Chapter 7: The Slaying Wine of the Eye
The doorkeeper’s crimson eyes, silvery hair and wolven marked him as a human descended from wolves, a hulf. However, his ancestors were hulf that according to a number of legends had a fateful encounter with a powerful damyne lord, a spirit born of emotion and poor.
From this encounter they gained crimson eyes and silver hair like their benefactor had, not only that, but they gained greater strength and a resistance to coldness. From that encounter they became known as the ouirh, but many would simply call them damyne barbarians.
There is tales passed among the ouirh of other gifts the damyne lord passed onto the ouirh, but to many such a thing is mere myth and the whole story of the encounter, while the most popular and common among ouirh, is one of many tales.
Ouirh are a common race to find in hunting lodges, indeed some are made up of nothing but ouirh, though elves and dwarves would never admit a thing, among the main human races, hulf have the greatest sense of smell, some subraces and some who train actually can use better than their eyes.
There was a troubling thing about Crimsoneye lodge, the ouirh doorkeeper’s eyes gleamed, and usually ouirh do not have that kind of shine to them, and this one was a kind of fevered one. What further displayed this oddness was that all of the hunters that were not ouirh were also crimson eyed.
These hunters were lounging about on seats and benched heaped with furs, all of them were staring right at the minotaur. All these hunters were in a main dining hall, a place filled with tables carved from the bone and ivory of hunted creatures, set into the sides of the walls instead of fireplaces were a number of hearthstones, artefacts that consume cold and produce warmth. Yet, in spite of the warmth that was supposed to emanate from these, the hall with all its trophies had a chill to it that dug right into the minotaur’s spine.
The hearthstones had been hacked into the shape of eyes and cast their dim red light upon all the lounging hunters. Hearthstones, being a artefact that comsumes cold, are not something to be tampered with lightly, as the cold collected in the lower grade versions can explode out and make the living into frozen revenants bent on reducing others to their forsaken frigid state.
“Hoooh, another minotaur! Welcome brother to Crimsoneye!” A rumbling voice like the murmur of a stream called out.
If it was not for the horns, the hunter would not have been able to tell that the speaker was another minotaur. The speaker looked far more like a bear, no Hunter Bear (as the minotaur thought of him) was actually seemed to be wearing a suit crudely made from the body of some fierce bear-type monster with slate coloured fur.
“I am glad to be here brother, I feel it in my horns that your crimsoneye lodge will become a den of mighty slayers” the minotaur hunter replied.
“Hahaha! Well said! Yes, there will be nothing we will not slay, nothing” Hunter Bear laughed.
There was a snort from another bench.
“Ehhhh, you got a problem Meldou?” Hunter Bear snarled, stomping over to where the snort came from.
The snorter in question was a wide, stout and short woman who’s brown hair was long enough and plentiful enough that she had it bound around her body like a suit of hide armour. It was quite lovely hair, glimpses of padding and chainmail could be seen beneath it.
She was a dwarf, human descended from stone and rock, and of the dwarves she was from the most mundane of kinds, the hath.
“Aren’t you a bit quick to sucker up to the new big strong hunter, eh Wummoth? He hasn’t even drunk the blessed wine” Meldou sneered.
The hunter kept in mind his methods for protecting himself from poisons and other altering substances. He was glad that the animosity of these two hunters gave him some ample warning.
Wummoth the Hunter Bear twitched.
“Meldou!” he roared.
He advanced clawed bear gloves clenching and unclenching, at the moment that a fight was about to break out a cracked voice howled out.
“Hold Wummoth! Though her nature bad and her tongue sharp, swallow your anger, you owe all emotion to the eye, mistake not who you must offer your needlessly abundant rage to!”
“Third Seeker Bo!”
Wummoth, Meldou and all the other hunters kneeled before a crimson armour clad figure.
The armour was filled with dips and curves seemingly at odds with the function of armour. In each of these curves and dips there was a deep dark red wine, steam wafted from the wine and no matter how much splashed off the armour, the wine never went down.
Scrawled on the armour as if by fingernails was countless eyes.
The Third Seeker reverently held in one hand a red crystal pitcher of ugly make, all hard angles and not one angle was the same. Within this pitcher was a crimson wine quite different the wine on the armour of the Third Seeker.
It gave the minotaur a foreboding feeling, he was no longer sure his methods would safeguard him from whatever effects the liquid would have. Not only that, the hunter knew of the Third Seeker, who was once known as Bo Vessel of Libations. Bo had once been a hunter priest of an obscure but generally amiable spirit. Bo’s new subject of devotion did not seem to have been an improvement.
The Third Seeker nodded as Wummoth and Meldou separated, it turned its gaze to the minotaur hunter. The hunter surpressed a shudder from the sight of those crazed eyes. There was no doubt, Crimsoneye Lodge had fallen to whatever chlan power the crimson eye had.
“Come, you who thirsts for power, who thirsts to slay! Drink of this wine, blessed by the eye, and give your emotions to the eye and receive them back twofold, then give them again, and continue this cycle, slaying without end!”
The Third Seeker advanced on the hunter.
As the pitcher was at his lips, another voice cried out, almost causing the hunter to drop the basten corpse.
“HOLD THIRD SEEKER, I HAVE BEEN GIVEN A VISION BY THE EYE, THAT MAN IS A MEDDLER SEND TO UNDO US ALL!”