Breaking the Rules takes place in an RPG universe, and is the sequel to Bending the Rules. To understand the characters and how the world works, please start from Part 1 of either series. Not based on any particular gaming franchise or storyline, but there may be guest appearances.
My new year's resolution is 4896 x 2448.
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Nuru's bladder woke him early. He started standing up to relieve himself in the chamber pot, and Furaha slapped his arm.
"Alright, troublemaker. Time to get up and at 'em."
"Aw. I was enjoying staying in bed with you."
"I was too, I've been up for an hour at least. But now you're up and we're out of excuses. Get your stuff together and let's go. Stick close to me, the locals aren't fans of yours."
"Hey I've noticed something. You're smart, you know all these big words, but you haven't used them much. Until yesterday."
"Oh. The 'insipid oaf' comment?"
"Right. What's up with that? I know you didn't get dumber."
"It's a form of code switching, you could say."
"Come again? There's nothing gibberish about it."
"No, no, not like our code book, it's a speech pattern. Like how dwarves all grew up around humans and know how to speak the language and everything, but they all have an accent."
"Huh. I thought they all just had Dwarven as their first language."
"Except they all go to Home Town to finish growing and take their level like everybody else, because they count as human. Elves don't even have an accent, because they're so close to human that the distinction serves no purpose. Orcs on the other hand, aren't allowed and even when they're a half-breed have a more broken pattern of the common speech because they usually still have to try to fit in with their tribal side at least a little bit."
"Weird. Zuberi seemed pretty well-spoken, he must have been around humans a lot more than I thought, even though as an orc he was hiding from us in the Home Town area. OK, so what does this have to do with big words?"
"OK, so, when I'm by myself, reading all my fancy books and everything, I have a tendency to use my big words when I talk to myself or make notes. It's my natural state, if you like, and I revert to it under stress."
"Go on."
"So then when I'm talking to someone else - do you know, I actually have a Dwarven accent I use when talking to them. Or when I'm talking to you, I match the vocabulary you use, a more common set of words I should say. I don't want to assume you know what all the words I know mean, and if you just assume you know what they all mean and you're wrong - well, it's my fault for assuming you understood properly, and something could go horribly awry, maybe get someone hurt. I loved the few times I've gotten to write letters to Masego's academics, I got to pull out all the fancy words, and the phrases popularized in literature or academic papers. But for you, and Dayo, and Ace, and so many of my organization's contacts - I meet you where you are, rather than expecting you to meet me where I am. It's a subconscious habit now, but I got into it because it's not fair to expect someone to be hyper-literate when that's not the standard society uses at large."
"So why *do* dwarves have an accent?"
"To identify themselves to each other. It's one thing to be short; it's another thing to say, 'I am of the dwarves both by birth and by culture'. It's possible to be a dwarf raised by humans, and those have no accent at all, unless they spend a lot of time around other dwarves and then pick it up. But it's usually not the same; speech patterns solidify during the very young formative years, so a fake accent can be heard by listening carefully. But if you're a dwarf, and you talk like a dwarf, it's a way of saying that you share a particular cultural outlook. Dwarves are known to form bonds of instant trust with each other who've never met before, even from different clans, and that's a big part of it."
"So do the Southern Dwarves not trust the rest, or what?"
"What an intriguing question! I actually don't know, I've not studied that. I take it you met one? The same as you found in the company of those pixies?"
"Yep."
"Fascinating. Well, hold that thought, we probably shouldn't be seen to be acting so familiar with each other in public. I also need to build a ward to drain this enchantment on the scroll case, and I need to buy a few supplies. Fortunately I've got a bit of faction allowance saved up because I've been away so long."
Furaha put on a dress that showed off her figure, boots with tall heels, and a little bit of jewelry, and Nuru followed her around like a lost puppy, sticking close but simultaneously trying not to get in the way, and nervously watching all the suspicious glares cast their way that did linger on her a bit longer than necessary, which Nuru figured was the point of getting dressed up as she made a few stops on the surface level where a number of the shops were, then headed towards a city gate. Nuru noticed the main pathway running through town was made of multicolored stones; a long stretch of it did kind of resemble a bunch of rainbows forged together from a distance, giving him a better understanding of it as 'rainbow road'. Outside the city it faded to gray, and then devolved to a dirt road from the intersections.
"Alright, this is where I told the thief to meet me." She stepped off the road and started building her ward.
Nuru noticed that a few people had followed them from town, and were beginning to collect into a crowd. "Hey, you see this, right?"
"Yeah, don't make eye contact. See if you can play something chill, but let me handle it, if it comes to that."
Nuru activated Tusa's oath to alert him to the location, and broke out his drum, starting up a steady concentration rhythm.
"!Wahayi mai kida!"
He let the Influence Emotion wash over the onlookers with both serenity and attentiveness. I wouldn't affect their Initiative if they attacked, but it might keep them from getting aggressive for a little bit. He hoped it might keep Furaha's mind off of them as well.
"What is that?" one of them said.
Nuru debated snapping that it was none of their business, but then noticed they weren't looking at him - or Furaha. He looked up and gasped. Off in the distance, a column stretched to the sky, leaving a dark cloud of dust in its wake.
"Shit. Somebody really stirred a hornet's nest," another of them said.
"Is it coming this way!?"
"Bloody hell. I don't know wards that well, but I'm pretty sure it's not you causing that. I think someone's trying to stop you. Hey, elf-girl. You hear me? You're in danger!"
"Wouldn't be the first time," Furaha replied grimly.
"Gods above! Over there!"
The small crowd gasped at once, and Nuru turned his head to see a tiny prick of fire slowly growing larger in the sky, from another location.
"Somebody's pulling a meteor! Fuck this, I'm outta here."
Half of the spectators scattered in all different directions; a few went straight back to the city.
"Um... at what point do we just cut our losses and run?" Nuru said.
"At the last possible moment," Furaha replied through gritted teeth. "We've worked so hard to get to where we are. Will you give up the goal now?"
"There might be another way," Nuru said. "And it might be worth dying for, but not if that death is certain."
Furaha finished her preparation in moments, and stood looking anxiously around.
"C'mon kid, don't get distracted," she muttered, looking at the cyclone travelling in their direction.
A minute later, a party of heavily-armed centaurs thundered up the road and came their way.
"Gods above, Furaha, what have you done this time?" a thickly-muscled man with large upper and lower wolf fangs said, slipping down from the back of one of them, followed by a diverse group in similar ceremonial gear; Nuru saw a half-orc woman, a male elf that was freakishly tall and perhaps a quarter giant, an indeterminate-gender half-dwarf-half-elf, and several gnomes.
"Mayeso, this is my associate, Nuru. Nuru, this is Samba's Archon, Mayeso," Furaha said.
"How do you do," Nuru said, turning back to the oncoming meteor with a frown. It was growing worryingly large and bright.
"And you of course recognize our best ritualists," Mayeso said. "There's no time to quibble; tell me true, are you the reason for this nasty weather?"
"I can't prove it to be because of me, though I admit the timing is quite suspicious," she replied tightly. "I am certainly not the proximate cause."
"I doubt if it's entirely about you, but I'm also fairly certain someone has you in mind," the man replied.
"Did you let slip our earlier conversation about my position then? Or am I just supposed to be flattered?"
"I have not betrayed your confidence. Here, let me instead show you the support we are prepared to provide. Devotees! Countermeasures!"
They took hands in a circle, with Mayeso standing in the middle, some jeweled cuffs clasping them all together. The gnomes stood on each others' shoulders, putting the topmost of them on level to hold onto his neighbors, and a silver chain on the ground ran to Mayeso from the outside of the circle. He began chanting and waving his arms. Streams of light poured out of jewels on their cuffs and around their necks, swirling inwards, and then shot up several meters into the air, spraying sparks in all directions. Over Furaha's ward, a crackling teardrop shape in very unnatural-looking yellow and green shades solidified into brown and dark green and hovered ominously. The cyclone drew closer, and Nuru heard someone yelling wordlessly. All eyes turned to the big man charging towards them with reckless abandon, with the raging winds whipping not far behind.
He turned and called over his shoulder. "Are these the ones!? Tell me they're the ones!"
A half-goblin dropped out of Sneak and raised his hand to Furaha.
"Are we secure?" he called.
"Pass me the item! Your quest is complete!" she called back.
He reached back and grabbed the scroll case from a bag stretched tight between his belt and his collar, and hurled it overhand in her direction. "I'm outta here! Good luck!"
