Fall 148
Last season was pretty wild for the people of the Aconilun. With the attack on Osme professional army, the rampage of the Ettin Mishtem, and the news that the sky dwarfs began their counter attack as unsuccessful as they were an omminous ambiance fell on the bridgetown. Something was about to happen and needed to be guarded against...but what ?
Fresh recruits were incorporated in the squads and sent to training, and Ozi, a young kind who had yet to find a profession (incidentally he was Scribe Lastret's son and Flame's older brother), was chosen to be trained as the next coppersmith. He was also send to hone his skills.
The death of Dengusa left a gap in the skills of the Aconilun. The townspeople sure had the copper and the bronze, but without a good smith, they would mostly go to waste. In the future, the establishment of a smithing guild would be a worthwile investment. In the meantime, small civilian weapons were forged for the commerce with elves next spring, and copper and bronze mail were woven, to be added in addition to leather for the troops. Forging enough of them however will take a lot of time.
Ebkusa's gear is a good representation of what the common Aconilun soldiers wears in year 148Fall was calm as usual. There are usually no event schlechulded to this time of the year, and as a result, people take the opportunity to unwind and relax. There was however some events worthy of note happening.
First of all, our jaguar couple got cubs. One male and one female. This is perfect for the brood to keep growing, as our male was permanentely wounded during the Ettin hunt. According to our animal caretaker, those warbeasts take a year to fully mature if we can keep at least a male and two females until then, we can start thinking about replacing our dogs by those killing machines.
Secondly, Sana, daughter of late Ari-Taskmo, came of age and was given a job as a stoneworker and sent to apprenticeship. However, as she went in the undergrounds tunnel to start carving bricks, she found the posts already occupied by older workers and told to come back later.
Her mother got her a pick of excellent quality, so she could start to contribute right away.
While I don't understand the joy people have working hard and difficult professions, I would not dissuade the effort. Her subsequent work helped us quite a lot.
The current project consist of another nine meter wide bridge between the two shores. Once they are done, the bridges would be linked together and serve as a support to build the actual Aconilun castle, that would rule not only over Kimaeslo Ori, but over the whole area. Such project requires a lot of effort and good will.
That's about all that happened during fall. With everything that happened since the beggining of the project, the people of the bridgetown learnt to value their uneventful times.
May they continue.
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Winter 148
MusicThe life of Stukos Tostcatten
Even tho proximity with goblin empires make abductions a common occurrence in the dwarven kingdom of Kodsakzul, Stukos' stories took that to an almost comical extreme. He was born in year 104 in Lorbarakmesh, a nothern hillock. In 109, his mother was abducted by a Moon Horror a blotted waxy humanoid with three tails, leaving him, his father and his siblinghood totally horrified. The small family then moved to Lazineth another smaller hillock, closer to the frontline, during his childhood.
It was in year 114 that Stukos was abducted by an Osmite child snatcher, and groomed to become an footsoldier. Two years later, his father was himself abducted by a night troll.
When Stukos reached adulthood, both his parents were already transformed into monsters. It made sense that he would become one aswell, by working in the imperial army. That was his reasonning if he had put it into words. It didn't made too much sense, but from all he knew, it was the decision fate had made for him ; as he experienced, running from his fate would just make it happen anyway.
He became a competent marksman, then joined the retinue of another abductee turned small lord, a dwarven woman by the name of Ingish, and so he was for the next 35 years of his life.
35 years that would not, in the end, be so bad . No hard work and no army service working as a retained had its perks. It was only in this winter 148 that his services would finally be called upon, as his lady decided to move against Kimaeslo Ori.
Never having seen any real fight, Stukos was horrified by the open graveyard in front of him. He ran behind the troop and it took several hours to calm him down. It was a small retinue of eight fighting men that couldn't afford to just lose one of its member to irrational fear.
When it was done, they resumed their march and arrived in view of the bridge.
« Kimaeslo Ori is just behind that bridge » Ingish said. « We cross it, we loot and we go back »
Stukos noticed the thirty armed silhouettes of the town's militia in the distance.
« Perfect ! » he exclaimed as Ingish's retinue started its advance, loading his crossbow. « Let's go ! I'll cover you from behind »
When Hauben's troop encircled them and torn them to pieces as it was expected, Stukos was already very, very far.
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The Mountain God
Sketug Jumpmist the WhiskeredHumans live a very short life. Among the creatures that need to bond and organize into culture to even survive, they life is the very shortest, which makes their chance to individually witness anything the lowest of all.
That is why the transmission of knowledge is the most important. Before the invention of writing, orale tradition was the only available medium. But like human lives, it was a meek and unreliable method everything relying on it might as well just have been lost.
Today, no one remember why there are Old Gods what do they want, why they were worshipped, or why people slowly replaced their worship by new religion full of invisible deities.
Every once in a while, they leave their ancestral home to wreck havoc in the world of humans.
The Mountain Titan Stekug Stoxusguslo has come! A huge hairy spider. It has large mandibles and it moves deliberately. Its dark brown hair is long and shaggy. Beware its poisonous bite!Sketug had to cross the whole country to come here. That antic monster had a reputation of being extremely goal oriented, and doing everything with an extreme sense of purpose. There must have been a reason why he attacked Kimaeslo Ori...but why ?
He jumped into the main street in the middle of panicked citizen. Alert was given, and the army started to cross the bridge. They were too far however, and Sketug had already started to cover the whole street in gross webbing, and picking the panicked citizen one by one.
In desperation, Lady Sug herself went outside. We don't know what she was hoping to accomplish. Probably was she trying to barter time ?
Seing their lady on the brink of being eaten alive, citizen bursted out of the tavern and of the farmer's guild, improvized weapons in hand and stormed the gigantic monster.
Toki tried to organize the retreat of the townspeople she was hoping to free the way for the eventual arrival of the militia. She locked as many people as she could inside the farmer's guild office.
The epic fight that ensued took a toll in the townspeoples numbers. Lady Sug herself did not survive. Often, the bodies were disfigured by Sketug's bite and poison and could not be recognized. When the creature finally died, people had to be rounded up and identified so proper burials could be made.
« Ica is missing, it seems » someone said. « Ica, is Ica here ? »
No answer from Ica. He was about to be pronounced dead, but someone raised their hand.
« I saw him ! He fled to the bridge during the attack. Surely he's still alive »
And before anyone could add anything, Toki already went to investigate.
Both are still missing to this day.
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Topic: Mong Kima - The Nation of Pearls (DF 0.47.05) (Read 254580 times)