17 Kythorn 1479

From weird to worse - in other words, here in the frying pan it's damned hot. We reached the ford in the river mid-morning, nice and plenty of time to get across. However, there were these watchers on horseback sitting up on a bluff about a mile off from the ford - and they'd sent off a runner when we approached - but they did nothing else, so we continued on. I went over with the first wagon, so if need be someone who could keep things diplomatic was the first to approach. All in all the fording went well, a few wagons had to be tugged, but nothing disastrous - until wagon number 7. Too heavily weighted it got stuck beyond even the oxen's ability. Gnf spun out a Tenser's disk (maybe I was too hasty in blowing of rituals as a waste of time...) and we loaded some stuff onto the disk - along, naturally, with a few kids who couldn't resist - and lightened things enough to get it across. We were just prepping to do the same again when a dust cloud began down the road - a BIG cloud, with accompanying hoofbeats.

Orcs. Hundreds of them. Very primitive and tribal looking, although...somewhat more... organized for all that? Anyway, I opened the discussion by introducing myself to "Lungrik, chief of the Blackspear Tribe" as "Alfred, chief of the Sweetvine Tribe" and by virtue of a foot atop Allyson's no one queered my pitch. Naturally they were upset with someone crossing their lands and where were we going? I boggled a bit and muttered something about the city ahead, they wanted to know the name, was I going to the elf city? Sometimes there just isn't enough bluff in the world so I finally mentioned that we thought that the legends of twin worlds had landed us in this one - Abeir - which IS the name they consider this world and we hoped someone in the city could put us back. After the usual dismissal of elves Lungrik and his shaman were willing at least to concede that elves being bookish - clearly a ridiculous way to be - might know something. We were going to move on to negotiations for passage through or whatever when an orc strode forward from the back - a nice burly one with muscles for brains and demanded that the elf be shot on sight. Allyson of course came back with the usual "leave my brother alone" - although to give her credit, she did at least leave out the "baby" part of that. There followed then the usual explanation of how can a half-orc and a half-elf be related. Nine hells, why always such confusion? It's not that difficult. HALF, people, HALF. Anyway, this idiot - Oogrik - said that just because some orc had spilt his seed in some human woman didn't make her get an orc and Allyson pulled that whole "you only THOUGHT I was standing to full height" thing and snarled that she had passed Bak Fa - which sent a nice appreciative rumor - and Ugrun chimed in that he had passed Bak Nur and HE was full blood and stood with us, so there. (Ok, so he didn't say so there, but it's the same thing, really). Oogrik was unimpressed, saying the elf hadn't, couldn't and we should all be killed right now. Lungrik said the Oogrik wasn't chief yet - oh joy, it's the crown prince doesn't like us - and we would be given the chance to prove ourselves in Bak Nur. Oogrik was not pleased - Bak Nur, after all, gets you so much more prestige than Bak Fa - but the shaman soothed him by pointing out that he would be in charge of running the trials. Yippee.

By agreement, we would finish getting the wagons across and camp right here and the trials will be tomorrow. Ugrun says that the rite varies from tribe to tribe but is almost certain to involve fighting (duh, it is orcs) - in his case it was arena matches, but here.... ? 7 of us have to make it and if Allyson and Ugrun go to help us - though they do not need to, being "real" orcs already - they will have to go through as though they had never passed. We were still trying to figure out what MIGHT happen when the shaman showed up. Lurtma is apparently something of an intellectual - she reads books - and had some interest in the entire Abeir-Toril thing. She also wanted to know if it was true that Besk had wooed and won Mom and was impressed in him that he'd done so. Allyson pointed out that Mom had done Bak Fa and we kinda digressed for a bit to sort out when that might have been, completely boggling poor Lurtma so we pulled ourselves back together to explain what our legends said of the twin worlds. Once we'd done what we could to satisfy her on that, she gave us some information on the rites for tomorrow. Two parts - the first is the trial of the hunter - we go out kill some stags and bring back their antlers in obvious headdress-type fashion. The stags will be provided and they are apparently not your usual stag, but seriously nasty. On the other hand, I'm thinking, Gnf isn't going to need a whole lot of antlers to cover and Allyson and Ugrun can likely go minimalist... BUT - Second part is where things could really get dicey. Trial of the hunted - yeah, liking the sound of that already. We have to get somewhere/do something while they chase us. It's bad form to kill a man when he's down, but then, accidents do happen.... Therefore weirgild is put up ahead of time - she suggests 100gp as our contribution. She did warn - not that I needed the warning - that Oogrik would really go for me, the icky elf. Y'know, all the fables and such and half the folk in cities and such think of elves as exotic and even sexy so why the hell am I always taking grief over having elf blood???

Ahem, I did ask her if it was a loss of honor for the orc who'd fallen to be healed where he could be killed and she just stared at me. Even rephrasing the question didn't help - I gotta figure this means that as need be I can heal THEM without costing them any. Heh, Bak Nur and Bak Fa at once. 'Cause let's face it, I may be of service to the tribe, but a warrior? To sleep then, tomorrow will be.... Well, it will be, enough said.