[AAR] Ull, Lord of the Open Road

[Leif_-]

Turns 2 and 3

I study the lands surrounding Mount Cephalos and I watch as Eioneus march his pitiful band of soldiers up its slopes to harden them. They are not ready, but Time is still the saviour. They will get ready.

Eioneus still thinks he owes his promotion to castellan to his own destiny, and the city fathers still think he owes his loyalty to them. It amuses me. Even when Eioneus brings his lover Askalaphos out to drink at my spring, he believes the notion his own.

I tie Askalaphos' destiny to mine as I had Eioneus', and in Askalaphos I find what I was seeking. This young man yearns for purpose, for something to believe in, for a fixed point to leverage his life around. I watch him dream, and I provide him. I tell him true lies and wrong truths and real dreams and I claim my right as the foundation of all his existance. Eagerly, he accepts.

I search the moonlit spires of Cephalos and find what I was hoping against hope to find. A herd of winged horses, descendants of the great Teous, my sacred mount of old. His blood runs thin, but still it remembers, still it runs true. I spot a young mare and I watch her carefully as she makes her descent through the ever-present clouds surrounding the top of Mount Cephalos. I guide her to where Askalaphos is sleeping fitfully, dreaming feaverish dreams of holy truth and holy war.

I let her guard him while I put my attention elsewher, searching the southern slopes of Cephalos. If Teous' brood still ranges among the mountain's peaks, then maybe even older orders have survived the tyranny of time.

I find her playing at her old tricks, stalking a young goatherd, playing the old game of hot blood and cold hearts. She shivers when I lay my eyes on her and seeks to hide, but I know what name she bore of old, Ephipania of the Oreiad, and she can not hide from that. She still shivers, but can not prevent me from reclaiming the allegiance she owes me.

I bring her down from her beloved mountain and into the city she hates. The house of Eioneus is a poor excuse for a mansion, but it is a beginning, and for now it will suit Oreiad's task of rebuilding the magical workshops that the Pantokrator pulled down.

The two lovers I send north; to defeat the scattered horse nomads on the Numecrian plains and bring them my into my fold. It is not much of a campaign, but it is a beginning.

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