Message #162622

[CryptCypher]

A place to store the many RP's to come, so I don't lose them like with my old characters/accounts.

Roleplay from Sigrid Gudrun Auru'in   (3 days, 4 hours ago)
Message sent to everyone in the region Krimml (29 recipients)
(Non-English terms are Old Norse. Warriors are Northmen.)

A small retinue approaches from northwest from Commonyr, circa Oligarch.


My first vivid impression of Krimml was that of a squat city nestled unto the verdant hills of Braga.  The pleasant scent of her infamous meat pastries hung gently in the air as the great looming shadow of Oligarch cast wide from late evening's setting sun. Scarred by the passage of countless wars, her four-tiered stronghold rose stark and proud against the silhouette of bandit-infested forests. A distant cadre of trade-wagons creaked and scraped at the loose cobblestone road leading from the great forest toward Oligarch's main thoroughfare, caravan guards on alert for a chance skirmish by overzealous brigands. Tonight however, not a soul lay claim to the slightest footfall beneath her wavering boughs: for only fool or madman would stir trouble in these circumstances.

"Ýmirs frosteistna... Now that's a bloody army..." (Ymir's frosty balls)


A thousand bodies flittered lazily between clusters of hastily-pitched tents sown wide beyond the sloping rim of Krimml's outer reaches, inhabiting a sparse expanse of uneven terrain likely cleared by malnourished woodsmen and restless invaders of ages past. Scattered campfires spewed trails of smoke as the final rays of dying light shoze brazenly across the glinting armor of at least five-hundred infantrymen. Twenty-nine distinct banners fluttered in the evening breeze as heepish campwomen, hurried cooks, jingling traders, and assorted servants made up the hundreds wandering where chain and plate failed to betray soldier's garb. Small groups of wary rangers clumped together in various vantage points, the off-brown of their faded leather reminiscent of dried blood drops.


Though I could recognize scant few banners from a brief study of Oligarch's records, one stood out as being of decidedly foreign origin. Around fifty tired-looking rangers huddled beneath that foreign banner as the thick smoke of their camfires licked the sky. Perhaps a passing dignitary come to meet with Prime Minister Mersault,  or an early arrival for Duke Tandaros's wedding. Surrounded as they were by at least a thousand armed Sirionites, there could be no fear of foolish betrayal.


My own retinue of rangers, nineteen in all, gradually slowed their exhausted march as we approached the furthest camp. A few men briefly paused to look our way - gazing curiously at our single quivering standard - whence flew bloody Phoenix upon a background of sable flanked by argent flaunches. I wondered for a passing moment if any still recalled the old meaning of twin flaunches upon heraldic shield...  That archaic debruisement whence claimed the illegitimate spawn of a noblewoman must bear her arms with "a surcoat"; that is, on large flaunches around a blank center. Except the center of my own banner bore the shining crimson of a feathered bird from whose wings those brilliant white flaunches radiated like the rays of a Gods' light.


"Nei brandir! Takið þér yðart bogi... Ragnarr: hvar er bogi þitt, saurig víking skítkarl? Ja, yðart bogi, Ragnarr! Óðins skegg... Nei búinn, lítil píka? Ek várkann geirr hafa saurig arsgat þitt...

(No swords! Grab your bows. Ragnarr, where is your bow, you dirty viking bastard? Yes, your bow, Ragnarr! Odin's beard... Unready, little bitch? I pity the spear that takes your dirty !@#$%^&...)

Chuckling beneath my breath as my warriors laughed in stride, I bellowed a final command to the men as we strode through thickening crowds. The haggard and the battle-hardened, servants and soldiers whose sole purpose in life was to live and die beneath the glint of a blade. Such is the fate of all men who wage war, and upon whom war is waged: an effortless tide of conflict which none may escape for more than a brief moment of respite.