the other three men in his group. Their earlier discussion had made it obvious that severe consequences could be forthcoming. And even though he would suffer as well, it was worse to him to think he would drag down men that had offered even a little aid in his initial situation.

But how could he answer if he only spoke common? Even if he knew 'yes sir' and 'no sir', he didn't know the questions. And now he had also to account for his inexplicable silence! Klendor stepped forward and began to make some clearly desperate excuse, but the administrator whirled on him with a furious single word, which undoubtedly meant 'silence' or something similar.

Klendor stepped back in ranks with a look of a defendant hearing a verdict of 'guilty'. 'There HAS to be a reason why I would only be able to speak common!' Kuvarakh screamed inwardly. 'Why I bet if there was some brain injury that ac-...' He suddenly had it. The inspiration he needed. Not the brain injury...the bet!

His ears were ringing with the brow beating the administrator was delivering. Not just at him, though he was still positioned in front of him, but ALL of them. Kuvarakh took a deep breath and began...in common. "SIR, I must accept full responsibility for my fellow crew members' behavior. They seek to-..."

The administrator was, at first, speechless with astounded rage. The other three men's gazes grew incredulous at Kuvarakh's brazen insubordination. The officer shouted with fury, something featuring the word 'Isur', which Kuvarakh took to mean he was referring to his use of common. Just what he wanted..."THEY SEEK -..." he began anew, possibly interrupting the administrator "...to cover for my foolishness. And I would not have them suffer for my poor judgement."

The administrator's look softened from fury to mere anger and he made a wrist rolling, 'keep going' gesture. "I regret to inform The Administrator that I recently lost a wager, the penalty for which is that I must speak only common for the next three days. If my fellows are trying to suggest some kind of delusion, I -"

The officer held up his hand and stated something with an air of taxed, but also amused, patience. Kuvarakh took it to be something akin to an order to forego this obligation. "With all due respect, sir, I would not have it said that I entered into this wager with the knowledge that you would command it to stop. I accept whatever reprimand I must, but the honor of my house forces me to insist upon seeing it through."

The man stared at Kuvarakh, stunned, for what felt like a full chime. Then he started to laugh. The relief was palpable, but Kuvarakh and his three fellows contained it, to remain with fixed eyes and stoic expressions until, finally, the executive said something with a wave and they were dismissed.