((I'm officially no longer sorry for going so nuts with the posting frequency early on in the last game! Heh.))
With Uqualek at the head of the small team of horses, there is no need of a wagon driver to whip the steeds along. Dreadstone spends the trip eastward perched in the vacant driver's seat, small bits of wood falling to the rutted dirt road as he works on carving another block of wood.
Gnaw cannot be coaxed to stay within the confines of the wagon, and so follows along side the vehicle. Well, most of the time. He disappears for considerable stretches of time, only to reaffirm his presence when some prey animal comes exploding out if the denuded winter underbrush along the tree line, the snarling dog in hot pursuit. Dreadstone marvels at how the dog can manage to have so much energy all the time. Even in his younger days, he probably would be unable to keep up with the animal. Gnaw just seemed to be a furry bundle of personified aggression that threatened to burst if he did not let it out in regular intervals.
Absorbed though he may seem to be in his endeavors in shaping a block of wood, the tiefling ranger's keen eyes are not blind to the efforts of his companions. The centaur Uqualek, and his tireless exertions without complaint as he tries to make amends for past misdeeds. The discipline of Stricia that lent itself well to the military command structure that had been foisted upon them. The eagerness of Alf to learn from her-despite his efforts to conceal it-that may yet forge a capable soldier from a wild man. They had all been out on only one mission together, and already they were shaping up into a crack team.
The benefits of being young and vital, Dreadstone muses, flakes of white wood falling like sporadic snow from the edge of his knife.
---
As the town of Rosewood comes into view, Dreadstone's passive observations become diligent caution. It's cold enough for ice to form in the streets; not enough to bother someone who has a heightened resistance to the elements like him, but certainly enough to make most rational people crave the warmth of their hearth fires. Yet a large proportion of the populace was out in the streets, their blood apparently running hot enough to keep them warm.
Dreadstone answer's Niko's question without taking his eyes off the angry crowd, his fingers dancing in anticipation on the quiver of arrows at his hip. "Rosewood's somethin' of an annex of Ruby Keep proper," he explains. "On paper, this town is counted as part of the Keep itself and is afforded the same protection. Though from the looks of things, I don't know if these folk have the same opinion of the matter."
Niko says these people aren't bear traps, but he's not sure he can agree. He's spent enough of his live living on the margins to know when he's not wanted, and right now he really knows he is not wanted, and not because he's a tiefling either. He sidles up to the young sorcerer after witnessing the lad's failed attempt to make friends with the locals and whispers, "Might want to quit while you're ahead, son."
Dreadstone tries to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, standing near an alley in case he has need to duck out of the street. His black armor might not immediately peg him as military at a glance, but it would hardly require close examination to figure it out.
"Sounds like we need pay a visit to the courthouse," he advises. "Somethin' tells me it might be a good idea to be inside a fortifiable position if this goes an' gets ugly."
(Changed dialogue so it, you know, makes sense))