ready for a new round of Ceramic DM?(judgements in, check in for finals...)
- Thread starter alsih2o
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Desdichado
Hero
NoOneofConsequence
First Post
Here goes.
Garrinfeth and Hobard left the Ducal castle through the main gate and re-emerged onto the street. On either side of the gate the well dressed guardsmen stood at attention. The audience with the Duke, to pay the “adventurer’s duty”, had been less painful than they had anticipated and Garrinfeth in particular was happy with the outcome. He pulled the tan leather hood of his cloak up over his head, to protect from the chill wind, though his companion, Hobard Half-dwarf, resolutely refused to acknowledge the weather. The two men looked up and down along the street, searching for the third member of their small company, who should have been waiting for them.
“Hobard, old friend,” the swarthy wizard said casually. “Can you tell me why everyone is waving at us?” Garrinfeth raised his hand uncertainly to return the waves of a dozen different peasants along the street.
“Dunno,” replied Hobard. “Maybe they heard ‘bout your special talents, eh? ‘Specially ‘tween the sheets!” The half-dwarf smirked.
“Aye, perhaps, though many of those waving are in fact men.”
“Liberal minded folk, these,” quipped Hobard, and guffawed at his own humour. From further down the muddy street a crowd was growing and many of the waving people pointed the two adventurers in that direction. The two freebooters began to make their way towards the crowd.
“I have an unpleasant suspicion,” said Garrinfeth.
As they rushed towards the crowd they could see, in the midst of the throng, that a square of sorts had been set up by stringing two rope lines between two huge long-haul wagons. Standing near one of the wagons, stripped to the waist, was Orrifed, a young farmer’s son turned warrior and the third member of the adventurer’s cabal. From the way he was waving his arms and squatting to warm up his legs, it was clear that Orrifed was preparing for a wrestling match. Pushing his tangled blonde mop of hair out of his eyes, the young man caught sight of his two companions and waved to them cheerfully.
“Hola, you two!” Orrifed called. “You’re just in time to watch me!”
“Watch you do what?” asked Garrinfeth archly.
“Wrestle,” answered Orrifed simply, smiling all the while. “Apparently they’ve got this local bully who’s never been taken in a match. When I told some folk that I was a fair hand in the ring, they put me up to it. Good way to make a bit of a name, what say?”
“A local bully?” breathed Hobard, aghast. “Boy you have no idea what you’re in, do you?”
“Oh don’t be so serious, Hobard,” chided Orrifed pleasantly. “You said it yourself, I’m a great wrestler.” He slapped himself on the chest in a gesture of manly confidence.
Hobard ignored the young man’s words and turned instead to Garrinfeth. “We must stop this!” he said, a genuine note of panic rising in his voice.
“It may be too late,” answered Garrinfeth, noting that another shirtless man was stepping now into the makeshift wrestling ring. He was tall, but not especially so, and genuinely obese. He had small black eyes and a bald head. He grinned at the cheering crowd and then at Orrifed. One could not tell it from looking, but Garrifeth knew that the man was half bred too, with the blood of ogres in his veins. The wizard addressed his young companion.
“Orrifed you have been deceived,” Garrinfeth said earnestly. “That is Kal-Kinnoh. He is champion of all this region and with good reason, for he is part ogre by birth. He draws strength from the very earth. No ordinary wrestler could defeat him. He is brutal with his victims. The crowd has tricked you; you’ve been lured into a contest that could be your death.”
“Surely you don’t mean that?” replied Orrifed, doubting the words but persuaded by the wizard’s demeanour. Before Orrifed could receive a more detailed explanation however, the eager crowd pressed him forward to the ropes and into the ring. Once inside, Orrifed gave no thoughts to doubt, concentrating instead on his opponent, and his youthful confidence soon reasserted itself.
Garrinfeth and Hobard pressed their way to the ringside, watching the match develop. At first, Orrifed circled about the fatter man, dodging back and forth and landing stinging open handed blows. Kal-Kinnoh took the strikes almost with good humour. Then, thinking that he saw an advantage, Orrifed dove at his opponent and laid a shoulder lock upon him. The young warrior’s look of focussed strength changed suddenly to one of shocked horror, as Kal-Kinnoh exerted superhuman strength, and pulled Orrifed’s arms away from the shoulder lock with the ease that a father pulls away a wrestling child. While Orrifed was still trying to comprehend what was happening to him, Kal-Kinnoh felled him with a single over hand blow. The stout young man was knocked to his knees in the dirt and before he could recover his wits, Kal-Kinnoh had gripped him by the throat and was beginning to squeeze. Orrifed let out a single grunt of pain as he tried to break Kal-Kinnoh’s brutal grip. When it became clear that he could not the young man slapped at his thigh, the conventional sign of submission, yielding Kal-Kinnoh the victory. In spite of his opponent’s surrender, Kal-Kinnoh would not stop.
“Yielding,” called Hobard desperately from the sideline. “He yields!” But the half-dwarf’s voice was swallowed by the roaring of the crowd. The two adventurers watched in disgust and horror as the brute Kal-Kinnoh murdered their friend in public view. When at last the young man’s neck cracked loudly and collapsed under the obscene hands. Kal-Kinnoh pushed the body down into the mud and looked to the two at the sidelines.
“This is what we does with cocksure loudmouths in this town,” he declared savagely, and the crowd cheered louder. Then the champion wrestler left the ring and accompanied by flunkies and hangers on, stalked back to a bench outside a local tavern, where he still had a tankard waiting for him.
“We can’t allow this to stand,” said Hobard angrily.
“And so we shan’t,” agreed Garrinfeth. Reaching into one of the many small pouches on his belt, he drew forth the mystical components for one his magics and then began to walk slowly through the dispersing crowd to where Kal-Kinnoh sat, ‘holding court’. Garrinfeth stood silently in front of the small crowd, apparently studying the inn and tavern in front of which they were sitting. Kal-Kinnoh drained his tankard in a draught, foam spilling down the sides of his mouth, and then fixed his eyes in a threatening stare at the pair of adventurers.
“What do you want?” he asked sneeringly.
“Tell me,” said Garrinfeth, his fingers moving surreptitiously. “What do they call this tavern?”
“The Orc’s Dagger,” said Kal-Kinnoh. He looked over the shoulder at the tavern’s entrance and pointed at a plaster hand of an orc wielding a dagger, apparently protruding from the wall above where the name “The Orc’s Dagger” was written in faded gold lettering. It was a gruesome blazon and entirely suited to the kind of rough house that Kal-Kinnoh and his crew would frequent. “It’s plain as day you stupid foreign…”
Kal-Kinnoh’s abusive words choked off, as he stared in horror at the plaster figurine. All about him looked as well, but they could not see what he was seeing. In Kal-Kinnoh’s vision, the orc’s hand had separated itself from the wall of the tavern and was now flying through the air towards him. He leapt fell back from the table and cried out as the phantom blade slashed near his throat. The others seated about him exclaimed in surprise and alarm as a line of blood, as of a blade slash, appeared on Kal-Kinnoh’s skin, seemingly from no cause. The half-ogre jumped to his feet, eyes darting about, seeking escape from a terror only he could see.
“Here,” said one of his companions to Garrinfeth. “What you done?” Hobard fixed the man with a steely glare.
“Take care he don’t do it to you!” warned the half dwarf and the man and his friends stepped back cautiously.
Meanwhile, two more cuts had opened on Kal-Kinnoh’s skin, and he fled screaming into the tavern’s taproom and up the stairs to his own quarters. From outside, the adventurers and the wrestler’s companions could here him roaring about his room, dodging and hiding as best he could.
“Will it kill him?” Hobard asked as the street began to clear around them.
“Perhaps, but it is unlikely,” answered Garrinfeth. “But I have thought of something more fitting. Why don’t you see to poor Orrifed’s body while I finish up here.” Hobard nodded and walked back to where the farmer’s son’s body still lay in the muddy street.
Garrinfeth took a long pipe from his belt pouch and stuffed it with a strange smelling tobacco, purple in colour. He chanted something as he lit the pipe and then began to puff on it methodically. No smoke came from the pipe’s bowl however, though the tobacco was plainly alight, glowing as it did with each puff. Garrinfeth continued to puff as he scanned the street, looking especially to the rooftops. Soon, on the branch of a tree that grew in front of one of the houses, he spotted what he was looking for, a small bird. Holding out his finger, and still puffing on the pipe, he silently called the bird to him. The little creature flittered to him and alighted calmly on his extended digit.
“I have a favour to ask, little one,” said the wizard, his pipe still in the corner of his mouth. Then he removed it and breathed smoke from his mouth into the little bird’s face. The creature sat stock still for a moment. “Go deliver that for me, would you?” instructed Garrinfeth, and the little bird flew from his hand. It circled a few times and then headed up to the window sill of Kal-Kinnoh’s room. Standing on the sill, it opened its beak as if to sing, and instead spewed forth the magical smoke. It came in gentle puffs and as it entered the room, the noise of struggle within subsided. Then the little creature flew off back to its tree. Happy with his work, Garrinfeth walked off to assist Hobard with Orrifed.
The next day, when Kal-Kinnoh’s erstwhile companions thought to look for him, they found him in his room. He was dead, and his body was encased in a block of solid glass. One of his hands was pressed against the surface of the glass, as if against a wall, hoping to get out. His face was contorted in fear and his mouth opened to scream in terror. Lying on the top of the block of glass was a scroll, upon which was written in a fine hand;
“This is what WE do to those who would slay the innocent and unwary for sport.”
Kal-Kinnoh’s friends left, never to return to the tavern. The tavern keeper, having suffered many years under the hands of Kal-Kinnoh and his friends, was not displeased to find the half ogre so slain. Rather, he had the glass block mounted upon a stone out the front of his tavern and the words of the scroll carved into the block. He changed the tavern’s name to “The Judgement Rendered”, and his establishment prospered for many years.
Garrinfeth and Hobard left the Ducal castle through the main gate and re-emerged onto the street. On either side of the gate the well dressed guardsmen stood at attention. The audience with the Duke, to pay the “adventurer’s duty”, had been less painful than they had anticipated and Garrinfeth in particular was happy with the outcome. He pulled the tan leather hood of his cloak up over his head, to protect from the chill wind, though his companion, Hobard Half-dwarf, resolutely refused to acknowledge the weather. The two men looked up and down along the street, searching for the third member of their small company, who should have been waiting for them.
“Hobard, old friend,” the swarthy wizard said casually. “Can you tell me why everyone is waving at us?” Garrinfeth raised his hand uncertainly to return the waves of a dozen different peasants along the street.
“Dunno,” replied Hobard. “Maybe they heard ‘bout your special talents, eh? ‘Specially ‘tween the sheets!” The half-dwarf smirked.
“Aye, perhaps, though many of those waving are in fact men.”
“Liberal minded folk, these,” quipped Hobard, and guffawed at his own humour. From further down the muddy street a crowd was growing and many of the waving people pointed the two adventurers in that direction. The two freebooters began to make their way towards the crowd.
“I have an unpleasant suspicion,” said Garrinfeth.
As they rushed towards the crowd they could see, in the midst of the throng, that a square of sorts had been set up by stringing two rope lines between two huge long-haul wagons. Standing near one of the wagons, stripped to the waist, was Orrifed, a young farmer’s son turned warrior and the third member of the adventurer’s cabal. From the way he was waving his arms and squatting to warm up his legs, it was clear that Orrifed was preparing for a wrestling match. Pushing his tangled blonde mop of hair out of his eyes, the young man caught sight of his two companions and waved to them cheerfully.
“Hola, you two!” Orrifed called. “You’re just in time to watch me!”
“Watch you do what?” asked Garrinfeth archly.
“Wrestle,” answered Orrifed simply, smiling all the while. “Apparently they’ve got this local bully who’s never been taken in a match. When I told some folk that I was a fair hand in the ring, they put me up to it. Good way to make a bit of a name, what say?”
“A local bully?” breathed Hobard, aghast. “Boy you have no idea what you’re in, do you?”
“Oh don’t be so serious, Hobard,” chided Orrifed pleasantly. “You said it yourself, I’m a great wrestler.” He slapped himself on the chest in a gesture of manly confidence.
Hobard ignored the young man’s words and turned instead to Garrinfeth. “We must stop this!” he said, a genuine note of panic rising in his voice.
“It may be too late,” answered Garrinfeth, noting that another shirtless man was stepping now into the makeshift wrestling ring. He was tall, but not especially so, and genuinely obese. He had small black eyes and a bald head. He grinned at the cheering crowd and then at Orrifed. One could not tell it from looking, but Garrifeth knew that the man was half bred too, with the blood of ogres in his veins. The wizard addressed his young companion.
“Orrifed you have been deceived,” Garrinfeth said earnestly. “That is Kal-Kinnoh. He is champion of all this region and with good reason, for he is part ogre by birth. He draws strength from the very earth. No ordinary wrestler could defeat him. He is brutal with his victims. The crowd has tricked you; you’ve been lured into a contest that could be your death.”
“Surely you don’t mean that?” replied Orrifed, doubting the words but persuaded by the wizard’s demeanour. Before Orrifed could receive a more detailed explanation however, the eager crowd pressed him forward to the ropes and into the ring. Once inside, Orrifed gave no thoughts to doubt, concentrating instead on his opponent, and his youthful confidence soon reasserted itself.
Garrinfeth and Hobard pressed their way to the ringside, watching the match develop. At first, Orrifed circled about the fatter man, dodging back and forth and landing stinging open handed blows. Kal-Kinnoh took the strikes almost with good humour. Then, thinking that he saw an advantage, Orrifed dove at his opponent and laid a shoulder lock upon him. The young warrior’s look of focussed strength changed suddenly to one of shocked horror, as Kal-Kinnoh exerted superhuman strength, and pulled Orrifed’s arms away from the shoulder lock with the ease that a father pulls away a wrestling child. While Orrifed was still trying to comprehend what was happening to him, Kal-Kinnoh felled him with a single over hand blow. The stout young man was knocked to his knees in the dirt and before he could recover his wits, Kal-Kinnoh had gripped him by the throat and was beginning to squeeze. Orrifed let out a single grunt of pain as he tried to break Kal-Kinnoh’s brutal grip. When it became clear that he could not the young man slapped at his thigh, the conventional sign of submission, yielding Kal-Kinnoh the victory. In spite of his opponent’s surrender, Kal-Kinnoh would not stop.
“Yielding,” called Hobard desperately from the sideline. “He yields!” But the half-dwarf’s voice was swallowed by the roaring of the crowd. The two adventurers watched in disgust and horror as the brute Kal-Kinnoh murdered their friend in public view. When at last the young man’s neck cracked loudly and collapsed under the obscene hands. Kal-Kinnoh pushed the body down into the mud and looked to the two at the sidelines.
“This is what we does with cocksure loudmouths in this town,” he declared savagely, and the crowd cheered louder. Then the champion wrestler left the ring and accompanied by flunkies and hangers on, stalked back to a bench outside a local tavern, where he still had a tankard waiting for him.
“We can’t allow this to stand,” said Hobard angrily.
“And so we shan’t,” agreed Garrinfeth. Reaching into one of the many small pouches on his belt, he drew forth the mystical components for one his magics and then began to walk slowly through the dispersing crowd to where Kal-Kinnoh sat, ‘holding court’. Garrinfeth stood silently in front of the small crowd, apparently studying the inn and tavern in front of which they were sitting. Kal-Kinnoh drained his tankard in a draught, foam spilling down the sides of his mouth, and then fixed his eyes in a threatening stare at the pair of adventurers.
“What do you want?” he asked sneeringly.
“Tell me,” said Garrinfeth, his fingers moving surreptitiously. “What do they call this tavern?”
“The Orc’s Dagger,” said Kal-Kinnoh. He looked over the shoulder at the tavern’s entrance and pointed at a plaster hand of an orc wielding a dagger, apparently protruding from the wall above where the name “The Orc’s Dagger” was written in faded gold lettering. It was a gruesome blazon and entirely suited to the kind of rough house that Kal-Kinnoh and his crew would frequent. “It’s plain as day you stupid foreign…”
Kal-Kinnoh’s abusive words choked off, as he stared in horror at the plaster figurine. All about him looked as well, but they could not see what he was seeing. In Kal-Kinnoh’s vision, the orc’s hand had separated itself from the wall of the tavern and was now flying through the air towards him. He leapt fell back from the table and cried out as the phantom blade slashed near his throat. The others seated about him exclaimed in surprise and alarm as a line of blood, as of a blade slash, appeared on Kal-Kinnoh’s skin, seemingly from no cause. The half-ogre jumped to his feet, eyes darting about, seeking escape from a terror only he could see.
“Here,” said one of his companions to Garrinfeth. “What you done?” Hobard fixed the man with a steely glare.
“Take care he don’t do it to you!” warned the half dwarf and the man and his friends stepped back cautiously.
Meanwhile, two more cuts had opened on Kal-Kinnoh’s skin, and he fled screaming into the tavern’s taproom and up the stairs to his own quarters. From outside, the adventurers and the wrestler’s companions could here him roaring about his room, dodging and hiding as best he could.
“Will it kill him?” Hobard asked as the street began to clear around them.
“Perhaps, but it is unlikely,” answered Garrinfeth. “But I have thought of something more fitting. Why don’t you see to poor Orrifed’s body while I finish up here.” Hobard nodded and walked back to where the farmer’s son’s body still lay in the muddy street.
Garrinfeth took a long pipe from his belt pouch and stuffed it with a strange smelling tobacco, purple in colour. He chanted something as he lit the pipe and then began to puff on it methodically. No smoke came from the pipe’s bowl however, though the tobacco was plainly alight, glowing as it did with each puff. Garrinfeth continued to puff as he scanned the street, looking especially to the rooftops. Soon, on the branch of a tree that grew in front of one of the houses, he spotted what he was looking for, a small bird. Holding out his finger, and still puffing on the pipe, he silently called the bird to him. The little creature flittered to him and alighted calmly on his extended digit.
“I have a favour to ask, little one,” said the wizard, his pipe still in the corner of his mouth. Then he removed it and breathed smoke from his mouth into the little bird’s face. The creature sat stock still for a moment. “Go deliver that for me, would you?” instructed Garrinfeth, and the little bird flew from his hand. It circled a few times and then headed up to the window sill of Kal-Kinnoh’s room. Standing on the sill, it opened its beak as if to sing, and instead spewed forth the magical smoke. It came in gentle puffs and as it entered the room, the noise of struggle within subsided. Then the little creature flew off back to its tree. Happy with his work, Garrinfeth walked off to assist Hobard with Orrifed.
The next day, when Kal-Kinnoh’s erstwhile companions thought to look for him, they found him in his room. He was dead, and his body was encased in a block of solid glass. One of his hands was pressed against the surface of the glass, as if against a wall, hoping to get out. His face was contorted in fear and his mouth opened to scream in terror. Lying on the top of the block of glass was a scroll, upon which was written in a fine hand;
“This is what WE do to those who would slay the innocent and unwary for sport.”
Kal-Kinnoh’s friends left, never to return to the tavern. The tavern keeper, having suffered many years under the hands of Kal-Kinnoh and his friends, was not displeased to find the half ogre so slain. Rather, he had the glass block mounted upon a stone out the front of his tavern and the words of the scroll carved into the block. He changed the tavern’s name to “The Judgement Rendered”, and his establishment prospered for many years.
NoOneofConsequence
First Post
Here goes.
Double post
Double post
Last edited:
NoOneofConsequence
First Post
Sorry, forgot to write the picture numbers into the story.
Pic 1: first paragraph
Pic 2: final pragraph
Pic 3: third last paragraph
Pic 4: in the middle
Pic 5: scene out front of the tavern.
Hope that's ok, I know we can't edit stories once they're up.
Pic 1: first paragraph
Pic 2: final pragraph
Pic 3: third last paragraph
Pic 4: in the middle
Pic 5: scene out front of the tavern.
Hope that's ok, I know we can't edit stories once they're up.
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