(I know it has been three months since I posted the lead in for this adventure. I have been slacking. I apologize. However, this is part one of two. I expect to have some Star Wars: The Old Republic stories to post over the next few weeks as well.)
Dorri was not sure exactly how Lars had managed to get on board the ship she and Kel had taken to get to Gilneas. Lars had only wanted to deliver a message to Dorri’tow. Too bad the rogue had not planned her message running a little better. She blamed the drugs. The ship had set sail while she was delivering it. Lars had a brief argument with the captain, demanding one of the life-boats take her back. It had ended with her stating there was no way in the Nether she was swimming. She spent the rest of the trip shooting hateful glances in his direction.
Ambassador Dawnsinger’s passport allowed their entry into the Forsaken army’s camp. There was no set number of people listed, so it was simple to get Lars admitted with them. With one of them on foot, however, it had made more sense to leave their mounts behind. They had not brought the hogs because Dorri had managed to damage hers again, but that troll had completely deserved to be run down. He had put a frog in her hair.
Two days they spent walking up the sword coast, investigating every house they had seen. Lars had been brilliant at finding hiding places for important papers. Things that had escaped other robbers and soldiers. The rogue commented off handedly about the condition of some of the hiding places. The Sin’dorei were not the first ones to go looking through these documents. There were empty caches and documents missing.
With Keltyr’s memory for everything he saw, Dorri had been able to make properly labeled bundles of all they found. Their packs were full now, so they had spent the afternoon to find a place to hole up and really look at what they had found.
The Gilnean manor house wasn’t much to look at now. Dorri thought it would have been passable before the Forsaken Invasion. However, it had sturdy wooden shutters that were still in place and intact. Better than a number of other houses they had passed along the coast, it would do for a night or two while they went through the large bundle of scattered papers they had salvaged from the houses they had targeted.
It had taken the last bit of light for her to get the shutters barred and to shove the ruined furniture into one of the rooms. She had swept a small windowless room that looked like it had served as child’s bedroom and then thrown down the small bedrolls she and Keltyr had brought with them. Lars could sleep in the front room. Dorri liked the other woman well enough, but not enough to share a bed with.
She was sweeping up the front room, using the fading sunlight and the banked fire. Lighting lamps or letting the fire in the hearth burn too brightly would have drawn to much attention. Lars already hissed at them every time they had made too much noise. At one point she had threatened to cut their tongues out to which they had responded that she was welcome to try. Kel had started dropping some of his smaller noisemakers just to set her off during their march.
Once she was done sweeping, the paladin closed the door, unbanked the fire and lit the few oil lamps and candles they had found. They had a few mage lights, but Dorri wanted to save those for when they were all there. She did not need them for the last few things she needed to do.
Dorri cleaned out the large iron pot that had been in the hearth. She thanked whoever built the house for their indoor plumbing. Once clean, she filled the pot with water and added some salt from their packs. She hung the pot over the fire and then sat down at the small table and started to cut up the vegetables they had found in the house’s cellar. The place had been ransacked more than once, but there had been enough potatoes, onions and carrots that Keltyr felt he could make something passingly edible. There was not much in the way of seasonings, but it would be the best they could do.
“I’m opening the door, don’t stab me!” She smirked at Kel’s warning and started moving the vegetables into the pot as he sat at the table to cut the cleaned fish into small pieces. He dumped the chopped fish into the pot and then tried to grab her with his nasty fish hands.
“Is there a time when you two aren’t antagonizing each other? It’s bad enough watching you groping each other, then you start adding in kinky crap.” She shook her head and folded herself into a corner closing her eyes.
When Dorri turned to reply to Lars, Keltyr ran his hands down her bare arms. Screaming, Dorri turned on him. He managed to grab her wrist to keep her from slapping his face, but let her go when she slammed her other fist into his gut. She jerked her wrist out of his grasp and walked away, cursing.
Keltyr followed her, muscling her out of the way so he could wash his hands before she could clean her arms. While they were wrestling around the sink, Lars’ annoyed voice came from the other room.
“How long on the soup?”
“Twenty minutes.” Keltyr called back.
“Twenty minutes?” Dorri raised an eyebrow with a smile.
“Give or take.”
“We’ll look at the stuff we gathered during dinner.” Dorri called out and dragged Keltyr back towards their bedding. If anything tried to sneak up on them, it would have to go through Lars first.
