MP Game - Yarnspinners

[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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