NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haraash Saan" data-source="post: 5099052" data-attributes="member: 46615">Quick as a flash my friends’ weapons were drawn and they charged off through the trees to aid Moxadder.     I entered a clearing to see my companions in close quarters with several armed men. Just beyond them was the source of the smoke, a huge pyre had been built and the smoke that it made wafted across the battle field.    My rapier was in my hand in an instant and soon it joined the fray. Whilst I cannot recall much of the detail of the encounter I can say we eventually triumphed and took three captives.    Two were poorly clothed, they wore simple woodsman’s garb, and were armed with hatchets. The other man wore a suit of leather armour and had wielded a short steel blade. It was he we questioned first.    As it so happened their group was a company of brigands headed toward the Montfort – Thessingcourt road to work their mischief. However they themselves were assailed by a large group of barbarians.    Moxadder confirmed that the barbarians had indeed been at the clearing as there were several wicked and crude blades not the make of any that a civilised man would carry.    The bandits had been outnumbered and quickly tried to cut their losses by fleeing. The ones that we had just fought had returned this morning to burn their dead. Hence the pyre.     Upon hearing this news and realising exactly what it was that had been burning all this time I gagged a little and quickly fixed a kerchief across my nose and mouth. I doubt even Todesmagie knew what breathing in the dead would do to someone.    Unfortunately for us our questioned captive became less helpful when we asked for details regarding the bandit camp. Try as we might he would yield no more information, so Argonne took matters into his own hands, well his axe’s blade.    Before any of us could even think to protest that evil axe had plummeted upon the man’s wrist and severed his hand. I was too shocked, in retrospect I know not why, to act, however Morgan quickly assessed the situation and acted to cauterise the wound in the hot ash at the base of the fire.    The man screamed in agony as the heat seared his wound, the pain so great that he passed out.     “So, are you two going to be helpful?” said Argonne with a cocked eyebrow to our two conscious prisoners.    Two hurried mute nods gave him the answer we all wanted. They told us that they were Foeldians, worshipers of nature and peaceful folk that lived in the forest. Some months before their leader, Hermaeon, had returned from a trip to Thessingcourt with several new ‘friends’. These ‘friends’ were revealed to be brigands and in time, with Hermaeon’s blessing, they had introduced their friends into the Foeldian community.    Such was the trust that the Foeldian’s had in their leader that none openly questioned his motives, but it became apparent very quickly that their lives had changed to be that of outlaws and bandits.    Soon they were being organised by Hermaeon’s ‘friends’ into groups like the one that we just defeated to raid the roads and rivers north of Thessingcourt. Whilst the Foeldian’s disliked their new life they accepted it because their leader had sanctioned the activities.     However not three weeks ago Hermaeon disappeared and Korb, the leader of the newcomers had assumed leadership of the Foeldians and they began to realise that somehow Hermaeon had been tricked with false promises.    One of the newcomers that Korb had brought with him was a man named Saeff. I knew him from the courts of Thessingcourt. He was a weasel of a man, barely tolerated by most in the court as he was the bastard son of Sir Gwan of Stowmarket and some whore that he bedded. Stowmarket was the most immediate lands to the North East of Montfort, and the town there was significantly larger than Montfort. Sir Gwan, a fierce knight of Baron Mendus, had died several years before on the steppes fighting the barbarians, and it is said the his wife Lady Gyda, also a knight of Mendus, slew the chieftain that had slain her husband and caused the rout of the barbarian tribe. Since his fathers death, Saeff had become even more ostracised by the nobility. Lady Gyda would not have him in her keep at Stowmarket. So he fell in with some ruffians and eventually was seen as one with some talent in the arcane arts and trained by the great court wizard Lamron. That was the last I had heard of Saeff, but it appears that his fall from society had continued and that he had ignored the redemption offered to him by Lamron.    Many of the Foeldians secretly left the camp to start afresh elsewhere, but to put and end to their manpower leaving the bandits held the remaining Foeldian men’s families prisoner and forced them to continue their evil work.    So distrusted had the Foeldians become that they were blind folded when they left and returned from the camp. The bandits camp was a series of caves that held a lake that in turn fed a stream that exited the caves’ mouth, yet Ty and Ob, the names of our remaining captives, knew not the specifics of its location.     We bound them, unsure as to what to do with them. I pitied them somewhat. They had just been used and their families threatened and had no love for their present predicament. I could not blame them for the thievery that had been taking place, but I longed to meet Korb. He had an appointment with either the hangman’s noose or my blade.     Meanwhile Moxadder had continued to search the battle field and found only one thing that was interesting. It was a map! It had been tucked into the shoe of one of the well armed corpses. Not surprising really that Moxadder found it.     It was a small piece of hide that had been crudely drawn on. However it gave us enough information to set off at once. We changed our heading to back to the south east and made our way to a stream that had been marked on the map as one that ran from cross on the map marked ‘Caves’.    We camped, Ty and Ob in tow (the handless prisoner had died during our conversation with the other two), by the running water. I was exhausted and quickly fell asleep with the sound of water splashing over rocks echoing into my dreams.    I woke in the darkness of the early morning to the crack of thunder overhead. Even as I rubbed my eyes the rain started to come down.     It was a miserable mornings travel, for the storm did not pass until after midday, but we were glad when it did. We were all thoroughly sodden and drenched. Only Argonne, who had begun to whistle a tune, seemed to be chirpy with our situation.    Not long after the rain had passed to wash some other part of the forest clean, a huge black and orange cat walk straight across our path. It and we momentarily stopped. We stared at it and it stared right back.     Strav broke the eerie scene by choking a cry out. “Cat!”    The spell seemed broken for it bounded away into the forest with Strav in hot pursuit screaming all manner of angry obscenities.     “I’ll get him.” said Argonne as he too joined the chase.    I hoped he meant Strav, that cat looked as though it could tear them both to shreds. An idea that was proven soon after.    Mortec and Morgan chose to investigate where the cat had wandered from and found a mauled corpse of a trapper that I recognised as one that serviced Montfort. He was a long way from Montfort lands, but it looked as though he had got more than he bargained for when he tracked the cat that was to be is ultimate prize.    We waited perhaps an hour before a frustrated and still angry Strav was escorted back to us by Argonne. Thankfully they did not manage to find the cat. The consequence of course was that we had to put up with his cat curses for the rest of the day.    A good nights sleep was again not forth coming. A scream, Argonne’s, woke the entire camp and quite possibly the entire forest just after midnight.</blockquote>

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