Revelations

JP between Lucian and Winteroak

The clearing Tarmen entered had the same air of calmness that had invaded his senses since taking the Felfar. He should have been looking around for an ambush or some sort of robbery. He should have been wondering why the trees looked so… dead. He normally would have, a thought that pressed against the calm. Just as it felt like it would cut through some sort of veil and bring him to normalcy, it faded and he instead focused on the symbol before him.
Its glow was what brought him back. He didn’t know what kind it was or if it was harmful, but magic was magic and he had only experienced it trying to kill him.
His machete was drawn and ready, Tarmen looking around like a paranoid street urchin protecting his stolen goods from the shadows.
"A new symbol is carved when He finds one more." A voice said behind Tarmen. He did not to spin around to to know it was the bald man from the camp, Stran.

"Never been a religious sort myself but whatever that stuff is there is no denying It's real." He came to stand slightly behind Tarmen looking at the carving.

"And if you are here, in front of this carving it means He came to you. The Boar." He said with certainty.

“The Boar? You knew I would dream of him?”
Turning to face Stran, Tarmen was willing to humor answers before he decided if the man needed to die.

"No. Not until the voices lead you here." He said pointing at the carving. "The visions and dreams are different for everyone." Tarmen sensed no duplicity in tye answer.

"Some go mad with the experience. Others commune with their own gods. Others slip into oblivion if they take too much of the stuff." He started to explain, feeling his own pull towards the carving.

"But for a selected few, He comes for us. Showing us the way to kill Winter so that Spring brings prosperity, and a new dawn. So that the seasons spin again."

Looking at his fellow Kru’ll, Tarmen felt uneasy. The man seemed to have ‘wandered into the forest’ and it served to drive him further from the calm. He leveled his blade to Stran’s head with a firm glare.
“If you don’t quit with the cult speak, I will send you to your god myself. What in Zin’s name are you blabberin’ about?

Stran looked Tarmen dead in the eye tilting his head slightly, pressing his neck against the naked steel's edge.
"You think I'm afraid of you pup? After what I seen that first winter when we arrived here?" He pressed his neck harder into Tarmen's weapon. "Winter caught us with our pants down. The Knights and the Friar hoarded and distributed the remaining rations to whoever they thought would be of better use to the colony." He sneered. "People started to kill one another. Not just for what little food we could scrounge up from the bay or the forest, but for food." He said knowing the meaning was clear.

"Until he came to us. The Preacher. Bringing the Creed and Slivikhi to us from across the seas. To save us at the dusk of Winter."
The blade remained at the mans throat, Tarmen not trusting the revealed fanatic.

“So what? Colonization sucks and the Empire sucks harder. You sayin’ that you try a bit of ‘long pig’ and suddenly you’re all preachin’ about some unheard of god?”
He spat towards Stran’s boot, his eyes staying on the mans.
“What’s to stop me from takin’ you in to Zane and revealin’ this little cult of yours?”

The man shrugged. "If you're here, it's for a reason. Because He led you here." He sneered. "And that is not what I'm saying. You just don't want to listen." He added.
"I grow tired of your stupidity after what you just experienced. You do what you most now, pup."

Tarmen was tired of this as well. He wasn’t convinced by a long shot, but all of this was only adding to the pile of shit he didn’t want to deal with.
He absently touched the imp head, finding a sense of reassurance in his thoughts. What would HE gain from bringing Stran in? A pat on the head from Zane before he was passed on to the next death walk?
He had never relied on the gods before and would still deny it now. Still, wasn’t everyday one sent a vision to a ‘heretic’. Only Zin had done so before.
He lowered his machete and with a long sigh looked to Stran with an untrusting gaze.
“So what then? Am I supposed to fuck a pig now to commune?”

The disappointment and sneer in Starn's face was unmistakable. "If it was up to me I would kill you now for you lack of respect to what you have been shown." He spat at Tarmen's feet. "But it's not. He will want to speak to you himself. Than we see who does the fucking pup." And with that he turned away from Tarmen.