Lance put her chin in her palm, her legs dangling over the high branch she sat upon as she stared down at the entrance of the star- er, pod that Hoplite secluded himself within. It had been nearly five hours since he sealed the doors shut behind him. It was by far the longest amount of time he had taken to restock on his… ammo was what he usually called it for those thunder-staves. She shook her head lightly, her long dark hair shifting with the motion and reflecting the green moonlight overhead.

He must have fallen asleep; Lance hadn’t known him long, but Hoplite wouldn’t take this long to simply restock. Perhaps he had simply succumbed to slumber while he did… whatever else it was he did in there. Should she be concerned? Should she knock? She pondered this for a full minute before she gave a small frown.

Nah.

He’d come out when he was well and ready, and all the better if he was getting a nap in. Maybe she could bully him into eating and drinking finally? Or maybe he already did that in the pod before sleeping? Lance wished that she could actually see what was in there…

There was a window to the interior at the front of the pod, but she could only see her own reflection staring back at her when she attempted to see into the strange metal ovoid from that window. She had studied the pod quite a few times during the routine stops Hoplite had made. At first glance it seemed a solid hunk of metal save for the window and sliding door, but upon closer inspection she could see ultra-thin seams in the construction.

Tight rivets kept the whole construct together, and the metal must have been akin to dwarf-wrought steel to withstand falling out of the damn sky. There was a matching symbol on the broad sides of it as well, the red paint somewhat marred by the fall. It was an unsettling image of an octopus, the tendrils each ending in a broad human hand, each gripping some kind of sphere. A single massive eye dominated the head of the creature, the pupil unlike any she had seen before on any creature. Was that pupil supposed to be a representation of Hoplites' world? Was this octopus the symbol of this ‘Terna’ he kept blathering on about?

Yeah probably.

Nodding sagely to herself, her thoughts turned back to Hoplite himself. An honest to Draoi outworlder in the flesh, there hadn’t been one of those on Ahkoolis for a long time, if myth were to be believed. Outworlders were usually arbiters of change in those old tales that survived the godling wars. They brought almost as much change to the world as those very godling wars, though with less… pain and loss of knowledge.

Indeed, outworlders were generally seen in a more positive light than the pillar-born. They brought new innovations and ideas to Ahkoolis, whilst pillar-born destroyed nearly everything in their quests to ascend. Oddly, outworlder ideas had a habit of surviving such turbulent times.

She supposed that the Harkhall would question him more on the subject once they returned to them and her watch was lifted. Lance was not looking forward to another meeting between Hoplite and the Harkhall however. By the Pillars that had to be the most awkward situation she had been in, no one spoke to the Harkmother how Hoplite had, not ever. It simply wasn’t done.

But maybe the Harkmother’s curiosity about outworlder behavior had held her tongue back from lashing. She had always been a curious woman before her rise to motherhood. Surely she must know about outworlder tales better than Lance herself did.

Lance thought about those old stories a moment. What kind of changes had those outworlders wrought? Lance didn’t usually pay attention to the old stories, and she seldom remembered them well. As she recalled it, all outworlders were from the same plane and were all humans, though not wrought by the Blood of Zodd as all races were on Ahkoolis.

Her frown deepened. If that were the case, then were they truly human or did they just happen to be creatures that looked exactly like them? Outworlders weren’t made of Zodd’s Blood after all… Lance then decided that outworlders were indeed not technically human, at least not in the way that she knew them as. After all, Geravall had confirmed it by viewing Hoplites blood, and he apparently wasn’t pure human. Maybe he was a half-orc? That would explain his ridiculous size after all.

She was actually quite tall for an elf, able to look most human men in the eyes, but Hoplite had been one of a few people to actually make her feel short. It was an infuriating feeling, the world simply felt right when she had to look down at someone to make eye-contact. She frowned again and tsk’d to herself. Hoplite couldn’t be half-orc, there weren’t any orcs on… what was the outworlder plane called?

Eh, she couldn’t remember.

Anyway, there weren’t orcs there, so it was just a simple fact that Hoplite was huge. Her eyes narrowed at the sliding door of his pod. Maybe all outworlders were that big? A terrifying thought. Maybe they really were more like orcs than she thought? She rubbed at the point of one of her ears as she considered.

Yes that had to be it, outworlders were actually orcs that looked like humans.

And were smarter

More in control of their tempers

And…

She pursed her lips before dismissing that train of thought. No matter what she thought, she simply could not bring herself to consider Hoplite as an orc. She’d have to see his face for any sort of confirmation-

Suddenly, the door to the pod slid open and her eyes widened in surprise as she saw a mass of pale flesh, muscle, and scar tissue emerge from the pod. She stood on her branch, staring down at…well, that had to be Hoplite out of his armor… wait… by the pillars why was he naked!?

A pair of golden eyes found hers and they locked. His face was square and made up of seemingly nothing but hard plains and sharp angles. His round golden eyes were housed beneath a low brow that was as bald as his head. Indeed there seemed to not be a single lick of hair anywhere on him and the sheer amount of scars he possessed didn’t help matters.

They were mostly burns, all the way from his collar bone to his knees, looking almost like patches of ingrown scales at first glance. There were other scars too, such as the numerous slashes across his face and body going in every direction. Those ones looked as if he had received them in battle, but there were other longer gouges that looked…

Too precise, as if a surgeon had sought to make a grid out of Hoplites body. She could not believe that Hoplite would allow such scarring of his body unless it was for a good reason… or if he was restrained. She shuddered at the thought of whatever could possibly restrain this beast; He made many orcs she had seen look scrawny by comparison.

Lance felt a tinge of sadness as she looked into those eyes. Elves could all somewhat peer behind the veil of the eyes to glance at the soul within a person. The members of the Harkhall took their abilities further than that of course, but normal elves could all get a read on a person through eye-contact like this. Hoplite's eyes bore almost nothing, as if he barely had a soul to begin with… and what she did see made her visibly shake. This was a man of swirling hatred, anger and… strangely enough, fear. Fear of what though, she could not say. He had all of these emotions bottled up in a sturdy container of discipline, an unbreakable box of dwarf-made steel it seemed.

A more talented eye-seer could probably discern much more than that, but still she wasn’t the worst at it. What could a man possibly go through in order to become like this? That hard face bore no laugh lines, as if Hoplite rarely (if ever) smiled. She sniffed and felt her eyes begin to moisten. What a poor man-

“I need to clean myself.” Hoplite said suddenly, causing her to jump and nearly lose her balance on the high branch “Guide me to the nearest body of water and when I’m finished I will suit back up and continue our objective.”

His voice reminded her of a bucket of rocks being poured onto another, bigger rock. He had sounded a bit different in that suit of his but not by much. Hearing it in the raw like this though was quite the experience. She wiped her eyes and leaped from the branch, landing before him and being forced to again crane her neck back to look him in the eyes. Even out of armor Hoplite was head and shoulders taller than her. She had almost forgotten while looking down at him from atop the tree branch that she would need to look up at him once she was ground level again.

Her face felt hot with embarrassment, how dare he just come out in his birthday-suit like this!? It was very improper!

Keeping her eyes well above his nudity she said “There is a river a mile to the south… do you… do you not have normal clothes you can wear?”

“No.” He replied simply, moving straight past her.

It was then that she noticed that he had one of those smaller guns clutched in his right hand… along with another patchwork of scars on his back. And there were… metal circles, grafted to his spinal column that ran all the way up from his tailbone to the base of his neck. What was the purpose of that?

Maybe they were magic in some way? Dwarves could meld with metal in a similar manner, maybe outworlders could too? She quickly pulled up next to him, not wanting to be staring at his rear-end for this small trip. His head scanned the forest ahead and he constantly looked above and behind him as they walked. Strange… he never did that while in his armor. Perhaps he was just overly confident when within his plate?

“What was the objective of those strangers?” He asked in a flat tone.

“Oh yeah.” Lance said “Well like they said, they’re going to the Fiendwall to help plug it up.” She explained “What we’ve been fighting is the stragglers that got through the hole before the defenders could block it up. A lot of tongues of Zodd have been passing through the Faewood to get to the wall and killing any fiends they find along the way.” She continued, pausing for breath “I think that we should go there too. We haven’t been running into nearly as many, and I haven’t seen even one while you were in your pod.”

She'd honestly been relishing finding fiends with Hoplite. Her blood got pumping in a way she'd rarely ever felt while fighting those creatures. It was almost addicting... maybe she should become a Tongue of Zodd if she ever ended up not wanting to live the watcher's life? Hmm... nah, not yet, she still enjoyed exploring the forest more than combat, but maybe... well, maybe she could request temporary leave to try it out? She'd worked at this trade for a long time, this was her two-hundreth year within the watchers. The Harkhall would probably approve of a little vacation such as that... but how long would she ask for? Maybe... ten, even twenty years, a short time really.

Hoplite nodded then, taking her from her thoughts “We’ll go there after I get suited back up.”

She blinked once as she refocused her attentions on him.

“We’ll go there after you eat a proper meal and drink some water, that is what we’ll do.” She said sternly, placing her fists on her hips.

It looked odd while walking but hopefully that would have the added effect she’d need. Lance had seen her mother do that to her father and brothers when they needed to see sense. He did not jerk his head quickly to stare at her, but that slow head turn was unnerving. He stared at her flatly, irritation rising behind those eyes. A human likely wouldn’t be able to see any difference in Hoplite's eyes, a thought that unsettled her. His face didn’t change whatsoever, his brow still glaring and mouth still turned down in a frown.

“I’ve already taken care of that.” He said, turning that golden gaze away from her “And you do not give orders to me.” He finished, his tone hadn’t changed but the words still sent a shiver down her spine.

Lance gulped and hoped that he didn’t hear it. Fists on hips definitely wouldn’t work on him… maybe that had been foolish to attempt. Bullying wouldn’t work on him and she did not want to be under that golden glare again anytime soon.

She blinked.

Humans didn’t have golden eyes, she was at least sixty percent sure of that. Maybe the outworlder variety did? Well, it looked pretty neat in any case, if only those eyes weren’t windows to such negative emotions. They continued on in silence until they reached the river, and she stared as Hoplite’s index finger split open at the tip.

An small steel needle stuck out from the hole, and he bent over to stick it into the river. After a moment, Hoplite simply nodded to himself, put his gun on the bank, and promptly face-planted into the water. He swiftly broke the surface like a slipfish, splashing water across her clothes.

Lance supposed that was her own fault for standing so close to the bank…

As Hoplite scrubbed hands across his scarred frame, Lance asked him what it was that he had just done, to which he replied “Testing the pH levels of the water along with detecting potential toxins.”

Lance had simply stared. At least she had for a second before she realized she was staring at a naked bathing man. Face growing hot again, she quickly turned from him to observe the surrounding forest. The green moon wasn’t full tonight, yet the brightness was still such that she could see fairly well in the darkness between the trees.

She noticed the occasional forest critter and night-watcher going about their business, but she also noticed the watchers in the branches above the river. Not many of them, but they were staring at Hoplite. Certainly it wasn’t appropriate but a watchers duty was to… well, watch. They hadn’t been following her and Hoplite that closely the last couple days, but they knew Hoplite only in his armor.

These watchers (if they haven’t figured out that it was Hoplite yet) would just see a big scary brute bathing in the river. She frowned up at them in thought. They would surely know it was Hoplite, after all, Lance was standing here right beside him (close enough anyway) and they knew that Lance had been assigned to watch him.

They would put two and two together surely-

An arrow whizzed past her ear and she heard it thud into something behind her. She gasped and turned to see Hoplite gripping the shaft of the arrow in one of his massive fists, snapping it in his tight grip as he glared at its origin. She followed his gaze, seeing an elf scrambling away through the moonlit branches above.

That elf wasn’t a watcher!

Not a night watcher anyway, the colors shifted beneath the green moonlight to mask his surroundings. Lance might not have seen him if he had held still, but now that he was moving it was as if the air where he was blurred. Night watchers pursued him, clambering over branches after him and shouting orders for the attacker to stop.

Lance turned to explain that it wasn’t a night watcher to Hoplite, but he was already up and out of the river, gun clutched in his hand and his wide-eyes conveying…

Determination, discipline, and wrath.

He sped past her without a word, quickly scaling the closest tree and giving pursuit to the quickly vanishing blur of motion, face unchanging.

She quickly ran after him, screaming “Alive! We’ll need him alive!”