The fire raged on, crippling and engulfing everything in it's path as it continued to swirl and find every nook and cranny of the crumbling wood surrounding it. There was no hope, no safety from that daunting red and heat, crackling and sapping the life from everything it touched. It moved, the wood creaking and crumbling down onto the hot pits beneath it. Was it all over?
Well, it was at least for the little moment Basaran watched the Fire Pit inside the Hall, the crack and thud of the wood shifting in it's burning state snapping him back into reality, his chin resting firmly on the cold stone before the ever fiery flames boiling over the constant supply of Stew the Dawn's cooks would leave.
Basaran sighed, finally pushing himself up to his legs with a grunt of a heave, his whole body seeming to not know when to stop and leaning backwards, head switching and turning around to look at the barren Hall. What once was full of cheer and drink, men and women falling over each other with laughter and tales of their victories, now stood a very humble, quiet looking Inn.
That was, of course, until a cough once again snapped Basaran from his daydreaming.
With a snap of his gaze to the entrance of his passed down Hall, Basaran caught glance of something. Shadows. It was only when he finally looked down that he noticed the three heavily clad Dwarves standing in his Hall, their armor dark and full of plate.
"... Can I help you?" Basaran asked, as if serving for all was something new to him when visitors came into the hall.
A smirk crossed the lips of the middle Dwarf, though at least one could have assumed as the scraggle of a moustache and beard moved with the noise of a huff coming from the pint-sized hulk.
"No, ess'cuse merself for disr~upting your daydreaming. I didn't realise Captain's could have such a time and place to do so in a world full of evil, Hrm?" the Dwarf spoke in a thick accent. Basaran couldn't tell if it was his natural accent, or a muffle between beard and food, or whatever was spacing his lips from the air of the Hall.
Basaran stayed silent, processing the words that spilled from the Dwarf for a time before giving him a lazy shrug, finally snapping himself into an upright, 'professional' stand.
"Get to know me, I'm a whirlwind of fun." he jests in his movement around the pit, studying the three Dwarves as he moved towards them.
They were together, no doubt, in more than just standing before him. Their armor was darkened, blackened, with white tabards over their plated chests, a brown fist marked into them. The two standing besides the one talking would be holding large square shields, ones used for walls and the likes, and pikes were mantled onto their backs.
"Oh, I know enough about you already, Songsinger Basaran." The Dwarf quirks a brow under his helmet, sizing the man up a few times. "What stopped 'yer from keeping to a simple life?" he asked.
"That alone, simplicity became boring." Basaran retorts, "Though everything has it's downsides. Now, can I help you, I ask again?"
The Dwarf chuckled, raising his meaty hands upwards and over his head, pulling the slightly distinguishable helmet from the others' off his mug, dirty brown hair pulled back into a knot at the back of his neck, beard flowing relentlessly down his chest at two points, surely to show off the insignia he bore.
"Noradrum Bloodrock, Lieutenant of the Bronze Fist Regiment, of the Iron Hills. I take't you've heard of us lot 'afore, eh?" He asks, though takes little time in sighing at the blank expression Basaran would give him, "Erh, nevermoind' then. Listen, we like breaking bones, and stopping orc warbands. An' you, you lot like getting paid to do more o' less the same thing, right?" he asks, smirking again.
"Beats helping kids of Bree get their cats out of tree's." Basaran mutters, a cackle escaping the Lieutenant's lips as he says. "Ah, orrite, lad. I'll cut to the thick o' it. My Captain wants to pay you for work. Pay you more than even I would consider a practical price. But he feels we're in a stick at the moment. A stick involving a pack of Orc moving between some form of checkpoint. B'lieve tha', huh? Orc bein' all coordinated. Blastedly weird."
Basaran quirked a brow, the Dwarf clearly losing himself in the conversation a little before him, "Allow me to just say yes, we are willing to help for the right price. How come someone of a regiment would require the help of a few sellswords, though?"
Noradrum cackled, once again, wafting his clunky helmet through the air, "'Yer lot not used to being hired by armies?" he asked, a quirk of Basaran's brow allowed the Dwarf to wait for his response.
"Was always told we weren't dogs, and that we weren't to be fighting alongside regiments, armies, whatever the case, for that point alone."
"Mrh, no wonder your hall seems so, dwindling, then, not enough coin to barter for your men is it?"
Basaran grunted and furrowed his brow, Noradrum struck a nerve, his intention all to well from that retort. He had the Captain where he wanted him.
"What's the contract?"
Noradrum smirked, placing his helmet over his head again.
"Orrite then, let's talk Orc.."
