[puffyn]

Hi everyone,

Sorry I've been holding the game up, I've been out of town, and keeping up with the mayhem on Council of Wyrms sort of ate up all my dominions time. I am back now and ought to get my turn in soon, so hopefully we can progress a little further toward the end of the world (which I hear is located somewhere near Marignon).

Here's my turn 48 yarn; 51 will follow soon I hope.

-puffyn

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The attack, when it came, was both more and less than expected. For a sizable minority of lizards, who had not expected Marignon to attack at all, merely bluster, it was far worse than they had hoped, believing to the last that there was still some goodness and decency left in their friends and allies... well, allies, at least, to the north/south.

To others, particularly those who rallied around a certain aged shaman and his newly relevant plans on "How to defeat a trecherous alliance between Pithium and Marynown" (edited hastily by his clever young assistant Hema), the initial attack was, well, disappointing.

"You call this a war? Bah! Back in my day, when someone invaded your kingdom, they cared enough to make sure you knew it! Hatchlings these days..." rambled Lugal one day in council.

"Er, yes, great-grandfather, it's true that Marignon's first volley has not been as bad as we feared," jumped in Hema. She was a newly-appointed junior member of the council (advisory capacity only), and had quickly realized that she had been selected less for her academic brilliance, than for her (oh so occasional) ability to bring Lugal in line, and sometimes get him to shut up for a bit.

This was not one of those times.

"And another thing!" railed Lugal. These youngsters were too cocky, thought fighting a war with Pythium and not dying meant hey knew the first thing about war. He kept catching them in flagrant disrespect of his esteemed status as eldest of the clan, and he was not going to stand for that, no sir, not when the defense of C'tis rested on his bony shoulders.

"Their spies..." he paused for dramatic effect, "... are everywhere. Poised in the shadows in their deep purple robes, ready to stab you through with their coral knives, or blast your brains into smithereens, unless you have..."

"Brown robes," interrupted Hema.

There was an awkward silence.

"Marignon is known to send spies and assassins into neighboring lands, even in peace time, but they don't, ah, wear purple robes, so, you know, you can't, er, recognize them that way," she finished lamely. It had seemed like an important point to make, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out why. She couldn't imagine who would be foolish enough to select a gaudy color like purple for their assassins to wear, though.

"And we're doing the same thing," said Asalluhe, the new head of the guild of empoisonners, to scattered applause. He was young and popular and had quite a following. "Only our assassins blend into whatever scenery they're in, and then ," he said, and pantomimed a dagger thrust to the heart, complete with gasping sounds as the poison took effect. There was more scattered applause, and some cheering. Only last week word had reached the capitol of successful infiltration of one of Marignon's dens of scholars.

"And some of the really smart assassins," continued Asalluhe, insinuating that he of course belonged to this school of thought, "use poisoned bows to stay safely away from their targets. It's practically no risk at all," he finished, smiling.

Hema wondered idly how long it would take him to end up on her workbench, next to Lipit and all the others, and pondered whether she was a bad lizard for not being upset in the slightest at the thought.

"... constant vigilance!" said Lugal, seizing the gap in the conversation with a single-minded determination to finish his harangue that Hema couldn't help admiring.

"Mark my words, there will be attacks from within soon, oh yes, very soon," he went on. "Birds and beasts and even our own human populations, souls warped so they turn on us, ought've wiped em all out, really..."

"We've heard your opinions on the human question before, Lugal," said Kemosh, sighing. He knew he had to let the old lizard finish or there'd be hell to pay, but he was not about to let him rehash his stupid internment camp idea again.

"Yes, well, ahem, constant vigilance," said Lugal. Hema could almost hear him rummaging through his mental notes, trying to find the missing page. "And we should watch the seas – that's where they'll come for us in the end, rising up to engulf us all in madness and despair..."

There was silence, as the assembled councilors waited for Lugal to continue, or wondered why Marignon would go through their lone province adjacent to the sea when they could invade hundreds of kilometers of border directly, or (most likely) had fallen asleep. But after a few moments, the elder lizard shuffled out of the center of the High Rock and sat next to Hema, where he stared off into space, remembering something dark and damp and long ago...

Finally, Hema stood up to fill the silence. "What he means, of course, is that we must be prepared to expect the unexpected." She glanced nervously at Lugal, perhaps testing to see if he was really done talking so they might move on, but his eyes were far way in the caves of time.

Kemosh seized his chance. "Which is precisely what we are doing, my dear girl, of course," he said. "We have assembled a counter attack to the force of knights ravaging our northlands, which will be led by our, ah, esteemed colleague Lugal's own 'Big Snake'," he said hurriedly, spitting out the last words with some distaste. He eyed the elder lizard, worried he would jump in again, but Lugal was now humming under his breath and rocking back and forth a little, and paying the younger lizards no attention at all. Kemosh sighed with relief.

"Yes, I am pleased to announce that we have contacted one of the great and holy feathered serpents themselves, who is here at the High Rock today to say a few words about his plans for the defense of our people. If I may introduce Eshmun..."

There was a murmur in the crowd as the snake slithered up the stairs. "A Coatl!" "In this day? I thought they were all extinct." And he turned to the assembled lizards and began to speak, in a slightly halting, lisping accent, about his plans for salvation.

Hema got a funny feeling listening to him talk. It was like someone was trying to pull her tail, and she didn't like it at all. Sure, she had helped plan the clever communion that would empower the snake to strike Marignon hard. It was a very clever plan that Lugal had come up with and she wondered where he had ever picked it up.

But clever wasn't necessarily a match for a bunch of dumb knights in shiny armor with long pointy sticks. If someone would only ban the lance, then that might even things up a bit, she thought with a smile. But nobody else had a better idea, and the council was sure to vote to authorize Eshmun's forces to leave immediately. The only thing Hema could think of was to make sure someone responsible and experienced went with the snake and his growing coterie of young shamans, who had been trained specially by Lugal for this task, a thought that sometimes frankly terrified Hema.

Perhaps the great Arruli would be able to stop things from spiraling out of control, she thought. She would have to ask.




Laph was in her study when the chameleogram arrived. Shem and Tari were asleep, mercifully, curled up peacefully in their nest, but little Fela, the smallest and most insatiably curious of the hatching, was crawling all over Laph's books and scrolls. Laph was smiling to herself and thinking how much the little one reminded her of Ruli, and at first she didn't notice the sound of the door quietly opening.

And suddenly, there was a chameleon in the room, simulating a credible impression of a military uniform, handing her a letter, which could only be from the front, and by the way the lizard crisply deposited it in her hand, bowed slightly, and disappeared, it could only say one thing.

Laph choked back a sob, and reflexively picked up a surprised Fela, who had been clamoring for attention all morning and was startled to find herself the recipient of a sudden and prolonged hug.


A few hours later, when Laph had composed herself, she went the the part of the castle where the note said the box had been taken. There were many boxes there, too many, but at the moment she only cared about one. She stopped by the chameleogram headquarters herself, to drop off some urgent letters to the most skilled sauromancers in the land.

Laph wasn't about to let her egg brother be brought back as a revenant, not if she could help it. She had some words to say to him, and she expected him to be able to defend himself and tell her what exactly he could possibly have been thinking, getting his fool self killed.