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<blockquote data-quote="havenstone" data-source="post: 4769825" data-attributes="member: 61094"><p><strong>Across the Plains</strong></p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">AROUND MIDNIGHT, THE </span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">silent cage suddenly erupts as Curago and eight or nine of the more predatory soldiers launch themselves at the sleeping Ontaya. They are clearly hoping to kill or incapacitate her. Ash has been discreetly keeping watch, and shouts the alarm just as the thugs reach the young paladin. Ontaya comes up swinging, along with her friends. Lune hesitates for a moment, looking physically pained at the prospect of choosing a side -- especially Ontaya’s -- but then kicks out at the kneecap of one of the soldiers who’s charging Ash. Outside the cage, the Xaimani guards watch in silence, making no attempt to break up the fight.</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Meeshak forcefully jabs one of the attackers at a nerve point between two vertebrae, leaving him doubled up with pain. Ash drags another man off Ontaya, and knocks out the one-eyed soldier who accused him of betraying the North. Ontaya manages to control her berserker rage while banging heads together. When her strong right hook renders Curago unconscious, the handful of remaining thugs fall back warily. </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“Enough!” Ontaya roars, hurling Curago’s limp bulk across the cage. “If this idiocy ever happens again, I’ll invoke Ain’s justice and break the neck of the fool responsible. There will be peace in this cage, one way or the other.”</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">She sits back, grimacing. As the cage subsides into an uneasy quiet again, Ontaya looks around wearily at her friends. “And between us: no more secrets, no more working at cross purposes. We need to be able to trust each other, or we’re not going to survive this.”</span></p><p> </p><p><strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">AT MID-MORNING</span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">, the Xaimani strike camp. Hundreds of soldiers shoulder long ropes attached to the slave cages. The wood of the bars flexes and creaks as the great constructions start to roll across the plains. The rest of the legions march or ride alongside, wearing light armor and carrying a single short spear or sword. Ontaya gazes out at their armor, arms, and brightly colored decorations, trying to deduce their ranks and organization.</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Lune is staring back at a small pile of bodies which were pulled out of other cages in the morning. Many of the dead are women or children. “If they’re going to sell us as slaves, shouldn’t they be protecting us from each other? I mean, we’re worth money, aren’t we? And we’ve got to be worth a lot, to justify all these cages and soldiers.”</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“They’re preparing us to be slaves,” says Meeshak matter-of-factly. “Lock us up, let us treat each other like animals instead of human beings -- in the end, we break our own spirits. The Sistecherns have similar practices. It will save the Xaimani a lot of trouble in the long run.”</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Lune shakes his head, looking nauseated and worn down. He spends the evening with his face pressed up against the bars, watching a handful of the guards laying a set of ceramic tiles in intricate patterns. Gold is changing hands, and while the guards rarely speak, they do so in absorbed, urgent tones. Carwyn asks what he’s staring at, and Lune turns to her with eyes shining. “They gamble. They’re human.”</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Several days pass without incident; Curago and his friends appear to have been genuinely cowed by their beating. The weather is cooling into late autumn. With his daily casual examinations of the cage locks, Darren has halfway concocted an escape plan that he could put in place during the first major snowstorm. Then a few nights into the journey, they hear a commotion and shouts. Shortly before dawn, a terrible chorus of screams rises from the darkness ahead of them and continues as the sky brightens. When their cage rolls south, the party passes a cage whose wheels have been removed. Around it on all sides, Northern prisoners have been staked alive to the ground. A Xaimani herald stands atop the broken cage, repeating a single phrase; next to him, a sobbing Northerner translates: “This is the fate of all who attempt to deny their state of slavery.”</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">Korael says, almost inaudibly, “Someone must have escaped. They punish the whole cage when that happens.”</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“That was Nina’s cage,” Ash says, bile rising in his throat as he recognizes one of the people he glimpsed being herded into line with their friend. He forces himself to scan the dead and dying closely, but can not see Nina anywhere among them.</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">“They’ll be hunting hard for the escapee,” Korael declares. “And we’ll know if they catch him -- what they do to him will make this seem merciful.”</span></p><p> </p><p><strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">THE XAIMANI APPARENTLY </span></strong><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">don’t find Nina; at any rate, there is no public torture or execution. The party members shelve any plans they had of breaking out, since it would be a death sentence for any who couldn’t make it, and focus instead on daily survival. Employing all her charisma, Carwyn coaxes the guards into teaching Lune how to play their tile games (she herself initially holds back, wary of exposing Hamber to too much scrutiny). The Xaimani pay Lune in pebbles rather than gold. Soon he has a significant stash of rocks, and a relationship with the guards that while far from friendly is at least somewhat human.</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">The guards relent and begin bringing small quantities of milk to the cage; T’harai and Hamber are weaned off their diet of blessed blood and water. As the weeks pass, the kids discover their toes, then their tongues. The party relaxes its attempts to keep one of them hidden, as it becomes clear that the guards don’t particularly care how many babies there are in the cage, assuming that all of them were borne by one of the slaves.</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'">All the party members work hard to learn the Xaimani common language from Korael, with varying degrees of success. Meeshak finds the struggle particularly taxing, especially because his sleep has begun to be disturbed by strange, vivid dreams which leave him exhausted when he awakes. It’s a struggle to remember any of the details, but even through the haze of sleep they feel <em>important</em>.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="havenstone, post: 4769825, member: 61094"] [b]Across the Plains[/b] [B][FONT=Verdana]AROUND MIDNIGHT, THE [/FONT][/B][FONT=Verdana]silent cage suddenly erupts as Curago and eight or nine of the more predatory soldiers launch themselves at the sleeping Ontaya. They are clearly hoping to kill or incapacitate her. Ash has been discreetly keeping watch, and shouts the alarm just as the thugs reach the young paladin. Ontaya comes up swinging, along with her friends. Lune hesitates for a moment, looking physically pained at the prospect of choosing a side -- especially Ontaya’s -- but then kicks out at the kneecap of one of the soldiers who’s charging Ash. Outside the cage, the Xaimani guards watch in silence, making no attempt to break up the fight.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Meeshak forcefully jabs one of the attackers at a nerve point between two vertebrae, leaving him doubled up with pain. Ash drags another man off Ontaya, and knocks out the one-eyed soldier who accused him of betraying the North. Ontaya manages to control her berserker rage while banging heads together. When her strong right hook renders Curago unconscious, the handful of remaining thugs fall back warily. [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“Enough!” Ontaya roars, hurling Curago’s limp bulk across the cage. “If this idiocy ever happens again, I’ll invoke Ain’s justice and break the neck of the fool responsible. There will be peace in this cage, one way or the other.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]She sits back, grimacing. As the cage subsides into an uneasy quiet again, Ontaya looks around wearily at her friends. “And between us: no more secrets, no more working at cross purposes. We need to be able to trust each other, or we’re not going to survive this.”[/FONT] [B][FONT=Verdana]AT MID-MORNING[/FONT][/B][FONT=Verdana], the Xaimani strike camp. Hundreds of soldiers shoulder long ropes attached to the slave cages. The wood of the bars flexes and creaks as the great constructions start to roll across the plains. The rest of the legions march or ride alongside, wearing light armor and carrying a single short spear or sword. Ontaya gazes out at their armor, arms, and brightly colored decorations, trying to deduce their ranks and organization.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Lune is staring back at a small pile of bodies which were pulled out of other cages in the morning. Many of the dead are women or children. “If they’re going to sell us as slaves, shouldn’t they be protecting us from each other? I mean, we’re worth money, aren’t we? And we’ve got to be worth a lot, to justify all these cages and soldiers.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“They’re preparing us to be slaves,” says Meeshak matter-of-factly. “Lock us up, let us treat each other like animals instead of human beings -- in the end, we break our own spirits. The Sistecherns have similar practices. It will save the Xaimani a lot of trouble in the long run.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Lune shakes his head, looking nauseated and worn down. He spends the evening with his face pressed up against the bars, watching a handful of the guards laying a set of ceramic tiles in intricate patterns. Gold is changing hands, and while the guards rarely speak, they do so in absorbed, urgent tones. Carwyn asks what he’s staring at, and Lune turns to her with eyes shining. “They gamble. They’re human.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Several days pass without incident; Curago and his friends appear to have been genuinely cowed by their beating. The weather is cooling into late autumn. With his daily casual examinations of the cage locks, Darren has halfway concocted an escape plan that he could put in place during the first major snowstorm. Then a few nights into the journey, they hear a commotion and shouts. Shortly before dawn, a terrible chorus of screams rises from the darkness ahead of them and continues as the sky brightens. When their cage rolls south, the party passes a cage whose wheels have been removed. Around it on all sides, Northern prisoners have been staked alive to the ground. A Xaimani herald stands atop the broken cage, repeating a single phrase; next to him, a sobbing Northerner translates: “This is the fate of all who attempt to deny their state of slavery.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Korael says, almost inaudibly, “Someone must have escaped. They punish the whole cage when that happens.”[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“That was Nina’s cage,” Ash says, bile rising in his throat as he recognizes one of the people he glimpsed being herded into line with their friend. He forces himself to scan the dead and dying closely, but can not see Nina anywhere among them.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]“They’ll be hunting hard for the escapee,” Korael declares. “And we’ll know if they catch him -- what they do to him will make this seem merciful.”[/FONT] [B][FONT=Verdana]THE XAIMANI APPARENTLY [/FONT][/B][FONT=Verdana]don’t find Nina; at any rate, there is no public torture or execution. The party members shelve any plans they had of breaking out, since it would be a death sentence for any who couldn’t make it, and focus instead on daily survival. Employing all her charisma, Carwyn coaxes the guards into teaching Lune how to play their tile games (she herself initially holds back, wary of exposing Hamber to too much scrutiny). The Xaimani pay Lune in pebbles rather than gold. Soon he has a significant stash of rocks, and a relationship with the guards that while far from friendly is at least somewhat human.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]The guards relent and begin bringing small quantities of milk to the cage; T’harai and Hamber are weaned off their diet of blessed blood and water. As the weeks pass, the kids discover their toes, then their tongues. The party relaxes its attempts to keep one of them hidden, as it becomes clear that the guards don’t particularly care how many babies there are in the cage, assuming that all of them were borne by one of the slaves.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]All the party members work hard to learn the Xaimani common language from Korael, with varying degrees of success. Meeshak finds the struggle particularly taxing, especially because his sleep has begun to be disturbed by strange, vivid dreams which leave him exhausted when he awakes. It’s a struggle to remember any of the details, but even through the haze of sleep they feel [I]important[/I].[/FONT] [/QUOTE]
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