As a young priestess it is my duty to wander the land and protect the balance of nature. So when I finished my time at the temple I started my journey to find myself a place where I could do the goddesses work. The hellfrost is doing terrible things to the animals, food is getting scarce and the temperature ever dropping below freezing water.
Not very far into my journey only a few days out I heard about a merchant in need of a protection. I decided to see if there was a possibility for me to help and learn more about the land and the humans living here.
When I entered the little town with my trusted companion I got a lot of suspicious looks. I guess snow leopards are not very common around here. I found Tatar when he was very young in the forest, starving and alone. He followed me back to the temple and caused some commotion there, but got accepted fast, following me around where ever I went.
I fed him up and we formed a bond of trust. Later I learned that his mother was killed not far away in a small encampment where she tried to get some food from the lokal lumberjacks.
So there we were in a tavern in a small town at a table with some really strange people. Waiting for the merchant to arrive. When he did he offered money to fetch and transport a load of flour.
Everyone at the table seems to come with us. That is ok, I don't mind the company.
Heading out into the open lands we made good pace and half through the day we were stopped by a band of orc raiders. Fearsome creatures these orcs and as it seems very hungry too. We fought them of and continued our way down the road to a waytower for shelter, but something was off, there where wagons outside but no fires or lights.
One of my companions, the warrior, took a look inside the tower and the second floor looked like a battlefield with frozen blood and skeletons all over the place.
We spend the night at the lower floor of the tower with the horses and a fire and headed out the next morning.
Back on the road near a small clearing we found a dead horse and the dead rider not far from it.
Seems like the orc raiders catched the rider by surprise and killed the horse, such a shame, the poor animal had no chance at all.
Not far and we came to the village and that gave us a surprise. The guards were enforcing some kind of quarantine and after entering we saw them. Rats, rats all over the place, everywhere! There was no real explanation why, so we decided to head on to the warehouses, load the flour and get out of here fast.
And not a moment to late, when we were done loading and only had a breeze of time to get some rest a massive flood of rats tried to overcome the village walls. The situation got beyond possible fighting very fast so we took flight and fought our way to the gate trying to rescue villagers in our path by pulling them onto the wagon.
Luckily we got out before the army of rats overcame us, sadly there was nothing we could do for these villagers there. That village is lost.
Something very strange happens here. Some evil magic has to be at work to bring nature so far of balance...
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Songs and Stories
Good evening to one and all!
Tonight I shall tell you the beginning of an incredible tale!
My name is Ireth, I am a hearth elf raised to fit even the most noble halls ever known to elvenkind. That was my mother's job: she used to teach all little elves to fit anywhere they wanted to. She could also teach those elves who could and wanted to learn magic and music.
Even though my mother tried hard, she could never convince my stubborn personality to behave like a noble: I have always had a quite unique personality, not fit at all to noblety, therefore, I convinced my father, the best archer in our halls, to teach me archery. The first time I got a bow in my hands, I felt like I had been missing a limb my whole life. And that's also what happened when my mother gave me the lute.
I was, then, nearly complete. I had the bow and the lute, and that's what I loved most in life. Magic also came easily for me, even though I had never been the most patient among us.
But, well, something was missing... something I could not explain, a hole in my heart, something that made me feel incomplete. I decided then to travel the world as a skald: I wanted to bring happiness and hope to people all over the world with my music and telling stories. I felt really good when I could see all the eyes staring at me, paying attention to every move I took; the audience that can barely keep their mouths shut, listening to adventures and songs.
And that's how I became complete: in one of my trips, I got in real trouble when a gang tried to rob me and I was saved when I thought I was doomed. A hearth elf who used to live in a really far away forest from where I was raised saved me and became my husband, the light of my life, the one who made my heart complete. He was the piece that was missing: Mahtan Elensar.
Life's been good with Mahtan, we travel around the world bringing happiness and love wherever we go, however, as the winter falls upon us and as each day gets colder than the previous one, we had to start doing small jobs to get some money, because what we earned with music was not enough for both of us.
We decided to join a party to protect and deliver some flour (which has been pretty valuable these days). We accepted the terms even though they were not the best and joined the party with Tryg, Randal, Amara and her beautiful and loyal snow leopard.
The job, that looked pretty simple in the beginning, turned out to be as troublesome as an avalanche for a city between the mountains: we had to fight hungry wild orcs on the road... they were pretty tough and even Mahtan couldn't intimidate them.
We found, then, an abandoned tower to spend the night in. Mahtan was brave enough to go inside all by himself and investigate what had happened there and you won't believe what he found, my dear audience... He found lots of skeletons and... BLOOD! Yes, blood! Blood everywhere!
Even though there were skeletons and blood on the floor and walls upstairs, downstairs was a little cleaner and was a good place for us and the poor horses to rest and get away from the cold night out.
You might be thinking we were crazy to spend the night there with nothing else to protect us besides our weapons, but we didn't really have any other option, for it was getting dark and Sigel knows what kinds of creatures hide in the forest in the cold and dark days we've been having lately.
As we thought, it was indeed a good place to hide, and get some good rest for the next day to come because, oh Lord Sigel, we would surely need it!
We traveled to Dunross to get the flour we were supposed to deliver, but when we got there we found out there was a plague in the city. Rats! Rats everywhere! The guards wouldn't let anyone in because the town was in quarantine but we managed to convince him we could help the people, however we had never been so wrong. As soon as we stepped in the town we realized it was doomed: its people was helpless and hopeless. I tried to give them some music but it was useless, they wouldn't dance or get better or happier, for they knew their lives would end soon. I was hopeless and heartbroken to know there was absolutely nothing I could do for those people, therefore I got back to where the party was so we could get the carts ready to go.
Then chaos began. There were people running, panicking, screaming on every single inch of that town. The reason? Thousands of rats, big, small, homungus, were invading the city. There were so many of them you could barely see the ground anymore. Amara and I managed to protect the horses while the men and the snow leopard would protect the ones in the cart. Those strong enough could pull some villagers up into the cart, but small as it was, we could only save four of them...
It was an awful day for all of us... feeling so hopeless, running from rats, we couldn't barely escape from. It was humiliating but we did what was asked of us: we got the flour and safely got it out of town.
But now it's time for us to take our kids inside and take our rests, for it's getting dark and cold, and the light and warmth of our fire won't be enough to protect us.
Meet me here on the morrow if you are willing to know what happened next on our glorious adventure!
Tonight I shall tell you the beginning of an incredible tale!
My name is Ireth, I am a hearth elf raised to fit even the most noble halls ever known to elvenkind. That was my mother's job: she used to teach all little elves to fit anywhere they wanted to. She could also teach those elves who could and wanted to learn magic and music.
Even though my mother tried hard, she could never convince my stubborn personality to behave like a noble: I have always had a quite unique personality, not fit at all to noblety, therefore, I convinced my father, the best archer in our halls, to teach me archery. The first time I got a bow in my hands, I felt like I had been missing a limb my whole life. And that's also what happened when my mother gave me the lute.
I was, then, nearly complete. I had the bow and the lute, and that's what I loved most in life. Magic also came easily for me, even though I had never been the most patient among us.
But, well, something was missing... something I could not explain, a hole in my heart, something that made me feel incomplete. I decided then to travel the world as a skald: I wanted to bring happiness and hope to people all over the world with my music and telling stories. I felt really good when I could see all the eyes staring at me, paying attention to every move I took; the audience that can barely keep their mouths shut, listening to adventures and songs.
And that's how I became complete: in one of my trips, I got in real trouble when a gang tried to rob me and I was saved when I thought I was doomed. A hearth elf who used to live in a really far away forest from where I was raised saved me and became my husband, the light of my life, the one who made my heart complete. He was the piece that was missing: Mahtan Elensar.
Life's been good with Mahtan, we travel around the world bringing happiness and love wherever we go, however, as the winter falls upon us and as each day gets colder than the previous one, we had to start doing small jobs to get some money, because what we earned with music was not enough for both of us.
We decided to join a party to protect and deliver some flour (which has been pretty valuable these days). We accepted the terms even though they were not the best and joined the party with Tryg, Randal, Amara and her beautiful and loyal snow leopard.
The job, that looked pretty simple in the beginning, turned out to be as troublesome as an avalanche for a city between the mountains: we had to fight hungry wild orcs on the road... they were pretty tough and even Mahtan couldn't intimidate them.
We found, then, an abandoned tower to spend the night in. Mahtan was brave enough to go inside all by himself and investigate what had happened there and you won't believe what he found, my dear audience... He found lots of skeletons and... BLOOD! Yes, blood! Blood everywhere!
Even though there were skeletons and blood on the floor and walls upstairs, downstairs was a little cleaner and was a good place for us and the poor horses to rest and get away from the cold night out.
You might be thinking we were crazy to spend the night there with nothing else to protect us besides our weapons, but we didn't really have any other option, for it was getting dark and Sigel knows what kinds of creatures hide in the forest in the cold and dark days we've been having lately.
As we thought, it was indeed a good place to hide, and get some good rest for the next day to come because, oh Lord Sigel, we would surely need it!
We traveled to Dunross to get the flour we were supposed to deliver, but when we got there we found out there was a plague in the city. Rats! Rats everywhere! The guards wouldn't let anyone in because the town was in quarantine but we managed to convince him we could help the people, however we had never been so wrong. As soon as we stepped in the town we realized it was doomed: its people was helpless and hopeless. I tried to give them some music but it was useless, they wouldn't dance or get better or happier, for they knew their lives would end soon. I was hopeless and heartbroken to know there was absolutely nothing I could do for those people, therefore I got back to where the party was so we could get the carts ready to go.
Then chaos began. There were people running, panicking, screaming on every single inch of that town. The reason? Thousands of rats, big, small, homungus, were invading the city. There were so many of them you could barely see the ground anymore. Amara and I managed to protect the horses while the men and the snow leopard would protect the ones in the cart. Those strong enough could pull some villagers up into the cart, but small as it was, we could only save four of them...
It was an awful day for all of us... feeling so hopeless, running from rats, we couldn't barely escape from. It was humiliating but we did what was asked of us: we got the flour and safely got it out of town.
But now it's time for us to take our kids inside and take our rests, for it's getting dark and cold, and the light and warmth of our fire won't be enough to protect us.
Meet me here on the morrow if you are willing to know what happened next on our glorious adventure!
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Mahtan Elensar
Another day, another job. This is not the thing we usually do, me and my wife. We can make a good living from her good music so we travel from town to town so she can perform and earn us a living. What? No, I work as her bodyguard, but there's not really a point charging my own wife is there? It's a dangerous job for an young bard to travel around by herself, specially when you're the prettiest girl of the Hearthlands. That's kind of how we met in first place, stubborn as she is she was moving from town to town by herself only to get in trouble. Lucky of her I was in the right place at the right time and lucky of me she's been there too, otherwise I wouldn't have met the woman of my dreams. So, after this little gang trying to rob her, we've been traveling together, we fell in love and there we were, doing an unusual job for some extra scields since music haven't been enough to warm up these people's hearts and ease their purses on these cold days lately. The name's Mahtan, by the way. Mahtan Elensar. Married to the beautiful Ireth Elensar and this is what happened to us in our last job.
We were told to meet this guy at this tavern for a quick but safe job. Yea, I know that "safe" is a relative word but I'm not risking my way through the Hellfrost Pass unless I really need to... or unless the pay is really good. So we've met some nice people, they were waiting on the very same table, probably waiting for the same person I was. Nobody would say a word, there was this lady with a snow leopard sitting by the table. Yea, inside the tavern. I really like animals, I had no problem with it but people on the other table seemed to be really uncomfortable, still no one dared to tell her to leave her big cat outside and this made smile inside. There was this other guy with a big nasty scar. I wanted to ask him how did he get it but I might not really want to know.
So he finally got there more delayed than a lover's period. He's a farmer that asked us to run a cart to a nearby village and collect some flour and we'd be paid 50 scields for that. It seemed fair, at the moment. Protect a cart from one village to another, safer investment than not being even sure if we're being paid at all for music. So we all accepted the job, we did buy some warmer clothes before leaving.
On the road we got attacked by a small band of orcs. They were fierce and one even dared to go for my wife when I was standing right there by her side. Stupid pile of green... never mind. They were probably hungry, judging by the way they were mindlessly attacking, they couldn't be intimidated by me. Yea, I can be intimidating. I know I might seem a real gentleman when we're talking and drinking but you don't wanna see me in the battlefield behind my shield. So, I was saying they couldn't be intimidated, but it was their doom. We got rid of each of them without a single scratch, thank Sigel. We resumed our travel after this incident.
We stopped by a tower for the night, it was deserted. As we investigated inside we found someone was killed inside of it. It was a messy room with what seem to be the rest of somebody's skeleton. I started to wonder if the Orcs started to eat people, but that might have been a wolf or something. We spent our night on that tower peacefully, we even took our horses in.
So we finally got to Dunros. And man, there were rats there. Lots of rats. At first I thought there were dozens, then hundreds... There were thousands of them on that town. It's like the rat god told them Dunros was the promised land of cheese and there they were claiming the town as their own. So we started investigating for the cause of all those rats as we proceeded to do our jobs. I even went to the rat catcher, the guy was the only one in the whole town that seemed to be happy about the rats, and why wouldn't he be? I got nothing from him. At the granary we found out that one of the granaries had no rats. There were some sort of magical symbols that I have no knowledge of that seemed to ward it from the rats. All the other granaries seemed to have such symbols too but they were removed. I don't know if the wards are something common in granaries or if somebody knew something about the rats and tried to ward them. Either way as we finished loading the cart I saw something that made me shake in fear: the village was being overrun by rats, they were everywhere. I thought the floor was moving, I said, "Oh, lord Sigel it's a horde!" Then I ran out, I didn't grab no flour or nothing and jumped on the cart, I ran for my life!
So there we were on a cart, running for our lives. There were so many rats in front of us I feared the horses might tumble and fall for them, but the light of my heart (that's my spouse) knows a few tricks about leading animals through music and with the help of the girl with the big ass leopard they kept the rats from attacking the horses. And man, that was a cat that really did his job at killing all the rats jumping on our cart. We've managed to save some people by pulling them into the cart while we fought the rats and taking care to not damage the sacks of flour... The city was overrun by rats and there was nothing we could do. I feel ashamed to say that rats put me to run, but you had to be there to know...
We were told to meet this guy at this tavern for a quick but safe job. Yea, I know that "safe" is a relative word but I'm not risking my way through the Hellfrost Pass unless I really need to... or unless the pay is really good. So we've met some nice people, they were waiting on the very same table, probably waiting for the same person I was. Nobody would say a word, there was this lady with a snow leopard sitting by the table. Yea, inside the tavern. I really like animals, I had no problem with it but people on the other table seemed to be really uncomfortable, still no one dared to tell her to leave her big cat outside and this made smile inside. There was this other guy with a big nasty scar. I wanted to ask him how did he get it but I might not really want to know.
So he finally got there more delayed than a lover's period. He's a farmer that asked us to run a cart to a nearby village and collect some flour and we'd be paid 50 scields for that. It seemed fair, at the moment. Protect a cart from one village to another, safer investment than not being even sure if we're being paid at all for music. So we all accepted the job, we did buy some warmer clothes before leaving.
On the road we got attacked by a small band of orcs. They were fierce and one even dared to go for my wife when I was standing right there by her side. Stupid pile of green... never mind. They were probably hungry, judging by the way they were mindlessly attacking, they couldn't be intimidated by me. Yea, I can be intimidating. I know I might seem a real gentleman when we're talking and drinking but you don't wanna see me in the battlefield behind my shield. So, I was saying they couldn't be intimidated, but it was their doom. We got rid of each of them without a single scratch, thank Sigel. We resumed our travel after this incident.
We stopped by a tower for the night, it was deserted. As we investigated inside we found someone was killed inside of it. It was a messy room with what seem to be the rest of somebody's skeleton. I started to wonder if the Orcs started to eat people, but that might have been a wolf or something. We spent our night on that tower peacefully, we even took our horses in.
So we finally got to Dunros. And man, there were rats there. Lots of rats. At first I thought there were dozens, then hundreds... There were thousands of them on that town. It's like the rat god told them Dunros was the promised land of cheese and there they were claiming the town as their own. So we started investigating for the cause of all those rats as we proceeded to do our jobs. I even went to the rat catcher, the guy was the only one in the whole town that seemed to be happy about the rats, and why wouldn't he be? I got nothing from him. At the granary we found out that one of the granaries had no rats. There were some sort of magical symbols that I have no knowledge of that seemed to ward it from the rats. All the other granaries seemed to have such symbols too but they were removed. I don't know if the wards are something common in granaries or if somebody knew something about the rats and tried to ward them. Either way as we finished loading the cart I saw something that made me shake in fear: the village was being overrun by rats, they were everywhere. I thought the floor was moving, I said, "Oh, lord Sigel it's a horde!" Then I ran out, I didn't grab no flour or nothing and jumped on the cart, I ran for my life!
So there we were on a cart, running for our lives. There were so many rats in front of us I feared the horses might tumble and fall for them, but the light of my heart (that's my spouse) knows a few tricks about leading animals through music and with the help of the girl with the big ass leopard they kept the rats from attacking the horses. And man, that was a cat that really did his job at killing all the rats jumping on our cart. We've managed to save some people by pulling them into the cart while we fought the rats and taking care to not damage the sacks of flour... The city was overrun by rats and there was nothing we could do. I feel ashamed to say that rats put me to run, but you had to be there to know...
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