Justin the Plowboy

Wed, 27 May 2009 14:53:27 GMT

I was in the lead of the march. We didn't even have scouts out ahead because the horses can't take it anymore. There wasn't enough water. We were down to our last few mouthfuls of anything you could call food. The only thing on my mind was that this was no place to die. Who the fuck lives in the desert?

Then I crested a rise and if I'd had any spit left in my throat I would've whooped for joy, but the best i could manage was to grunt and then fall back on my ass and laugh without sound for awhile.

A seabird! and behind him, way out in the distance a sea! We are saved and I never thought I'd be so damned excited about the idea of eating things that swim.

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 00:58:07 GMT

Guess what?

You can open a cactus and get water out of it.

Guess what else?

It tastes like fucking crap.

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 16:59:19 GMT

Hot.
Thirsty.
Tired.
Gods-be-damned horny manticores.

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 17:51:22 GMT

So, we're making our way out of this desert, we're loaded down with all the water we can carry, and a whole lot of supplies and loot. We made sure to carry way more water than would get us to the first water hole on our way back.

That was the best idea we've ever collectively had.

Baht's been scouting ahead a lot by himself. He says he and his horse move faster and easier than any of us could ever hope to. He says a lot of arrogant shit like that and if the smug fucker weren't actually about three quarters as capable as he warbles out his pie-hole I'd twat him a good one for it, but I'm getting off subject.

He comes riding back like hell itself was on his heels and he's as white as linen. He says we can't get to the water hole because it must be mating season. Of course he's jabbering away saying shit over and over. Finally, the Old Man steps up and hollers as loud as he can (which is mighty fucking loud, I tell ya) in Baht's ear "Mating season for what, you bowlegged sonofabitch?!?"

Baht stiffened up like he was going to take a shot at the Old Man, he's pretty touchy about being insulted, but instead he straightens up and says "Manticores, you red-faced baboon."

Now the Old Man let that one slide. Sometimes you have to let a guy have his pride so he'll keep doing his job, but he managed to give us all a look that let us know it was a special circumstance and if any of us tried that shit we'd end up with shit detail for the rest of our natural lives.

The Old Man had a quick talk with Tsui and we're going to go around it and hope we find the next watering spot unoccupied by a bunch of horny two ton predators that fly.

Me? I'm watching the sky a lot. I know I'm hungry after a shag, and I don't fancy being a snack for afters.

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:27:06 GMT

We're on the move again. To put it simply we want to get as much distance between us and that place as we can. Both Tsui and Zed Tatum are pretty tight lipped about what happened there, but there's a really icky feeling that bleeds out of the ground there, kinda like something's stuck there and really unhappy about it. I'm not sorry to be leaving either, all those corpses make were fouling the air anyway.

It's gonna be a bad trip back. We took water from the lake, but it tastes like bitter ashes. It doesn't do much to slake your thirst either. My stomach already hates the stuff more than my mouth does. The camels aren't thrilled with it either. I have to had it to those horrible beasts though, during the whole night of insanity they just hunkered down and hollered instead of running off all spooked and crazy to get killed or whatever. They're tough bastards. I still don't like them, but I respect them.

I did myself a little looting before we left, (What? Fuck you. Dead people don't need stuff) A nice dagger, another dagger made of sharpened... whatchacallit... bamboo, which I grabbed mostly as a curio, some odd fork headed crossbow bolts, and the laminated leather face mask of one of those guys that were guarding that Datjampal guy. You know what? There was nobody in there. The armor was hollow. Now that's weird. Don't worry. I won't be putting the thing on. I just wanted it. I also managed to scrape up a fair amount of coin of which I kept a little aside for myself and turned the rest over to the Old Man, mostly because I knew he'd make me turn it all over if I didn't. We've come to a kind of unspoken agreement when it comes to windfalls like that.

It's funny how some people are. Baht wouldn't take anything. He says that if he doesn't kill someone it's not his to take. On the other end of the question are Tillman, Todd, and Carver who grab anything that isn't nailed down and anything else they can pry up. Watching them sift through everything left over and try to figure out what was worth carrying and what was too much weight for too little gain was like watching crows pick over a carcass before the bigger birds arrive.

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:04:20 GMT

It was nearly mid day before we decided it was safe to leave the confines of the camp and go look around.

After all the explosions, fire, crazy colors and people running around punching the flames on their own heads out you would stay down for half a day of quiet too.

Some time in the middle of it all that hut with the bird legs touched down right in the middle of our camp, flattened an empty tent and then leapt back out. Other than The Geek screaming like a little girl no one got hurt there.

Somewhere pretty early on it looked like Kurrusk and his orc buddies were going to assault the camp, but that party broke up early on account of a low-flying dragon.

So we crawled up and over the earthen mounds and had a look around.

The first bodies we found were those of orcs unlucky enough to be in the middle of Nassiss the dragons path. They were burnt to brittle black bones and cinders. Remind me never to pick a fight with something like that.

From the looks of things we got off really easy during a night of total chaos. We found body after body, mostly bodyguards, elves, dwarves, horse tribesmen, islanders, and so on. It seemed to be a bad night to be a bodyguard.

I was looking around where the Tatum brothers had set up camp and found one of them tangled up in some bushes looking like he'd bled out from every pore, needless to say I nearly shit myself again when he opened his eyes and said "Don't just stand there gawkin'. Give me some water."

I hollered The Geek over and we pulled the guy out of the brush and got some water in him. While The Geek's getting him cleaned up he says "You boys lookin' fer help? Seems to me ya'll'd be a sight more friendly than my kin of late."

The Geek asked if his own brothers turned on him during the fracas, and he replied "Nope, but it just ain't right leavin' a brother behind just 'cause he cheated at cards once or twice."

I told him I'd talk to the Old Man about it.

As for actual dead wizards and such we found Falling-Ash Xe all kinds of torn apart, and what might have been bits of Stickman floating in the lake. We also found Amonpheti's undead servants dead in a circle facing out from a pile of grey dust. I can only shrug as to what happened there.

Hopefully Zed Tatum can fill in some blanks after he's come around a bit more.

The sun rises, and you realize it's all quiet now.

Fri, 19 May 2006 15:00:34 GMT

You shake yourself out of the tense crouch you've been holding, and pry your fingers off your weapon one by one, but not all of them, not yet.

You realize you are still alive, and that it may very well be over.

Then and only then can you find time to curse about the lump of shit in your pants, and wonder where your helmet went.

It was quiet for about a quarter of a bell.

Tue, 16 May 2006 12:48:08 GMT

The whole night just exploded with about twenty different types of light and a whole lot of noise.

This would all be very pretty and exciting if it weren't so damned deadly.

I swear I just saw a body shoot up into the sky on fire and explode.

I don't want to explode.

The shape of the pear.

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 08:10:31 GMT

So Tsui and Always just scrambled back into camp and Tsui ducked into the Old Man's tent without so much as a glance or a nod at anyone else.

Always says that the thing everyone was here to do is done, and, no, he still isn't sure what that exactly was except for a really big ritual.

He also said that all truces are off and we should brace up for one truly unholy shitstorm.

I'm glad we put up defenses.

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 08:03:00 GMT

Here's another backdated entry.

What are we doing here?

Ok, the answer to that one is simple. We are here to protect Tsui. It's what we're being paid for.

But what's Tsui doing here, and why are all these other weirdos here. What's with the big bonfires across the lake by the spring that Tsui only ever takes Always to. One bodyguard per wizard seems to be the rule at those nightly meetings. Also, why Always? What's so special about him, and why does he get so many strange looks.

As to what happens all night, Always says all they do is talk and argue, but in a language he doesn't understand, and that the Geek hasn't been able to pin down from what Always tells him about it.

These freaks are up to something, and it's obviously very important to them.

I just hope we get out of here and get paid without shit going pear shaped.

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 10:05:49 GMT

More catching up. This time about what we did when we got there.

The Old Man is a healthy paranoiac, and I agree with his disposition, so the first order of the day was to make a defensible position.

We did the best we could with what we could find, which was mostly dirt. The Geek described an old design of earthen walls, ramps and ditches and we got busy with picks and spades.

Then we added a few touches of our own.

What we ended up with was a big square fort of dirt mounds surrounded by ditches with a smaller square of latrines with a collapsible ramp connecting them.

Out on the edges of the oasis is a sort of in-between area of dry dusty soil and sticker bushes, and we cut a whole lot of those down and lined the trenches and the outside of the mounds with them.

The lake itself is lined with thick reeds that dry somewhat stiff albeit brittle and we colled up a bunch of those and sunk them into the trench walls like spikes. I don't think it'll do much but be a nuisance, but every little bit helps.

We also tied any little bit of trash that will make noise into the stickers to alert us to any sneaky fuckers.

Now here's the part I think is really brilliant, Musty came up with this one. We dug pits into the mounds and filled them with sharp rocks and pointy sticks and then covered them with squares of tarp and dirt. Now that is a really shitty surprise waiting for anyone dumb enough to try charging over the top.

Most of the folk look at us like we're a little nuts for this, but there are a few who seem to think we've got the right idea. Hammert Morglum's bodyguard commander watched us build it and looked like he approved. Actually it was a little annoying, because we had to wait until he was gone to dig the pits. Oh, and the Tatum brothers have done a sort of half assed imitation around their wagon.

Where to start?

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 18:57:40 GMT

There's so much to tell. As you can imagine a lot has happened since I last wrote about it.

I suppose I'll start by introducing those involved.

28 mages. That's right, 28 mages, each one with a retinue of bodyguards, servants, and hangers on.

Well Start with Igoneva and Pchatchkin. Remember the giant bird feet tracks we found? That would be Ptchatchkin. Ptchatchkin is... What the hell is Ptchatchkin? He (she, it? let's go with 'he' and hope I'm right) is a big straw hut with massive storklike legs. How does a hut grow legs? Why does a walking hut get a name? I don't know, but I know Ptchatchkin is dangerous and very territorial. Igoneva is the mad old witch that rides around in Ptchatchkin, she's dangerous and territorial too. Even the other mages give Igoneva and Ptchatchkin a wide berth.

Then there's Dephix Asut, He's a tall pale elf of some sort. There are a number of other elves of varying skin tone in his service ranging from pitch black to nearly translucent and a couple of kind of pale blue ones. They follow him devotedly, but don't seem to care much for each other.

Gorix is a giant. He's not as big as the giants i've seen before and not as brutal looking, but he's still about 14 feet tall, and he's a mage. That's terrifying. In a stroke of comedy his retinue are all little guys. halflings, gnomes, and dwarves. I guess he likes to feel as tall as possible.

Vibishana Jahmba is a tiger on two legs. That's not a clever metaphor, he's an upright two legged tiger wearing linen robes and a bunch of linnen wound around his head and pinned with the biggest damn ruby you've ever seen. He has about twenty skinny nervous little human guys that wait on him hand and foot, and about an equal number of hard looking human guys with big mustaches, light chain mail, little round shields, and long curved fuck off shiny sabers.

Datjampal is short, handsome, well muscled, and apparently a warrior mage. He has a bodyguard that i can only speculate are human as I've never seen them even open the face mask of the elaborate leather and laquer armor they wear.

Meshul Hamal is some kind of illusionist and leads a band of fourty shifty looking geezers swaddled in black and riding camels.

Drud looks like he could be from just east of where I'm from, pale with scraggly red hair and a big shaggy beard. His only follower is a huge brown bear that trails him wherever he goes.

Amonpheti is bewitchingly beautiful, and according to rumor has been so for centuries. She'd be way more attractive if all her servants weren't dead. Dead and walking around, that is.

Hammert Morglum is a dwarf priest of some kind. He has fifteen dwarven bodyguards in full plate armor. It must be murder to wear that stuff in the desert, and they bitch and moan, but won't take it off. According to the rumor mill they didn't come in from the desert, they were just here one morning.

Kurrusk Skullsplitter is an orc shaman, and boy are we not at all happy to be sharing a valley with him and his mob of savages.

Adememnon only comes out at night, has a harem of docile pretty young women, a creepy hulking big servant, and a pack of really unfriendly big black dogs. If this all means what I think it means I think i like him less than the orcs.

Falling-Ash Xe is a fire mage I think, and has a bodyguard named Spinning-Fate Sung who wears a long weighted chain around his waist. What can you say about guys who have hyphens in their names?

Sallionimir is another elf, and she doesn't seem to have anyone with her.

Kayutte and his grandsons wear buckskins and bits of bone in their hair and don't have a lot in the way of metal, or didn't. There's been a lot of trading going on.

Shamiro is a sea mage and he and his mahogony skinned skinned bodyguards wear light silks, carry wooden swords adorned with some kind of teeth and look pretty uncomfortable here in the desert. They've camped closest to the small lake here in this oasis.

Sindra is a tiny little winged pixie and she and her little flutter of winged followers sleep somewhere near a different camp each night up in the trees. They leave a big mess for such tiny people.

Torruba is another dwarf, but she's dark brown skinned as are her followers. They wear some kind of layered cloth armor and carry long two handed clubs studded with coins.

Stickman is just that, a man made out of sticks. He doesn't have any followers, but sometimes he re-arranges himself into two or three smaller stickmen if he needs to talk to more than one person. When he rests he folds himself into a little house. I think he gets the award for strangest fucker here.

Laughter wins the award for most annoying though. He's a little goblin looking guy who lives in a leather knapsack. He thinks he's the world's best entertainer and spends a lot of time trying to do just that. I think every camp here have chased him away at least once. I'm not even sure if he's a mage. maybe the sack is. Oh, yeah, the sack moves when no one is looking.

If you were to count all the Tatum brothers we'd actually have thirty one mages, but the way it was explained to me is that the four of them represent one interest here. They're all relatively minor mages, and look like backwoods bumpkins, but apparently all together they make quite a team. They have a siter here too who cleans up after them. Actually I can't help liking the Tatums, and it's not just because they speak my home language.

Nassiss is a freaking dragon! He's not a big dragon, about the size of your average horse and wagon team, but, none the less, a dragon all the same. He doesn't have any servants or bodyguards, but why would he need them?

Adnebi is an ape. A big ape wearing golden robes and surrounded by apes with polearms. They won't talk to anybody.

Iapter is a wolf, or, more accurately, a dozen wolves, sometimes. Sometimes he a middle aged looking guy with lots of scars. If that makes sense to any of you let me know.

Ha Nong, is some kind of swamp witch, and she and her bodyguard of little guys with crossbows seem nearly as uncomfortable as Shamiro and his guys.

Uktella and his horse nomads brought an entire heard of goats with them and have been getting rich off of the rest of us who didn't bring livestock selling meat and cheese.

Calvinus is about as classic a mage as you get with his big long white beard and tall pointed hat. He has a little team of adventurers with him. You'd think they stepped out of a bard's tale in some tavern.

I don't know what Grell is, but he's big, has short brown fur, and boar-like tusks. He camps with thin pale woman with big black pupil-less eyes and too many joints on her too many fingers.

And Tsui and ourselves make twenty eight.

This oasis crackles with power night and day. It's absolutely nerve-wracking.

I have never seen so many mages in my life.

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:07:56 GMT

Granted I've not seen a bunch in the past, but there have to be at least fourty or fifty here.

Each separate camp is a mage and his or her bodyguards and servants, not all of them human either. The strange part is that people who would normally go at each other tooth and nail are just merely pointedly ignoring each other here.

Calm before the storm?

I think we're here.

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 08:02:37 GMT

I'm not sure where here is, but it's a big basin with an oasis and there are an awful lots of camps.

The Old Man told us all to keep sharp. Tsui is more active than he's been in days, actually riding in the front on a horse instead of sleeping in his wagon. He looks, for lack of a better term, purposeful, and that makes me a little nervous.

What makes me a lot nervous is that the Old Man looks uneasy.

I'm glad we missed whatever happened.

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 11:28:22 GMT

More bird thing prints. this time scattered around a bunch of very big, very messily dead dogs. It looked like the pack attacked it, and that was a mistake.

Ya know, for a place where no one goes, the lifeless heart of the desert, this place is awfully crowded.

What has feet like a giant bird, but builds a small campfire at night?

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 09:19:07 GMT

I don't know either, but we followed it's tracks for a few hours while the light was still waning last night.

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 11:33:09 GMT

Last night we came very close to walking into an ambush. Baht got a wiff of body odor and signalled a stop.

Then the little wizard guy, who's name is Tsui, stands up on his saddle and starts shouting his damn head off. We figured we were screwed at that, but whatever he said scared off whoever were out there. I got a brief look at a silhouette against a ridge before it dropped out of site. Whatever it was it was big and not human. Maybe kind of animal-like?

The Geek told me later that whatever Tsui was yelling it wasn't in a language he understood, or had could recognize.

We made camp a ways away and sent Musty and Always to check out the ridge by daylight. They said that there were about fifteen positions and that the footprints were like big pawprints.

This just gets better and better.

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 11:07:38 GMT

So I'm bitching about how much this job sucks to Always and the Geek and they start giving each other those "get a load of him" looks. I ask what they're so busy looking down their pointy noses about me about, and they won't give me an answer. I remind them that I can knock their teeth out and they become a little more forthcoming.

The Geek tells me that this wizard guy who hired us is a seriously powerful guy. In fact, he's the kind of guy who should and and could have a following of soldiers, monks, apprentices, scribes, and warriors of repute and renown (his words, not mine).

He then says that here we are a bunch of foreign nobodies, who he's paying well to take a trip with just him to somewhere that no one in their right mind goes.

Huh.

Two and two are four.

Four and four are, um, eight.

Eight and eight is... oh fuck.

Huh.

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:05:47 GMT

"No one goes into the desert's burning heart." We've been told this over and over by traders, tribesmen and even one wrinkled old naked lunatic.

"Don't leave the caravan routes and strike south." They say that a lot too. They also say a lot of fucked up shit like "may you be infested with the fleas of lepers" but that's beside the point.

Guess what we're doing and where we're going.

Ok, I think I hate the desert.

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 11:58:52 GMT

Hot, dry, dusty, dirty, gritty, sand in your food, water tastes shitty, animals smell worse than usual, can't breathe right, can't think straight, sand in your asscrack, too bright, smells wrong, cracked lips, dry mouth, can't even shit right, oph, and did I mention it's really fucking cold at night?

On a side note, how do these bugs get so fucking big in this inhospitable shithole?

This place has the best food yet.

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 01:24:35 GMT

I think I'm becoming addicted to marinated meat on skewers.

Would you like to know why I think this?

I just bought six skewers of my own so I can cook my own out in the desert.

I bought them instead of booze.

Help me. I am sick.

Camels.

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 15:45:19 GMT

And here I thought horses were the single most miserable animals ever to be cursed upon man.

If horses are proof that that the gods are a bunch of apathetic irresponsible jerks, then camels are proof that some among them really have it in for us.

They stink, for a start, and they have the tempermant of that old uncle that everyone secretly prayed would die soon, they spit some kind of rancid frothy substance at you if you get anywhere near the front of them, and trust me, you don't want to get anywhere near the back of them.

And they kick.

And they bite.

And they make these horrible noises.

Horses don't like them either. For once, that fucking horse and i actually agree on something.

Gadrobi.

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 18:09:17 GMT

After a long boring march through what we thought was nowhere we find ourselves at the edge of what really is nowhere.

Welcome to the city of Gadrobi. west from here there really is nothing. just scrub and desert for miles and miles.

Actually Gadrobi is four cities, or two cities, a camp that might as well be a city, and a small town inside one of the cities.

West Gadrobi is on the west side of the river. It's populated by people called Manthisites. According to the Geek Manthi is a religion, but you have to be ethnically Manthisite to be a part of it. They came here ages ago and founded a temple that grew into a city. They worship one god and he seems to be a grumpy unpleasant kind of fellow. They only let people who aren't Manthisite into the lower part of West Gadrobi, and actually the very highest part of it (which isn't very high, by the way, being built on a long low hill) is reserved only for their priesthood. Manthisites on the whole aren't much fun and they aren't very popular with anyone except other Manthisites. They won't eat with anyone else, won't drink from the same decanter, don't let their women out of the higher portion of the city, and will only ever talk about business with anyone. I guess if it weren't for all the potions and medicines that only they know how to make no one would put up with their shit.

East Gadrobi apparently grew up from the people who came here to trade with the Manthisites for their potions and medicines. Most of the people who live here worship their ancestors, and honor nature spirits (big distinction apparently) like just about everyone we've met in this area so far. They have lots of little shrines all over. The strange "not god, just a universe that has it in for us and we're trying to get out" guys are here too. i can't wrap my head around that stuff, but the Geek is fascinated, and Always seems to be spending more and more time with those guys.

North Gadrobi Starts where the river bends West, so West Gadrobi is South of North Gadrobi and across the river. North Gadrobi can't really be called a city. It doesn't hardly have any permanent structures and the population wildly fluctuates by the season. It's a sea of felt tents, thousands and thousands of them. I guess right now its population is at about its yearly largest. The horse tribesmen are almost all here for thier yearly council. Baht is up there right now paying respects and seeing family.

Nestled in on East Gadrobi's southern banks is the little town within a city we're staying in. It's called Suho which translates to Coin in the local chatter. Suho is where the foreigners live. There are two bridges across the river, one narrow one that connects East and West Gadrobi and one very wide one that connects Suho with the caravanseri south of West Gadrobi. They call the wider one Camel Bridge.

By far Suho is the most diverse place I've ever seen. I've seen people with every shade of skin imaginable and a few who dye themselves some unimaginable colors. I've seen elves, dwarfs, and even some orcs and goblins. I saw an ogre mercenary haggling with a dwarf merchant yesterday while a blackskinned man across the street kept trying to steal the ogre's custom away.

There's an awful lot to look over for sale here, and I'm thinking about getting some light leather armor made, something with a little protection that I can put my mail over if it's gonna get rough, but lighter and cooler for the trip out into nowhere.

New job.

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 18:53:40 GMT

We were trying to find work on the other side of the pass. It looked pretty good as there were merchants heading out west to the caravan routes all the time, but for some reason we just weren't having any luck. Actually the reason was pretty clear, people moving their livelihoods about don't like to take chances on anything or anyone new, especially when the new is a bunch of scruffy looking weirdo outlanders. I don't blame them too much, but my stomach has issues.

One night this odd little man in great big robes came to our camp looking for the Old Man. They spent some time in the Old Man's tent haggling and then we were told to pack up and be ready to head out at first light.

The Old Man says this little old guy is some sort of mage and he's doing "Something Important." Apparently he wouldn't go into any more detail than that, but he paid twice what we were asking the merchants in cash and will pay the same again when we get there. "Something Important" or not, if the guy has that kind of money then I'm game.

Mugs says wizards are big trouble and not to be trusted, but he has to admit that the money might well be worth the danger.

And of course, Happy thinks we're all going to die. That guy gets on my nerves.

Road stew.

Sat, 24 Dec 2005 01:45:56 GMT

some meat (a "borrowed" chicken, something unlucky enough to stand still by the road, lately I think a particularly unfriendly horse would be tasty.)

Some vegetables (More "borrowed" goods, anything that the guide says is edible)

Maybe some fruit (it "falls" off trees)

Some grain (lately we live off rice)

A large pot (or helmet) to cook it in

Clean (reasonable clean) water

Salt would be nice (anybody got any salt?)

Toss everything together, in the pot (or helmet) boil until it won't make you sick. Make sure you're in dashing distance of the latrines. Scarf it down as quickly as possible because it's better when it's hot.