MP Game - Yarnspinners

[CuriousCat]

Machaka: Turn 20

The battle had been a great success. Cetewayo was quite pleased with the outcome. Perhaps he should have taken a more personal role earlier. He sent word to the capital for reinforcements to meet him in route to his next conquest.

The march was hot and dry as the army crossed the plains. Karo and the other guards had resumed their duty to constantly accompany the King. He still disappeared from time to time, but they had not again voluntarily left him alone. Of course, after the battle few of the men believed that they could do much to defend the King that he could not accomplish more easily himself. During the battle he had moved like a blur and had seemed to be many places at once. He had killed a large number of the enemy and had never received a wound. Before the King had been respected because of his secular position and his obvious supernatural nature. However, now the superstitious dread was beginning to change into a more genuine respect for his abilities. Before the Priests had declared Cetewayo's divinity and everyone had acknowledged him as such. However, for most people this acknowledgement was simply mouthing the words that they were told to repeat. Now, however, the army was beginning to believe in the King's divinity on a much more visceral level.

Cetewayo noticed the more profound respect with which the soldiers had begun treating him. Their awe was now based on his battle prowess. In time they would realize his divinity with the entirety of their souls. He simply had to continue his success, expand the empire and make their lives better. A simple matter for a god. But could he do it?

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 20 ----

Military life is hostile to butter. I served under the great Alexander as he cut through the kingdoms of the world. We spent many seasons under the scorching Egyptian desert sun, where my butter turned to soup, and many more in the mountains of Medea, when my butter was rock hard in the bitter mornings. Yet somehow these swamps spoil butter faster than anywhere else in the known world. Every morning I stumble over to my saddle-bags and withdraw the precious day's ration, and every morning it is the consistency of sludge and smells of brackish water—barely worth putting on my moldy bread at all.

It is said that when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept that there were no more worlds to conquer. This morning, I wept, for spoilt as it may be, I still need my butter every morning. But today it was gone from my bags.

Around the hottest, most insect-filled part of the day, Balachandra arrived at the camp, with a small contingent of horsemen, a few more hoplites, and... My heart beat quickly for a moment when I saw the green robes of Apollo, the chestnut brown locks... but of course it was not my Thymbre. Stories spin false hopes in man. It is hard not to lie awake at night, thinking of Orpheus, the greatest singer this world will ever know, who descended into the Underworld, and would have won the release of his love, Eurydice, had he not looked back at the Last moment. It is foolishness. I have seen many strange things in this land, but the river is deep and cold, and those who pass it will never return.

I later had a chance to talk with this priestess of Apollo. She was called Andromache, and her familiar appearance was no accident, for in fact she was one of the slaves I had rescued from the evil warrior-women some months ago. She had fled the site of her torment, and arrived at Thymbre's temple, there entering into the divine mysteries. We wandered along the edge of the bog, helping pull each other out of the deadly quicksand. It was strange seeing a local woman in the Greek religious garb, but she had learned only enough during her short training at the temple to make her fairly burst with ridiculous questions:

"Is it true that Apollo raced with Hermes at the first Pythian Games at Delphi?"

"No... well, it depends. The stories we tell about the gods are really stories about ourselves. No one has ever actually seen one of the gods, but by believing in their stories, we become more like the gods ourselves."

"Wow, Apollo must have raced really fast if no one saw him!"

How could I explain to this girl that I had competed for the bay-leaf crown in the hoplite race many years ago. The gods were honored at the races, it was true, but they were not there. It was just men, the hot sun, and a will to win. Luckily, the conversation was interrupted by Balachandra, who carried new orders from the village council.

It should come as no great surprise that their missive nonsensically ordered us to turn back around and trudge back to the village of the warrior-women. There, to do... who knows what? Balachandra was certainly no help; all he cared about (I swear by Zeus I am not making this up) was whether my butter ration had disappeared that morning. When I assured him that it had, he face split in a ridiculous grin.

---

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 21 ----

We were overtaken by a messenger about a mile outside of the warrior-women's village. (It is known as the Sinking Land, though whether in reference to the ankle-deep mud everywhere or to the sinking feeling one gets in one's stomach on realizing that one will be spending time here, I do not know.) The lad, perhaps a dozen years old, had clearly run a long way through these swamps, which is no mean feat. I offered to let him ride the rest of the way into town on one of our horses, but he refused. "There's been a battle, a glorious victory, and I must tell the Lady Amshula." Lady? I thought. "But wait.. what battle?" Outside of the small island we had been ordered to conquer (before we were ordered not to conquer it), there wasn't a hostile province for many leagues, and the kid, though tired, was no Phaedippas.

"It was magnificent," he said, brightening. I have observed a strong correlation between how broadly a local smiles, and how outrageous the next words out of his mouth are, and this trait is evidently acquired quite young. "I was laying down logs for our cows, so that they would track less of the precious mud into the house, when I heard a sound, like a dozen fish flying through the autumn leaves," he began, reciting the story he had probably spent hours crafting into incoherence. "So I tied an onion to my belt, and I ran into the village, and saw the one of the color of sloe, as if on the backs of two pigeons, and he was smiting our oppressors, and my people sang out with joy, and we ran for our swords and churning sticks to join in. The important thing is that I was wearing an onion on my belt..."

Seeing as how there was no hope of getting a Version without pigeons and flying fish, I told him that perhaps he should just wait until he was in town, and therefore only have to tell his whole story once, at which point he immediately ran off again. "I wonder if he saw Hermes?" said Andromache, excitedly. "He has wings on his feet."

"What makes you think he saw a god?" I asked, though the locals seem to see gods everywhere. "Because," she explained, "blue is a divine color."

I laid aside a few questions that sprang to mind, such as Why would Hermes be blue?, and decided to stop asking questions for fear that I would receive yet more nonsensical answers. There was only one blue-tinted village liberator in these parts, and he was, mercifully, dead. I'd heard there had been a large funeral pyre after they had finally conquered Skeldmarsh, which some of the soldiers I was traveling with had even been at. And even if those reports were completely false (always a strong possibility), there was still no earthly way anyone could have travelled through the vast tracts of swamp more quickly than Balachandra and the troops he led, and they had seen nothing in the way of blue pigeon-footed individuals. This is what comes of settling swamps, I thought. Hallucinations and madness...

When I got into the village, I noticed that Amshula had decided a proper fortification requires twenty spindly little towers for every arm's span of wall. Since this quickly used up all of the available stone, there were large gaps in the walls, and no one paid any heed to which were supposed to have gates on them. I was searching for something suitably caustic to say when Divikar rushed up. "I have just had word that we must leave tomorrow, to fight in the east," he said. "They say that skeletons ride there, and nobody will live in their land."

Skeletons. Thmybre. For some reason I turned to The Collected Sayings of Pandokos the Prophet:

And Lo, Pandokos, who had wandered many moons in the southern marshes, met death in the east, but was unafraid. He recalled the words of banishment uttered by Navnit at the mountain pass, and vowed to study them well, and memorize this incantation so that he should not join the dead, but rather continue to protect this valuable book, and provide witty sayings for it to print...

I don't know why I bother reading this book. It's clearly more a work of fiction than an accurate account of my "sayings", and I've never met anyone called Navnit. There are men to organize into formations for battle.

---

[deccan]

Thanks for the dramatis personae, Puffyn, it's a nice touch. Keep up the good work!

[Sedna]

Turn 21, R'lyeh

I do appreciate my peoples' love. It's touching to see hordes of young people picking up sticks and kitchen knives, worshiping the darkness, and skipping to join my army. Unfortunately, in the part of my kingdom where this has been prevalent of late I rely on human generals to forward my cause, and they ignore my requests to stop feeding the punks—which costs a lot of money. I have two options. The first is to find the mythical "World's Largest Turnip" and make turnip soup for everyone. The second is to send them to fight Folke, the vampire count. It's the strangest thing. My human commanders have no problem sending young persons-of-militia to certain blood-sucking awful death, but they refuse to withhold food from them. I'm not sure I like this. Perhaps I'll order all the commanders to lead from the front of the battle lines. That way I'll be rid of them too.

My fort in the Lake (I think of it as my summer cottage) is finished. I'll just clear the shoreline of some more pesky human villages and then I'll have a cozy little spot with gorgeous panoramas. If only I had a Mrs. soul-sucking-dreaming-mad-elder-god-bent-on-destroying-the-world. Winter really is the time for love. I pressed a young maiden into research duty to keep Sammy company, but apparently she's the sort of magical researcher who keeps skulls and dead animals in her desk, and Sammy was scared of her. So I got him another (human lives are cheap change to order and dispose of at my will), but this one's too fiery for poor, timid, contemplative Sammy. Ah well, third time's the charm I suppose. Eventually, I'm sure Sammy will appreciate his harem in aggregate, even if he doesn't like any of them in particular. This is important, since Farol is going off to die fight against Folke, and who else will gently guide Sammy back to his desk and mysteriously melted chains which keep him safe from the monsters in his closet?

The center of the world is an interesting place these days. My scouts, wandering on secret paths beneath the waves, report that great empires are moving and may struggle soon. Altantians of course, but also the men who love nature and fire, the sickening death, and strange winged creatures. The world is so full of marvelous things. I think I should be happy as king.

If I am to descend into the seas again, I would do well to acquire some immunity to poison. There are a great number of tritons down there, and although I love their taste, their nasty spears make me sick. For now I will rely on the garrison which recently finished the fort to rid the waves of their kind. But soon, soon... I've been above the water for nearly two full years now, and I long to return to the darkness, the depths.

[CuriousCat]

Machaka: Turn 21

Spirits were high as the army marched into battle. There was the feeling that as long as the King was with them, the warriors were invincible. Karo even managed to put his worries about the high priests out of his mind as he once again left the King without an escort to fight the battle.

Cetewayo prepared for battle. He was anxious. He had to continue winning, increasing the size of the nation. Winning battles also won him adulation and heart felt approval from his soldiers. The soldiers' approval would spread to their friends and families and thus throughout the country. The high priests would have to learn that HE was the god in this equation and that they served him. It would not be an easy transition. The priests enjoyed the power they wielded. They would not give it up easily. Of course, he didn't want all of the priesthood to be out of power. Indeed, he would need most of the priesthood to convey his wishes to the populace. However, the high priests of each of the priestly orders would have to sacrifice a bit of power... hmmm... interesting word, "sacrifice".

The battle began. This battle promised to be more difficult than the Last. Instead of lightly armored footmen the enemy here was heavily armored infantry and even more heavily armored knights. There was another of the foolish priests who served no god. The archers fired great flights of arrows into the enemy infantry and scored quite a few hits. Meanwhile the knights engaged the Machakan hoplites. The battle grew quite bloody and some hoplites fell. Just as things began to look grim Cetewayo joined the battle. He began slicing into the knights' flank. After a great deal of butchery and blood the enemy turned and fled. The men were in a frenzy and chased the fleeing army down and slaughtered them to a man.

Cetewayo was happy. His plans were beginning to bear fruit. However, the army had suffered significant losses in this battle. Could he risk fighting another so soon?

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 22 ----

The sun rose this morning. I sit in my tent, long after the sun has set. My candle will soon burn out, and still I am trying to write sense. Still trying to figure it out. Still trying to find the words that might forestall the death of all my veteran men and the locals who employ us.

The sun rose this morning, and my butter was missing again. We had made camp outside of a tiny village in Vorgunmarsh (the entire region has only a few hundred inhabitants), and stayed up too late listening to their ghost stories about the dead riders who come to steal the souls of men so that they are never reborn in the eternal cycle these folks believe in. A year ago I would not have credited these tall tales, but since then I have come to understand that every tale has some grain of truth.

The sun rose this morning, and the village was gone. In its place was a silent horde of undead on skeleton horses. We rushed to battle formations: silver shields and hoplites in the center, horses on the flank. Long we stood in the chill morning air, and stared at death. Without a warning, without a sound, they charged and I saw it all again: the charge, the faltering of our men, the sudden death of my world. Something snapped. I cried to Apollo, god of the sun, god of light. I cursed Hades and the underworld for taking my love and demanded vengeance for his fallen servant.

The sun rose this morning, like it does every morning, but then it did something it had never done before. The sky grew dark, except for a single ray of sun light, which burnt one skeleton until oblivion. I had no time to wonder at this, for Andromache was shouting some words I heard Thymbre use, once, at that other battle. And suddenly... though I cannot recall them now, I knew them, and shouted them as well. And at each cry we saw some of them disappear, vanish. Only a few reached our lines. A lucky thrust skewered Divikar, and then our cavalry was at their rear, and out line held in the front. Normal sounds returned to the world, and all sign of battle was gone from the field, save for a few dead of our men.

The sun rose this morning, but as if cursing us now in this hour, it disappeared behind a thousand arrows. Knowing that death had not yet despaired of taking us that day, we turned toward the archers and charged again. It was then that my day got really strange. I saw amongst the archers a blue giant. He kicked, and archer bits flew everywhere, and bombardment of my troops stopped as they turned to focus on him. I urged our men onwards. I saw the giant fall with a thousand arrows sticking in him just before the first troops reached his side. I realized with a sickening feeling that the indomitable phalanx was plowing into lightly armored men not undead, or lizards, or even bandits, but upstanding men with fair faces and bright uniforms, who stood valiantly and unafraid, although they wore no armor for close fighting. Many of them, keeping together and helping their wounded, escaped to the safety of the nearby woods.

The sun rose this morning, and now its rays shown upon a ground littered with bodies. As we searched for the wounded to try to help those who we could, and speed the hopeless on their way with a coin for the boat-man, Andromache and I uncovered some odd objects. I picked up a short sword which weighed almost nothing, but she uncovered a dagger with a snake (a real, live snake) coiled around it's blade, and a pair of boots, which were clearly designed to be imitations of the boots of Hermes. But when she put them on, she flew above the battlefield, shouting like a giddy school girl, "Whee! Hey, everyone look at me, I'm flying! I'm flying!" Then her snake dagger got caught in her impractical priestess robes and she tumbled to the ground in a heap.

The sun rose this morning, and that is now the only thing in the world I am really sure of. The locals claim that the giant, blue-armed thing was actually Limmy, brought back from the dead (though I feel I am missing some nuances of their strange beliefs about death). There was no body, and we had all been under much stress, so a hallucination seems more likely, but then I cannot explain the odd items we found. We tried to heal a few of the archers, but all passed away before nightfall. One spoke the local language a little, and through multiple translations I realized that they were troops in the employ of the empire of Man, which distant scout reports agree is the largest power in this part of the world. I must write to their leaders as soon as possible. My villagers cannot afford to have a war started with so mighty a people because of such a silly accident.

The sun rose this morning. I hope that it will again tomorrow, and that it will look with more favor upon me, and my small band, so far from home, in a land so mad.

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