Part 5 of the Valkyrie Six
Melara still couldn't meditate on the force, which had always helped her to regain her serenity in the middle of any situation. But at least she could practice levitating objects with the force now.
The group had recruited a group of new Vaegir recruits from the village they rescued. Then they moved to the north, passing by a Vaegir noble's army but nothing else on the way north.
Before they came to the sea, they saw the smoke and fire. There was smoke rising from two of the castles in this area of the Vaegir kingdom. It looked like the town at the waterfront was burning as well.
They didn't find the sea raiders they were looking for, but they did stumble upon a large battle between an Orcish army and some unknown force.
"Its the Stormwind army! Or a contingent of their forces at least. How did they get here?" Aliaga said.
They decided to help the Stormwind army fight off the Orcs.
When they were transported into the field battle, Melara noticed that those Stormwind forces were composed of two groups. One group were mounted and wore heavy armor and shields. The others were on foot and had staves like Aliaga's.
"Strangers! We appreciate the help, but be wary, the warlocks of the Horde have joined forces with the warg riders, foot soldiers and goblin riflemen. Don't be afraid of the warlocks' summoned demons, attack them and destroy them without pause!"
"Anduin? How did you get here?" Aliaga shouted.
"After this fight is done, we can parlay. As much as I wished to not fight, the Orcs are destroying this land and its people. So we must fight. For Stormwind! For the Light!"
The Paladins trotted forward at a slow pace and the staff bearers followed behind.
"Guards and Recruits, form up a line. Extend the Stormwind lines. Everyone else, get in the second row and get ready for battle. Sophella, I want you on point to take out any of these demons. We will provide ranged support. Alendria, find out if they need healing support," Valeraine said.
"Half their army is composed of priests who can heal as I can. My focus is split between Holy and Shadow, whereas Anduin and his army is an army of the light," Aliaga said.
"Stay in the group then. Lets keep up with them!"
The two armies marched side by side, the Stormwind forces being more numerous, with two rows of ten for the mounted group and another two rows of ten for the priests.
The Wargs rode ahead of their support, intending to end this quickly. There was one rider that was particularly stout and seemed to be leading the group.
Melara picked up the largest rock she could with the force, and flung it, missing the Orc but battering his warg, causing the leader to tumble off of it.
Sophella moved out in front of the first line forces. Valeraine focused on backdrafting while Melara used another flung rock to throw another rider off of his warg.
Alendria was firing arrows at the riders and Isseria was waiting for them to get into range. Aliaga started smiting the riders approaching their army.
Meanwhile, the priests were attacking with massed Holy spells, including smite and Holy Fire. The mounted forces drew their blades and the smashing, horrifying collision of forces happened next. Sophella personally was fighting the downed enemy leader, and Melara went invisible and skirted around the edge of the fight. The enemy leader was holding his own and resisting the Stone fists of Sophella while actually inflicting some damage on her, but when Melara showed herself, flashing her lightsaber back on and slashing into the Orcs' side, he was done. After a few more combined strikes from Sophella and herself, the leader was done.
The rest of the Orc forces were approaching. Melara and Sophella bypassed the enemy warg riders left and went right for the warlocks' demons.
Melara appeared behind a large demon who was glowing in bright and dark splotches of green. The demon hit her pretty hard but she slashed back at him. Some kind of draining magic hit her, and she threw a rock at the warlock in question.
Sophella fought against three demons as Melara slipped into hiding again, only showing herself when she slashing a warlock through the abdomen. The infantry orcs had been distracted and were fighting Sophella, so Melara took some hits and was bleeding, but she managed to shred the enemy warlock forces. With each warlock she killed, another demon disappeared, until Sophella was only facing orcish infantry.
Sophella was in bad shape, so Melara started flinging stones and force pushing the orcs away from her.
Anduin had reached their position and used some massive area of effect spell which both healed Melara and Sophella and caused heavy damage to the Orc infantry.
Sophella's mud pots power had caused the infantry to be slow and take fire damage as they stood near her. And the three of them together managed to wipe out the two dozen infantrymen left.
The infantry and warlocks on the far other side of the formation were still standing, and after a brief respite, Andiun said, "Come on, there is still more to do."
Melara had no idea what was happening in the fight against the cavalry units, or how the rest of their forces had fared.
The enemy infantry and orcs were not positioned to fight their flanking attack, and Anduin took out one warlock while Sophella once again attracted the anger of their enemies.
With concentrated fire and attacks, sneaking and surprising the warlocks, Melara was able to assist Anduin in downing the rest of the dark summoners. The orcish infantry and warg riders tried to flee, but Andiun used a wide area spell, causing most of them to collapse unconscious or dead, and Alendria at last picked off the last of the orcs with her bows.
"Where were the riflemen?" Anduin pondered.
Sophella dismissed her armor, and Melara put away her lightsaber.
Alendria came up to them. "Valeraine and Isseria had to take up our front lines when you went after the warlocks. They took some knocks. Aliaga helped to rally the Stormwind forces. The warg riders are pretty fierce."
"Let's return to my army's camp so we may be introduced," Anduin said.
After a quick healing process accelerated by so many priests and healing paladins, Melara and the others went to the Stormwind camp.
-o-
"I confess, I didn't expect to find a priestess from Stormwind out here beyond those who traveled with me. I didn't expact to see anything but bloodlust after the first week we've had," Anduin said.
"None of us are native to this place either," Aliaga said. "Something strange is happening, as if rifts from entirely different universes are appearing. Instead of gates from different worlds there are gates from entirely different sorts of universes.
"Sophella is from a world of so-called superheroes and supervillians. Many of them can fly, and jump huge distances, and they have access to things far beyond what we can imagine.
"Melara's world has gigantic ships flying in space, many thousands of times larger than the Exodar. There, magic is called the force and is something very rare.
"Alendria's world has entirely different types of magic than ours, although their society is somewhat similar, they haven't seen the kind of threat from afar we have seen. They understand magic at another whole level, and they can teach people to be better than things.
"Valeraine's world is kinda like ours, except once again the magic is different, and only elemental magic is available, but the kinds of things it can do are very flexible.
"It seemed like Isseria's world is similar to Sophella's except without the superheroes, but there is magic, it's very rare.
We don't know much about our camp friend Bodahn's world, or this world."
"If Azeroth has come to this world in part, do you think threats and allies will come from these other worlds as well? These giant ships from Melara's world could be used as forward bases and places to launch raids from."
"It would only take a small fleet of ships from my world to destroy this world or control it. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. My "world" as you call it, is actually many worlds embroiled in a war between the Republic and the Sith Empire" Melara said.
"There are some worlds in our universe. Only two that we know about, being Dranei or Outlands after its destruction, and Azeroth itself. But all of our peoples are from Azeroth."
Valeraine said, "This world we're in now, its unpleasant, full of conflict and people being taken advantage of. And if we run into a larger Orc force separately, we might be defeated and abused ourselves."
Anduin nodded, "As much as I prefer peace, it's looking like the best path to peace is to bring more people under our banner, and to start bringing villages under our protection. It would seem the Swadians are already upset because of your response to their raiders. What would you propose? Those who I command are used to working as part of larger groups. I've been a priest more than a commander, despite my surname."
"I propose that you place me in command in the field, but you would be the ruler for all diplomatic and sovereign functions. We need a new banner, a new name that reflects where we come from, and what we stand by?" Valeraine said.
"I propose the Alliance of Worlds. My own people can still say they are serving the alliance, and it accurately reflects who we are. And I agree with your plan, as long as your own people agree to join my banner in this way," Anduin said. "I'm not sure if, or when, we are returning to our respective worlds."
"Six?" Valeraine asked. "What are your thoughts on this?"
"This sounds like a good agreement. We need to make it clear that no one is to pillage and raid villages as they have been doing. Make it clear that we have come to provide safety and security for civilians all over," Aliaga said.
"We need to be ready to bring in more groups if they come. If both friends and enemies of your Azeroth have showed up, Aliaga, that I suspect we'll be seeing friends and enemies from all of our worlds," Melara said.
"Keep our friends together and our enemies split up," Sophella nodded. "If we see some of the worst villains of my city here, I shudder at what would stop them. Lord Recluse..."
"I'm not sure who would show up from mine? The FBI doesn't seem that threatening in a world so unlike their own."
Sophella looked at Isseria quizzically. "Hey, this is the first time we've found something in common between our worlds. The FBI division for super-hero affairs monitors heroes in Paragon City. The FBI is your enemy?"
"Hey, I bet the FBI is different in your world. In mine, I was forced to do a job for a criminal or be killed, and then the gangster tried to kill me anyway. The FBI came after me for that job. I didn't have any other choice!" Isseria said.
"I'm not sure who would count as enemies from my world. There have been so many who came and went," Alendria said. "And really, I was never powerful enough to consider them my own enemies. I've always been a rather weak fighter compared to the other people I knew. Maybe the Sand Elves? Oh no, what about the Gorbesh Army?" Alendria said.
Anduin pondered at all the different members of the six and how different they were.
"So is it settled then?" Anduin asked.
"Bodahn? Will you follow up if we join Anduin's group? Soldiers of Vaegir, will you follow us?" Valeraine asked.
"Always, milady. And if a new banner is what you need, Sandal's been waiting for your group to desire something crafted finely. What about it, your highness?"
"How much would such a master craftsman charge, Mr. Fedic?"
Valeraine turned to the Vaegir soldiers.
"My mother was beaten, dragged from her home and taken by one of the Sea Raiders," the Vaegir guard said. "I'm with this new Alliance of Worlds. But if you want to be able to parlay, I recommend you take a castle or town to plant that flag on."
The others were much the same.
"What value can we get from the armor of the orcs we faced earlier? Would that be enough to make up the different. Or Valeraine, do you have 1800 coin to cover this cost?"
Bodahn said, "The Six can pay 600 coin, the rest will be covered by the armor and weapons recovered."
"We'll take it," Valeraine said.
"The Vaegir soldiers made a good point though. We need a settlement of our own before the kingdoms of this world will even consider us worthy to talk to."
"The Orcs have already taken Rivacheg from the Vaegir Kingdom. It would be right if we took it from the orcs for ourselves. We need a greater force to attempt to take it however. The Paladins are not particularly skilled in sieges, as fierce as they are in the open field. These Vaegir recruits would seem to be our best bet."
"Start crafting that banner, Bodahn," Valeraine said. "Lets visit all of the villages that still stand in Vaegir and Nord lands. We can pick off any sea raiders or orc raiders as we go."
So they packed up the Human Alliance camp, and merged their camps together into one, and then took to the field again. The Nordic kingdom was nearby, so they gathered recruits from both the Vaegir villages and Nord villages. Two villages had already been wiped out as they went past them.
They didn't run into any orcs, and the sea raiders were either dead, or had already fled, so it was that there newly increased numbers were arrayed at a training field in the Nord kingdom.
It was time to train up these new enlistees.
Melara and Valeraine taught them melee combat. Alendria taught them archery. The paladins practiced mounted fighting with some of the new Vaegir recruits.
Over three days of steady training, they developed the new recruits into three branches: a small mounted vaegir force to supplement the Paladin cavalry. A decently sized force of archers who could shoot back against enemy archers on the walls as they stormed Rivacheg, and a force of fourty more melee infantry types to climb the ladders and battle it out on the walls of the town.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Village Decisions
Part 4 of the Valkyrie Six
With the stew still bubbling, we left the camp for a second time that day. Sophella walked at the front with Valeraine, stopped frequently, as her huge golem sized steps made it easy to accidentally put distance between the two of them.
Sophella could see and smell the fight that had taken place at the village now that they were close.
The villager who spoke to them about Ulburban's plight had assumed they knew what sea raiders did to a village they had captured.
It wasn't just sea raiders. It was anyone, and everyone that has an excuse. If the Vaegir King was at war, his enemies would take the same opportunity. And that opportunity was to kill every able bodied man they found who hadn't already died in the village's defense. To defile every woman of the village and drag her away to accompany the men wherever they went. To steal all of the food of the harvest and set fire to the village itself.
They had been thinking the night before. What exactly were they doing here, in this world. And what would they do, now that they were here.
"Anyone who orders or participates in this kind of 'raid' of a village or town or city or any other kind of place, is loathsome, despicable and our enemy," Sophella had said.
Sophella spoke up against it first, and everyone agreed. It wasn't until later that they realized that nearly every nobleman and soldier in Calradia had participated in a village raid.
The Six's own Vaegir soldiers had fought from the beginning only as part of the Six, so they hadn't.
Sophella was ready to get revenge for the sea raiders' depravity, and mark the line in the sand that they had agreed on.
As they approached the village, at last they teleported from the world zone into the village zone.
Surprisingly, they were surrounded by the villagers who had just been called hostages by the other peasant.
"Come on! we need to take back our village!" the man said.
The other peasants, armed only with pitchforks and without even cloth armor to their name, started charging into the village.
The sea raiders immediately started firing arrows into the crowd of peasants.
"Shut down those archers!" Valeraine yelled.
Sophella began bounded towards those sea raiders who moved to attack up close.
One peasant was cut down by a raider's sword before Sophella smashed her fist into the man, causing him to collapse. She use her taunt ability, saying, "Come fight me, you cowards!"
The archers and sword fighting raiders focused on her, and Sophella hurled a boulder into one archer's face while another fell as Melara reappeared behind them. Her light saber flickered on, and the Jedi began annihilating the raiders.
Sophella continued to smash raider after raider, and the initial wave of raiders was rapidly dissolved, but another group was holding position at the top of the hill. Sophella bounded forward into the middle of the leftover archers, and smashed them, killing each with only one punch.
A few peasants were dying as they got ahead of Melara and Sophella. Aliaga was busy healing the peasants and Alendria was shooting the archers at the top of the hill. Valeraine had hit the raiders at the hill with fire, and before Sophella could even reach them, they started to run.
Without any mounted troops it was tough to pursue the raiders, but Valeaine managed to kill two more.
Sophella was not impressed with the sea raiders, finding them stronger than the looters they had fought, but pathetic compared to the difficult Orc foes.
The village elder told Valeraine that they could take some of the villages food and supplies as just due for rescuing them, but Valeraine refused, instead giving the equipment of the fallen sea raiders to Bodahn for a decent sum. It seemed like the sea raiders wore decent equipment despite their poor fighting skill, as it all fetched a nice sum of 250 ducats.
Sophella approached Valeraine and the Elder. The Elder flinched away, scared by her size and weird appearance.
"This is Sophella, she's just wearing her stone armor, but she's human like you and me," Valeraine said.
"Oh, well thank you for intervening before more people were cut down by those animals," the elder said.
"Where do these Sea Raiders usually come from when they attack?" Sophella asked.
"We've never seen Sea Raiders in these parts before. The Mountain Bandits make their homes all around us, but the Sea Raiders stay to the north, near the sea and between Rivacheg of our nation and Wercheg of the Nords. Some of the other village elders think the Sea Raiders have been displaced by these so-called Orcs, and so they in turn have displaced the Mountain Bandits in these parts. You may want to go north and look for them, but I would sure appreciate it if you check around the village first before you go far."
Valeraine nodded, "We'll head out first thing in the morning, looking for these raiders."
So they returned to their camp, by once again going from the village zone, to the world zone and then to the camp zone. The stew was still cooking, bubbling away.
Alendria played a different song, while Aliaga was finishing up the cooking. She played it on her new spoons, and it was a lively, but tribal sounding song.
"What God is that song for?" Sophella asked.
"It's Drums of the Snake, I'm amplifying Aliaga's cooking abilities. I haven't seen a use for the chant in this world until now. It might help Melara with sneaking around while invisible, but I would have to be close to her, and my song would tend to cause more problems than it solves. Unfortunately, bards are decidedly bad at being sneaky. Why not one of my knockout songs, or even the fire song, but here I am with Drums of the Snake, and I suspect its usefulness would mostly be for other people from my world, especially locksmiths, or herbalists. "
"I've never thought of mixing everything like this, or adding these spices. I've got some other ideas for next time!" Aliaga said.
It was great stew. Sophella was very hungry after a day of fighting. The problem was, how do you eat while in stone armor.
Words flashed through her vision, like they were holograms.
Sophella, Stone Stone Tanker
Level Up! Level 2 Obtained
Fun Ability: Toggle Armor gained
Stone Armor Powerset Ability: Mud Pots
-- Toggle: Point Blank Area of Effect, Minor Damage over Time(Fire), Foe: Immobilize, -Speed
Stone Melee Powerset Ability: Build Up
-- Self +Damage, +To-Hit
"I'm so happy! Thank you Thank you!"
Sophella toggled off her Stone Armor, and in the middle of several other celebrations that must have indicated some leveling up, others looked towards her.
Sophella was wearing a blue shirt with a white skirt. Her hair was long and golden brown.
Sophella frowned though. Only level 2, and yet she already had the full granite armor? And she was just getting Mud Pots now? This was obviously something new in terms of what would happen at each level.
It looked like they all leveled up.
"I've got Smite, so I don't have to resort to my staff anymore. And Slow Fall! I can glide down from a mountain top if I wanted," Aliaga said.
"I got a little bit of my martial arts back, so I can try some more tricks," Isseria said.
Valeraine had a Rising Flames spell, and a Rally special ability.
Alendria was excited as she got a spell called Glythtide's Boon, which she said could summon a random drink for a little bit of mana. And she got an ability she called teaching.
Melara got a power to move things around with the force. She only gained one new thing, but then she explained that her fun ability was moving around everyday objects with the force, and her power ability was flunging things at her enemies with the force.
"Why did this happen now instead of after that last battle?" Aliaga asked.
"Maybe our skill ranks pulsed, and we just reached what we needed for level 2," Alendria said.
Sophella had no idea what skill ranks were or what pulsing was. "I think we all had slightly different ways of leveling up. Alendria how did yours work," Sophella asked.
"So I do different kinds of activities. If I use a bow, then I can bits in a pool in short bow. If I play my drums in order to play the drums of the snake chant, then I'm gaining Percussion, Primary Magic, Harnessing and Musical Lore bits.
After I've got some bits, there's certain points in time where the bits will pour out of those pools and give me partial ranks in those skills. Then I go see the guildmaster and ask her how much ranks I need to level up. And once I do I can talk to her and learn new abilities."
Alendria's world was weird.
"Why did we all gain a level at the same exact moment?" Melara asked. "That shouldn't happen."
Isseria and Valeraine asked, "What are levels anyway?"
"I remember like arcade games had different levels you could beat," Isseria said, pondering.
"Levels are what you gain to get stronger over time. Usually you have to fight a certain number of enemies and get experience by fighting them so that eventually you get levels," Melara said.
"Or do quests and get experience by completing them," Aliaga said.
"Quests? Like those things you have to pay a ton of money for?" Alendria asked, confused.
"No, quests pay you money and items if you complete them. OK, we are all from different worlds, so lets go to Bodahn and ask him, and then its time to eat," Aliaga said.
So they crowded around Bodahn.
"So how does this leveling thing work around here," Valeraine asked.
"The Six level together, always. I know, its not like my world, and I don't think its like this world. I mean, your Vaegir soldiers ranked up on their own, but I think you six have a shared experience pool. Everything I know about it, its just that the Six always have the same level. And I even suspect that the soldiers accompanying you gained some benefit from your leveling up, independent of their rank," Bodahn said.
"How do you know all of this stuff," Isseria asked.
"I don't know, I just do. Just let me know if you need anything."
So they went over to the tent where the four Vaegir soldiers were at.
"Did you notice anything when we leveled up?" Valeraine asked.
"We got something called a World ability. It said it was from your world, Six Alendria.. Its a feint that gives us greater defense after we attack with a sword. Its a weaker attack but then we can parry or block the enemy's blows better after that."
"Interesting," Alendria said.
After this news, and the excitement of their abilities had died down for the moment, they returned to the fire and ate. Sophella got the chance to interact with everyone all over again, this time not being treated like some kind of golem. She connected with Alendria and Valeraine a lot more. Melara and Aliaga seemed to be involved in a comparison of their orders, and how the priesthood's training varied from the Jedi academy's training. Isseria chimed in with her training at the reclusive martial arts compound.
It seemed like the others had one main story to tell, but Sophella could have told quite a few, and she got the impression that Aliaga had a few as well.
"Alright, let me talk about one of the stories I remember said," she said.
"My day to day life, largely involved fighting against all the gangs and criminal organizations in my world. I fought through so many warehouses full of goons that I've lost count. In addition, I often joined up as the protector for a group of fellow heroes that would taken on some of the bigger criminal foes, the arch-villains.
When I wasn't in a group I was tracking down my own leads into the criminal underworld. Finally, one day, I rescued a guy, who said he knew me, even though I had never met him. He gave a cryptic statement, and I had to track down what he was talking about.
Eventually, I found out that he was part of a group of time travelers, and I somehow stumbled upon their facility. I went through their time portal, and ended up at their headquarters in some distant future time when time travel had been invented.
The group told me that they were actually fighting against rogue time travelers that were trying to mess things up. I was sent back to the Roman empire to try to protect one of the first superheroes, who the meddlers were trying to kill.
It was a strange place and time, for sure. I had to gain Romulus' trust and then soundly defeat both the time travelers but also all the people they had gained on their side.
When I got back from that mission, the time travelers showed me a room that showed all of the major fights and investigations I had done since I hecame a superhero. I could look at them, or I could even go back in time, and try to fight my enemies again
I wasn't interested in redoing old fights, I didn't see the point in it, but I found an old fight that I had never actually fought. So I went back to that one.
After fighting through a wave of very scary enemies, who I barely struggled to defeat, I found another portal. It showed this very camp site.
When I stepped through, I thought I would be able to come back. As far as the hero authority is concerned, I just disappeared."
Melara and Aliaga headed towards the tents first, and then Isseria and Valeraine. Alendria practiced her mandolin by the fire, even as Sophella waved and said good night, and retired to the tents.
When she woke up the next morning and went to the fire, she saw that Alendria was talking with the Vaegir soldiers.
They had more armor now.
"My new ability can help the soldiers rank up!" Alendria said to Sophella as she came close.
"What are your ranks?" Sophella asked.
"I'm a guard, and he's a guard, and the other two are infantry," the soldier said.
"Does it work on us too?" Sophella asked.
Alendria did something, and then Sophella started realizing how she could better use her abilities. Upper cuts, body blows, grapples. Nothing visibly happened but she felt more confident in facing the enemy today."
"What's it doing?" Alendria asked.
So Sophella told her what she was noticing.
"I wonder if you have hidden skills related to using your abilities. In my world, teach is used for teaching a specific skill, but here it seems to teach each person the skill they need the most. For these soldiers, it was learning how to defend themselves and attack in a careful manner, as well as how to move around effectively," Alendria said.
"For me it was how to attack with my fists."
It wasn't long before the others were up, and Valeraine gathered everyone together.
Alendria seemed to be able to teach three people at a time, so she dropped the soldiers and tried Valeraine and Aliaga.
"I'm learning how to maneuver our forces and set up coordinated strikes. How does this even work?" she asked.
"I never really thought about it before," Alendria said.
Alendria was getting more confident in her teaching than she had been when the soldiers came to the fire the night before.
"Lets get moving. We'll do a series of spirals outward from the village and see if we find any one. If we notice any more villages being raided, or anyone tells us about it, we'll immediately go deal with that first."
So they left the camp and wandered around on the world zone near Ulburban. They found nothing for the first several hours, and it was just before noon when they noticed smoke coming from the village Ulandra to the southwest.
They were challenged at the village outskirts by a force of mounted knights.
"Hello, I am Count Grainwad of the Swadian Kingdom. We have never met before."
The man was bald, carrying a striped banner.
"Valeraine, of the Valkyrie Six. Why are you raiding this village?"
"As King Harlaus has declared a war to recover lost lands from the Vaegir scum, it is our right to raid any holding of the Vaegir crown," Grainwad said.
"We object strongly to any more villages being brutalized like this. The outlaws do this sort of thing, are you now falling to their level, or will you leave these peasants, who do not own the land you are seeking to recover, alone."
"It is my right to raid villages of the enemy. Peasants form the fighting backbone of any army. The resources they grow and gather sustain my enemy in the fight. So what are you going to do to stop me. Begone!"
"We will defend any village from any horrible treachery such as this," Valeraine said.
"So be it! You will be destroyed and scattered as a warning to the women of this world!"
Sophella was angry, she might as well be breathing fire. She knew Valeraine and the others felt the same way.
The conversation ended, and they entered the battle field.
"Hold Up villagers," Valeraine shouted, and the villagers that showed up beside them in the field of battle stopped running into the village.
"These are soldiers of one of the King's vassals. We're outnumbered. We need to soften them up first. Form ranks! Vaegir soldiers, form up on the first line with the villagers. Sophella, form up ten paces ahead of the first line.
Melara, Isseria, take flanking positions twenty paces to the left and right of Sophella. Aliaga, Alendria. form up right behind the first line. I will form up with you. Take your formations."
As the forces repositioned, Grainwad's forces were rushing out of the village, about half on horseback, and half on foot.
Alendria decided to sing an inspiring song,
"Whose gonna put up with this real Grainwad?
Let's give him a fight that the Wad doesn't want.
We stand for the village we stand for what's right
We ain't gonna let no Grainwad take this fight.
What do you say?
Are you gonna take this anymore?"
"Hell no!
Grainwad's got to go!"
"Ten paces forward!" Valeraine said, and they all kept formation, moving forward.
"Six! Fire on those cav! Blunt their charge!" she shouted.
Valeraine's fire, Alendria's arrows and Sophella's boulders crashed into the mounted fighters as they charged towards them. The horsemen tried to weave around Sophella, but Isseria started shooting and Melara slashed at a horseman from out of the shadows, and began to deal with the horsemen one at a time.
A few did make it through, and Valeraine waited until they crashed into the villagers and soldiers to yell, "attack at will, move and pursue your enemies wherever they are!"
Valeraine chopped at enemies attacking the villagers, avoiding hitting the friendly with the manuever. She used backdraft to fling threatening enemies away and off their horses.
Sophella was using her new mud pots ability to damage the people fighting her, and continued to smash and punch whirling here and there.
When the infantry and archers got into range, Valeraine yelled, "Six, target the archers! Except you Sophella."
Sophella and the villagers and soldiers continued to fight up front while Melara and Isseria extracted themselves.
Melara swiftly made her way up to the force and slashed her lightsaber into an archer. Isseria finished off another and Alendria shot back at several of them.
The infantry nearby took to battle against the two, and Valeraine bypassed the fight at the first line, flanking around to where she could using rising flames against a group of infantry. Aliaga leapt back to avoid getting hit by the fire, and watched two infantrymen scream in misery.
The battle was joined in several places, as the first line fight was going the Grainwad's way but the archers and infantrymen were routed. Alendria worked on healing the others near her with the lilt, and Aliaga healed whoever she could on the first line.
Sophella smashed Count Grainwad himself off of his horse, and one of the vaegir guards landed the knockout blow on the count.
The guard rank soldiers were a far cry from the recruits of just a few days ago, they had helped to rally the line and hold against the mounted units.
Valeraine watched as the last three horsed enemies rode in towards the villagers ago, and she launched one off his horse with backdraft, and watched as Melara flung a heavy stone into another horseman.
The guards and infantrymen on their side swarmed to the fallen enemies as Isseria shot the third cavalryman, and everyone mobbed the downed enemies.
Eventually, those few of Grainwads' who had survived fled the field.
The fight had ranged over a wide area around the village, and so it took a while to clean up.
The villagers had returned to their village, but surprising a few came from the village out to meet the Six.
"Can you teach us how to fight like that?" one of the village women asked.
"You can certainly learn to fight well enough to defeat men like Count Grainwad. We would love to see more villagers who are combat trained enough to repulse these hateful raids," Valeraine said. "If you are willing to help us protect other villages under attack, we'd love to have you."
One of the village woman decided not to come with them, and ran off, "Clair," the one speaking to them shouted.
In the end, Janet and Hilda decided to join up with them, though they didn't have any weapons more than crude wooden daggers, and only wore the traditional female dress of the region, with blue hoods and white robes that had seen many days in the field.
Valeraine took the group back to camp to decide how to equip and bring the women into their group.
Janet and Hilda and the three Vaegir guards were sitting around the camp fire with Alendria, who was using her teaching ability with the two women and one of the guards.
"We meed to recruit additional forces if we want to take on this challenge," Valeraine said. "The Six can only do so much on their own. We need to be able to form a bigger battle line and protect the villagers from the initial wave of fighting."
Hilda said, "If you go to the men of our village, you might find more willing to sign up.to become Recruits. Also some of the bandits and raiders have captured women already. We should defeat them and rescue those women."
"What do you think six? What should our plan be?" Valeraine said.
"Let's work on building out this camp more, get some more tents set up, more firepits and supplies. Make sure everyone we recruit has a place to sleep. Then we can go to the village and find who is willing to join up," Alendria said.
"After that, we should go north and find out if the Sea Raiders have been displaced and see if we can rescue any captives," Melara said.
With the stew still bubbling, we left the camp for a second time that day. Sophella walked at the front with Valeraine, stopped frequently, as her huge golem sized steps made it easy to accidentally put distance between the two of them.
Sophella could see and smell the fight that had taken place at the village now that they were close.
The villager who spoke to them about Ulburban's plight had assumed they knew what sea raiders did to a village they had captured.
It wasn't just sea raiders. It was anyone, and everyone that has an excuse. If the Vaegir King was at war, his enemies would take the same opportunity. And that opportunity was to kill every able bodied man they found who hadn't already died in the village's defense. To defile every woman of the village and drag her away to accompany the men wherever they went. To steal all of the food of the harvest and set fire to the village itself.
They had been thinking the night before. What exactly were they doing here, in this world. And what would they do, now that they were here.
"Anyone who orders or participates in this kind of 'raid' of a village or town or city or any other kind of place, is loathsome, despicable and our enemy," Sophella had said.
Sophella spoke up against it first, and everyone agreed. It wasn't until later that they realized that nearly every nobleman and soldier in Calradia had participated in a village raid.
The Six's own Vaegir soldiers had fought from the beginning only as part of the Six, so they hadn't.
Sophella was ready to get revenge for the sea raiders' depravity, and mark the line in the sand that they had agreed on.
As they approached the village, at last they teleported from the world zone into the village zone.
Surprisingly, they were surrounded by the villagers who had just been called hostages by the other peasant.
"Come on! we need to take back our village!" the man said.
The other peasants, armed only with pitchforks and without even cloth armor to their name, started charging into the village.
The sea raiders immediately started firing arrows into the crowd of peasants.
"Shut down those archers!" Valeraine yelled.
Sophella began bounded towards those sea raiders who moved to attack up close.
One peasant was cut down by a raider's sword before Sophella smashed her fist into the man, causing him to collapse. She use her taunt ability, saying, "Come fight me, you cowards!"
The archers and sword fighting raiders focused on her, and Sophella hurled a boulder into one archer's face while another fell as Melara reappeared behind them. Her light saber flickered on, and the Jedi began annihilating the raiders.
Sophella continued to smash raider after raider, and the initial wave of raiders was rapidly dissolved, but another group was holding position at the top of the hill. Sophella bounded forward into the middle of the leftover archers, and smashed them, killing each with only one punch.
A few peasants were dying as they got ahead of Melara and Sophella. Aliaga was busy healing the peasants and Alendria was shooting the archers at the top of the hill. Valeraine had hit the raiders at the hill with fire, and before Sophella could even reach them, they started to run.
Without any mounted troops it was tough to pursue the raiders, but Valeaine managed to kill two more.
Sophella was not impressed with the sea raiders, finding them stronger than the looters they had fought, but pathetic compared to the difficult Orc foes.
The village elder told Valeraine that they could take some of the villages food and supplies as just due for rescuing them, but Valeraine refused, instead giving the equipment of the fallen sea raiders to Bodahn for a decent sum. It seemed like the sea raiders wore decent equipment despite their poor fighting skill, as it all fetched a nice sum of 250 ducats.
Sophella approached Valeraine and the Elder. The Elder flinched away, scared by her size and weird appearance.
"This is Sophella, she's just wearing her stone armor, but she's human like you and me," Valeraine said.
"Oh, well thank you for intervening before more people were cut down by those animals," the elder said.
"Where do these Sea Raiders usually come from when they attack?" Sophella asked.
"We've never seen Sea Raiders in these parts before. The Mountain Bandits make their homes all around us, but the Sea Raiders stay to the north, near the sea and between Rivacheg of our nation and Wercheg of the Nords. Some of the other village elders think the Sea Raiders have been displaced by these so-called Orcs, and so they in turn have displaced the Mountain Bandits in these parts. You may want to go north and look for them, but I would sure appreciate it if you check around the village first before you go far."
Valeraine nodded, "We'll head out first thing in the morning, looking for these raiders."
So they returned to their camp, by once again going from the village zone, to the world zone and then to the camp zone. The stew was still cooking, bubbling away.
Alendria played a different song, while Aliaga was finishing up the cooking. She played it on her new spoons, and it was a lively, but tribal sounding song.
"What God is that song for?" Sophella asked.
"It's Drums of the Snake, I'm amplifying Aliaga's cooking abilities. I haven't seen a use for the chant in this world until now. It might help Melara with sneaking around while invisible, but I would have to be close to her, and my song would tend to cause more problems than it solves. Unfortunately, bards are decidedly bad at being sneaky. Why not one of my knockout songs, or even the fire song, but here I am with Drums of the Snake, and I suspect its usefulness would mostly be for other people from my world, especially locksmiths, or herbalists. "
"I've never thought of mixing everything like this, or adding these spices. I've got some other ideas for next time!" Aliaga said.
It was great stew. Sophella was very hungry after a day of fighting. The problem was, how do you eat while in stone armor.
Words flashed through her vision, like they were holograms.
Sophella, Stone Stone Tanker
Level Up! Level 2 Obtained
Fun Ability: Toggle Armor gained
Stone Armor Powerset Ability: Mud Pots
-- Toggle: Point Blank Area of Effect, Minor Damage over Time(Fire), Foe: Immobilize, -Speed
Stone Melee Powerset Ability: Build Up
-- Self +Damage, +To-Hit
"I'm so happy! Thank you Thank you!"
Sophella toggled off her Stone Armor, and in the middle of several other celebrations that must have indicated some leveling up, others looked towards her.
Sophella was wearing a blue shirt with a white skirt. Her hair was long and golden brown.
Sophella frowned though. Only level 2, and yet she already had the full granite armor? And she was just getting Mud Pots now? This was obviously something new in terms of what would happen at each level.
It looked like they all leveled up.
"I've got Smite, so I don't have to resort to my staff anymore. And Slow Fall! I can glide down from a mountain top if I wanted," Aliaga said.
"I got a little bit of my martial arts back, so I can try some more tricks," Isseria said.
Valeraine had a Rising Flames spell, and a Rally special ability.
Alendria was excited as she got a spell called Glythtide's Boon, which she said could summon a random drink for a little bit of mana. And she got an ability she called teaching.
Melara got a power to move things around with the force. She only gained one new thing, but then she explained that her fun ability was moving around everyday objects with the force, and her power ability was flunging things at her enemies with the force.
"Why did this happen now instead of after that last battle?" Aliaga asked.
"Maybe our skill ranks pulsed, and we just reached what we needed for level 2," Alendria said.
Sophella had no idea what skill ranks were or what pulsing was. "I think we all had slightly different ways of leveling up. Alendria how did yours work," Sophella asked.
"So I do different kinds of activities. If I use a bow, then I can bits in a pool in short bow. If I play my drums in order to play the drums of the snake chant, then I'm gaining Percussion, Primary Magic, Harnessing and Musical Lore bits.
After I've got some bits, there's certain points in time where the bits will pour out of those pools and give me partial ranks in those skills. Then I go see the guildmaster and ask her how much ranks I need to level up. And once I do I can talk to her and learn new abilities."
Alendria's world was weird.
"Why did we all gain a level at the same exact moment?" Melara asked. "That shouldn't happen."
Isseria and Valeraine asked, "What are levels anyway?"
"I remember like arcade games had different levels you could beat," Isseria said, pondering.
"Levels are what you gain to get stronger over time. Usually you have to fight a certain number of enemies and get experience by fighting them so that eventually you get levels," Melara said.
"Or do quests and get experience by completing them," Aliaga said.
"Quests? Like those things you have to pay a ton of money for?" Alendria asked, confused.
"No, quests pay you money and items if you complete them. OK, we are all from different worlds, so lets go to Bodahn and ask him, and then its time to eat," Aliaga said.
So they crowded around Bodahn.
"So how does this leveling thing work around here," Valeraine asked.
"The Six level together, always. I know, its not like my world, and I don't think its like this world. I mean, your Vaegir soldiers ranked up on their own, but I think you six have a shared experience pool. Everything I know about it, its just that the Six always have the same level. And I even suspect that the soldiers accompanying you gained some benefit from your leveling up, independent of their rank," Bodahn said.
"How do you know all of this stuff," Isseria asked.
"I don't know, I just do. Just let me know if you need anything."
So they went over to the tent where the four Vaegir soldiers were at.
"Did you notice anything when we leveled up?" Valeraine asked.
"We got something called a World ability. It said it was from your world, Six Alendria.. Its a feint that gives us greater defense after we attack with a sword. Its a weaker attack but then we can parry or block the enemy's blows better after that."
"Interesting," Alendria said.
After this news, and the excitement of their abilities had died down for the moment, they returned to the fire and ate. Sophella got the chance to interact with everyone all over again, this time not being treated like some kind of golem. She connected with Alendria and Valeraine a lot more. Melara and Aliaga seemed to be involved in a comparison of their orders, and how the priesthood's training varied from the Jedi academy's training. Isseria chimed in with her training at the reclusive martial arts compound.
It seemed like the others had one main story to tell, but Sophella could have told quite a few, and she got the impression that Aliaga had a few as well.
"Alright, let me talk about one of the stories I remember said," she said.
"My day to day life, largely involved fighting against all the gangs and criminal organizations in my world. I fought through so many warehouses full of goons that I've lost count. In addition, I often joined up as the protector for a group of fellow heroes that would taken on some of the bigger criminal foes, the arch-villains.
When I wasn't in a group I was tracking down my own leads into the criminal underworld. Finally, one day, I rescued a guy, who said he knew me, even though I had never met him. He gave a cryptic statement, and I had to track down what he was talking about.
Eventually, I found out that he was part of a group of time travelers, and I somehow stumbled upon their facility. I went through their time portal, and ended up at their headquarters in some distant future time when time travel had been invented.
The group told me that they were actually fighting against rogue time travelers that were trying to mess things up. I was sent back to the Roman empire to try to protect one of the first superheroes, who the meddlers were trying to kill.
It was a strange place and time, for sure. I had to gain Romulus' trust and then soundly defeat both the time travelers but also all the people they had gained on their side.
When I got back from that mission, the time travelers showed me a room that showed all of the major fights and investigations I had done since I hecame a superhero. I could look at them, or I could even go back in time, and try to fight my enemies again
I wasn't interested in redoing old fights, I didn't see the point in it, but I found an old fight that I had never actually fought. So I went back to that one.
After fighting through a wave of very scary enemies, who I barely struggled to defeat, I found another portal. It showed this very camp site.
When I stepped through, I thought I would be able to come back. As far as the hero authority is concerned, I just disappeared."
Melara and Aliaga headed towards the tents first, and then Isseria and Valeraine. Alendria practiced her mandolin by the fire, even as Sophella waved and said good night, and retired to the tents.
When she woke up the next morning and went to the fire, she saw that Alendria was talking with the Vaegir soldiers.
They had more armor now.
"My new ability can help the soldiers rank up!" Alendria said to Sophella as she came close.
"What are your ranks?" Sophella asked.
"I'm a guard, and he's a guard, and the other two are infantry," the soldier said.
"Does it work on us too?" Sophella asked.
Alendria did something, and then Sophella started realizing how she could better use her abilities. Upper cuts, body blows, grapples. Nothing visibly happened but she felt more confident in facing the enemy today."
"What's it doing?" Alendria asked.
So Sophella told her what she was noticing.
"I wonder if you have hidden skills related to using your abilities. In my world, teach is used for teaching a specific skill, but here it seems to teach each person the skill they need the most. For these soldiers, it was learning how to defend themselves and attack in a careful manner, as well as how to move around effectively," Alendria said.
"For me it was how to attack with my fists."
It wasn't long before the others were up, and Valeraine gathered everyone together.
Alendria seemed to be able to teach three people at a time, so she dropped the soldiers and tried Valeraine and Aliaga.
"I'm learning how to maneuver our forces and set up coordinated strikes. How does this even work?" she asked.
"I never really thought about it before," Alendria said.
Alendria was getting more confident in her teaching than she had been when the soldiers came to the fire the night before.
"Lets get moving. We'll do a series of spirals outward from the village and see if we find any one. If we notice any more villages being raided, or anyone tells us about it, we'll immediately go deal with that first."
So they left the camp and wandered around on the world zone near Ulburban. They found nothing for the first several hours, and it was just before noon when they noticed smoke coming from the village Ulandra to the southwest.
They were challenged at the village outskirts by a force of mounted knights.
"Hello, I am Count Grainwad of the Swadian Kingdom. We have never met before."
The man was bald, carrying a striped banner.
"Valeraine, of the Valkyrie Six. Why are you raiding this village?"
"As King Harlaus has declared a war to recover lost lands from the Vaegir scum, it is our right to raid any holding of the Vaegir crown," Grainwad said.
"We object strongly to any more villages being brutalized like this. The outlaws do this sort of thing, are you now falling to their level, or will you leave these peasants, who do not own the land you are seeking to recover, alone."
"It is my right to raid villages of the enemy. Peasants form the fighting backbone of any army. The resources they grow and gather sustain my enemy in the fight. So what are you going to do to stop me. Begone!"
"We will defend any village from any horrible treachery such as this," Valeraine said.
"So be it! You will be destroyed and scattered as a warning to the women of this world!"
Sophella was angry, she might as well be breathing fire. She knew Valeraine and the others felt the same way.
The conversation ended, and they entered the battle field.
"Hold Up villagers," Valeraine shouted, and the villagers that showed up beside them in the field of battle stopped running into the village.
"These are soldiers of one of the King's vassals. We're outnumbered. We need to soften them up first. Form ranks! Vaegir soldiers, form up on the first line with the villagers. Sophella, form up ten paces ahead of the first line.
Melara, Isseria, take flanking positions twenty paces to the left and right of Sophella. Aliaga, Alendria. form up right behind the first line. I will form up with you. Take your formations."
As the forces repositioned, Grainwad's forces were rushing out of the village, about half on horseback, and half on foot.
Alendria decided to sing an inspiring song,
"Whose gonna put up with this real Grainwad?
Let's give him a fight that the Wad doesn't want.
We stand for the village we stand for what's right
We ain't gonna let no Grainwad take this fight.
What do you say?
Are you gonna take this anymore?"
"Hell no!
Grainwad's got to go!"
"Ten paces forward!" Valeraine said, and they all kept formation, moving forward.
"Six! Fire on those cav! Blunt their charge!" she shouted.
Valeraine's fire, Alendria's arrows and Sophella's boulders crashed into the mounted fighters as they charged towards them. The horsemen tried to weave around Sophella, but Isseria started shooting and Melara slashed at a horseman from out of the shadows, and began to deal with the horsemen one at a time.
A few did make it through, and Valeraine waited until they crashed into the villagers and soldiers to yell, "attack at will, move and pursue your enemies wherever they are!"
Valeraine chopped at enemies attacking the villagers, avoiding hitting the friendly with the manuever. She used backdraft to fling threatening enemies away and off their horses.
Sophella was using her new mud pots ability to damage the people fighting her, and continued to smash and punch whirling here and there.
When the infantry and archers got into range, Valeraine yelled, "Six, target the archers! Except you Sophella."
Sophella and the villagers and soldiers continued to fight up front while Melara and Isseria extracted themselves.
Melara swiftly made her way up to the force and slashed her lightsaber into an archer. Isseria finished off another and Alendria shot back at several of them.
The infantry nearby took to battle against the two, and Valeraine bypassed the fight at the first line, flanking around to where she could using rising flames against a group of infantry. Aliaga leapt back to avoid getting hit by the fire, and watched two infantrymen scream in misery.
The battle was joined in several places, as the first line fight was going the Grainwad's way but the archers and infantrymen were routed. Alendria worked on healing the others near her with the lilt, and Aliaga healed whoever she could on the first line.
Sophella smashed Count Grainwad himself off of his horse, and one of the vaegir guards landed the knockout blow on the count.
The guard rank soldiers were a far cry from the recruits of just a few days ago, they had helped to rally the line and hold against the mounted units.
Valeraine watched as the last three horsed enemies rode in towards the villagers ago, and she launched one off his horse with backdraft, and watched as Melara flung a heavy stone into another horseman.
The guards and infantrymen on their side swarmed to the fallen enemies as Isseria shot the third cavalryman, and everyone mobbed the downed enemies.
Eventually, those few of Grainwads' who had survived fled the field.
The fight had ranged over a wide area around the village, and so it took a while to clean up.
The villagers had returned to their village, but surprising a few came from the village out to meet the Six.
"Can you teach us how to fight like that?" one of the village women asked.
"You can certainly learn to fight well enough to defeat men like Count Grainwad. We would love to see more villagers who are combat trained enough to repulse these hateful raids," Valeraine said. "If you are willing to help us protect other villages under attack, we'd love to have you."
One of the village woman decided not to come with them, and ran off, "Clair," the one speaking to them shouted.
In the end, Janet and Hilda decided to join up with them, though they didn't have any weapons more than crude wooden daggers, and only wore the traditional female dress of the region, with blue hoods and white robes that had seen many days in the field.
Valeraine took the group back to camp to decide how to equip and bring the women into their group.
Janet and Hilda and the three Vaegir guards were sitting around the camp fire with Alendria, who was using her teaching ability with the two women and one of the guards.
"We meed to recruit additional forces if we want to take on this challenge," Valeraine said. "The Six can only do so much on their own. We need to be able to form a bigger battle line and protect the villagers from the initial wave of fighting."
Hilda said, "If you go to the men of our village, you might find more willing to sign up.to become Recruits. Also some of the bandits and raiders have captured women already. We should defeat them and rescue those women."
"What do you think six? What should our plan be?" Valeraine said.
"Let's work on building out this camp more, get some more tents set up, more firepits and supplies. Make sure everyone we recruit has a place to sleep. Then we can go to the village and find who is willing to join up," Alendria said.
"After that, we should go north and find out if the Sea Raiders have been displaced and see if we can rescue any captives," Melara said.
Monday, September 18, 2017
Stories
Part 3 of the Valkyrie Six
They spent the rest of the day recovering at camp. Aliaga had some skill at cooking, so after Valeraine started a fire going with her magics, the two went to Bodahn and bought what they needed to cook a nice dinner.
It was a stew, with a nice big cauldron cooking up enough for days. Bodahn said that all of their cooking equipment and leftovers would stay with the camp and wherever they traveled in the world zone they could always go back to the camp.
Aliaga started working on the Mutton stew, with carrots, potatoes, celery and spices. She marveled that it didn't cook up like her home world but took time to cook.
All evening long the recovering Valkyrie troop looked longingly at the food cooking away, and looked for someone fun to do while they recovered.
Alendria took it on herself to entertain the group.
"I collect stories," she said. "Sometimes I retell them or write songs about them. I think it would be fun if we tell some stories about each other's worlds."
Surprisingly, the normally subdued Melara told her story.
"I was a padawan under Master Youn Par, who specializes in archeology and exploring, especially in finding old Jedi artifacts and sites. Tython's aggressive natives, the so-called Flesh Raiders, attacked us while we were looking for some holocrons, which are recordings made by past Jedis, or, past Sith.
My master fell under the sway of a sickness of the dark side, which took away her moral faculties and restraints, and she attacked me when I was with her at the medical facilities on Coruscant, the Republic's homeworld.
Luckily, I was able to find out more about the condition my master suffered, and I cured Master Yuon Par of her condition, but it took a lot out of me in the process.
I was granted the rank of Jedi knight, but what I ended up doing is tracking down several other Jedi on other worlds who had fallen under this curse. Many of them had done a lot of damage to our cause in the process, killing and doing the bidding of a Lord Vivicar, who they constantly referenced.
Each time I healed the curse, it took something more out of me, and I struggled to continue. But eventually I fought out that Lord Vivicar was actually someone known as Parkanas Tark, who was abandoned during evacuations after a failed Jedi mission on Malachor Three.
I was able to locate Parkanas, and fought a vicious battle with the fallen man, but eventually prevailed. With Parkanas gone, the curse that had inflicted so many was no more.
It was only a few weeks ago that I was able to prevail against Lord Vivicar, and I had just received a new mission, to serve as an advocate and peace-broker for a group of planets called the Rift Alliance. I was in my Defender-class ship, and I made the jump to hyperspace, something went wrong and when I regained consciousness, I was here."
Alendria smiled, "Good story, I need to translate some of your terms though. We need to make it alive and fill it up. What kind of quirky people did you run across during all of this?"
"Padawan means basically a Jedi apprentice, who is not ready to work on their own yet, but will continue to train with an experienced Jedi until she is ready. I was the Padawn and Youn Par was my master.
I was part of the more diplomatic and force focussed part of the Jedi order. I rarely ever saw Master Par use her lightsaber, but she was well versed in the force, and she loved peace, gentleness and serenity.
From what little I understand of your world, Alendria, the Force is a bit like your Holy mana, but it also has its own intentions. The Force is a sort of being on its own, as well as a field of energy which you can learn to sense and feel everywhere. In this new world we are now in, I believe the force has somehow been channeled and limited to become merely a power source.
I don't sense any temptations from the Dark Side. The Dark Side is no longer trying to sway me, it's like it's not there at all actually. I don't mind that, at least."
Alendria nodded, "In my world, every God has his or her preferences and focusses, but in addition, every God has her Good aspect, and her Bad aspect. The song of healing I sing is called Hodierna's lilt. Hodierna is the God of healing, springtime, morning and light.
But she has a Good aspect, Berengia and an Evil aspect, Asketi. Even though Hodierna herself is for all these good things, Asketi is truly one of the vilest Evil aspects. I get the sense that the force itself is good in the way that Hodierna is good, but then the light-side is more good, and the dark-side is very bad?"
"Do Bards study the Gods and learn about them, and sing songs about them? To be honest, most of the masters of my order would see you as too jovial and whimsical for their taste. The force is a serious matter, and to know the force is to dedicate a lifetime to meditation and study, honing your greater awareness."
Alendria shook her head, "Some Bards may sing about the Gods, because we sing about everything, but the Clerics are much more like your order. Some clerics of Gods such as Glythtide, the God of joy and mirth, may be more light-hearted, but in general, our world's clerics are as serious and dedicated as the order you belong too. And I may be jovial and whimsical, but I have spent many days practicing my instruments and honing my voice as a weapon. I hope I get my screams back."
"Hmm, another thing about the story, if you want more, was my companion, Qyzen Fess. Qyzen was a good friend of my masters, and I became good friends with him as well. He is a Trandoshan who believes in a being known as a scorekeeper. He believes that he is required to fight for this scorekeeper, and fight worthy opponents for some kind of points to prove his honor.
He was always telling me about fights that were much points, while we were fighting to deal with various issues on the planets we went to during the story. He used a sort of fancy sword like weaopn called a tech-blade. I know we found him a few different types of tech blades before I ended up here.
There was a few other companions I met and could have chosen to work with, but I preferred Qyzen. Wish he was here right now really. I know he didn't really have a Jedi perspective on things, but I appreciated his perspective."
"Anyone else have a story you want to share?" Alendria said.
She was still practicing the spoons she had bought from Bodahn.
Isseria spoke up.
"I was just a normal university student. I was going to Northwestern, and I had been into martial arts since I was a kid. I even kept up with it at college. I was struggling in choosing my major even by the time my freshman year ended. But I heard about this exchange program with a Chinese school of martial arts. I could spend one semester abroad learning about how traditional Chinese martial arts work. I managed to get my parents to agree with it, and so I went to China, intending on staying for three months, and ended up staying for 3 years.
When I first got there, my pride in my skills was shattered, as this program really showed you how to fight for real. It wasn't a McDojo. Gradually, I went from being worthless, to being OK, and by the time my program was complete, the Guru of the program told me I had become an acceptable beginner.
He said if I went back to the US, I would slip back and lose my good habits because of the bad habits of the trainers there. So I stayed past my visa, and my parents didn't know where I was. I had long sense given up my phone and every other modern convenience. The part of the program I had experienced as an exchange student was just the fund raising arm of the guru's bigger plans.
After I agreed to stay, I followed the guru to a much more remote facility, that even the Chinese government didn't know about.
I trained every day, and I was a trainer for others every day, and the guru said I was making progress, but just as I had faced the difficult choice of major before, now he made me chose a specialty to work toward mastery in.
I had seen the master Wong Fei using pistols as a form of martial arts. He worked with two pistols and spun, maneuvered, fired and lived and breathed his weapons. He made them an extension of himself. I asked Wong Fei to teach me, but he refused to teach a woman. The guru refused to give me access to weapons until I became a master in something myself, so I was stuck.
But Wong Fei reluctantly told me to make two mock pistols and practice with them. So I did.
It took another two years before Wong Fei acknowledged me as a good practitioner of the craft. I had got my pistols, and I was planning on spending years more at the compound, but I started to get more and more homesick, and so I eventually left the place and returned to Shanghai, where the Chinese authorities reported me as found, and I returned to the west.
It was horrible, the decadence in the west, now that I had lived with nothing for so long. I had helped grow the compound's own food, and we had done everything on our own in isolation.
I returned to Northwest to try to complete my degree, but I couldn't put up with all the lies. I knew the university was full of western assumptions even when they pretended to be multi-cultural.
Eventually, I grew extremely bored and irritated by the lack of competent martial arts dojos in Chicago and I set up my own.
When I soundly defeated a field full of men in a local Chicago martial arts tournament, and then did it two years running, I drew some interest from organized crime, the magical kind.
A local gangster demonologist threatened my life and told me he would kill me if I didn't get this certain item for him in 24 hours.
The FBI started investigating the break in, and I had a run in with a man who specialized in growing carnivorous plants. After a misunderstanding, we escaped from the gangster and the FBI together, and evaded a manhunt that crossed into Michigan.
Eventually I found out my old guru's own specialty, which was ki-attacks. Issac and I were able to defeat the gangster who was threatening us, but that old guru had been supporting the local gangsters by providing them with magic.
It was disappointing to have to fight my old guru, but I was able to defeat him by learning a form of Gun-Ki in the middle of getting pummeled by him.
The guru had been ranting and raving to me about this wave theory of history, where society went from being dominated by science and technology to being dominated by monasticism and mysticism, and he thought the wave was coming crashing back to his own position and that western society would be destroyed. I was on my way to China again to investigate what was left of the old training program when the plane through some stormy clouds, and I lost consciousness and woke up here.
"Your world is weird, I though Melara was using a lot of jargon, but I don't get most of what you talked about," Alendria said.
The story telling was interrupted while Bodahn came and told them that they had a visitor.
Valeraine went to speak to the visitor. He was a peasant, looking more frazzled than ever.
"Ma'am! We need help. My village, Ulburban, is under attack. Some raiders have taken our village and are keeping us hostage. I only barely managed to escape."
"Do you know who attacked you? Was it those orcs that have been wandering the countryside of late?" Valeraine said.
"No ma'am. These were Sea Raiders! Everyone's afraid of Sea Raiders, even the army. Please, we need help!" the man said.
"Where can I find Ulburban?"
"South east of here. I can show you," he said.
"Everyone, let's get ready, we need to save whomever we can from these Sea Raider. Be ready for the worst, we haven't fought these foes yet!" Valeraine yelled.
"Oh thank you. Thank you!"
They spent the rest of the day recovering at camp. Aliaga had some skill at cooking, so after Valeraine started a fire going with her magics, the two went to Bodahn and bought what they needed to cook a nice dinner.
It was a stew, with a nice big cauldron cooking up enough for days. Bodahn said that all of their cooking equipment and leftovers would stay with the camp and wherever they traveled in the world zone they could always go back to the camp.
Aliaga started working on the Mutton stew, with carrots, potatoes, celery and spices. She marveled that it didn't cook up like her home world but took time to cook.
All evening long the recovering Valkyrie troop looked longingly at the food cooking away, and looked for someone fun to do while they recovered.
Alendria took it on herself to entertain the group.
"I collect stories," she said. "Sometimes I retell them or write songs about them. I think it would be fun if we tell some stories about each other's worlds."
Surprisingly, the normally subdued Melara told her story.
"I was a padawan under Master Youn Par, who specializes in archeology and exploring, especially in finding old Jedi artifacts and sites. Tython's aggressive natives, the so-called Flesh Raiders, attacked us while we were looking for some holocrons, which are recordings made by past Jedis, or, past Sith.
My master fell under the sway of a sickness of the dark side, which took away her moral faculties and restraints, and she attacked me when I was with her at the medical facilities on Coruscant, the Republic's homeworld.
Luckily, I was able to find out more about the condition my master suffered, and I cured Master Yuon Par of her condition, but it took a lot out of me in the process.
I was granted the rank of Jedi knight, but what I ended up doing is tracking down several other Jedi on other worlds who had fallen under this curse. Many of them had done a lot of damage to our cause in the process, killing and doing the bidding of a Lord Vivicar, who they constantly referenced.
Each time I healed the curse, it took something more out of me, and I struggled to continue. But eventually I fought out that Lord Vivicar was actually someone known as Parkanas Tark, who was abandoned during evacuations after a failed Jedi mission on Malachor Three.
I was able to locate Parkanas, and fought a vicious battle with the fallen man, but eventually prevailed. With Parkanas gone, the curse that had inflicted so many was no more.
It was only a few weeks ago that I was able to prevail against Lord Vivicar, and I had just received a new mission, to serve as an advocate and peace-broker for a group of planets called the Rift Alliance. I was in my Defender-class ship, and I made the jump to hyperspace, something went wrong and when I regained consciousness, I was here."
Alendria smiled, "Good story, I need to translate some of your terms though. We need to make it alive and fill it up. What kind of quirky people did you run across during all of this?"
"Padawan means basically a Jedi apprentice, who is not ready to work on their own yet, but will continue to train with an experienced Jedi until she is ready. I was the Padawn and Youn Par was my master.
I was part of the more diplomatic and force focussed part of the Jedi order. I rarely ever saw Master Par use her lightsaber, but she was well versed in the force, and she loved peace, gentleness and serenity.
From what little I understand of your world, Alendria, the Force is a bit like your Holy mana, but it also has its own intentions. The Force is a sort of being on its own, as well as a field of energy which you can learn to sense and feel everywhere. In this new world we are now in, I believe the force has somehow been channeled and limited to become merely a power source.
I don't sense any temptations from the Dark Side. The Dark Side is no longer trying to sway me, it's like it's not there at all actually. I don't mind that, at least."
Alendria nodded, "In my world, every God has his or her preferences and focusses, but in addition, every God has her Good aspect, and her Bad aspect. The song of healing I sing is called Hodierna's lilt. Hodierna is the God of healing, springtime, morning and light.
But she has a Good aspect, Berengia and an Evil aspect, Asketi. Even though Hodierna herself is for all these good things, Asketi is truly one of the vilest Evil aspects. I get the sense that the force itself is good in the way that Hodierna is good, but then the light-side is more good, and the dark-side is very bad?"
"Do Bards study the Gods and learn about them, and sing songs about them? To be honest, most of the masters of my order would see you as too jovial and whimsical for their taste. The force is a serious matter, and to know the force is to dedicate a lifetime to meditation and study, honing your greater awareness."
Alendria shook her head, "Some Bards may sing about the Gods, because we sing about everything, but the Clerics are much more like your order. Some clerics of Gods such as Glythtide, the God of joy and mirth, may be more light-hearted, but in general, our world's clerics are as serious and dedicated as the order you belong too. And I may be jovial and whimsical, but I have spent many days practicing my instruments and honing my voice as a weapon. I hope I get my screams back."
"Hmm, another thing about the story, if you want more, was my companion, Qyzen Fess. Qyzen was a good friend of my masters, and I became good friends with him as well. He is a Trandoshan who believes in a being known as a scorekeeper. He believes that he is required to fight for this scorekeeper, and fight worthy opponents for some kind of points to prove his honor.
He was always telling me about fights that were much points, while we were fighting to deal with various issues on the planets we went to during the story. He used a sort of fancy sword like weaopn called a tech-blade. I know we found him a few different types of tech blades before I ended up here.
There was a few other companions I met and could have chosen to work with, but I preferred Qyzen. Wish he was here right now really. I know he didn't really have a Jedi perspective on things, but I appreciated his perspective."
"Anyone else have a story you want to share?" Alendria said.
She was still practicing the spoons she had bought from Bodahn.
Isseria spoke up.
"I was just a normal university student. I was going to Northwestern, and I had been into martial arts since I was a kid. I even kept up with it at college. I was struggling in choosing my major even by the time my freshman year ended. But I heard about this exchange program with a Chinese school of martial arts. I could spend one semester abroad learning about how traditional Chinese martial arts work. I managed to get my parents to agree with it, and so I went to China, intending on staying for three months, and ended up staying for 3 years.
When I first got there, my pride in my skills was shattered, as this program really showed you how to fight for real. It wasn't a McDojo. Gradually, I went from being worthless, to being OK, and by the time my program was complete, the Guru of the program told me I had become an acceptable beginner.
He said if I went back to the US, I would slip back and lose my good habits because of the bad habits of the trainers there. So I stayed past my visa, and my parents didn't know where I was. I had long sense given up my phone and every other modern convenience. The part of the program I had experienced as an exchange student was just the fund raising arm of the guru's bigger plans.
After I agreed to stay, I followed the guru to a much more remote facility, that even the Chinese government didn't know about.
I trained every day, and I was a trainer for others every day, and the guru said I was making progress, but just as I had faced the difficult choice of major before, now he made me chose a specialty to work toward mastery in.
I had seen the master Wong Fei using pistols as a form of martial arts. He worked with two pistols and spun, maneuvered, fired and lived and breathed his weapons. He made them an extension of himself. I asked Wong Fei to teach me, but he refused to teach a woman. The guru refused to give me access to weapons until I became a master in something myself, so I was stuck.
But Wong Fei reluctantly told me to make two mock pistols and practice with them. So I did.
It took another two years before Wong Fei acknowledged me as a good practitioner of the craft. I had got my pistols, and I was planning on spending years more at the compound, but I started to get more and more homesick, and so I eventually left the place and returned to Shanghai, where the Chinese authorities reported me as found, and I returned to the west.
It was horrible, the decadence in the west, now that I had lived with nothing for so long. I had helped grow the compound's own food, and we had done everything on our own in isolation.
I returned to Northwest to try to complete my degree, but I couldn't put up with all the lies. I knew the university was full of western assumptions even when they pretended to be multi-cultural.
Eventually, I grew extremely bored and irritated by the lack of competent martial arts dojos in Chicago and I set up my own.
When I soundly defeated a field full of men in a local Chicago martial arts tournament, and then did it two years running, I drew some interest from organized crime, the magical kind.
A local gangster demonologist threatened my life and told me he would kill me if I didn't get this certain item for him in 24 hours.
The FBI started investigating the break in, and I had a run in with a man who specialized in growing carnivorous plants. After a misunderstanding, we escaped from the gangster and the FBI together, and evaded a manhunt that crossed into Michigan.
Eventually I found out my old guru's own specialty, which was ki-attacks. Issac and I were able to defeat the gangster who was threatening us, but that old guru had been supporting the local gangsters by providing them with magic.
It was disappointing to have to fight my old guru, but I was able to defeat him by learning a form of Gun-Ki in the middle of getting pummeled by him.
The guru had been ranting and raving to me about this wave theory of history, where society went from being dominated by science and technology to being dominated by monasticism and mysticism, and he thought the wave was coming crashing back to his own position and that western society would be destroyed. I was on my way to China again to investigate what was left of the old training program when the plane through some stormy clouds, and I lost consciousness and woke up here.
"Your world is weird, I though Melara was using a lot of jargon, but I don't get most of what you talked about," Alendria said.
The story telling was interrupted while Bodahn came and told them that they had a visitor.
Valeraine went to speak to the visitor. He was a peasant, looking more frazzled than ever.
"Ma'am! We need help. My village, Ulburban, is under attack. Some raiders have taken our village and are keeping us hostage. I only barely managed to escape."
"Do you know who attacked you? Was it those orcs that have been wandering the countryside of late?" Valeraine said.
"No ma'am. These were Sea Raiders! Everyone's afraid of Sea Raiders, even the army. Please, we need help!" the man said.
"Where can I find Ulburban?"
"South east of here. I can show you," he said.
"Everyone, let's get ready, we need to save whomever we can from these Sea Raider. Be ready for the worst, we haven't fought these foes yet!" Valeraine yelled.
"Oh thank you. Thank you!"
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Orc Raiders
Part 2 of the Valkyrie Six
After a night of rest, three of the recruits were somehow wearing decent leather armor and swords.
"We're footmen now. We automatically get the equipment we deserve as we get more experienced. You can choose how we advance for our next promotion. The Skirmisher has some more ranged fighting capacity, and the veteran fights on horseback and is promoted to cavalry or infantry ranks."
"Definitely the veteran. We need more front line fighting capacity with so many of our Six being support or ranged focused. Ok, form up just behind Melara and Sophella, and provide melee support and skirmishing, get out of the way if the fighting gets heated, I don't want you dead," Valeraine said, as they were headed out of the camp.
The group marched in the formation Valeraine had described the night before, with Melara and Sophella first, followed by the recruits and footmen, and then Alendria and Valeraine herself, with Aliaga taking up the rear.
Bodahn and Sandal were somewhere behind them, following far behind. Isseria looked back and couldn't see them.
She was off to the side of the whole marching formation, taking a flanking position, ready to come in as a surprise.
It was an hour of steady marching through cold forested lands, full of snow. Pines, firs and other evergreen trees were everywhere.
There were no animals to be seen, at least, no predators that would worry them. Instead they spotted a group skulking through the forest, and chased them down.
The group, when they were cornered, turned to attack.
"My men and I would like a word with you about your purse and your belongings."
Isseria jogged to take up an encircling position. Melara went invisible, Sophella charged towards the man who had said that.
And then Isseria felt a queer feeling as she dematerialized and appeared again elsewhere. It was like the transporter on Star Trek or something.
They were all there. The thick forest was replaced with a field with only a few trees, and the snow was cosmetic, being only a half-inch thick.
Where were those outlaws now? Isseria wondered.
"Get back in position, and scout out the area," Valeraine said.
Isseria flanked their reforming formation on the left side, and continued looking for the enemy.
She saw them, finally, approaching from a distance. They must have been transported as well.
"It's a lot far for me," she said.
"I can't shoot that far," Alendria answered.
"Its too far for everyone I think," Aliaga said.
"Get ready. Be Careful Vaegirs."
The two fighting bands came closer and closer. Finally, the enemies started throwing stones their way.
"Two can play at that game. Just get in my boulder range!" Sophella yelled.
Alendria started shooting, and Aliaga started using her spells from about 100 yards out. At 60 yards, Isseria drew one pistol, loading cold-shot, and carefully fired. She could only shoot once every few seconds at this distance. The dual pistol stance was too inaccurate at range.
Valeraine smashed a fire shard into one looter's head, downing him.
There were 8 looters left standing when Alendria put away her bow and pulled out her mandolin. The song was soothing once again as Isseria pulled out her second pistol, and loaded up with kinetic rounds.
Sophella stunned a looter with one of her boulders, and Melara appeared right behind a looter as Sophella smashed her stone fist into another.
Two looters bypassed the front line, and the recruits pounced on them. One of the looters froze as Aliaga's spell slammed into him, and the other two took a barrage of blows from the recruits.
Isseria picked off two looters that decided to stand back up, and the looter fighting the recruits, was flung back by Valeraine's backdraft spell as they were about to smash a club into one of them.
"Take the weapons and coin from living and dead. After you've left the survivors with nothing to come back against us with, let them go."
Isseria picked up a few small coins from the bodies of the two she had shot after they got back up. She put their armor and weapons in a big heaping pile where the others had collected them.
"There's only one living, here," Melara said, with her foot on the man's back.
Isseria walked over, seeing Melara take axe and knife and stones from the man.
Valeraine talked to him, "Tell your master not to mess with the Six, if he wants to live out the month."
The man stood up, spat in Valeraine's face, and shouted, "Whore!"
He started running, but Isseria aimed her pistol and fired, downing him.
"Isseria! We don't kill the defenseless!" Aliaga said.
"She did the right thing. The Valkyrie Six are going to have to earn respect. Respectful survivors will get a respectful chance to leave. Disrespect will get disrespect," Valeraine said. She wiped the spit off her face.
"Anyone hurt?" Aliaga asked, changing the subject.
"I got hit with a stone," one of the recruits said. "But that song has me cheered up again.
Bodahn came through with a wheeled cart Isseria hadn't seen before.
"I got your stuff. Is there anything you'd like to keep, or do you just want to sell all this junk to me? It ain't much, but its something for coin."
"Any armor that's even sorta ok for Isseria?" Valeraine asked.
"You might find some eventually, but this group was pathetic."
"How many coins for all this?" she asked.
"62 ducats. I know its not much but this is bottom of the barrel equipment. Its worth more to be torn up as scrap and salvage."
"Alright. Let's all pool our ducats and then we can manage our funds together," Valeraine said.
Isseria gave up her coins, as did Melara and Sophella.
"Ready to move on?" Valeraine said.
Everyone nodded.
Isseria asked "What was that trans--"
They transported back to where they were before.
"That's the battle field," Bodahn said.
"Well I know, but why didn't we fight where we found those looters," Valeraine asked.
"You fight on a separate field. Two words, battle, field. As in, this world brings you into a separate place when you engage in battle. The battle fields vary depending on the local geography but they don't match your location exactly. You'll continue to go back and forth from the Battle field and the World zone over time. There's also city zones and village zones that work by teleportation. You get close to the city and then wham: city zone. Just is how it is," Bodahn said.
"Commander," one of the Vaegirs asked.
"Yes soldier, what is it?" Valeraine asked.
"I've been upgraded to footman as well."
"Very good, lets move out."
They teleported back to what Bodahn called the world zone.
"Alright, let's make sure we form up after each teleport from now on," Valeraine said.
There was another group right behind the first group that they hadn't seen before.
"For the Horde!"
"Oh crap, it's a Horde War Party!" Aliaga said.
They faded into the snowy battle field again.
-----------------------
Aliaga tensed up, contemplating the armor on that Orc rider. It was one of Hellscream's mounted raiding parties. Every one of them were Orcs of the greatest viciousness.
"Listen up," Aliaga yelled, "These guys are not like who you just fought. They are on wargs, they fight dirty, viciously. They are armed and armored, and I'm sure they have a warlock or two in their group. We need a phalanx."
"Vaegirs, fill in a square. Up front will be Sophella, Melara and myself. Isseria, form the left side of the phalanx. Aliaga, form the right. Alendria, form the rear. Vaegirs, fill in the gaps so we have 3 to 4 people on each side."
"We need to have a plan to disrupt their charge," Aliaga said. "I will mind control one of the riders and make him crash into another. Melara, can you do your force push thing to fling one of them off their warg. Valeraine, that backdraft spell maybe?"
"Do whatever you can to blunt this initial charge and then form the square," Valeraine said.
One of the mounted Orcs was stopped by a tree, they ran right into it like an idiot, but the others charged towards the Six. Aliaga took control of the one of the riders' minds. She made the warg smash into another rider's warg, and then when the rider was thrown off his warg, She made him attack the other fallen rider.
Meanwhile, Isseria quick fired shots into a warg, sending a rider leaping off his warg. Melara had flung another rider off his warg and landing some distance away, and Valeraine also blasted back one of the riders.
Sophella was punching wargs and riders with her fists and hurling boulders. She had drawn the attention of a large part of the group.
Aliaga always had a rough sense of the health of everyone in the group. Without an area healing spell, however, she needed to focus on the big heals. Alendria was already playing her healing song, so Aliaga prepared and then used her heal spell on Sophella after she was knocked down by a warg rider. It was more than was needed, surprisingly the so-called tanker had held up and only took a few cuts to her stony exterior.
The recruits fought on the edge of battle, and Aliaga desperately cast a heal on one of them as they were being cut down, and the man had a renewed surge of strength to fight back. Sophella didn't need much healing, but the Vaegirs and Isseria, who had somehow taken a front line position, needed a lot.
Isseria was the most fragile of the bunch, but she was deadly with her pistols. The constant healing spells sapped her focus, so she almost didn't notice a Orc slashing his broadaxe at her.
The axe slashed through her robes and cut the skin, but no further as she stumbled backwards.
She motioned at the Orc with her finger and the orc howled in pain slashing her with his axe, gouging into her side.
She backpedaled, casting a heal on herself when Alendria, who must have switched to bow, shot the orc.
"A little help over here."
She sensed Melara taking heavy damage and spared a moment to heal the Jedi as Alendria took the brunt of the Orc's charge, but not before shooting him with her short bow twice more.
Aliaga took control of the orc's mind after the first hit, and directed him to run back to Sophella.
Sophella was standing back to back with Melara, calling on the enemies to try to hit her. Chunks of her armor had fallen off, revealing the human within, but Aliaga's senses showed that Sophella was still ok.
It must have happened too fast as she didn't even notice Valeraine get knocked out.
The fray and frantic battle had created a gap between most of the Six. The Vaegirs were down and dead all over the place, but two of them were working together with Isseria and still surviving.
There were three Orcs in between them and Sophella. One between them and Valeraine.
"Shoot that one!" Aliaga said. And she ran towards the orc, inflicting pain on it, and then healing Isseria.
"My mana's getting low," she said to Alendria.
"The lilt is a low cost chant, I haven't really tapped into much of mine. In my world, magic users can share mana, but I'm not sure how well Elemental mana would work with Holy mana, in our world it works poorly."
Aliaga had never heard of sharing mana, although there were all kinds of potions to regain mana.
"I need to get a full set of mana potions once we have the money."
Alendria fired on the Orc enough to draw him towards them so he couldn't finish off Alendria.
The shadow word pain faded, and she reapplied it to the Orc.
"Let's see if this staff still works as a normal weapon!" Aliaga said.
Swinging the staff with abandon while approaching from the side so Alendria could still shoot, she made contact, bruising the already bleeding orc.
The staff wasn't so effective at blocking the orc's battleaxe though. Aliaga had never trained in melee combat, really.
She fought through the pain and bashed at the orc with the staff in a tomahawk chop motion.
"He's holding onto all my arrows! This is the last one!"
With a swift motion, the orc smashed his fist into Aliaga's face as the last arrow pierced into his left eye, and the Orc howled and collapsed, as I crumpled to the ground.
"I wish I could play Nexus for you right now, but it seems I don't know that song in this world," Alendria said.
She retrieved the Mandolin as Aliaga sat in the dirt looked at the devastation. Sophella was fighting what was left of the enemy force. Three orcs hemmed her in. Isseria was down, Melara was down. A lot of wargs and orcs were down or dead.
Alendria started playing her healing song again. Aliaga got up and kicked the orc, pulling the jagged arrows out of his body, and aggravating the bleeding. She pulled the arrow out of the orc's eye, and he howled and shuddered, and then went silent.
"They're bloody, but here, I got your arrows," Aliaga said to Alendria.
Alendria juggled her mandolin and pick, and took the arrows, stuffing them into her quiver, and then resumed playing.
Somehow, one of the Vaegir footmen was still standing, and came towards them.
"Anyone got any water?" Aliaga asked, as she was eyeing Sophella's fight, with two orcs left.
"Here," said the footman, passing over his kanteen.
Aliaga took a few swings from the canteen, passed it back to the footman, and felt restored by the lilt. She stood up, having recovered her mana, and cast a healing spell on Sophella, who stood up straighter, her stone armor having somehow been repaired by the healing magics.
Aliaga hit both orcs with Shadow Word Pain, Alendria stopped playing the lilt and started shooting again, and the footman charged towards one of the last orcs. Managing to get a few blows in, as the orcs withered and then tried to run but were cut down by Alendria's arrows, and Aliaga's shadow words.
As if by magic, Bodahn showed up as the battle was over.
Aliaga went around, looking to the fallen heroes. Thankfully, none of them were dead, and she was able to heal them up. Valeraine first, then Isseria, then Melara.
Two of the recruits were hurt but still alive, and one other footman, in addition to the one that had helped at the end.
Sadly, the six others were dead. Alendria gathered the recovering ones, and was playing her lilt and singing songs.
Sophella helped Bodahn pile up the orc bodies, and respectfully handle the soldiers that had died.
They looted the orcs for armor, weapons, coins and even found a sealed envelope.
Bodahn said all the armor and weapons were worth 800 coin, and Isseria wanted a lighter armor than the heavy stuff the orcs had worn. Aliaga took the coins from Bodahn and gave it to Valeraine who was sitting in a circle around Alendria.
"Oh I've been to every bar, tavern and inn in all of Illithi and Zoluren,
But not a single one has ever called me home like this one,
The snowbeast sandwich it is the snowbeastiest
Baerholt's Tavern is more than a bar, it's got foreign cheeses from afar
I've been to every Bard shop in all the land but not one keep compares to that man
The True Bard who knows his timpanis like he knows his favorite wine from Ilithi
D'or I've been falling into a trap, I've fallen for the man of a timely snap
The violin he''s mastered, the harp he played until all of them ran away
My life is just a song, like when I was singing my life away to get from dying
Those monsters were running at me and I sang the fear into them
I couldn't hit them with a bow if I spent all year long shooting and shooting
My sword decided it wanted to run away but my music still stayed with me
Music without something hard is just a wasted song, just a parched throat in a storm
Give me a glass of something strong, you may think I'm a weakling but your wrong
I once drank a Gor'Tog under the table, when I drank that disgusting grog all day long!
Give me a brandy, made by the man that I find fancy, I just want the everlasting song!
And now here I am, with all these fine ladies, in a place without a single drop!
There's nothing to be found, not even a pint of a tonic that keeps me up!
What strange place, filled with orcs and men and not a single rat is moving on the ground
Now my path has been set by someone else, I will fight and sing with the Six until I'm down."
"Did you just make that up on the fly?" Aliaga asked. "I used to hang out at a tavern in the mage district, and we had a few singers there."
"I usually sing improv, or half-improv, if I adjust off of a song I already know," Alendria said.
"Let's leave this battle field, and then set up camp. Maybe Bodahn has some comestibles, we have the money now," Valeraine said.
So they left the field of battle, and then immediately teleported from the world zone into the camp zone, where their camp was already set up. All Valeraine had to do is want to go to the camp, and there it was.
The four remaining soldiers approached Valeraine.
"We were recruits, and now we're footmen," two of them said.
"And the two of us are ready to be promoted too, but you have to decide. Skirmisher or Veteran. As a Skirmisher, we're heading towards specializing in bows, or as Veterans, we will be on horseback, but our later options can be foot soldiers or cavalry."
"Jim here is ready to be promoted again after this choice too," said the other.
"Veterans for both of you," Valeraine said. And their gear changed as she said it.
Jim said to her, "Now I can become a horseman or an infantryman."
"Well as the six, we aren't really a mounted group. So I would say infantryman."
The man who had been barely armored was now wearing a full hauberk, and a nordic sword and shield.
"Good job out there guys," Valeraine said to them.
After a night of rest, three of the recruits were somehow wearing decent leather armor and swords.
"We're footmen now. We automatically get the equipment we deserve as we get more experienced. You can choose how we advance for our next promotion. The Skirmisher has some more ranged fighting capacity, and the veteran fights on horseback and is promoted to cavalry or infantry ranks."
"Definitely the veteran. We need more front line fighting capacity with so many of our Six being support or ranged focused. Ok, form up just behind Melara and Sophella, and provide melee support and skirmishing, get out of the way if the fighting gets heated, I don't want you dead," Valeraine said, as they were headed out of the camp.
The group marched in the formation Valeraine had described the night before, with Melara and Sophella first, followed by the recruits and footmen, and then Alendria and Valeraine herself, with Aliaga taking up the rear.
Bodahn and Sandal were somewhere behind them, following far behind. Isseria looked back and couldn't see them.
She was off to the side of the whole marching formation, taking a flanking position, ready to come in as a surprise.
It was an hour of steady marching through cold forested lands, full of snow. Pines, firs and other evergreen trees were everywhere.
There were no animals to be seen, at least, no predators that would worry them. Instead they spotted a group skulking through the forest, and chased them down.
The group, when they were cornered, turned to attack.
"My men and I would like a word with you about your purse and your belongings."
Isseria jogged to take up an encircling position. Melara went invisible, Sophella charged towards the man who had said that.
And then Isseria felt a queer feeling as she dematerialized and appeared again elsewhere. It was like the transporter on Star Trek or something.
They were all there. The thick forest was replaced with a field with only a few trees, and the snow was cosmetic, being only a half-inch thick.
Where were those outlaws now? Isseria wondered.
"Get back in position, and scout out the area," Valeraine said.
Isseria flanked their reforming formation on the left side, and continued looking for the enemy.
She saw them, finally, approaching from a distance. They must have been transported as well.
"It's a lot far for me," she said.
"I can't shoot that far," Alendria answered.
"Its too far for everyone I think," Aliaga said.
"Get ready. Be Careful Vaegirs."
The two fighting bands came closer and closer. Finally, the enemies started throwing stones their way.
"Two can play at that game. Just get in my boulder range!" Sophella yelled.
Alendria started shooting, and Aliaga started using her spells from about 100 yards out. At 60 yards, Isseria drew one pistol, loading cold-shot, and carefully fired. She could only shoot once every few seconds at this distance. The dual pistol stance was too inaccurate at range.
Valeraine smashed a fire shard into one looter's head, downing him.
There were 8 looters left standing when Alendria put away her bow and pulled out her mandolin. The song was soothing once again as Isseria pulled out her second pistol, and loaded up with kinetic rounds.
Sophella stunned a looter with one of her boulders, and Melara appeared right behind a looter as Sophella smashed her stone fist into another.
Two looters bypassed the front line, and the recruits pounced on them. One of the looters froze as Aliaga's spell slammed into him, and the other two took a barrage of blows from the recruits.
Isseria picked off two looters that decided to stand back up, and the looter fighting the recruits, was flung back by Valeraine's backdraft spell as they were about to smash a club into one of them.
"Take the weapons and coin from living and dead. After you've left the survivors with nothing to come back against us with, let them go."
Isseria picked up a few small coins from the bodies of the two she had shot after they got back up. She put their armor and weapons in a big heaping pile where the others had collected them.
"There's only one living, here," Melara said, with her foot on the man's back.
Isseria walked over, seeing Melara take axe and knife and stones from the man.
Valeraine talked to him, "Tell your master not to mess with the Six, if he wants to live out the month."
The man stood up, spat in Valeraine's face, and shouted, "Whore!"
He started running, but Isseria aimed her pistol and fired, downing him.
"Isseria! We don't kill the defenseless!" Aliaga said.
"She did the right thing. The Valkyrie Six are going to have to earn respect. Respectful survivors will get a respectful chance to leave. Disrespect will get disrespect," Valeraine said. She wiped the spit off her face.
"Anyone hurt?" Aliaga asked, changing the subject.
"I got hit with a stone," one of the recruits said. "But that song has me cheered up again.
Bodahn came through with a wheeled cart Isseria hadn't seen before.
"I got your stuff. Is there anything you'd like to keep, or do you just want to sell all this junk to me? It ain't much, but its something for coin."
"Any armor that's even sorta ok for Isseria?" Valeraine asked.
"You might find some eventually, but this group was pathetic."
"How many coins for all this?" she asked.
"62 ducats. I know its not much but this is bottom of the barrel equipment. Its worth more to be torn up as scrap and salvage."
"Alright. Let's all pool our ducats and then we can manage our funds together," Valeraine said.
Isseria gave up her coins, as did Melara and Sophella.
"Ready to move on?" Valeraine said.
Everyone nodded.
Isseria asked "What was that trans--"
They transported back to where they were before.
"That's the battle field," Bodahn said.
"Well I know, but why didn't we fight where we found those looters," Valeraine asked.
"You fight on a separate field. Two words, battle, field. As in, this world brings you into a separate place when you engage in battle. The battle fields vary depending on the local geography but they don't match your location exactly. You'll continue to go back and forth from the Battle field and the World zone over time. There's also city zones and village zones that work by teleportation. You get close to the city and then wham: city zone. Just is how it is," Bodahn said.
"Commander," one of the Vaegirs asked.
"Yes soldier, what is it?" Valeraine asked.
"I've been upgraded to footman as well."
"Very good, lets move out."
They teleported back to what Bodahn called the world zone.
"Alright, let's make sure we form up after each teleport from now on," Valeraine said.
There was another group right behind the first group that they hadn't seen before.
"For the Horde!"
"Oh crap, it's a Horde War Party!" Aliaga said.
They faded into the snowy battle field again.
-----------------------
Aliaga tensed up, contemplating the armor on that Orc rider. It was one of Hellscream's mounted raiding parties. Every one of them were Orcs of the greatest viciousness.
"Listen up," Aliaga yelled, "These guys are not like who you just fought. They are on wargs, they fight dirty, viciously. They are armed and armored, and I'm sure they have a warlock or two in their group. We need a phalanx."
"Vaegirs, fill in a square. Up front will be Sophella, Melara and myself. Isseria, form the left side of the phalanx. Aliaga, form the right. Alendria, form the rear. Vaegirs, fill in the gaps so we have 3 to 4 people on each side."
"We need to have a plan to disrupt their charge," Aliaga said. "I will mind control one of the riders and make him crash into another. Melara, can you do your force push thing to fling one of them off their warg. Valeraine, that backdraft spell maybe?"
"Do whatever you can to blunt this initial charge and then form the square," Valeraine said.
One of the mounted Orcs was stopped by a tree, they ran right into it like an idiot, but the others charged towards the Six. Aliaga took control of the one of the riders' minds. She made the warg smash into another rider's warg, and then when the rider was thrown off his warg, She made him attack the other fallen rider.
Meanwhile, Isseria quick fired shots into a warg, sending a rider leaping off his warg. Melara had flung another rider off his warg and landing some distance away, and Valeraine also blasted back one of the riders.
Sophella was punching wargs and riders with her fists and hurling boulders. She had drawn the attention of a large part of the group.
Aliaga always had a rough sense of the health of everyone in the group. Without an area healing spell, however, she needed to focus on the big heals. Alendria was already playing her healing song, so Aliaga prepared and then used her heal spell on Sophella after she was knocked down by a warg rider. It was more than was needed, surprisingly the so-called tanker had held up and only took a few cuts to her stony exterior.
The recruits fought on the edge of battle, and Aliaga desperately cast a heal on one of them as they were being cut down, and the man had a renewed surge of strength to fight back. Sophella didn't need much healing, but the Vaegirs and Isseria, who had somehow taken a front line position, needed a lot.
Isseria was the most fragile of the bunch, but she was deadly with her pistols. The constant healing spells sapped her focus, so she almost didn't notice a Orc slashing his broadaxe at her.
The axe slashed through her robes and cut the skin, but no further as she stumbled backwards.
She motioned at the Orc with her finger and the orc howled in pain slashing her with his axe, gouging into her side.
She backpedaled, casting a heal on herself when Alendria, who must have switched to bow, shot the orc.
"A little help over here."
She sensed Melara taking heavy damage and spared a moment to heal the Jedi as Alendria took the brunt of the Orc's charge, but not before shooting him with her short bow twice more.
Aliaga took control of the orc's mind after the first hit, and directed him to run back to Sophella.
Sophella was standing back to back with Melara, calling on the enemies to try to hit her. Chunks of her armor had fallen off, revealing the human within, but Aliaga's senses showed that Sophella was still ok.
It must have happened too fast as she didn't even notice Valeraine get knocked out.
The fray and frantic battle had created a gap between most of the Six. The Vaegirs were down and dead all over the place, but two of them were working together with Isseria and still surviving.
There were three Orcs in between them and Sophella. One between them and Valeraine.
"Shoot that one!" Aliaga said. And she ran towards the orc, inflicting pain on it, and then healing Isseria.
"My mana's getting low," she said to Alendria.
"The lilt is a low cost chant, I haven't really tapped into much of mine. In my world, magic users can share mana, but I'm not sure how well Elemental mana would work with Holy mana, in our world it works poorly."
Aliaga had never heard of sharing mana, although there were all kinds of potions to regain mana.
"I need to get a full set of mana potions once we have the money."
Alendria fired on the Orc enough to draw him towards them so he couldn't finish off Alendria.
The shadow word pain faded, and she reapplied it to the Orc.
"Let's see if this staff still works as a normal weapon!" Aliaga said.
Swinging the staff with abandon while approaching from the side so Alendria could still shoot, she made contact, bruising the already bleeding orc.
The staff wasn't so effective at blocking the orc's battleaxe though. Aliaga had never trained in melee combat, really.
She fought through the pain and bashed at the orc with the staff in a tomahawk chop motion.
"He's holding onto all my arrows! This is the last one!"
With a swift motion, the orc smashed his fist into Aliaga's face as the last arrow pierced into his left eye, and the Orc howled and collapsed, as I crumpled to the ground.
"I wish I could play Nexus for you right now, but it seems I don't know that song in this world," Alendria said.
She retrieved the Mandolin as Aliaga sat in the dirt looked at the devastation. Sophella was fighting what was left of the enemy force. Three orcs hemmed her in. Isseria was down, Melara was down. A lot of wargs and orcs were down or dead.
Alendria started playing her healing song again. Aliaga got up and kicked the orc, pulling the jagged arrows out of his body, and aggravating the bleeding. She pulled the arrow out of the orc's eye, and he howled and shuddered, and then went silent.
"They're bloody, but here, I got your arrows," Aliaga said to Alendria.
Alendria juggled her mandolin and pick, and took the arrows, stuffing them into her quiver, and then resumed playing.
Somehow, one of the Vaegir footmen was still standing, and came towards them.
"Anyone got any water?" Aliaga asked, as she was eyeing Sophella's fight, with two orcs left.
"Here," said the footman, passing over his kanteen.
Aliaga took a few swings from the canteen, passed it back to the footman, and felt restored by the lilt. She stood up, having recovered her mana, and cast a healing spell on Sophella, who stood up straighter, her stone armor having somehow been repaired by the healing magics.
Aliaga hit both orcs with Shadow Word Pain, Alendria stopped playing the lilt and started shooting again, and the footman charged towards one of the last orcs. Managing to get a few blows in, as the orcs withered and then tried to run but were cut down by Alendria's arrows, and Aliaga's shadow words.
As if by magic, Bodahn showed up as the battle was over.
Aliaga went around, looking to the fallen heroes. Thankfully, none of them were dead, and she was able to heal them up. Valeraine first, then Isseria, then Melara.
Two of the recruits were hurt but still alive, and one other footman, in addition to the one that had helped at the end.
Sadly, the six others were dead. Alendria gathered the recovering ones, and was playing her lilt and singing songs.
Sophella helped Bodahn pile up the orc bodies, and respectfully handle the soldiers that had died.
They looted the orcs for armor, weapons, coins and even found a sealed envelope.
Bodahn said all the armor and weapons were worth 800 coin, and Isseria wanted a lighter armor than the heavy stuff the orcs had worn. Aliaga took the coins from Bodahn and gave it to Valeraine who was sitting in a circle around Alendria.
"Oh I've been to every bar, tavern and inn in all of Illithi and Zoluren,
But not a single one has ever called me home like this one,
The snowbeast sandwich it is the snowbeastiest
Baerholt's Tavern is more than a bar, it's got foreign cheeses from afar
I've been to every Bard shop in all the land but not one keep compares to that man
The True Bard who knows his timpanis like he knows his favorite wine from Ilithi
D'or I've been falling into a trap, I've fallen for the man of a timely snap
The violin he''s mastered, the harp he played until all of them ran away
My life is just a song, like when I was singing my life away to get from dying
Those monsters were running at me and I sang the fear into them
I couldn't hit them with a bow if I spent all year long shooting and shooting
My sword decided it wanted to run away but my music still stayed with me
Music without something hard is just a wasted song, just a parched throat in a storm
Give me a glass of something strong, you may think I'm a weakling but your wrong
I once drank a Gor'Tog under the table, when I drank that disgusting grog all day long!
Give me a brandy, made by the man that I find fancy, I just want the everlasting song!
And now here I am, with all these fine ladies, in a place without a single drop!
There's nothing to be found, not even a pint of a tonic that keeps me up!
What strange place, filled with orcs and men and not a single rat is moving on the ground
Now my path has been set by someone else, I will fight and sing with the Six until I'm down."
"Did you just make that up on the fly?" Aliaga asked. "I used to hang out at a tavern in the mage district, and we had a few singers there."
"I usually sing improv, or half-improv, if I adjust off of a song I already know," Alendria said.
"Let's leave this battle field, and then set up camp. Maybe Bodahn has some comestibles, we have the money now," Valeraine said.
So they left the field of battle, and then immediately teleported from the world zone into the camp zone, where their camp was already set up. All Valeraine had to do is want to go to the camp, and there it was.
The four remaining soldiers approached Valeraine.
"We were recruits, and now we're footmen," two of them said.
"And the two of us are ready to be promoted too, but you have to decide. Skirmisher or Veteran. As a Skirmisher, we're heading towards specializing in bows, or as Veterans, we will be on horseback, but our later options can be foot soldiers or cavalry."
"Jim here is ready to be promoted again after this choice too," said the other.
"Veterans for both of you," Valeraine said. And their gear changed as she said it.
Jim said to her, "Now I can become a horseman or an infantryman."
"Well as the six, we aren't really a mounted group. So I would say infantryman."
The man who had been barely armored was now wearing a full hauberk, and a nordic sword and shield.
"Good job out there guys," Valeraine said to them.
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Into the Field
Part 1 of the Valkyrie Six
The Six
Alendria, Gnome Bardess
-- 3'6, 76 lbs
-- Silver Hair, Blue Eyes
-- Gnomish Leather Armor
-- Short Bow : attack ability
-- Mandolin
-- Hodierna's Lilt : A healing song
-- Drums of the Snake : A song that increases survival and sneaky skills
Fierce fighter, singer and musician. Is interested in magic even though she only knows musical enchants.
Aliaga, Human Priestess
-- 5'4, 105 lbs
-- Black Hair, Green Eyes
-- Dreamweave Robes
-- Auchenai Staff : spells only
-- Mind Control : Controls target being for 10 - 20 seconds. Can be resisted by strong enemies.
-- Shadow Word: Pain : DOT spell that inflicts damage as pain
-- Heal : Single target healing spell
Conflicted about her increasing use of Shadow magic. Sensitive and compassionate, but determined to fight back against the dark after the destruction of Lordaeron and all that was lost afterword.
Sophella, Stone / Stone Tanker
-- 6'1", 170 lbs
-- Brown Hair, Brown Eyes
-- Stone Armor that complete covers her making her look like a golem
-- Stone Fist : attacks with armored stone fist
-- Taunt : makes nearby enemies focus their attacks on her instead of their intended targets.
-- Hurl Boulder : flings a boulder at targeted enemy
Regrets having to fight fully covered up in stone armor, and wishes she could show off her awesome costume. Protective and friendly.
Melara, Jedi Shadow
-- 5'3", 130 lbs
-- Black Hair, Yellow-Orange Eyes
-- Jedi Knight's White Robes
-- Green Lightsaber : attack ability
-- Vanish : concealment ability, hides Melara until she attacks or walks to closely in front of someone.
-- Force Push : knock back enemy or object, Distance push depends on resistance strength.
Valeraine, Fire Mage
-- 5'11", 165 lbs
-- Flame Red Hair, Blue Eyes
-- Chainmail Armor
-- Longsword : attack ability
-- Ruby Pendant : blocks the first attack against Valeraine in combat
-- Fire Shard : Fire projectile attack against enemy
-- Backdraft : Fire/Air hybrid spell causes major knockback against enemy.
Isseria, Gun Mage
-- 5'6", 150 lbs
-- Brown hair, Blue Eyes
-- Unarmored
-- P226 X-Five : attack ability
-- P226 X-Five : attack ability
-- Elemental Ammo : change the pistols to use another type of elemental ammo. Normal / Fire / Ice / Air.
-----------------------
The camp had been hastily constructed, but Melara had no idea how she got there, or where the camp site was. A half dozen tents were scattered here and there, and a dwarf was standing at a distance from the tents.
Melara was also disturbed because the force felt ... different. She wasn't able to meditate on the force and calm herself after arriving here. She couldn't lift things with the force either. She was able to give a pebble a good shove with the force, but nothing else. The pebble flew a long long way. She didn't think she had put that much oomph into it. It was like the force was super-concentrated into just force pushing things.
She walked over to the dwarf.
"Good day miss, I am Bodahn Fedic, and this is Sandal. I'm not sure why Sandal and I are here. I sure don't recognize those mountains, miss, but in any case, I'm here to buy and sell, and Sandal is an excellent crafter. However, I see that you don't have any coin on you right now, and I doubt you'd like to part with your precious things. Soon, I'm sure we'll have a thriving trade I am sure."
"I should have some Republic credits, I suppose you wouldn't accept them?" Melara asked.
"No miss, I've never heard of Republic credits," Bodahn said.
Sandal repeated, "Credits!"
"Why come all the way out here to trade with one Jedi knight?" Melara asked.
"I don't know why Sandal and I arrived here, but I know somehow that five more ladies will be showing up soon. They won't have any coin either. You'll have to earn your coin in battle if you want any."
"Is this Camp going to be attacked, or why do you say we'll be battling?" Melara asked quizzically. I mean, combat was common enough, but she didn't see any reason to fight as of yet.
"There's looters and bandits all around. And I heard a lot of the organized armies have been losing soldiers left and right. Everyone wants to become part of the problem. These looters are making a ton of money, and capturing the lowborn and highborn alike. If this continues the five kingdoms will fall."
"How can you know all this if you don't know why or where you are?" she asked.
"It's just part of who I am. Sandal and I are no longer in the world we called home. Now we are in a new world of looting and banditry, and kings that pillage small villages for a few coin. I've been calling it Lootsylvania."
"It looks like another of your group has arrived," Bodahn said.
-----------------------
Sophella woke up, inside a tent. She was still in her whole stone armor set. She tried to dispel the armor, nothing. After three attempts she realized it wasn't working.
She had to bend way down to go through the tent opening.
There were a few people gathering in the distance. A man and a boy, and a woman in robes. She stomped towards them, digging trenches of dirt every time she put the weight on one stone foot or the other.
"Hello miss," the man said. "Bodahn Fedic at your service. This is Sandal."
"How did you know she was a she?" the woman asked.
"You all are. This is the campsite of the Valkyrie Six. I know you don't know each other yet, but you will. Sophella, this is Melara, Jedi Shadow. Melara, this is Sophella, Stone Tanker."
Sophella said, "What is a Jedi?" as Melara was saying, "What is a Tanker?"
"You first," Melara said.
"A tanker is someone who protects people and is very durable and has defensive techniques to endure a lot of attacks. A tanker also can taunt her enemies and force them to attack her instead of her friends. I am a stone tanker who also attacks with my stone fists and I can hurl boulders. A Stone / Stone Tanker," Sophella said. "Unfortunately, I can't seem to dispel my armor right now, so I have to stay in this gargoyle suit."
Sophella invisibly gritted her teeth.
"A Jedi is someone who is attuned to the force. As a Jedi Shadow, I am in touch with the force quite a bit, but I also am well versed in the double bladed lightsaber."
Sophella instinctively stepped back as the sword made of green light extended in both directions from her hand.
"I am also having problems. The force is not quite right here. I can only use one of my force techniques at the moment."
"Someone is wrong with this place then," Sophella said.
"I can deflect many types of attacks with my lightsaber, and also use it to attack, and I can Vanish, but not while I'm in front of so many people."
"Can you deflect a boulder?" Sophella asked curiously.
"No, only your common blasters," the 'Jedi' said.
"The third of your six is headed this way," Bodahn said.
"Where is she?" Sophella looked around.
"She is a gnome. But don't underestimate her."
The Jedi saw her first, and turned towards her, and finally Sophella, who was 8 feet tall in her stone armor, saw the 3 foot tall gnome.
"Good Morning, madam. I am Bodahn, and these are two of your fellow Valkyrie Six members."
"I don't know what you're talking about. One moment I was resting underneath the counter, and then I woke up in that darned tent. And I've lost a weapon, three instruments, and a ton of priceless artifacts."
"Ouch, that's more than I lost. I am Sophella, Stone Tanker. That's Melara, Jedi Shadow. And we should wait for all six before we do introductions again."
Bodahn announced each of the rest of six as they approached.
"Aliaga, Human Priestess looked the most familiar to her, being human like she was. Melara was surely some slightly different variant of human. Her skin was slightly more blue than was normal for humans. Valeraine, Fire Mage was human, and so was Isseria, Gun Mage."
Sophella had her work cut out for her, it looked like Melara was a sort of scrapper, but the rest were all somewhere on the blaster / controller / defender spectrum, if she was using her own world's terminology.
They were exchanging minor pleasantries, but not really getting into the details of where they came from yet. Then a man rode in on horseback, with two heavy saddlebags weighing the slow moving horse down.
"Wow, well I'm impressed. It appears most of you are well equipped already, except you miss," the man said, pointing to Isseria, the gun mage. "You might want to buy some armor soon."
"What do I need armor for?" Isseria asked.
"Ahem. I am the Merchant of Reyvadin, and I have a task that I can't find anyone else to do. There's a group of bandits east of your camp that are attacking all the caravans headed to the Kerghit Khanate and on to the Sarranid Kingdom. These bandits are not the normal sort, as they seem to have some skills unknown to Calradia. Some of them are using these objects that attack anyone that gets close, and others skulk about, while still others in this group have some kind of infernal being that belongs to them. There's only maybe a half dozen members of this bandit group, but they are successfully taking all of the caravan's goods for themselves.
King Yargolek has personally asked me to dispatch someone to take care of them. I was told of your appearance here, but I didn't believe you would be useful until you see them. You are likely to face more local dangers on your way to fight these outsiders."
"What's the reward for all of this?" Isseria said.
"Clearing out a menace that doesn't belong to this world is enough," Aliaga said, with surprising fierceness. "I recognize some of the descriptions you gave of those bandits. That could be a warlock at least. They summon demonic beings to do their bidding."
"Wow, they must be super powerful," Isseria said.
"Not necessarily, but definitely unfamiliar for the locals."
"King Yargolek has authorized you to receive a host of Vaegir recruits now, and additional recruits if you succeed. In addition, you will be paid a 1000 ducats if you succeed," the Merchant said.
"How many recruits?" Valeraine said. "I've lead a group of soldiers before. I can help organize the group."
"10 recruits."
"I've gone into battle with a Trandoshan friend all the time," Melara said. "He would say that these foes are 'Much Points'."
"I do my best when working together with 7 other heroes. I have to lead a little bit just to make sure no one takes the enemy's attention off of me."
"I think we've all lead teams into battle in some capacity, but I definitely think Valeraine should be in charge of the recruits. If we can specialize them in different ways, then we can assign some of them to the rest of us. Later on of course," Aliaga said.
"Anyone disagree with moving forward with this plan?" Melara asked.
"OK, I'll bring the recruits in," the Merchant said. "When you've got this done, head to the Tavern in Reyvadin and I'll ask for you."
"Um, where is Reyvadin?" Isseria asked.
"West of here. Follow the peasants, they often head into town in the morning."
-----------------------
They had formed a line with the ten recruits, and the other five "Valkyries" were standing back as Valeraine examined the soldiers.
"So you have scythes, hand axes and cudgels for weapons, and all you can use at range is stones."
This was not Sapphiron's finest fighting force. Valeraine doubted it was even Calradia's finest.
"Yes Commander. We've been provisioned with better weapons, but the law says we have to learn to fight better before we can use the better stuff."
"You need some sparring practice, and then a little bit of testing your mettle in a real battle. I don't want you all to die when we face these foes that seem to be from Aliaga's world."
"What should we do?" one of the recruits said.
They were all garbed in worn cloth armor, with a little padding here and there, but much of it had been worn away.
"Two of you will spar with me. Two of you will spar with Melara, and the remaining six, form up in pairs, and spar against each other. One moment while I get Melara."
She walked over to the group of Valkyries. "Melara, can I use you as a sparring partner for the recruits?"
"Of course, but my lightsaber is likely to cut through their weapons," Melara said.
"Let's see what happens with my weapon," Valeraine said, pulling out her sword.
"I don't want to damage your sword either. The etchings on that blade look truly intricate," Melara said.
"En-garde!" Valeraine said, as she charged forwards.
The four other valkyries stepped aside and continued their conversation. "So then, I was swallowed whole by this plant! It was trying to numb my nerves and poison me but I resisted the effects just long enough to shoot my way out," Isseria was saying.
Melara surprised Valeraine by drawing out her color-light saber, and gently deflecting Valeraine's blow.
Melara charged back, pushing one side of the double-sided blade towards Valeraine. Valeraine blocked the light saber with her own sword, shunting it to the side.
"Hmm, so I guess its not damaging your sword even when I attack. Alright, I'll help spar."
The ten recruits were grouped into pairs now, when she walked back to them with Melara.
"Who gets to fight you and your fellow commander?" one of the recruits asked.
"We'll rotate pairs. You two fight Valkyrie Melara. You two will fight me, and the rest pair against each other," Valeraine said, pointing at each group.
Valeraine was not that great at sword fighting, having focused her efforts on magic and leadership. She was facing a hand axe recruit and another with a scythe. She deflected the first recruit's attack, stepping sideways and back, and then swept at the second.
She got nicked a few times before knocked down the recruits after a few minutes.
"We'd like to help the injured," said Aliaga and Alendria.
"Come over here hurting recruits, and we'll heal you up."
They established a triage spot away from the fighting, and Alendria pulled out her mandolin from her bag. She started playing a hauntingly beautiful song after a moment. Melara's victims were first to head over there, and then her own.
"Pair up as needed with whoever isn't recovering."
Aliaga was busy healing them up, one at a time, as Alendria's song soothed and healed even Valeraine's small cuts.
No one came to her yet, so Valeraine watched Melara cut through the recruits in pairs. She was holding a lot back to stay safe, and still wrecking them.
"Alright take turns fighting Melara. I want all of you to gang up on her," Valeraine said, grinning.
Melara turned invisible, before any of them could get close to her.
She downed two recruits as she turned visible. Alendria stood up and moved towards Valeraine, bringing the healing effect of her song to the downed recruits that started to pile up. The wounded stayed down as Melara incapacitated them all.
"Ok, that's enough, thank you Melara."
"You're welcome. Thank you for the practice recruits."
The Lilting song Alendria was singing caused the recruits to slowly sit up, and then Aliaga went around and fixed them up completely.
"Did that Merchant give us any money for food. Now that there are eighteen of us, we might need some food and supplies."
Bodahn left his corner perch and walked over to them.
"This Merchant got me resupplied with goods for trade. As a gesture of goodwill, and in payment for your protection, let me cook a nice dinner for you all before you head out in the morning."
They all gathered wood from the surrounding taiga. Four of the recruits had axes and they chopped up some fallen trees into stumps suitable for sitting on and enough firewood.
The wood was piled high, and the six Valkyries, ten recruits and two traders sat down at the fire.
Bodahn was roasting a pig on a big spit, and grilling potatoes over the fire.
Sophella, who had an extra huge log to sit her stone armored self on, started the discussion. "So I know all of our worlds have ways of classifying heroes. In my world, we have blasters, scrappers, tankers, controllers and defenders, masterminds, dominators, brutes, corruptors and stalkers.
I would call Aliaga and Alendria defenders, as defenders have a lot of ways to help their fellow healers and still can pack a punch with ranged attacks.
Isseria, I have heard rumors of pistol scrappers, but I could see you as a blaster also. It depends on how close up you get when fighting.
Melara, stalker seems to fit the most, although I hear you have some ranged attacks, so it might be harder to say for sure. You seem to fight a lot while visible still, so scrapper maybe. I'd say you are the hardest to figure out.
Valeraine, you sorta fit Mastermind, but also don't really fit at all, with both a sword and ranged attacks.
What classifications do you guys use in your worlds?"
Bodahn started carving up the pig and eating commenced. The potatoes, the pig, it was all wonderful.
It was only after they ate their fill that the discussion continued.
Aliaga spoke up, "Sophella, I would guess the closest thing my world has to you would be a shaman with some kind of special ability to turn into a rock elemental. Alendria, I can't say I've ever seen someone use music as a form of magic. We don't have bards in Azeroth.
Melara, The only melee fighters with ranged magical attacks I can think up are Paladins and Death Knights, I'm not sure which you are more like. Neither of them have stealth. Maybe you are a rogue with something different than the normal rogue throwing knives. You don't really fight like a rogue though.
Isseria, You're a ranger with pistols and no familiar. Valeraine, you're kinda off the grid."
Alendria did hers as a song:
"Aliaga's an empath, in a violent sort of way, and Sophella I have no idea what to say,
Melara's a sneaky warrior mage and Valeraine's a warrior mage too,
and Isseria's a ranger with weapons I've never seen before."
"Its probably a good idea that we get some sleep soon. However, from a battlefield commander's perspective, this is what I think," Valeraine said.
"Melara and Sophella will be our front liners. The recruits will be close supports, helping out where they can, and retreating behind Sophella's taunt technique when they get found out.
Alendria, I want you close behind the front row, so your song can keep the recruits healing up and alive, and helping them out.
"Aliaga, if I understand this, you can heal from a pretty good range?"
"60 yards or so," Aliaga said, "yep."
"OK then, Aliaga, take a back row position. I'll take a middle position next to Alendria, and Isseria, your pistols have a fairly short range?"
"Yep, its up close and personal for me."
"Ok, then Isseria, start in the middle row, and then move to the side and get flanking positions on whatever we are targeting."
"Yep that makes sense."
The Six
Alendria, Gnome Bardess
-- 3'6, 76 lbs
-- Silver Hair, Blue Eyes
-- Gnomish Leather Armor
-- Short Bow : attack ability
-- Mandolin
-- Hodierna's Lilt : A healing song
-- Drums of the Snake : A song that increases survival and sneaky skills
Fierce fighter, singer and musician. Is interested in magic even though she only knows musical enchants.
Aliaga, Human Priestess
-- 5'4, 105 lbs
-- Black Hair, Green Eyes
-- Dreamweave Robes
-- Auchenai Staff : spells only
-- Mind Control : Controls target being for 10 - 20 seconds. Can be resisted by strong enemies.
-- Shadow Word: Pain : DOT spell that inflicts damage as pain
-- Heal : Single target healing spell
Conflicted about her increasing use of Shadow magic. Sensitive and compassionate, but determined to fight back against the dark after the destruction of Lordaeron and all that was lost afterword.
Sophella, Stone / Stone Tanker
-- 6'1", 170 lbs
-- Brown Hair, Brown Eyes
-- Stone Armor that complete covers her making her look like a golem
-- Stone Fist : attacks with armored stone fist
-- Taunt : makes nearby enemies focus their attacks on her instead of their intended targets.
-- Hurl Boulder : flings a boulder at targeted enemy
Regrets having to fight fully covered up in stone armor, and wishes she could show off her awesome costume. Protective and friendly.
Melara, Jedi Shadow
-- 5'3", 130 lbs
-- Black Hair, Yellow-Orange Eyes
-- Jedi Knight's White Robes
-- Green Lightsaber : attack ability
-- Vanish : concealment ability, hides Melara until she attacks or walks to closely in front of someone.
-- Force Push : knock back enemy or object, Distance push depends on resistance strength.
Valeraine, Fire Mage
-- 5'11", 165 lbs
-- Flame Red Hair, Blue Eyes
-- Chainmail Armor
-- Longsword : attack ability
-- Ruby Pendant : blocks the first attack against Valeraine in combat
-- Fire Shard : Fire projectile attack against enemy
-- Backdraft : Fire/Air hybrid spell causes major knockback against enemy.
Isseria, Gun Mage
-- 5'6", 150 lbs
-- Brown hair, Blue Eyes
-- Unarmored
-- P226 X-Five : attack ability
-- P226 X-Five : attack ability
-- Elemental Ammo : change the pistols to use another type of elemental ammo. Normal / Fire / Ice / Air.
-----------------------
The camp had been hastily constructed, but Melara had no idea how she got there, or where the camp site was. A half dozen tents were scattered here and there, and a dwarf was standing at a distance from the tents.
Melara was also disturbed because the force felt ... different. She wasn't able to meditate on the force and calm herself after arriving here. She couldn't lift things with the force either. She was able to give a pebble a good shove with the force, but nothing else. The pebble flew a long long way. She didn't think she had put that much oomph into it. It was like the force was super-concentrated into just force pushing things.
She walked over to the dwarf.
"Good day miss, I am Bodahn Fedic, and this is Sandal. I'm not sure why Sandal and I are here. I sure don't recognize those mountains, miss, but in any case, I'm here to buy and sell, and Sandal is an excellent crafter. However, I see that you don't have any coin on you right now, and I doubt you'd like to part with your precious things. Soon, I'm sure we'll have a thriving trade I am sure."
"I should have some Republic credits, I suppose you wouldn't accept them?" Melara asked.
"No miss, I've never heard of Republic credits," Bodahn said.
Sandal repeated, "Credits!"
"Why come all the way out here to trade with one Jedi knight?" Melara asked.
"I don't know why Sandal and I arrived here, but I know somehow that five more ladies will be showing up soon. They won't have any coin either. You'll have to earn your coin in battle if you want any."
"Is this Camp going to be attacked, or why do you say we'll be battling?" Melara asked quizzically. I mean, combat was common enough, but she didn't see any reason to fight as of yet.
"There's looters and bandits all around. And I heard a lot of the organized armies have been losing soldiers left and right. Everyone wants to become part of the problem. These looters are making a ton of money, and capturing the lowborn and highborn alike. If this continues the five kingdoms will fall."
"How can you know all this if you don't know why or where you are?" she asked.
"It's just part of who I am. Sandal and I are no longer in the world we called home. Now we are in a new world of looting and banditry, and kings that pillage small villages for a few coin. I've been calling it Lootsylvania."
"It looks like another of your group has arrived," Bodahn said.
-----------------------
Sophella woke up, inside a tent. She was still in her whole stone armor set. She tried to dispel the armor, nothing. After three attempts she realized it wasn't working.
She had to bend way down to go through the tent opening.
There were a few people gathering in the distance. A man and a boy, and a woman in robes. She stomped towards them, digging trenches of dirt every time she put the weight on one stone foot or the other.
"Hello miss," the man said. "Bodahn Fedic at your service. This is Sandal."
"How did you know she was a she?" the woman asked.
"You all are. This is the campsite of the Valkyrie Six. I know you don't know each other yet, but you will. Sophella, this is Melara, Jedi Shadow. Melara, this is Sophella, Stone Tanker."
Sophella said, "What is a Jedi?" as Melara was saying, "What is a Tanker?"
"You first," Melara said.
"A tanker is someone who protects people and is very durable and has defensive techniques to endure a lot of attacks. A tanker also can taunt her enemies and force them to attack her instead of her friends. I am a stone tanker who also attacks with my stone fists and I can hurl boulders. A Stone / Stone Tanker," Sophella said. "Unfortunately, I can't seem to dispel my armor right now, so I have to stay in this gargoyle suit."
Sophella invisibly gritted her teeth.
"A Jedi is someone who is attuned to the force. As a Jedi Shadow, I am in touch with the force quite a bit, but I also am well versed in the double bladed lightsaber."
Sophella instinctively stepped back as the sword made of green light extended in both directions from her hand.
"I am also having problems. The force is not quite right here. I can only use one of my force techniques at the moment."
"Someone is wrong with this place then," Sophella said.
"I can deflect many types of attacks with my lightsaber, and also use it to attack, and I can Vanish, but not while I'm in front of so many people."
"Can you deflect a boulder?" Sophella asked curiously.
"No, only your common blasters," the 'Jedi' said.
"The third of your six is headed this way," Bodahn said.
"Where is she?" Sophella looked around.
"She is a gnome. But don't underestimate her."
The Jedi saw her first, and turned towards her, and finally Sophella, who was 8 feet tall in her stone armor, saw the 3 foot tall gnome.
"Good Morning, madam. I am Bodahn, and these are two of your fellow Valkyrie Six members."
"I don't know what you're talking about. One moment I was resting underneath the counter, and then I woke up in that darned tent. And I've lost a weapon, three instruments, and a ton of priceless artifacts."
"Ouch, that's more than I lost. I am Sophella, Stone Tanker. That's Melara, Jedi Shadow. And we should wait for all six before we do introductions again."
Bodahn announced each of the rest of six as they approached.
"Aliaga, Human Priestess looked the most familiar to her, being human like she was. Melara was surely some slightly different variant of human. Her skin was slightly more blue than was normal for humans. Valeraine, Fire Mage was human, and so was Isseria, Gun Mage."
Sophella had her work cut out for her, it looked like Melara was a sort of scrapper, but the rest were all somewhere on the blaster / controller / defender spectrum, if she was using her own world's terminology.
They were exchanging minor pleasantries, but not really getting into the details of where they came from yet. Then a man rode in on horseback, with two heavy saddlebags weighing the slow moving horse down.
"Wow, well I'm impressed. It appears most of you are well equipped already, except you miss," the man said, pointing to Isseria, the gun mage. "You might want to buy some armor soon."
"What do I need armor for?" Isseria asked.
"Ahem. I am the Merchant of Reyvadin, and I have a task that I can't find anyone else to do. There's a group of bandits east of your camp that are attacking all the caravans headed to the Kerghit Khanate and on to the Sarranid Kingdom. These bandits are not the normal sort, as they seem to have some skills unknown to Calradia. Some of them are using these objects that attack anyone that gets close, and others skulk about, while still others in this group have some kind of infernal being that belongs to them. There's only maybe a half dozen members of this bandit group, but they are successfully taking all of the caravan's goods for themselves.
King Yargolek has personally asked me to dispatch someone to take care of them. I was told of your appearance here, but I didn't believe you would be useful until you see them. You are likely to face more local dangers on your way to fight these outsiders."
"What's the reward for all of this?" Isseria said.
"Clearing out a menace that doesn't belong to this world is enough," Aliaga said, with surprising fierceness. "I recognize some of the descriptions you gave of those bandits. That could be a warlock at least. They summon demonic beings to do their bidding."
"Wow, they must be super powerful," Isseria said.
"Not necessarily, but definitely unfamiliar for the locals."
"King Yargolek has authorized you to receive a host of Vaegir recruits now, and additional recruits if you succeed. In addition, you will be paid a 1000 ducats if you succeed," the Merchant said.
"How many recruits?" Valeraine said. "I've lead a group of soldiers before. I can help organize the group."
"10 recruits."
"I've gone into battle with a Trandoshan friend all the time," Melara said. "He would say that these foes are 'Much Points'."
"I do my best when working together with 7 other heroes. I have to lead a little bit just to make sure no one takes the enemy's attention off of me."
"I think we've all lead teams into battle in some capacity, but I definitely think Valeraine should be in charge of the recruits. If we can specialize them in different ways, then we can assign some of them to the rest of us. Later on of course," Aliaga said.
"Anyone disagree with moving forward with this plan?" Melara asked.
"OK, I'll bring the recruits in," the Merchant said. "When you've got this done, head to the Tavern in Reyvadin and I'll ask for you."
"Um, where is Reyvadin?" Isseria asked.
"West of here. Follow the peasants, they often head into town in the morning."
-----------------------
They had formed a line with the ten recruits, and the other five "Valkyries" were standing back as Valeraine examined the soldiers.
"So you have scythes, hand axes and cudgels for weapons, and all you can use at range is stones."
This was not Sapphiron's finest fighting force. Valeraine doubted it was even Calradia's finest.
"Yes Commander. We've been provisioned with better weapons, but the law says we have to learn to fight better before we can use the better stuff."
"You need some sparring practice, and then a little bit of testing your mettle in a real battle. I don't want you all to die when we face these foes that seem to be from Aliaga's world."
"What should we do?" one of the recruits said.
They were all garbed in worn cloth armor, with a little padding here and there, but much of it had been worn away.
"Two of you will spar with me. Two of you will spar with Melara, and the remaining six, form up in pairs, and spar against each other. One moment while I get Melara."
She walked over to the group of Valkyries. "Melara, can I use you as a sparring partner for the recruits?"
"Of course, but my lightsaber is likely to cut through their weapons," Melara said.
"Let's see what happens with my weapon," Valeraine said, pulling out her sword.
"I don't want to damage your sword either. The etchings on that blade look truly intricate," Melara said.
"En-garde!" Valeraine said, as she charged forwards.
The four other valkyries stepped aside and continued their conversation. "So then, I was swallowed whole by this plant! It was trying to numb my nerves and poison me but I resisted the effects just long enough to shoot my way out," Isseria was saying.
Melara surprised Valeraine by drawing out her color-light saber, and gently deflecting Valeraine's blow.
Melara charged back, pushing one side of the double-sided blade towards Valeraine. Valeraine blocked the light saber with her own sword, shunting it to the side.
"Hmm, so I guess its not damaging your sword even when I attack. Alright, I'll help spar."
The ten recruits were grouped into pairs now, when she walked back to them with Melara.
"Who gets to fight you and your fellow commander?" one of the recruits asked.
"We'll rotate pairs. You two fight Valkyrie Melara. You two will fight me, and the rest pair against each other," Valeraine said, pointing at each group.
Valeraine was not that great at sword fighting, having focused her efforts on magic and leadership. She was facing a hand axe recruit and another with a scythe. She deflected the first recruit's attack, stepping sideways and back, and then swept at the second.
She got nicked a few times before knocked down the recruits after a few minutes.
"We'd like to help the injured," said Aliaga and Alendria.
"Come over here hurting recruits, and we'll heal you up."
They established a triage spot away from the fighting, and Alendria pulled out her mandolin from her bag. She started playing a hauntingly beautiful song after a moment. Melara's victims were first to head over there, and then her own.
"Pair up as needed with whoever isn't recovering."
Aliaga was busy healing them up, one at a time, as Alendria's song soothed and healed even Valeraine's small cuts.
No one came to her yet, so Valeraine watched Melara cut through the recruits in pairs. She was holding a lot back to stay safe, and still wrecking them.
"Alright take turns fighting Melara. I want all of you to gang up on her," Valeraine said, grinning.
Melara turned invisible, before any of them could get close to her.
She downed two recruits as she turned visible. Alendria stood up and moved towards Valeraine, bringing the healing effect of her song to the downed recruits that started to pile up. The wounded stayed down as Melara incapacitated them all.
"Ok, that's enough, thank you Melara."
"You're welcome. Thank you for the practice recruits."
The Lilting song Alendria was singing caused the recruits to slowly sit up, and then Aliaga went around and fixed them up completely.
"Did that Merchant give us any money for food. Now that there are eighteen of us, we might need some food and supplies."
Bodahn left his corner perch and walked over to them.
"This Merchant got me resupplied with goods for trade. As a gesture of goodwill, and in payment for your protection, let me cook a nice dinner for you all before you head out in the morning."
They all gathered wood from the surrounding taiga. Four of the recruits had axes and they chopped up some fallen trees into stumps suitable for sitting on and enough firewood.
The wood was piled high, and the six Valkyries, ten recruits and two traders sat down at the fire.
Bodahn was roasting a pig on a big spit, and grilling potatoes over the fire.
Sophella, who had an extra huge log to sit her stone armored self on, started the discussion. "So I know all of our worlds have ways of classifying heroes. In my world, we have blasters, scrappers, tankers, controllers and defenders, masterminds, dominators, brutes, corruptors and stalkers.
I would call Aliaga and Alendria defenders, as defenders have a lot of ways to help their fellow healers and still can pack a punch with ranged attacks.
Isseria, I have heard rumors of pistol scrappers, but I could see you as a blaster also. It depends on how close up you get when fighting.
Melara, stalker seems to fit the most, although I hear you have some ranged attacks, so it might be harder to say for sure. You seem to fight a lot while visible still, so scrapper maybe. I'd say you are the hardest to figure out.
Valeraine, you sorta fit Mastermind, but also don't really fit at all, with both a sword and ranged attacks.
What classifications do you guys use in your worlds?"
Bodahn started carving up the pig and eating commenced. The potatoes, the pig, it was all wonderful.
It was only after they ate their fill that the discussion continued.
Aliaga spoke up, "Sophella, I would guess the closest thing my world has to you would be a shaman with some kind of special ability to turn into a rock elemental. Alendria, I can't say I've ever seen someone use music as a form of magic. We don't have bards in Azeroth.
Melara, The only melee fighters with ranged magical attacks I can think up are Paladins and Death Knights, I'm not sure which you are more like. Neither of them have stealth. Maybe you are a rogue with something different than the normal rogue throwing knives. You don't really fight like a rogue though.
Isseria, You're a ranger with pistols and no familiar. Valeraine, you're kinda off the grid."
Alendria did hers as a song:
"Aliaga's an empath, in a violent sort of way, and Sophella I have no idea what to say,
Melara's a sneaky warrior mage and Valeraine's a warrior mage too,
and Isseria's a ranger with weapons I've never seen before."
"Its probably a good idea that we get some sleep soon. However, from a battlefield commander's perspective, this is what I think," Valeraine said.
"Melara and Sophella will be our front liners. The recruits will be close supports, helping out where they can, and retreating behind Sophella's taunt technique when they get found out.
Alendria, I want you close behind the front row, so your song can keep the recruits healing up and alive, and helping them out.
"Aliaga, if I understand this, you can heal from a pretty good range?"
"60 yards or so," Aliaga said, "yep."
"OK then, Aliaga, take a back row position. I'll take a middle position next to Alendria, and Isseria, your pistols have a fairly short range?"
"Yep, its up close and personal for me."
"Ok, then Isseria, start in the middle row, and then move to the side and get flanking positions on whatever we are targeting."
"Yep that makes sense."
Friday, September 8, 2017
The constant, pt 1: The Altar of Measurement
The Constant
Part 1: The Altar of Measurement
Their real names were incomprehensible. They have been replaced with human names, names we can understand and relate to. In this way, the story of the "The Constant", and his world, can be told.
Jonathan Everett Constant was born to Gladiolas Everett Quartic. These people reproduced asexually, so each child had only one parent. There had been Everett Quadratics, Everett Cubics, Everett Quartics and Quintics, and even Everett Mutants (until they were all killed for being mutants).
Gladiolas had even heard of an Everett Linear, but never heard or imagined an Everett Constant. The children of constants went to work immediately after birth. They were just as able to work at a day old as they were at 100 years old. In fact, their best day of work was their first, as they hadn't endured any storms or any beatings or violence. Everything wore down a constant over time.
Their maximum capability remained the same, but what they actually could do was worn down one incident at a time, until the elderly Constant was supported by his newborn grandchildren.
Linears and even Quadratics put their children to work right away, too, as long as their rough measurement said the child could make a good impact.
Cubics were the rulers, the wealthiest caste of society, often employing Constants in guard duty and agricultural work, while employing Linears in simple crafts and Quadratics were commonly the professionals and teachers in society.
While the Cubics thought of those below them in degree as simplistic and stuck in their ways, they those of those above them in degree as crazy and unmoored in reality.
The Quartics were ostracised and often working in ideological and technological frontiers way beyond what was popular with the schools which were run by Quadratics.
The Quintics had recently been condemned as too dangerous to be allowed to live to an old age. A new crusade was arising to hunt down the Quintics.
The Mutants didn't fit into the polynomial order of society, and had always been hunted down and killed.
The Cubics and degrees above did not put their children to work right away, even though some of them could have done ir. They waited for the children to grow and get smarter and stronger, like we do.
So it was that Jonathan did not work, even though Gladiolas had sized him up as one of the strongest babies born that year. She said his, "Constant factor" was large. She spat on the floor after using that term. Basically, Jonathan was stronger than the others now, but they didn't know if the other Quartics would pass him up later.
It was a month of boredom for Jonathan, where he wanted to go out and pull guard duty or carry a basket of fruit to the market, but he had to sit and learn about history instead. History, and how the danger of mutants had lead to the Measurement Act.
As a one month old, Jonathan could read, write, do decently hard mathematics and lift a 60 point weight over his head. His Measurement gave him such abilities.
Gladiolas said, "I think you'll be very close to a 20 indeed. Old Master Tom could lift a 65 pounder at birth, and he's the only one who could. He was measured at 19.98."
"Can they figure out my caste today too? I really want to know!" Jonathan said. He was only a foot shorter than his mother now.
"Think about it, Jon. All they will know now, is your constant factor. You can rule out something each year after that. It takes 7 years to find out subtle mutants. The loud mutants go beyond the bounds of any caste earlier than that."
"How do you rule out Subtle Mutants?" Jonathan asked. "And what do you mean by that?"
"Loud Mutants measure bigger than the Katrin Bounds each Caste member is limited by. A Constant will never measure stronger than 20. A Linear can grow by at most a half point per year. Et cetera. Even a Quintic can't measure any greater than 120 by age 40, but they can measure as much as 1260 by age 80, and so on."
"Subtle Mutants are following some other unknown, and heretical caste. They were born into a mutant caste, where the Loud Mutants were just born into a mutant size. Some of them grow in ways that go in between what a Constant should be and what a Linear should be. Some decelerate, or dejerk. All of our components are 0 or positive. For example, I have a 0 quintic component. If I had a negative quintic component I would be a Subtle mutant. Subtle mutants are hard for the Altar Chiefs to spot, so they have the Bureau of Intelligence to track them down.
You can prove someone is a Subtle Mutant by showing that they stay in the bounds but can't be any of the casts, and it takes seven years to prove someone is not a Quintic."
"How many bureau people are on this pilgrimage road with us?" Jonathan asked his mother.
"Probably lots. Let's get in line."
The line of people headed to the Altar of Measurement as required by the Measurement Act was very long. There were parents with their one month olds, parents with 1 year olds, 2 year olds, and so on, and then some 10 and 20 year olds going in for their checks. Even Constants had to come back in at 5. Usually they were cleared and verified as Constant by 2 but came back at 5, 10 and 20 anyway.
There were no known Quintics here. They had stayed away, fearing a purge. The authorities gave a questioning glance at Jonathan's mother before confirming she was a Quartic.
"Jonathan Everett, of unknown Caste, son of Gladiolas Everett Quartic. Everett Quartic, you are to stay here while your son is Measured at the altar.
Two guards stood a foot on each side of Jonathan. He feared that he would bump into them and cause a catastrophe. Or they would touch him.
"Come on," said the Quadratic. Jonathan followed her, trying to reclaim his free space from the guards.
The altar was actually a machine placed on a raised pedestal inside the building with the colored glass and elaborate artwork.
Two Quartics stood in front of them Altar of Measurement.
"Climb on up those stairs, and we will analyze what the machine tells us.
The machine was pressure sensitive, and so when Jonathan climbed up onto the podium and stepped on the machine, it sunk, reacting to his presence. The machine unfolded and surrounded him, and then electric current flowed through his body, forcing his muscles to react violently. He was pushing the machine back with everything he had because the electricity was coming and going so as to force his muscles to full exertion.
The machine fell away.
"Congratulations. 19.5," said the first Quartic.
"This measurement is the easy one. We only have one data point, so we don't have to, and even can't tell what sort of person you are yet," the second one said.
"See you in 11 months," they both said and waved.
His mother was happy with the number, but it was expected, largely. Months passed. Months of boredom, and then acceptance for Jonathan. Then the pilgrimage began again.
Even Quintics didn't change a whole lot from 1 month old to 1 year old. It was hard to detect a small change in measurement, or the lack of one.
Gladiolas had a small note of concern, maybe slightly suspicious that Jonathan hadn't improved in his mind or body over the 11 months. She knew that her son could have a small Linear factor, but still grow up to be a great Quartic visionary. There was a limit to just how small a Linear factor could be however, which was important for distinguishing between Linear caste and Constant caste.
For the second time, Jonathan was asked to climb up to the machine. The voltages shocked his body again, and he involuntarily fought the machine again.
The same Quartic, this time had a grim expression.
"We have a reassignment," the Quartic announced to the guards.
Jonathan's mother was still outside. Jonathan was shocked.
"19.5," the technician said.
"As there is no Linear factor smaller than 1 part in 80, the Measurement should have differed by at least 0.01 if you were not a Constant. Please return for review at 2 years of age," the first Quartic technician said.
The other continued, "You are hereby given the name Jonathan Everett Constant. You may have no more contact with Gladiolas Everett Quartic and are considered to belong to a different Everett family, as far as the government shall be concerned. You will be taken to the Constant Career Center prior to starting work in the acceptable field of your choice. Guards, take him away."
The social mobility charts showed a 0% chance of the child of a Quartic becoming a constant. Jonathan suspected he would be forced to come back to the Altar time and time again, to prove that he really was unchanging.
His mother must be shocked, he surmised, as he followed the guards to the railway, and on to the Career Center in the middle of the vast industrial region.
Jonathan looked out the window, and realized he knew he was constant very early on. He was steady and comfortable with that fact. Or so he thought.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)