"Ah," Ursal replies, a little embarrassed.

"It pertains to something that we all have in common," Ursal says, pointing at young Sven, then to Anders, then to Baltus.

"Baltus has brought my companions here because we are..." Ursal trails off and leans in closer to whisper, "...monster hunters. I understand you and Mae's partner, Ulysses, have some experience in these matters. Is there somewhere you, me, and my companions can speak more privately. Let's just say that our reception in your village has not been exactly welcoming."

Ursal tries to make eye contact with one of his companions at the table. If so, he raises his bushy eyebrows to catch their attention.

Krayne, being in an unusually observant mood spots Ursal trying to catch his eye and moves up to the bar to join him, before leaving he leans over to Viktor and whispers "Keep an eye on the table at the back, groups of armed men rarely mind their own business in my experience."

Ursal is glad to have caught the eye of Krayne. As he leans into Anders' ear to whisper, Ursal puts up a finger to indicate that Krayne should wait just a minute.

"No food for me. I am fine. I'll have some milk though please." Pyra says, uncomfortable with the earlier attention, she tries to make herself as small as possible in her chair.

Viktor nods his understanding to Krayne, leaning back looking relaxed and unfazed, but passing his eyes over the men indicated, to keep an eye on them.

"so, Pyra, I notice you also keep a book you write your studies in"

Viktor reaches into his waistcoat and pulls out his black book.

"what's your area of interest? what's your passion?"

Viktor gives Pyra a warm smile

"I myself, will readily write anything of interest in my book"

Viktor taps his book

"you see this book is special, it is a gift from my mentor, my teacher. he is a being from another world, and he agreed to teach me magic in exchange for me adding more knowledge to the book. so I write down anything of interest from my hunts. Diagrams of monster lairs, information about events surrounding a hunt, detailed reports of the monsters I have been a part of taking down, that sort of thing. every time I open the book there are always some blank pages for me to write new knowledge to. one of the downside though, is what is in the book sometimes changes. I have had whole sections I have written on a hunt, taken from the book, about a month after the events. although new information also turns up in the book regularly as well, so it balances out I suppose."

Viktor opens the book to show that it has fine quality, thin pages, that a lot can be fit into this book. nothing you can see on the pages is intelligible or in anyway recognizable, until Viktor turns to a page that he has written himself.

"others tell me they cant understand anything written within, except for my recent writings. it seems my mentor has given me some magical understanding of his book, that is needed to read it. in any case, I have grown to really enjoy reading from and writing to the book."

Viktor looks back up at Pyra

"so what about you, what do you write in your book?"

"Well, your book its very fascinating, Viktor." Pyra remove her own journal. It s a thick, heavy book bound in leather.

"My journal is not as fanciful as yours I'm afraid." She opens the book to show a few pages. There are plenty of drawings of several different flowers and herbs, each with their own small collection of scribbles next to them. The words are messy, small, and spaced closely together, one gets the feeling that it was written without the intention of anyone but the writer reading it. The pages are old, faded yellow at the edges and it gives off a certain smell that only aging paper can. Not unpleasant but recognizable by anyone who has at least visited a library.

"When I lived in my hut I liked to study plants and their various properties, how they can be used to heal or to hurt. Which ones make the best salve or poison. If I had a chance to, I would try to find cures for any diseases I could think of. I also spent quite a lot of time studying the animals my home, learning how they lived and acted around each other, their bone structure and all other sorts of things. Eventually I even learned how to walk among them, you'd be surprised at how simple it was. I even gained a bit of a reputation with the animals, enough that I was able to get a few 'volunteers' for my experiments. They were fine with some poking and prodding so long as I never purposely tried to harm them. Unfortunately the incident happened and I lost nearly all of my research in the destruction not to mention a few friends as well." Pyra sighs, shoulders slumping.

"I was able to save this book, it was actually on of my father's less used ones so that's why most of the pages are empty. Something is better then nothing, I guess. Now I tend to record any interesting interactions or encounters I might have. I'm also taking notes on several other humanoid creature's anatomy." Pyra blushes and scratches the back of her hand.

"Living in the forest, I have not had many interactions with others so I'm trying to study all that I can. I must admit you are perhaps the first teifling I've ever met that wasn't a part of my family."

Viktor leans in as Pyra shows her book and describes her studies. Viktor is enthralled with what he sees and hears.

"Truly fascinating! a masterful creation!"

at Pyra's mention of anatomy, Viktor lights up, and begins excitedly searching through his book. finding what he was looking for, Viktor turns the book to Pyra, showing the partial dissection of a large humanoid shaped creature that looks sort of spider-like. the diagram has notes about silk glands, fine stiff hairs that covers the body and measurements of various parts of the creature. 

"this is a diagram I had the pleasure to create, after a group I was a part of, successfully took down this creature. it is called an ettercap, it is a spider-like humanoid. this one was 'caring' for a nest of large spiders, helping them catch and feed on the people of a small village. the groups resident dagger expert was kind enough to help carefully cut the creature open so I could study it inner workings."

Viktor has a happy expression on his face, as he reminisces.

"its interesting, before my mentor found me, I hadn't really been interested in this sort of thing. but as I have continued to record more and more knowledge, I have grown to really enjoy this part of our arrangement."

Viktor comes back to the present

"oh, so how do I measure up to tieflings you have known? I notice you have more extensive fiendish 'heritage', was this common among you family, or are you just lucky? among other tieflings I have known (not a huge number to be sure), these kinds of differences were less common. I must say, I do like the look though."

Viktor gives Pyra a wicked smile and a wink.

Andrew's jovial expression darkens. "Mae might have told a tale or two about me but I gave up that life for good," he adds curtly moving away from you both scowling as the woman in the blue cloak glares at the both if you before leaving the bar going back to a table with the armed men.

Ursal with Kryane roll perception with advantage.

Greta leaves bringing a tray with the help of the teen boy who brings one too serving the table their drinks as well as meals. They tell everyone to enjoy then leave the party to eat and drink.

Perception at advantage: 20

Pyra studies the diagram, fascinated.

"Marvelous, will you let me copy this down later? I have never seen such a creature. You called it an ettercap?" Pyra flips over to a blank page in her book, scribbling down the creatures name and hastily drawing an simple outline of it.

"And as you compare to the others I've met well, my father had grey skin and horns, but other then that he looked much more human. I say the closest your appearance comes to someone I knew was my Uncle Casius, he looked more like a 'traditional' tiefling in a sense. It was my mother who shared most of my demonic traits; hooves, legs, tail, and all. My grandmother as well, now that I think of it. In fact most of the woman born on my mother's side of the family tended to show much more of the bloodline, the reason why we kept ourselves isolated. The way my father told me was that it was complete accident that he just stumbled across my mother's hut one day while he was hunting. Said something about the place just made him not want to leave. Hmm. Maybe it's been years of just teifling blood with nothing else introduced that's given me my appearance, or maybe female genes are just easily more overpowered by the demonic one. Oh! This might be an interesting subject to study, I've never thought to research my own heritage." She scribbles a note down on a separate page to remind herself to look into this.

"And Viktor, thank you for your compliments. It's nice to know some people are not unnerved by my looks." She offers a small smile in return, turning her head back down to hide her slightly purple tinted face.

Ursal senses the tension brewing and when Anders leaves, he whispers to Sven. "Sven, my friends and I may not be welcome here anymore. If something should happen, like a fight, I want you to immediately get out of here and run to Mae and tell her what happened."

Ursal then turns to Krayne. "Krayne, we don't want trouble...or at least any more trouble. I've told Sven to bolt should trouble start and go get Mae. We both should bolt, really, but what about our companions?"

Sleight of Hand (for whisper): 13

Viktor smiles warmly to Pyra

"of course you can copy this, and anything else that catches your interest. I hope I might be able to do the same? your book looks like a treasure trove of knowledge

OOC: Viktor, is that through telepathy or something?

OOC: Yes, change. I'm at the bar. If you have telepathy, now would be a good time for it.

Viktor notices that the food has been brought to the table, but Ursal and Krayne are both still at the bar, whispering to each other.

using Awakened Mind Viktor speaks to Ursal

"Ursal, its Viktor, everything ok? your food is going to get cold"

(OOC: you can't reply to me using Awakened Mind, as its only one way. so you could try eye contact, head nods or shakes, etc )

Ursal hears Viktor, then shakes his head no slightly and tries to indicate the woman who left to go talk to the armed men at the back. 

Ooc: oh boy. Thought the telepathy was two way like the message cantrip. I have a feeling an insight roll will be needed to determine what you think I mean. 

OOC: How about we pump the brakes on all this metagaming please.

still being tired from the night before, Viktor takes your eye contact and head shake to mean nothing is wrong.

Viktor begins to eat his food, and enjoys the cool milk.

After allowing him a moment to cool off, Ursal follows Anders once the woman who scowled is out of ear shot.

Ursal makes eye contact with Anders and measures his words carefully.

"Please, moon brother," he whispers in the local Viking tongue, gesturing ever slightly to Anders' scars, "hear me out."

Sleight of Hand for whisper and gestures: 13

"Viktor why don't you tell me a little bit about where you are from? I imagine that not all tieflings grow up in the woods as I did. I would be very interested in hearing more about your experiences." Pyra asks, sipping her milk.