Another Swords and Sorcery RPG

[IDreamofBunnies]

I'm going to die here, The knight thought, I'm going to die here alone, with no one to know me for my passing. It was folly to come here.

His retainers and his squire were long dead, his ornate breastplate and helm discarded. Only his sword, and the clothes on his back did he keep as he trudged through the quagmire. He would never willingly part with his sword, his vow would not allow it. That, and he required the blade to cut through the low hanging vines and moss.

Is it still behind me? Dare I stop?

No. He had to keep moving. Perhaps if he died close enough to the edge of this abysmal swamp his remains might be found. It was a strange hope, but a realistic one. It was at this moment that he heard that velveteen laughter on the wind. The terror that he had swallowed deep into his throat was now emerging, climbing its way back up until it reached the tip of his tongue and escaped in a frenzied shriek.

run little man, a fit man makes for tougher meat, tougher meat makes for greater flavor.

The knight found his second wind and ran even harder, ignoring the pain in his ribs, the pain in his calves. Even when the knee high sludge sucked off his left boot he kept running.

Something ahead of me...a ruin...I can hide, catch my breath!

Indeed there seemed to be some ancient stone wreckage thrusting out from the muddy waters like a diseased child forcing its way out of a plauge-ridden womb. He could feel breath on his back, like hot sick reeking of his slain companions.

that's it little man, hope, dare to hope.

The knight did hope, he dared, and he would not be stopped! He leapt with all the might his aching body could muster and flew through the stone doorway of the ancient ruin, the enourmous snapping and gnashing behind him was proof that the great beast was too large to pursue him in here.

do not think that you have escaped me little man, you are far from safe in there, you'll have to come out some time and when you do...

The knight could care less about the future, only now mattered. He nearly kissed the moss carpeted stone floor, so relieved to be able to rest. His chest heaved up and down, his eyes clenched shut.

Thank you, my God, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this repreive.

The prayer seemed stifiled in his heart but he paid it no mind. He slowly got up, first he rose to a sitting position leaning on the wall and slowly, he used the wall to help himself up.

"What is this place," he wondered out loud, "It's like no workmanship I've ever seen."

He spoke truly, though not out of admiration. The walls were engraved with perverse scenes of inhuman creatures frolicking in the fetid swamp around them. More recent additions to this place, though ancient still were worm eaten tapestries depicting normal feasts of lords and knights but even these seemed wrong to the knight. There were little details that seemed out of place, a sinister smile on a lord or the suspicious bones on a lady's plate. Without even thinking, the knight trudged onward into the darkness of the ruins. The floor turned from stone to a strange cobblestone that the knight suspected to be skulls crunching underfoot, but he went on.

Finally the darkness was pierced by a dull violet light. The knight entered a circular room who's walls were covered in mushroom caps and other fungi. A stone alter lay in the center of the room and on the alter lay an iron crown and a jagged sword, wreathed in the sickly purple light.

"An enchanted sword...and the crown as well I'll wager. With these, I could defeat it!"

He reached for them but hesitated, every instinct in his head screamed at him to leave them where they lay. But I must avenge my comrades, what price could these things demand if any at all? Poh, they're just tools to be used what demands can mere objects make of a man? He cast aside his sword and grabbed the blade from the alter, placing the crown on his head sealed the deal.

..................

Is he still behind me? I've got to move, got to hide!

His speed was impressive, as if the impediment of this foul swamp presented no problem for him at all. If he could just keep moving he would make it to that cave!

That's it little dragon, run from me. Hope, dare to hope.

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

Ten years later...

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

The fair was coming to Milaam, that glorious week of games, food, and wonder. Klaus had been looking foward to this festival all year long, it was his big chance to escape. If he could impress Shylock the Magician, perhaps the old wizard would take him on as an apprentice and he could leave the most unexciting apprenticship as a tanner.

Klaus had been studying all year, his family's book had a single spell penned long ago by one of his distant ancestors, a wizard of minor ability. He had practiced the hand gestures and pronounced the strange words for months on end before he felt comfortable enough to try and actually cast it. It had taken him a week to find all the components in the nearby fields and forests.

The spell was magnificent, he had cast in the town square and every bird in Milaam had flown around him, as if he were their king.

He clutched the book and the small dog-earred pouch with the necessary reagents in his arms. Ignoring the festive streamers, the music, and the laughter he looked for the old wizard Shylock who came to town but once a year...

 

[sssyssyna]

"And - even with the trade routes closed and cinnabar and hotberry all but impossible to find - as you can see, my Reyten mastered the family secret and was able to conjure the spices themselves from nothing so that his dear mother could bake the - "

The woman just went on and on without pausing for breath. Reyten - the alleged author of the feat - stood just behind his mother's left shoulder, already towering over her. He had a shock of pale yellow hair, a pair of sunken eyes set above a flattened nose with flaring nostrils, and the beginnings of a merchant's soft gut straining the newly oiled leather of his wide belt. He slumped forward, in the stooped posture of a boy who is not yet comfortable with his new height, and stared at the floor as his mother sang his praises to the great wizard.

" - your favorite pie. I know that you particularly appreciate the mixture of eastern spices, but with the far provinces overrun by the hoardes - "

The great wizard had already devoured his first slice of the pie and was starting on the second. It was indeed his favorite - one of his many favorites - with a fine, flaky crust and a rich, dense filling of dates, nutmeats, honey and spices. He made a show even of the selection - holding back the deep sleeves of his traveling robes, bending over the dish to inhale the distinctive aroma, then glancing up toward the proud mama with his bushy white eyebrows raised.

"Oh, please - " she hunched forward, taking this for an excellent sign. " - have another, have the pie, it's our gift to you. I don't know if you remember, but my mother brought me here - oh, it must have been twenty years ago - before I thickened," the proud mama's hands were full, so she flapped her elbows to indicate her waist, which only made her seem even more like an unfortunate hen, clucking and flapping, flapping and clucking. Siri flattened both her lips and nostrils to stave off a bark of laughter at the absurd spectacle. She spared a glance toward the half-dozen other applicants - supplicants, more like - still waiting in line to see if this whole absurd tableau had made any impression on them, but most were blank-faced and rigid and rapt, their eyes fixed on the old man, old Shylock, who could conjure the cobblestones beneath their feet molten and then solid again, on a whim.

When you do that sullen thing with your mouth - she looked up, startled, and found the master's blue eyes fixed on her, sober and shrewd. Her gaze dropped to first his right hand, which cradled the pie, and then to his left, obscured in the shadow cast by his own bulk. She could see the spark, the blue frisson of power, where the rune he traced so minutely, so covertly, seemed to hang in the air. you look like a proper barbarian, my dear. I'm sure the locals are impressed. His mind-voice vanished from her head as quickly as it had appeared. She looked up again, stared across the distance between them, and retraced the shape of the rune he had shown her against the flesh of her left hand, the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. To most observers, it looked as if she were merely fingering the marks of her apprenticeship and indenture, but she could sense the subtle, electric spark as the rune took shape.

You have crumbs in your beard, old man. She wasn't certain that the small spell had taken until she saw his beard split with a faint grin and felt the weight of his gaze briefly settled about her narrow shoulders.

"My dear woman," Shylock declaimed, and in his best, booming wizard's voice. The huswife stopped mid-sentence, mid-word, mid-phoneme, even, and held her breath, awaiting the wizard's pronouncement. "I do remember you, just as I remember your fine pastry, and if your son has one iota of the talent you displayed, I will make him the same offer I made to you." The woman expelled her pent-up breath and her chest swelled with another breath, a deeper breath. She fell to one knee and grabbed the hem of the old man's robes - dropping her fine pie with a clatter onto the cobblestones of the square - but the old man snatched the hem out of her grasp. The benign mask slipped, and for a moment, the wizard's jolly blue eyes were cold and clear as glacial ice. "But first he must prove his talent, and to my satisfaction.

"Go." He gestured abruptly toward Siri and, now done with Reyten and his doting mother, turned his attention toward the next applicant - supplicant? - in line. Dismissed, the pair disengaged and walked toward Siri. The mother had an aggressive walk, but her forward momentum was stifled by her heavy skirts. The man-boy simply shuffled at her shoulder, and although he matched his pace to his mother's pace, he still managed to look like he was moving in slow motion.

"Well - " the mother stopped three feet from Siri, her gaze flickering to the young woman's hands as she studied the marks to gauge the relative status. As an apprentice, Siri was entitled to a modicum of respect. As an indentured servant, she was not entitled to even the barest of courtesies. " - go on." The woman jerked her gaze from Siri's tattooed hands and shot a look across her shoulder at her son. "Show her."

Without a word, Siri turned and disappeared into the tent. After a moment's silent, strained urging by his mother, Reyten followed. Twenty minutes later, they emerged. If possibly, Reyten's shoulders had slumped even closer to the ground, and his mother did not even pause to here Shylock's little barbarian apprentice pronouce her son a failure and a fraud. Reyten had not mastered the "family secret." He had been unable to conjure even a speck of hotberry. The talent that Reyten's mother had manifested and then thrown away more than twenty years before was not repeated in the next generation.

Siri narrowed her mouth to forestall a sigh as she watched the pair thread their way into the small crowd and disappear down one of Milaam's narrow streets, Reyten's defeated gait and slumped, sloping shoulders the perfect physical embodiment of her own mood. She crossed her arms and turned her attention back to her master and the next person in line.

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

Klaus was a few spaces in the queue, but he had been able to see the dejected look on Reyten's face. Part of him was happy to see him fail, but he wasn't a mean spirited sort. He shot Reyten a sly thumb's up and furrowed his brow in a sympathetic way. He then returned his attention towards the front of the line eagerly awaiting his turn.

Elsewhere...

The noise this time of year was always the same, an annual reminder that people were reaping the fruits of his labors. These parasites hadn't earned this peace, those that did had rotted to mulch buried face down in a monster's footprint.

The voices were in a frenzy again, confusing him with myriad commands, but the loudest one hissed: They don't respect the crown, they don't fear the crown.

"Tribute? Should they pay tribute?"

no!
TRIBUTE!
They owe you a debt, they owe us a debt.
just let me die already...
TRIBUTE NOW! TAKE IT! NOW! NOW!
No. Soon.
god forgive me.

 

[sssyssyna]

Every ten minutes, or fifteen, or twenty, the line snaked forward. Shylock had been reviewing applicants for the better part of two days, and none had been suitable. Most of the magics fizzled - the product more of fevered imaginations and sleight-of-hand than the true marriage of power, skill and discipline. The few who succeeded produced simple cantrips - useful and perhaps even amazing narrow streets of a provincial town or somewhere out in the muddy fields, but unremarkable in the grand scheme of such things. These people, at least, received now of the usually jovial wizard's withering scorn. The old man paused for a moment, beckoned them to return, and lifted his mouth to the boy's or girl's ear (in one case, it was a wizened old man, so far past the age for apprenticeship that it looked as if his body had shrunken into a second childhood), passing on the name of an herbalist or healer, a midwife or brewmistress with whom they could apprentice, to further whatever talent they displayed.

The sun sank slowly on the horizon, until it was little more than a broken crescent of blood-red light topping the crumbling walls of the old city. The temple bells rang out the evening hour - an odd, planned dissonance, not unlike the concert of a wolf-pack honoring the full, unbroken moon. Lamplighters began threading through the crowd, setting ablaze the lamps lining the narrow streets, used only at festival. The wicks - treated with the smallest of spells and a peculiar oil from points west - sparked and spat gouts of rainbow colored light into the gathering twilight.

The old man was animated - now kindly, now stern, but always magnetic, as he conversed with each applicant - but his apprentice was blank-faced, silent and distant. Forbidding, even - that was certainly the word for it. Skin the color of burnished mahogany, eyes a shade or two lighter, the color of oxidized copper, a cloud of wiry corkscrews of dark hair tipped in auburn - or made so by the long sweeping rays of the setting sun. A band of dark ink ran across her wide cheeks and the broad bridge of her nose, half-an-inch below her eyes. Her mouth and jaw were set, without expression except when she concentrated on her master, and that merited no more than a vague frown.

By the time the old wizard beckoned Klaus forward, the western horizon was oozing with the last of the day's light. To the east, a mass of forbidding clouds clotted the sky and choked off the first of the Three Sisters, the earliest of the twilight stars. Streaks of light from the dying sun painted stormfront with long, thin needles of red, like the spreading stains of a blood infection. The wind picked up, setting the knights' and merchants' banners to flapping, and just-lit lamps hissed and sputtered with chemical concern. The wizard's girl wrapped her arms tightly around her frame and ground her jaw, staring at the clouds, but the wizard ignored the threatening summer storm and turned his most beneficent smile upon the young man in front of him.

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

Klaus shielded his eyes with his left hand as he gazed out onto the sunset, the hues of violet, pink, and orange were beautiful but no more amazing than usual this time of year. Klaus was more concerned with what birds could be seen on the horizon, if his spell went off as planned it could get crowded.

When he finally turned back, the last person who had been in front of him walked off with an ill fated expression. Klaus forced himself to swallow, the wizard was beckoning him now.

He presented himself and bowed respectfully at the waist, "Master Shylock sir, my name is Klaus Tannen. I thank you for your time and hope you will select me to be your apprentice sir!"

He waited nervously for whatever instruction the old wizard might give.

 

[sssyssyna]

"You are a straightforward young man," the old wizard beamed, all benevolence. It was difficult to see past the luxurious white beard set beneath the round cheeks and bright blue eyes to see the shrewd old fellow beneath the façade. He braced his hands on either armrest of his carved oldwood chair and leaned forward. The eyes narrowed, and the bushy white brows twitched together. The wizard was silent for longer than seemed strictly necessary: two or three minutes, perhaps more, as he studied young Klaus with a thoroughness usually reserved for farmers or gamblers examining livestock or horses. At last, he shifted his bulk backwards again. There was a woosh of air sighing from the hidden cushions as he sat back in his chair. "And I appreciate such forthrightness, so I will be forthright with you in turn, Master Tannen.

"As you know, I take few apprentices. You are like as not to be more happy and successful with whatever you are doing now than you will should you be chosen. It's no shame to walk away now. You've seen how many have turned away." The old man paused, and studied the young man's face in the failing light. After another moment's study - this time, none too long - the old man grunted, satisfied. "Have you a spell for me today?"

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

Klaus tried to answer but his throat had gone dry, he shut his eyes and gulped. "Yes Master Shylock sir! I will cast my family's spell created by my ancestor Fortinbras, 'Fortinbras' Avian Mastery'."

He fumbled in his pouch for the components, a dozen feathers taken from the nesting grounds of various wild birds, a chicken's egg, and chip of local granite sparkling with tiny quartz fragments. He held the collection in his palms for Shylock's inspection and then stepped back to cast the spell.

He used the granite chip to draw a circle in the dirt around him and then deliberatly planted his foot on the stone, standing outside the circle.

"By wind, by gale, by cloud-strained light fill my heart with the eagle's might!"

Klaus hurled the egg into the circle, splattering it's golden yolk within its confines, he quickly followed by unceremoniously dropping the feathers into the yolk creating a gooey mess.

"Let me lord over the birds by divine right!"

What happened immediatly afterwards could have been a convenient optical illusion, but as the sun completly dipped into the horizon the final crest of direct sunlight created a brief flicker of a halo around Klaus' head. Then there was nothing for an entire minute. Klaus smiled and then chuckled nervously.

Then there was a riot of noise, a stampede of chickens and geese from all over Milam rushed into the crowd, drowning out the confused murmers and laughter of the people with their clucking, squaking, and honking. They soon busied themselves pecking the ground around Klaus' feet.

"Oh no," Klaus thought to himself, "Did something go wrong? The birds are supposed to serve me, and there should be wild birds too! The spell just summoned the village's flocks to the square."

Klaus did his best to play down his surprise, trying to look as if he meant for this to happen. Shylock could of course tell what went wrong, a poor choice in components, likely due to Klaus' limited means as well as some minor foul-ups (no pun intended) in his diction during the incantation.

The boy waited with great apprehension, expecting the worst but hoping for the best.

 

[sssyssyna]

The old man watched intently as Klaus cast his spell, then sat back in his chair as the fowl gathered, fat arms crossed across his bulk. The crowd's laughter opened and widened in concentric circles, a liquid murmur underlay to the headache inducing chorus from the largest group of fowl ever assembled in the city of Milaam. Shouts resounded in the distance, first from the livestock tents on the fairgrounds just outside the oldcity walls, and - here and there - from a cramped yard or rooftop roost as huswifes and householders the city over discovered their missing birds.

The crowd opened and fell back, growing restless, like the laughter, but the old master remained silent as the circle around Klaus grew. Eventually, Shylock cast an abrupt gesture toward one of his body slaves at his either shoulder, grunting an order. "Get someone to clean this up." He struggled for a moment, stiff from the long day's judgment, but soon gained his feet and waddled toward the steps at the back of the dais, finished for the day. As he waddled down the steps, Siri - staring at Klaus like the rest of the citizens, but not snickering, not once - jumped to her feet as well. The girl ran, her footsteps clattering on the cobblestones, directly through the unruly mass of domesticated birds, setting those in her path to flight, or whatever approximation of flight they could manage, until she came to the old man's side and offered him her shoulder for balance as he worked the stiffness out of his joints. The old wizard accepted her aid as a matter of course, and the pair cast odd, misshapen shadows as they retreated. After several steps, the old man stopped his assistant and turned back toward Klaus. The girl's dark head followed, and Siri felt a stab of jealousy, resentment stab through the walls of her adolescent disregard.

"Come then, Master Tannen - " for a moment, the squawking chickens and ducks and geese, and even the squawking of the human gossips fell silent, as the old wizard looked back toward Klaus. " - I think we are finished for this year. Do you have coins for your apprentice fee, or shall I take payment in roosters?" Laughter sparked through the crowd, but the old man silenced them with a glance. "If you are not paying me in fowl, set them free so that the citizens of Milaam need not go eggless in the morning. Let us go, I have much to do on the morrow."

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

Enthused and confused all at once, Klaus tried to respond but he couldn't get anything out. All he managed was a mutant fusion of a sheepish smirk and embarassed frown.

"He's got the coin. Tannen's saved nearly every last penny he's ever earned, isn't that right? He just has to train with you, or he won't become the legendary chicken tamer."

Tannen's face was able to pick an emotion as his dreaded nemesis' voice came from behind him, "Marie Fae, poorest little rich girl in town. I thought you weren't interested in the fair."

He turned to face the spoiled heiress, their eyes met and the daggers they cast were almost literal. Tannen kept his fists pointed at the ground at his feet, as if his rigid stance would allow him to sink into hiding. Marie for her part had mastered crossing her arms and offering a churlish expression, if precious little else.

"Oh Tannen, I might loathe this little plebian festival but I could barely stand by as your witchcraft stole my pet goose."

"I can imagine, that stupid goose of yours is the one thing in this world that's more useless than you. At least you're privy trained. Anyways, I don't have time for this."

Having passed Shylock's test made Tannen a little more confident than usual, on any other day he would have thought of the comment but not have said it and spent the next few hours regretting it. He walked over to the old wizard, money purse in hand.

"Oh wait the spell..." Tannen needn't have bothered, without him concentrating on the spell, the birds simply began to disperse.

 

[sssyssyna]

The crowd's attention sharpened as the exchange between Marie and Klaus continued. Gossips bent their heads together, savoring each little venomous nugget, a few murmured tidbits about the girl's last outburst - was it at the wedding of her cousin's milkbrother or, just after, when the fountain in Tanner's Lane was dedicated to the memory of Milaam's dead? Shylock's barbarian apprentice/servant - scrambling up the few steps to the dais to retrieve the old man's favorite cushion and cloak - paused half-way up the stairs and turned to watch, the razor-edge of flat little smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. Siri glanced toward her master, who seemed, at first, oblivious to the exchange, but then fixed her attention back on the odd pair of rivals - at least until the confrontation ended disappointingly enough, with no more than verbal fireworks.

"Young woman," Klaus had just drawn abrest of the old wizard when Shylock - who seemed to have ignored the confrontiation entirely - spoke, his round face benign, his voice clear and calm. "You have surely heard the old adage that one should never interfere in the business of wizards or wolves. I’m afraid that it is entirely correct."

He smiled again, as Klaus joined him, and held out the plump fingers of his right hand for the apprentice fee as if it were an afterthought. With his left hand, he clapped Klaus on the shoulder in a hearty – possessive? – manner. The old man did nothing by chance, and it was enough for Klaus to feel and perhaps even catch a glimpse of the small bundle – no bigger than a thumbnail – the old man dropped as he spoke. "If you choose to comment further," the old man smiled, disarmingly, at to an infant, "I can’t be responsible for the consequences. Best to go back to your goose, my dear child. Without another word."

The crowd – restless again, somewhat disappointed at the denouement of the confrontation – largely ignored him, and the audience continued to disperse. Siri, however, half-way down the steps, stopped and scrambled back to the top of the dais, out of the line of fire. She knew her master’s moods, the deceptive quality of his calmest voice, the way the atmosphere felt – almost imperceptibly crackling – as he skimmed energy from the faintest strands of power for a subtle casting. Instead of the steps, she jogged across the dais to the edge closest to Klaus and Shylock, careful not to drag her master’s cloak through the sawdust spread to give the woven rugs traction, and jumped lightly to the flagstones below, in spite of her awkward burden. Siri fell into step behind her master, pausing just long enough to cast an unreadable, dark-eyed glance over her shoulder at Marie Fae.

As Shylock ushered Klaus into the Inn, Marie could no longer resist the urge to spit some insult - something, anything - at the young man's back. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound emerged. There was a ripple of sound behind them, and then a muffled shrief of inchoate outrage, and then laughter, as the illusion of skink's forked, blue tongue flickered out from between Marie Fae's lips. Shylock did not spare another glance back, and propeled Klaus toward the Inn as well. Dinner was waiting, and the negotiation of the apprenticeship.

 

[Amy (Roleplay)]

In a world far from this one two spirits are arguring
"listen amy you have to help the man or at the least warn him also i hear that earth is quite a nice place"
Amys spirit turned red
"but master Earth men are so wild and stobborn, it is highly unlikely that he will listen to me"
The golden spirit glowed black
"AMY you will go and help the human if you do not then all this time will be wasted now Go i order you to go"
Amy felt the invisible arms grab her spirit and pull her away from her world.

She appeared in an inn and saw the man immediently and transformed her self into a fly and flew over to the mans shoulder and sat there listening to the conversation between the two gentlemen.

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

Tannen eagerly followed Shylock into the inn, not quite sure what to expect anymore but excited at the prospect of just about anything. Once they were past the threshold he ran a few steps ahead of the wizard and gingerly pulled out a seat for Shylock and another for Siri. He then went to the other end of the table and waited until the other two had sat down.

Elsewhere...

His progress was slow. Early on, when he realized just what he had done he had used whatever means he could to trap himself. Dozens of braided vine ropes trailed from himself to different trees or large rocks. He had bound himself many times over but it didn't seem to be enough now. His legs continued to march towards the township, and though his five-fold nooses would have killed a man by now, he would not die...

come on, just stop. please!
FINALLY! SUP ON THEIR SWEET FLESH AND WASH THIS SWAMP-CRUST OFF WITH THEIR CHILDREN'S BLOOD!
My, isn't that a messy thought? Do whatever pleases you, my interest is rectifying this terrible lack of respect, to remind them the cost of enjoying their little peasant lives.

 

[Amy (Roleplay)]

So tanner was his name hey heh so like humans to pick a name which is worthless. well at least master had got something right this boy really needed help i mean he was rushing to pull out a chair for some old guy with a stick who called hiself a wizard heh he was no wizard he couldn't even sense her let alone pull a chair out for himself no tis boy needed training and fast.

She sat on the wizards shoulder and sighed