Sorry it took me so long to write this turn!
- Turn 27: The Village of Cnoc Adh -
Having decided to enter the village and find the source of the crazy demon-monster-things, you gather yourselves at the village entrance…Back up towards the village gate, keeping an eye on our surroundings. Shoot at any kakhi's that attack the group. Enter village if my teammates get the door open.
"You gentlemen do whataver you want, but just so you know, there's a whole bunch of these stinkin' arseholes coming our way.” You gesture at the fallen khaki thing before drawing another arrow and notching it. “I'm just going to go ahead and get to relative safety now.” Seeing the priest and the swordsman moving towards the gate, you quickly sign your intent to stand guard and cover their backs. “Also, there's someone calling for help inside of the village. Just so you know."
The forest is getting strangely quiet around you. That’s weird. You can’t hear anything at all moving out there. You haven’t travelled the forested highlands of Cylenia very much - being a seaman from a tiny tropical archipelago - but you’re pretty sure that there should be a bunch of rowdy birds pretty much at any point when the sun is up. No deer, no birds, no mice… even worse, you can’t hear any more of the khaki monsters. You
know they’re there, but… Oh dear.
Cyrus is standing next to you, fire glimmering in his hands as he too surveys the forest. “I don’t like this,” he murmurs in his cultured voice. You wonder how he ever fell in with bandits like that. The travel and battles have been a little rough on the poor mage; he looks positively exhausted from his magical use in the firefight. Somehow, though, his hair is still utterly immaculate. Where does he find the
time?Behind you, the gate swings open. You cast one eye back over your shoulder...
Seek a way inside the village. A way to open the gates, for instance.
"It is a miracle! My mild wounds have completely disappeared!" you crow happily, clapping your hands gleefully. Possibly because it seems to confirm Thuun’s possible sainthood and thus the
great value of his holy bone shards.
Turning thoughts of miracles and money aside, you eye the newly-fallen, rapidly dying khaki man. This one appears to not be an elf - unlike the others - which is odd, as this village was primarily comprised of elven people. You decide that you’d feel a fair bit safer with stout village walls between you and its friends, so you turn and survey the gates.
The village wall is a sturdy wooden palisade, able to withstand most banditry and the encroachment of the forest, but nothing that an irate mage couldn’t take down. Undamaged save for the natural wear and tear of an old fortification, it gives you some hope. However, villages have been abandoned quietly before - and it’s all too common in Yagal.
You hesitantly step towards the gate. It looks to be in relatively sound condition. You go to push on the one gate and Baldur strolls over to assist you...
Baldur walks over to the village gates and tries to force them open.
“Thanks,” you mutter to the mage who’s still glowing disturbingly. You edge away from him and decide it’s high time to get inside this village and see what’s in there. Hopefully something good. You’re not expecting much, though. In your years as a mercenary you’ve seen villages like this before. Murder, monsters and mayhem on the outside; you know exactly what’s going to be inside.
You step up to the gate, joining the priest there. You lean your shoulder into the strong, heavy door and give it a good shove. The gates ponderously swing open…
Keep an eye on Khaki Man, which is possibly a good name for a superhero so I should write that down. Ahem. Also look for some kind of rock to throw at him if he turns out to be hostile.
You backstep from the dying monster/man thing and pick up a rock just in case he springs up and bites you. While bleeding profusely from the arrow through his chest. You decide not to think about exactly how much good a rock will do against a monster that can’t be killed by such a high level of trauma.
As the monster gasps out its last, you hear the gates behind you creak open. You turn to survey the village entrance...
Sitting there twiddling my thumbs, because I cant twiddle my toes, on account of not having toes.
You sit and twiddle your thumbs. Your glowing legs are a little distracting. They feel tingly. You feel a popping sensation on the base of your stumps which topples yo in shock. You blink and look closely at the stumps.
Are those… Are those tiny
feet? Really?
That’s how they’re going to regenerate? You mutter incoherently about the inconsistency of the laws of magic and go back to twiddling your thumbs. Your tiny feet are far too tiny to do anything except wiggle.
You hear a creak behind you as the gate opens, so you turn and look…
The wooden gates ponderously swing open to reveal a wide dirt track into the village. A cadaverous mist hangs low to the ground, giving the village an unearthly presence, as though it’s not quite there… which makes what you see all the worse.
Small houses can be seen just inside the palisade. One of them is missing most of its roof, signs of fire showing just how the thatching was removed. The other has a door hanging by a single hinge, creaking faintly in a breeze. Further in are some more houses in similar disrepair. Windows are broken; rosebushes are torn forcibly from the ground; doors smashed and splintered. And everywhere that you look you see bodies. And… pieces of bodies.
You can see clear down the track to the centre of the village, maybe fifty metres away. In the centre square is the village’s maypole, erected for the upcoming solstice celebrations. Tied to the maypole in some macabre mockery of the traditional ribbons are four severed heads, lashed to the pole by their hair. Blood has run down the pole in rivulets so thick you can see them from the entrance, looking for all the world like a barber’s sign.
Closer to you, three women have been torn into pieces, their limbs used to paint crude signs and sigils on the walls of the houses. Their torsos are just piled to one side like morbid apple cores, freshly divested of their flesh. Another woman is hanging from the eaves of a tall building, her own intestines looped in a ghoulish noose around her neck.
Blood is thick on the ground, splatters and trails and pools. Most of it has coagulated, binding the dirt track into a sticky, red-brown mess. And square in the middle of a puddle, although strangely unbloodied, is one corpse. A young woman is lying not twenty feet away, her arms and legs limp and exhausted in death. You can see only one wound on her, one of her delicately tapered elven ears is torn off and has been stuffed roughly into her mouth. Her eyes are staring directly at the gate, hanging open and dull. Her dress is torn into tatters. You shudder to think at just how she died. Just behind her is lying another corpse, this time of a young man. He is run through, pinned to the ground by a copper spear.
Again, you hear a voice. A plaintive, mournful and wordless cry for help. It seems to be coming from the centre of the village.
Lyu Brak (Harry Baldman)Profession: Priest
Status: Opening doors
Inventory:Staff (Bronze-Capped)
Religious Necklace
Warm Priestly Robes and Pants
Warm Priestly Shoes
180 gold
10 Jimsonweed Fruit
Bits of Thuun’s legs
Jagged shard of bone
More bits of Thuun’s legs
Wounds/Status: You’re all good!
Abilities: [Boundlessly Cheerful] [The Good Priest] [Not that faithful] [Righteous Litany (1/6)]Baldur Bergfalk (USEC_OFFICER)Profession: Mercenary
Status: Openin’ doors
Inventory:Broken greatsword
Worn leather jerkin (and normal clothes)
Worn leather boots
Bear fur cloak300 gold
Wounds/Status: [Slashed left eye(3/3)][/color]
Abilities: [Skilled Bargainer] [Guileless] [I'm Not Right Handed] Lao Thuun (BFEL)Profession: Warrior Mage
Status: Twiddling his thumbs
Inventory: Blunted bronze sword
Leather armour and boots
Acolyte's SuncloakReligious Necklace
210 gold
Wounds/Status: [Healed stumpy legs]Abilities:[Enduring] [Dragon Aspect: 1] [Slow Cast] [Atoner] [Spellsword (3/3)][Regenerative Magic]Spells:[Life Spell: Wisp] Magical Experience:[Ea: 0] [Wi: 0] [Fi: 1] [Wa: 0] [Li: 2] [Fo: -1] [Lt: 0] [Sh: 0] Felice Nasib (Pancaek)Profession: Seaman
Status: Watching for nasties
Inventory: Repaired Shortbow
Seventeen Arrows
Razor-sharp DirkNautical Longcoat and Boots
313 gold
KidzukuWounds/Status: You're perfectly healthy!
Abilities: [Fearless] [Kidzuku: Arrowtime] [Not a Landlubber] [Trick Shot] [Kidzuku: Comprehension]Ekoka (GreatWyrmGold)Profession: Wanderer
Status: A trifle jumpy
Inventory: Cracked shillelagh
Wanderer's Cloak
Sturdy Clothes and Boots
Length of Rope
Flint and Tinder
380 gold
Wounds/Status: [Cramped up right arm (1/2)]Abilities: [Survivalist] [Dual Focus] [Slow Cast] [Maladjusted to heat] [Guiding Spirit] Spells:[Wind Spell: Alacrity]Magical Experience:[Ea: 0] [Wi: 1] [Fi: 0] [Wa: 0] [Li: 0] [Fo: 0] [Lt: 0] [Sh: 0]