WFRP Update 25
I was intrigued. Could this be the magic blade that I had been seeking? I paced eagerly awaiting the arrival of the little man. I was quite surprised when I turned around and he was seated at our usual table. His hands held a dagger in a sheath. As I nervously sat down, he handed me the dagger and told me to draw it, which I did with ease.
"Seems a simple task, doesn't it? So if you couldn't draw the blade then you might suspect that something was wrong.
"But I'm getting ahead of myself. When I get back with supper and Rudolpho in tow, we see that Elpham has found himself some other dwarf, except that this one was dirtier than any other dwarf. Seems that some of the people of the town had decided that living in tunnels under the town was safer than fighting it out with the blue bottle drug addicts and the fleas. I suppose that trading our supper for some more history of the town was a good deal.
"But we got them to show us the one crypt that had been undisturbed. There it was, the hero of Sigmar, sleeping his just sleep. Someone had even gone to the trouble of making a plaque for him. Now, I could maybe think that I was hearing things upstairs when Sigmar asks me if I'm ready. But when I can read the plaque, clear as day, when no other word makes a lick of sense to me, I start to think that I really am the chosen of Sigmar. And the last straw came. We open the crypt and pull out this beautiful scabbard, encrusted with gems and all fine leather working. Elpham grabs the blade and tries to get it to come free and it won't budge. Magdelaine and Rudolpho have the same problem. Now, when I just touch it, it almost jumps out of the scabbard into me hands. Too bad that my chosen weapons are all smaller. We give it to Corobath for safe keeping.
"Nothing special happening that night. We managed to heave Magdelaine over board and get her to wash herself off. That seemed to help get rid of her scratching. We also sampled the local cuisine...and I have to say, I have never had a better 2 headed, 3 legged chicken.
The little man starts to say something and a cloud of anger passes over his face.
"Oh yes...that's right. Our great plan for storming the castle. And that's being generous!! Have you ever seen castle Wittgenstein?? The damn thing lives in the clouds!! I can see why no one ever tried to invade the damned place...You have to spend the better part of a day just climbing up to the door!! I swear that the air was so thin I could barely breath!!
And foolish me! I put my faith in Rudolpho!! He says that we should head up to the castle to see the lady...and the fool that I am, I think that he has some great and cunning plan!!!"
By now he was standing on his chair, waving his arms madly in the air.
"So, we trudge up that damn mountain...no! mountain is too small a word for it!! It's a mountain's mountain!! I was sure that I had passed out and simply walked through the night!! I expected that when we finally reached the summit I'd see some great and mighty heavenly being standing at the gate asking us for an accounting of our lives!! I was sure that the lady was sleeping with Sigmar himself, that's how high this damn place was!!!
The man jumped onto the table, knocking his drink to the floor, so that he could grab ahold of my collar and yell into my face.
"And do you know what happened after we made this great pilgrimage to the top of the world? Can you guess? As we top the summit and now get a view of the gates, which did not have a heavenly body guarding them!! The guards tell us to piss off! No beggars allowed they say!! And as I turn to our great and mighty leader, eagerly awaiting the start of a plan of such brilliance that it will obviously seem like magic to us beings of lesser thought, what does he do? He turns to us and says, "Ok, back down the hill"!!! BACK DOWN THE HILL!!!! WHAT KIND OF HALF-ASSED, UNDER-COOKED, OVER-PLAYED, DWARVEN-DRAWN PLAN IS THAT!!! YOU LONGSHANKS THINK THAT YOU CAN JUST WALK ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE WORLD AND ANYONE WILL FOLLOW YOU WITHOUT EVEN CONSIDERING..."
He had started shaking me back and forth and frothing at the mouth like a mad dog. I'm not sure what he would have done, but luckily the inn keeper saved me from finding out. The inn keeper wrestled the ranting wee fella to the ground and held him there as the serving wench dumped a bucket of water on his head. After several minutes of struggling and many terrible curses hurled at everything, the man calmed down enough to be let up. Eventually he was seated before me again, ale in his hand.
"Yes, so after the long...walk, down the mountain, I decided that I had had enough of this and had a revelation. I might as well try and give these poor people some job to do, even if it was just for a few days. So I hired a few of the poor fellows as my porters. I had them gather me a cart and affix a chair to it. It was not the most handsome means of transportation, but at least I wouldn't have to TREK UP TO HEAVEN AND BACK AGAIN!!!".
"Anyway, we went to have dinner with the so-called doctor in town, called himself doctor John Ruso. He said that there was nothing he could do to solve the variety of ills that were infecting the populace, but he could give them some medicine that would lessen their pain. Of course, he was charging them for it and didn't seem to be suffering at all. Either he had stolen his clothing from a much smaller man, or he had been getting fat off of his cure.
"We did learn that the lady of the castle was supplying him with some sort of miracle component for his medicine, although we could not convince him to let us see it.
The strange angry look crossed his face again as he continued.
"And then, as we are leaving, what do we discover? We, we head back to our boat, only to find the two guards that I left there, dying. It seems that the lady had decided that just because she didn't bother to station a toll keeper at the dock was no reason for us not to pay our toll. And since we were away, CONVERSING WITH HER LACKEY, it was obviously much easier for her to just MURDER her own peasants and STEAL OUR BOAT!! WHAT IS IT WITH YOU LONGSHANKS AND YOUR ENLIGHTENED LEADERS!! I TELL YOU, I SHOULD JUST..."
I did not have the chance to hear what he should do, since the inn keeper and a few of the other patrons chose that moment to jump on the little man and try and carry him out the back door. I would have never expected such a small man to be able to struggle so violently...or to be able to curse so loudly.
But now I was intrigued, why had the lady confiscated their boat? What had happened to the enchanted blade? And what was the miracle ingredient that she was feeding to the peasants? The answers to these and other questions would have to await our next exciting encounter.
Dun-dun-dun!!!!
"Seems a simple task, doesn't it? So if you couldn't draw the blade then you might suspect that something was wrong.
"But I'm getting ahead of myself. When I get back with supper and Rudolpho in tow, we see that Elpham has found himself some other dwarf, except that this one was dirtier than any other dwarf. Seems that some of the people of the town had decided that living in tunnels under the town was safer than fighting it out with the blue bottle drug addicts and the fleas. I suppose that trading our supper for some more history of the town was a good deal.
"But we got them to show us the one crypt that had been undisturbed. There it was, the hero of Sigmar, sleeping his just sleep. Someone had even gone to the trouble of making a plaque for him. Now, I could maybe think that I was hearing things upstairs when Sigmar asks me if I'm ready. But when I can read the plaque, clear as day, when no other word makes a lick of sense to me, I start to think that I really am the chosen of Sigmar. And the last straw came. We open the crypt and pull out this beautiful scabbard, encrusted with gems and all fine leather working. Elpham grabs the blade and tries to get it to come free and it won't budge. Magdelaine and Rudolpho have the same problem. Now, when I just touch it, it almost jumps out of the scabbard into me hands. Too bad that my chosen weapons are all smaller. We give it to Corobath for safe keeping.
"Nothing special happening that night. We managed to heave Magdelaine over board and get her to wash herself off. That seemed to help get rid of her scratching. We also sampled the local cuisine...and I have to say, I have never had a better 2 headed, 3 legged chicken.
The little man starts to say something and a cloud of anger passes over his face.
"Oh yes...that's right. Our great plan for storming the castle. And that's being generous!! Have you ever seen castle Wittgenstein?? The damn thing lives in the clouds!! I can see why no one ever tried to invade the damned place...You have to spend the better part of a day just climbing up to the door!! I swear that the air was so thin I could barely breath!!
And foolish me! I put my faith in Rudolpho!! He says that we should head up to the castle to see the lady...and the fool that I am, I think that he has some great and cunning plan!!!"
By now he was standing on his chair, waving his arms madly in the air.
"So, we trudge up that damn mountain...no! mountain is too small a word for it!! It's a mountain's mountain!! I was sure that I had passed out and simply walked through the night!! I expected that when we finally reached the summit I'd see some great and mighty heavenly being standing at the gate asking us for an accounting of our lives!! I was sure that the lady was sleeping with Sigmar himself, that's how high this damn place was!!!
The man jumped onto the table, knocking his drink to the floor, so that he could grab ahold of my collar and yell into my face.
"And do you know what happened after we made this great pilgrimage to the top of the world? Can you guess? As we top the summit and now get a view of the gates, which did not have a heavenly body guarding them!! The guards tell us to piss off! No beggars allowed they say!! And as I turn to our great and mighty leader, eagerly awaiting the start of a plan of such brilliance that it will obviously seem like magic to us beings of lesser thought, what does he do? He turns to us and says, "Ok, back down the hill"!!! BACK DOWN THE HILL!!!! WHAT KIND OF HALF-ASSED, UNDER-COOKED, OVER-PLAYED, DWARVEN-DRAWN PLAN IS THAT!!! YOU LONGSHANKS THINK THAT YOU CAN JUST WALK ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE WORLD AND ANYONE WILL FOLLOW YOU WITHOUT EVEN CONSIDERING..."
He had started shaking me back and forth and frothing at the mouth like a mad dog. I'm not sure what he would have done, but luckily the inn keeper saved me from finding out. The inn keeper wrestled the ranting wee fella to the ground and held him there as the serving wench dumped a bucket of water on his head. After several minutes of struggling and many terrible curses hurled at everything, the man calmed down enough to be let up. Eventually he was seated before me again, ale in his hand.
"Yes, so after the long...walk, down the mountain, I decided that I had had enough of this and had a revelation. I might as well try and give these poor people some job to do, even if it was just for a few days. So I hired a few of the poor fellows as my porters. I had them gather me a cart and affix a chair to it. It was not the most handsome means of transportation, but at least I wouldn't have to TREK UP TO HEAVEN AND BACK AGAIN!!!".
"Anyway, we went to have dinner with the so-called doctor in town, called himself doctor John Ruso. He said that there was nothing he could do to solve the variety of ills that were infecting the populace, but he could give them some medicine that would lessen their pain. Of course, he was charging them for it and didn't seem to be suffering at all. Either he had stolen his clothing from a much smaller man, or he had been getting fat off of his cure.
"We did learn that the lady of the castle was supplying him with some sort of miracle component for his medicine, although we could not convince him to let us see it.
The strange angry look crossed his face again as he continued.
"And then, as we are leaving, what do we discover? We, we head back to our boat, only to find the two guards that I left there, dying. It seems that the lady had decided that just because she didn't bother to station a toll keeper at the dock was no reason for us not to pay our toll. And since we were away, CONVERSING WITH HER LACKEY, it was obviously much easier for her to just MURDER her own peasants and STEAL OUR BOAT!! WHAT IS IT WITH YOU LONGSHANKS AND YOUR ENLIGHTENED LEADERS!! I TELL YOU, I SHOULD JUST..."
I did not have the chance to hear what he should do, since the inn keeper and a few of the other patrons chose that moment to jump on the little man and try and carry him out the back door. I would have never expected such a small man to be able to struggle so violently...or to be able to curse so loudly.
But now I was intrigued, why had the lady confiscated their boat? What had happened to the enchanted blade? And what was the miracle ingredient that she was feeding to the peasants? The answers to these and other questions would have to await our next exciting encounter.
Dun-dun-dun!!!!
posted by groodude at 7:21 p.m.
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