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Saturday May 25th, 2006, San Diego, CA
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WHO
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RAID AFTERMATH; KURTZEN'S WOUND
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"They be a timid sort, aye?", split the darkness in the aftermath of the
intense Landrothi raid as Fyrclian unstrung and recased her bow, absent-mindedly
soothing the steeds and beasts of burden clustered near her at the rear of Saemund's
armored wagon.
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For his part Saemund walked the camp ground that had all to quickly become a battlefield,
calmly administering harsh mercy to the fallen Landrothi cavalrymen left behind.
"Timid, aye.", he said with a grunt as his bloody falchion rose and fell
a final time, delivering a hapless Landrothi to walk the cycle of rebirth yet again.
"Perhaps he will be born Machtig in his next life", thought Saemund.
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"You see timidness, I see swiftness. They strike like the wind that blows across
these plains, and just as quickly are away again. I have fought beside them 'ere
this. Aye, and led them even. We were lucky, tis true; twas but a border patrol.
They sought to slow us and then course the plains to a stronghold and come upon
us again later in greater numbers.", spoke Kurtzen with conviction in his voice,
but also with pain.
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Dismissing the spirits of air that held him aloft, the fearsome Kjar settled to
the ground and strode over to prod at the scattered logs of the camp fire, trying
to restore it to warmth. "An incomptetant lot if you ask me; they sought to
injure the horses and managed only to prick yon Thegn, and to cut a hole in my good
robe, more's the pity. Although these spears of theirs have the makings of good
walking sticks in them..."
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Kurtzen halfheartedly cleaned the rune encrusted axe he bore, though it seemed to
need it not, and made his way to the ragged fire bestirred by the Zauberer where
he took a clumsy knee. He sank into the earth a good half an inch, and left a trail
of deep footprints behind him, though it was hidden by the night. "Pricked
me true and well Zauberer; Fyrclian, be a good lass and pull this spear free from
my shoulder? Now that the battle lust is fleeing me it does begin to...itch. It
is somewhat uncomfortable should the truth be known."
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Seeing to the wounds of injured horses, Fyrclian looked up and across to the
fireside, suprised at the grim Raevoring's request. "Och, I'll do no such thing!
I have not the way of mending man flesh, only the care of horses. Best Saemund do
it; his hand's are startling deft with such things. Ere three moons back he did
save me own sword-struck cousin, and even the Hoher Skalding did think the wound
mortal."
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"Saemund then, and quickly if you please; I feel the strength of the Zauberer's
magic leave me and I am weary of a sudden. I'd have done with this spear and it
of me.", and it was clear to all three of his companions that his voice was
increasingly strained.
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"Aye, I'll see to your wound for you were valiant. But next we face warriors
on charging steeds, you should be less eager to dare them to ride you down. My grandsire
would tell you no less, and he has fought these Undari on many an occassion.",
the towering Wundvolding rumbled, but cleaning his slivery falchion on a cloak of
the fallen he moved to his wagon, where he traded his now-shiny sword and glorious
Varic shield for a medium sized hinged iron box.
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Moving with his usual implacable efficiency, seeming to stride like a glacier slides
across rock in an inexorable course, Saemund walked to the fire with the box under
his left arm. Reaching the fire side and Kurtzen's side both, his right hand moved
with startling quickness and irresistable strength, snaking out to snatch the spear
jutting from high in Kurtzen's chest and jerking it free with a single abrupt tug.
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With a cry of pain stifled to a mere manly grunt Kurtzen sank from his kneel to
a relieved squat, head down and jaw clenched as a spurt of blood oozed from his
wound. Unrelenting, Saemund bid him apply pressure with a linen rag pulled from
his hinged box, and quickly undid Kurtzen's armor with a quick efficiency only an
armorsmith could attain.
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The armor negligently but neatly stacked with an unconscious professinalism, Saemund
then set the box aground after removing a long curved needle and spool of thread,
and a metal flask the size of his palm. He set the needle and thread atop the box
and unscrewed the top of the flask.
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"Gird yourself well, for this will seem to burn as a well stoked forge fire.",
he admonished Kurtzen before grabbing the back of his neck in a firm grip and positioning
him just so. With a grunt and a chin thrust the taciturn Wundvolding made it clear
he wanted the rag held aside and then let a mere three drops from the flask dribble
upon Kurtzen's diamond shaped wound.
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Taken unawares despite the warning, Kurtzen writhed a little and growled low in
his throat as a hissing sizzle was evoked from the wound and white foam boiled around
its edges. Saemund unconcernedly recapped the flask and set to the mean task of
threading the needle by camplight.
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"Eh? What's this then?", muttered Kjar, distracted from his usual contemplation
of the fire by the possibility of some kind of magic new to him, and he reached
out to poke at the flask with his walking stick from his perch cattycorner to Saemund's
triage.
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"I'd not touch it did I value my walking stick, old man.", grumbled Saemund
as he neatly eye'd the needle after a few tries and tied the string firm. With a
disgruntled harump Kjar withdrew his probe, but his eyes lingered on the flask nonetheless.
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Her ministrations complete Fyrclian recovered a couple of horses left behind by
the fleeing cavalry and picketed them with their own steeds. That done, Fyrclian
wandered over to the fire to watch Saemund ply his needle skills. "Perhaps I
should learn this skill from Saemund; it might come in handy someday",
she mused to herself.
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"Strewth! I thought the flask to hold mere wysgi, which is a pain I know well,
but what is that brew that burns like acid?", Kurtzen managed once the pain
faded.
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"Acid.", answered Saemund placidly.
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Startled, "Och? Saemund jests? This is turning out to be an unusual eve in
truth."
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Gazing at Fyrclian with an eyebrow aquirked, "Jest? No. Tis acid, even as I
said."
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Quite agog at Saemund's declaration, Kurtzen could only ask, "What say you?
I've travled the lands of the Zha'iirians some and tis said they use acid as a fearsome
weapon. I've seen a piece of metal that had been warped and ruined as if melted
by a rain storm, and I've seen men with scars unlike any others they claimed were
acid spoor. Aye, that brew burned briefly, but even now it subsides."
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"Aye. Just as not all men are as strong as others, and not all fires are as
hot as others, not all acids burn as strong or as hot...old man, should you not
leave off you'll regret it!"
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"All right, all right. Don't get your cod piece in a twist, I just wanted to
look at it."
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"Best you sit the other side of the fire and put the flask from your mind."
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"How came by you this acid, Saemund? Never have I heard of such a thing!"
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Eyeing the wound as best he could by fire light, Saemund grunted and using the other
side of the rag previously employed to staunch the wound to scrub away the foamy
residue left by his concoction, he turned his efforts to deftly closing the wound
in neat, quick stitches with his needle and thread.
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"My people learned it of the Bragwyr Var long ago, along with a few other acids
we use to etch and hone metal. We make them from special salts we find in our mines,
mostly. Distilled properly this sort of acid helps to clean wounds and some other
things as well. It is precious rare, and was a fine gift from my father along with
the other contents of my chiurgy."
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"Well, tis lucky for me your father be so thoughtful.", said Kurtzen,
somewhat distracted by the disconcerting feeling of the needle and thread pulling
the edges of the spear spoor closed.
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"Aye, tis.", Saemund said with his customary unyeildingness, but seeming
to relax a little he added a rare personal detail, " My father has ever been
a proponent of chiurgy after he lost his arm in a challenge. His blood did run hot
with a fever then and it was only the ministrations of a chiurge that saved him.
He bade my grandsire to include such skills in my training and thus I did spend
every sixthday since I was five summers old learning from first the very same chiurge
that saved my sire, and later his successor when he passed."
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"Och, I don't even recall truly what I was doing when I was five summers!"
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"Hrmph. Playing with horse dung and being a general nuisance I imagine, boy."
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"I never played with horse dung, you irritating old codger!"
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"Hah, but you're conceding the point on being a general nuisance, I see."
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"You're impossible!"
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"Well enough then, Saemund. I thank your father for the insistence and the
kit, your grandsire for ensuring your schooling, and you for your administrations.",
Kurtzen said grandly in an attempt to return to his usual hale demeanor, pulling
his tunic about himself again and sorting through his be-holed armor.
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"Tis nothing. The wound is light and will heal well should the stitches hold.
I will look upon it in the morning when the light is improved to be sure.",
and so saying Saemund carefully poured a thimble full of the acid into the flask's
cap, used that to soak a clean corner of the rag, scrubbed the needle thoroughly
with it, tossed the rag onto the fire, and carefully repacked his kit.
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"Morning will not come soon enough for as you know the Undari are like owls,
and are most active at night when right thinking folk are abed. We may not have
seen the last of our little yellow friends for this eve. We should stand our customary
watch but we must be doubly vigilant, and though most nights I'd stand any part
of it I'd beg a favor to stand the last watch tonight."
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"Aye; my Shutze instructors taught us the power of a mounted raid by cover
of darkness. It is dangerous for us to do it for risk of laming a horse on some
unseen hazard, but for the Undari it must surely be a simple task. Stand a watch
we shall indeed, for if we are not vigilant we could be sorely endangered by a sudden
attack."
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"You both speak sense. As ever I'll stand the first or last watch, for it does
take a little while to remove and don my battle gear and I'd not do it more than
needful. As Kurtzen wishes the last, I'll take the first tonight, which leaves the
second to you Fyrclian."
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"Och, I can never get back to sleep again after a middle watch. But you speak
truly; your clanging and grunting to don that metal skin is just as likely to wake
me should you take the middle watch."
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"Did I mention yet today how glad I am to not be a Thegn? Ill be dozing in
the fire, so should anything go terribly wrong just throw some wood in on me.",
and with that Kjar crawled into the smoldering fire and made himself comfortable.
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"I think I'll never get used to that.", Fyrclian said with a slight shiver.
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"Well, with that settled, perhaps we should move the bodies away from our camp
lest they draw unwanted predators in the night."
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"Aye, I'll handle it during my stint. You two make your bed rolls and retire,
and I'll see that it is done. And for twelve silben I'll mend that hole in your
armor in the morning...."
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Neferhenmhat Imeru, quiet as always lest he inspire his unstable captors to torture
or slay him, observed all of the evenings travails discretely from his humble bed
roll beneath the wagon, manacled to the axle with a short length of chain. He had
seen his giantish captors fight several times before, but not yet a squad of his
own beloved cavalry in full gallop.
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When the insane blonde one had rushed a rider and sent the horse sprawling
into another cavalry rider, and both to the ground his jaw was left agape, and despair,
his constant companion and only friend for almost sixty days, snuggled yet closer
to his bosom. And to see the ugly old one with the power to grow as tall as a mountain
and still more unnatural things fly overhead and command the very winds against
the attacking Landrothi was even worse. The traitor, Kurtzen, slew as well with
a magical axe, and even the girl sent arrows flying unerringly at Imeru's countrymen.
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He had entertained a few moments of hope when he saw no less than four Landrothi
bear down on the mad blonde Saymond whose chains decorated Imeru's wrists and ankles,
but it was stifled in mere moments as the lumbering monster slew three of them with
a single sweep of his massive sword, cutting them fully in twain as if they were
naught but stalks of wheat felled by a scythe. And the traitor took a spear in the
chest, but with the hardiness typical of his overgrown kind he did not fall but
instead continued to do battle seemingly unhindered.
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What should have been a simple lightning raid, a baraqu (BAH-RAH-KU), was
turned into a panicked rout in less than twenty heartbeats.
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It was all very disheartening.
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"Why do they keep me alive, these monsters that slay so easily? Surely not just
to teach the blonde one our tongue, for the traitor speaks it well enough? He kills
anything that stands before him, yet spares those that surrender. Even his own kind
think him mad.", pondered Imeru.
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In the depths of his heart despair whispered, "Your fate is in the hands of
a mad man.", and only his Undari perseverance to survive kept the unlucky
horseman from succumbing to it.
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BATTLE OF THE STONE CIRCLE
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The Landrothi came again on the third night, and in force. A full company of a hundred
and ten riders set upon them in the night, but the intrepid Machtig were roused
to full action by a mysterious wolf howl. Kjar flew out to meet the approaching
column and broke their formation by raining fire upon their heads before retreating
back to the campsite.
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The survivors regrouped and attempted to encircle the campsite and hurl their spears
with impunity but Kjar erected a stone perimeter from the earth itself to spoil
that tactic and then caused each of his three Thegn companions to grow to near ten
feet tall, which enabled them to attack over the wall with ease.
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Fyrclian used the wall as a bulwark to fire her arrows from with devastating efficiency,
and Saemund reached again into his rolling arsenal of a wagon to unlimber two heavy
crossbows which he and Kurtzen plied with some success.
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Deprived of their easy victory the cavalrymen were forced to abandon their skirmishing
tactics and attempt a frontal assault. They swarmed the rough stone circle seeking
to win with force of numbers what tactics and speed was not gaining them. Kjar cast
Mass Stonebones, granting his Looming allies even greater strength, and using sheer
physical might the Machtig warriors crushed their assailiants with broad sweeps
of their arms. Kurtzen even dove over the wall to land amongst a clutch of Landrothi,
crushing them beneath his fantastic weight.
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In the end the death toll among the Landrothi was staggering, and of a hundred and
ten assailants only twenty eight retreated when it was clear that all was hopeless.
The Machtig took a few scratches here and there, but were still taking the battle
to their foes as the broken company began it's retreat and were well capable of
carrying the day even should the surviving Landrothi have refused to extricate themselves.
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Whatever faint hope remained to Imeru was finally crushed as he watched his bloody
handed captors outmatched by more than twenty five to one and yet still not only
shatter the Landrothi into a rout, but to not even suffer a casualty in the process.
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"Whose a useless old man now, eh? Remember this next time I beg coinage
to purchase spells with.", said Kjar with a certain smug satisfaction.
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"Och! Indeed! But why in the world have you not been this mighty when we have
done battle afore now?"
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The Zauberer's satisfaction shifted immediately into indignation, "What! Why
I'll show you something mighty, horseface!".
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"Leave off your childish squabling, if you please. You did well Zauberer, and
you have the thanks and respect of all Thegns. Fyrclian, you would do well to recall
that the Obermancers have ever been with the Machtig when we ride to true war, and
I think now we all see why.", said the older and wiser Kurtzen, heading off
yet another row between the two.
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"Aye. And as powerful and great as he is, I'm sure he'll have little trouble
returning me to my proper size now that battle is done?"
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"Um...well...about that...."
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"What? you mean I'm stuck like this, puffed up like some kind of Hurgur? For
how long?"
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Trying to sound dismissive Kjar replied, "Well...if I read Rialta's notes correctly,
perhaps only six candles time.".
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"That's a fourth part of a full day! You hay-brained shit-heeled old gaffer!
How am I supposed to ride my horse like this?", screched the Hengsting.
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"We should move to a new campsite. This many corpses will likely draw hungry
beasts. I heard a wolf even, afore we joined battle.".
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"Aye, I heard the wolf as well. They are rare on these plains. I had not heard
tale of them roaming at all in fact; the predators of this land are mostly cat like
beasts with large teeth.", said Kurtzen, grateful for the distraction.
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Giving Fryclian a last glare, Kjar sourly shuffled off to search among the fallen
for a spear to use as a new walking stick, muttering to himself with poor graces.
The words "uppity", "impudent", "ungrateful", "mindless",
and "thegns" discernable now and then.
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"Wolves? Och! I'll ready the horses to move then. Wolves do startle them so.
I'd be away from here ere any arrive in the vicinity and drive them to panic!",
and as usual thought and deed were as one with Fyrclian; she moved instantly off
to ready the horses to move again.
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"Curse Thrymri's soul to return as something lowly when next he walks the world.
He should have kept himself alive long enough to see this battle and record my deeds
so that all might know the name of Saemund!", mused the glory-fixated
warrior from Caer Ungorhaus as he carefully re-stowed his crossbows and meticulously
inspected his wagon for damage with aid of an oil lantern broken out for that purpose
and just as quickly doused and returned to storage. Waste not want not, afterall.
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And so soon the four plus their despondent captive moved on from the field of their
greatest battle together.
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WHAT
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- PC's journey across the backlands of Landroth to Zerlaaga
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WHEN
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- START: Age of Power Year 1 Month 3 Week 1 Day 3
- END: Age of Power Year 1 Month 4 Week 2 Day 1
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WHERE
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- A days travel out of the Vold into Landroth to Zerlaaga
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WHY
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HOW
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DETAILS
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NAME
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DETAILS
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Fyrclian Beorgansdottor
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Getting paid by Saemund to maintain his draft horse for a gold coin every two zwieblich
(a zwieblich is two 6-day weeks, so basically every 24 days.)
Month 3 Week 3 Day 2 is a payday (3 total gold so far)
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Kjar Kvaransen
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Kurtzen Kardenssen
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Saemund Magnussun
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Owes Fyrclian 1gc.
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NARRATIVE
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- Fight w/ Cavalry over.
- Rest for night
- Travel around 20 miles per day
- Questions to answer
- How many times are they attacked by Cavalry?
- What happens to their prisoner?
- Do they leave any survivors?
- Does word make it back to Zerlaaga and if so how high up?
- Do they meet anyone else along the way?
- Whats up w/ Doran Murfon?
- Whats up w/ Ketkis?
- Whats up w/ Ayden?
- Whats up w/ Spatz?
- Meanwhile, whats going on back in the Vold?
- Kor-Daen are doing what?
- Reserei is doing what?
- Druids are doing what?
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