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Post by Maude on Jan 15, 2017 21:24:16 GMT
The Town of Cree
Mountain slopes east of Mystmarch
The day was bright, the sun was warm, and a short river crossing was more than a welcome sight. A tired Nordengard was as grizzly in nature as it was unusual, but Maude had been on the move for so long now she'd lost count of the days. Her hunger was strong but her thirst was painful.
Maude collapsed by the river, metal armor pinging against stone, and leaned to scoop handfuls of water to her mouth. After a time and a short rest she was on her feet again and following the river to a stone bridge and an aged signpost.
< CREE
That was three days ago.
Cree was a peaceful town existing just beyond the realm of the encroaching Mystmarch kingdom. The people were friendly enough, especially when presented with coin. As it turns out, Cree was also a good place for news and stood as one of the former Ravenposts of the Empire. The Empire might be gone but the Ravenpost was still very active, making Cree a wellspring of knowledge from abroad. The Maester of Ravens was a dark-skinned Elf named Lulaine who just happened to be making a visit to the Inn one morning as Maude was on her way out.
"It's happening again," Maude overheard Lulaine as she polished off a heaping breakfast platter, "my ravens from the east aren't returning. I am sorry, but I haven't received anything from your son."
"Strange things going on in the east. You know Renly said he saw smoke from the old Fletcher Mine again?"
"Dagos dispatched a small team of riders to check it out last time they saw smoke. None of their horses would take the mining route. Something spooked them," said Lulaine as she quietly took a mug of tea.
"You reckon something's moved into the Mine?"
"Nomads, squatters perhaps."
"That wouldn't spook the horses. They know that path. What if it's a dragon?"
Lulaine frowned, "I am not convinced it's anything of such degree, though the elk population does seem to be thinning..."
Maude swallowed the last bite of her food before standing, "Where's this mine?"
Lulaine blinked at her, "An hour ride up the eastern Mine trail. No one's been able to coax a horse up there."
"Don't have a horse," Maude replied, buckling her scabbard over her hip and pulling her bow over her shoulder, "but I'll find out what's up there."
@stalagrim
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Post by Skalagrim on Jan 15, 2017 22:39:36 GMT
The mine's new occupant was about as welcoming as the 'Go Away' scrawled hastily on the wooden blanks that kept the boarded up mine 'closed.' A makeshift door had been rigged, though it was mostly kept ajar so the smoke could vent while he cooked.
But right now, Skal was outside in his armor, skinning a recently killed elk. The pelt would do him little good for the time being, but he was tanning them nearby. He could sell them whenever he decided he desperately needed to make for town.
Not that he was expecting to have to, any time soon.
He was quiet as he worked, setting aside the hide so that he could begin cutting out the meat he was going to need to eat for the evening. The elk were starting to avoid the area, though. That meant he'd have to expand his hunting grounds.
That would ruffle some feathers, he was sure.
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Post by Maude on Jan 15, 2017 23:02:59 GMT
She wasn't long into her trek up the valley slope when the scent of blood reached her. Elk blood, she was sure of it. Elk were common in the lowlands of Nordengard, but there was yet a wiff of what had taken it. Maude continued on, knees lifting high as the trail pitched upwards and turned from softer earth to hardened dirt and eventually to stone. Valley grasses turned to coniferous trees with their needles forming a bed of russet on the ground below. The air was chiller up here, but still a springtime warm for a Norden.
Nearly an hour passed; Maude was in no hurry. There were signs of elk herds having passed through; hoofprints and droppings, scrapings on the trunks, and yet the slopes were still and quiet. Even birdsong seemed gone.
Then finally as large boulders began to fill in the space beneath and between the forest trees, she caught the scent that would tell her everything she needed to know. Maude's pace picked up, quick and yet quiet for one so encumbered by armor and weaponry. The trail leveled off along a ridge with sun peeking through the treetops against dry ground. In the distances along the trail Maude spotted the clearing before the mine entrance, and though she could not see him through the trees she could smell him well enough.
"SKAL!" the woman's voice boomed from her heaving chest, more a roar than a yell.
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Post by Skalagrim on Jan 15, 2017 23:49:23 GMT
He knew who disturbed the stillness of the day's quiet, if only because the smell was familiar to him. So engrossed was he in his work, however, that he didn't consciously register the newcomer until her voice pierced the air.
Or, more aptly, shook it and the nearby branches.
Head lifting, he spied the red haired Nord coming out from the trees. Pausing from his stack of neatly sliced meat, he raised his silver brows and settled dark eyes on the newcomer.
Even for a Nord, however, Uncle Skal was a prickly fellow, not overly prone to displays of genial affection. Her greeting was a reserved smile, one that was nearly a grin considering his typical stoic demeanor. "Gema, what brings you to my humble abode?"
And it was humble - an abandoned mine, with boards blocking the entrance. A real life of luxury for the former royal guard.
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Post by Maude on Jan 16, 2017 1:05:46 GMT
There was a moment where Maude fought with the urge to cry and the urge to yell. Of all the horrible things to have happened to her family in the last fortnight, seeing one of them alive was enough to make even the steadfast Shield Maiden give pause.
Even if he had been named a traitor. Backstabber.
Even if the ramblings of her dying father as he forced her from her home still made no sense at all.
She walked to the clearing, stopping to take it in - humbleness and all. This was not the place for a Kingsguard. Maude frowned and turned to stare at the Uncle she had not seen in over a year since his exile.
"He's dead," the words spilled out before she could stop them, "he's dead. They're all dead. Kagenglenn is burned to the ground. I-" her vision split from her Uncle to the ground, a haze forming over her eyes as she gave her head a shake, "I don't know what I'm doing here."
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Post by Skalagrim on Jan 16, 2017 2:56:14 GMT
Skal took this much better than she had, at least outwardly. A single, heavy sigh parted his lips, and he gave a slow nod as he settled his hands on his hips and let his head fall. "I don't know what you're doing here, either." He says flatly.
"I'm certain it wasn't to find me, though." He adds. "No one knew I was here."
Clearly he'd have known someone would know someone was here, just not him, specifically.
Chewing at his lower lip, he folds his arms over his chest and stares at her. "What are you doing down here, anyway? Running?"
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Post by Maude on Jan 16, 2017 3:04:54 GMT
"No," she growled, hard gaze lifting back to her Uncle with a stare as defiant as the mountains from whence they both came.
They both knew she would never run. Just like Maude knew neither would he. Yet here they were on a mountain slope at an abandoned mine of some crummy human town called Cree. Maude scowled, lips thinning as she moved to undress her weapons. There was no need for them here. Skal might be the most dangerous thing in this valley but he was family.
Clank. Shunk.
Sword scabbard and quiver fell to the ground in a pile, bow following shortly after. Eyes strained with unspoken words, Maude moved to one of the nearby hides hung up to dry to check and see if it was ready for the next step.
"Father sent me to find you," she said through grit teeth.
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Post by Skalagrim on Jan 16, 2017 3:18:05 GMT
Her anger immediately calmed her sorrow, and he seemed pleased to find her mind refocused on the task ahead. She'd find his hides more than ready. He knew what he was doing; but in his typical fashion, he hadn't quite gotten around to the tanning process just yet.
At least not the actual stretching and tanning - they were fully dry enough.
He'd even put together the tanning solution, or at least some of it. The rest of the ingredients were strewn about beneath a small tarp held up by rope from a pair of low hanging branches. A brow rose at her words, though. "Why did he send you here?
Finding me means he had a reason - and I'm sure it wasn't 'Uncle will keep you safe.' "
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Post by Maude on Jan 16, 2017 6:10:21 GMT
Find Skal...you must find Skal.
What do you mean? He's a traitor.
Not a traitor, Gema, listen please -
~~
Maude tried not to think of the blood oozing from her father's muzzle, staining the perfect white of his fur as he carried her through the mountains to cover her scent and leave no trail but his own. She could remember the sound of his heart weakening within his chest, his lungs laboring to keep air in and blood out. She remembered the trail of red he'd left in the snow and across the granite boulder field.
"He said..." a pause, Maude reached to her right thigh where she unbuckled a dagger from a leather sheath and lifted it to begin cutting the twine presently stretching the dried hide between two tree trunks, "that you knew where the King's Amulet was. That it was the only way to make things right again."
"A fool's errand," she snarled, quickly snapping away three ties before moving to the other side, "Borvenir took it when he killed the King. I should have stayed and fought."
Snap, snap, snap.
"I could have helped."
Snap, snap.
"I could have taken Balyn or Yaeda to the next town. Could have called ranks. He made me run," angry tears streaked quickly reddening cheeks. Maude roughly wiped them away with a leather gauntlet and continued working, "now I'll never see them again."
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Post by Skalagrim on Jan 16, 2017 16:46:05 GMT
Watching her work her troubles away, her uncle moved his of inconsiderable bulk to the edge of the clearing and to where a fallen log had clearly become a regular seat of his. A small furrow had been worn into the wood where his armor scraped and peeled away the bark from his movements.
A sigh parted his lips again, and he considered what to say. But in truth, it was his straight forward nature that would do them the most good.
"It was Iordahn's plan, Gema." He says finally, sniffing the scent of adrenaline from the air. "He knew the next ruler would be less level headed - good times breed weak men, but it isn't always physically weak.
The new king is mentally weak, and hides it behind a veneer of strength." He reached up to his neck, rubbing at it before he set his hands on his knees and rose.
Moving to his cave home, he disappeared inside before returning a few moments later, something clasped in his hands. "I obeyed my king, even when he told me I would be branded an exile.
I did so out of love for him, and respect for what this could do in the wrong hands." He came to a stop next to her, pulling her hand out to set the heavy metal of the amulet into. "Sometimes, you can't escape defeat. But that doesn't mean your opponent has to win."
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Post by Maude on Jan 17, 2017 23:51:51 GMT
Maude was listening though you wouldn't know it for the fervor in which she cut the remaining ties. As her Uncle disappeared into his home she moved to a nearby boulder, chiseled and flattened for the use of many jobs no doubt, throwing the dried pelt over its surface. Elk hides could make fair pelts but they weren't ideal, they made better leather - she searched around briefly through Skal's stacks of supplies and tools to find a hide scraper.
She'd just set to work as he reappeared, scraping against the lay of the hair to clean it from the skin. A pause was given only as the man stood at her side and pulled one of her hands away to place within it an item Maude never imagined she would ever see any closer than when it sat around her grandfather's neck.
It felt heavy, far heavier than it should.
Maude considered it and her Uncle's words in silence before speaking again.
"This...how can you have this? I saw the King only days before the coup, he was wearing it. Borvenir has it now, the whole Kingdom knows. This must be a fake, this -" her fingers clutched the amulet and its chain as her mind attempted to piece together what Skal had just told her, "what orders did he give you, Uncle? Why are you here in this godforsaken human land?"
It didn't make any sense. Why would the King send away what was the most powerful artifact of their known Kingdom. Why wouldn't he keep the amulet that would have given him the ability to defeat Borvenir? This couldn't be right.
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Post by Skalagrim on Jan 20, 2017 1:46:13 GMT
"My orders were simple - keep the amulet safe and out of the wrong hands." He smiled gently, a massive hand coming to rest in fatherly fashion on a shoulderblade. "I can say it is at home now, Gema." He says flatly.
His attention returned to his surroundings, and the work she had started doing, and without thinking he hefted some short logs and an axe. Even he liked a little warmth at night.
Up the blade went, down it came, and asunder was the wood split. "Never let your eyes override your gut, Gema. Iordahn had immense intellect, and he knew what we all learn.
There is no power greater than time. A day would come, when he was old, potentially in the beginnings of an illness without knowing, where he would be challenged and bested.
That amulet may augment your strength, but one buck with the power of ten won't beat a dragon with the power of one."
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Post by Maude on Jan 23, 2017 3:39:39 GMT
"This isn't home," Maude replied, incredulous.
Wise words from an Uncle she had always respected, but too many things had happened in the last moon for her respect to stay her thoughts like it usually did.
"If this is the true Amulet then it can't stay here," her lips formed a thin line and her jaw grew tight, "we have to go back. We have to gather the remaining regime of Iordahn. I know where they've gone, they've scattered to the outlying towns and villages. We can take this back, you-" green eyes pinned on Skal with the glint of hope, "you can use it to take back Nordengard. You could defeat Borvenir without it. He'd stand no chance against you with it."
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Post by Skalagrim on Jan 26, 2017 23:44:42 GMT
"You misunderstood." He says quietly, tone guiding. "It's home in your hands." She seemed somewhat manic, not that he could blame her, but he was getting long in the tooth and wasn't as prone to such mood swings anymore.
He couldn't actually remember the last time he'd been legitimately angry. "But if that's your plan, let's see it through.
One condition, however. You ascend to the throne."
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Post by Maude on Jan 26, 2017 23:58:31 GMT
Maude went silent for a beat, eyes slowly switching from the man down to the amulet in her palm. Uncertainty followed.
"Me?"
She looked back up and shook her head, "That's not how it works. You're the true heir, you're the eldest of Iordahn's last surviving descendants. If you defeat Borvenir then the throne is yours by right. The laws demand it."
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