Taz - Burns Night 26.02
Mar 1, 2020 18:52:08 GMT
Varis/G'Lorth/Sundilar, Ghesh, and 3 more like this
Post by Tazmuck on Mar 1, 2020 18:52:08 GMT
Taz is walking, fully armoured and his axe on his back, through an unending darkness. Underfoot, there is the familiar mud of the frog bog, but in the air there's an odd stench, like rotting vegetation but worse. The battlefield is long behind him, there's no more torches, no more friends or foes to fight. The normal cacophony of croaks and screeches has gone, replaced with just the sound of the wind whistling through the barren trees.
He doesn't know how long he has walking like this: it could be days or it could have be years. He wants only to keep wading through the cold mud.
Then a flicker, and he feels a warmth on his back. For a moment, the desire to keep trudging forward and to turn back are perfectly balanced, and he is paralysed. And then, one of the desires grows stronger, and as the warmth starts to fade back into the darkness, his soul knows what it must do.
The familiar roof of the Temple of Two Faiths starts to come into view through two weary dragonborn eyes. The high priest stands over, a few faces start to appear - Ghesh, G'lorth, Bones and Onno, familiarity and recognition creep back into Taz's mind. Pain and tiredness are in every bone of his body - just like Menace and Wil had described.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
They had set out on another standard adventure. Notice in the sea shank. Some Bollywugs needing help with a troll problem. A few new faces had come along though - Ghesh, another dragonborn, who he'd seen around in the Seashank, but never fought with, and this guy called Gulorth, who seemed a bit pompous but generally alright. They'd met in the mid afternoon someway in between Daring Heights and Port First.
Their somewhat pathetic Bollywug guide Quegflumpf had met them there and taken them to his village. Turns out they probably should have walked a bit quicker, because by the time they got there the village had been burned down and the Bollywugs presumably eaten. After a brief and somewhat pitiful period of mourning for Queggie, they set off tracking the trolls.
A few hours later, and well into the night by this point, they found themselves at the troll camp. There'd been a plan of sorts. BB, Onno and Ghesh had disguised themselves as trolls, and were planning to find out why the trolls had come this far north and attacked the villages. But they hadn't been careful, and fell into a mud trap that had been set by the trolls. Almost immediately, the trolls attacked them, and from there, chaos.
The trolls quickly came down on the trapped adventurers. What's more, the Bullywugs inside the cages had turned into some sort of hag, and were raining down lightning on them all. Taz jumped straight in, of course, landing a jumping strike and a few more heavy blows on some of the trolls. But against the force of numbers, hacking and slashing wasn't enough, especially as with each hit, the trolls acid blood splashed back over him.
There was magic everywhere, Ghesh and BB were paralysed, Bones was made to vanish (it would turn out later he had been turned into a worm). The paralysis spells didn't work on Taz - his training gave him the focus to resist these mind control tactics - but that didn't mean he knew how to stop them affecting the others.
Eventually, after pulling every bit of energy and focus he could find in himself, he went down. Seeing the battlefield around him as he fell - Ghesh out, Bones gone, Onno on his own on the other side of the field, he felt they would never make it out of there alive.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A while after waking up, resting in his room, things start to become clear to Taz. He had been lucky - both that his friends had survived, and that they had taken him back. He had been resurrected. Just thinking about that made him shudder.
This wasn't a game now. Leaping into every fight and swinging an axe around wasn't going to be enough. He was going to need to learn the battlefield, to know everything that was going on - the magic too, not just the swordplay - and to know how to deal with every situation. He always kept a clear mind during combat, it was time to start using it.
Feeling that thoughts alone weren't enough, he takes out an empty notebook, and writes in the first page:
29 Alturiak 1497
How do I become a true warrior?
- Terrain
- Tactics
- Magic
- Monsters & Other Foes
- Traps and fortifications
And then he sets about organising the notebook into sections with these headers, and starts making notes on what he already knows.
He doesn't know how long he has walking like this: it could be days or it could have be years. He wants only to keep wading through the cold mud.
Then a flicker, and he feels a warmth on his back. For a moment, the desire to keep trudging forward and to turn back are perfectly balanced, and he is paralysed. And then, one of the desires grows stronger, and as the warmth starts to fade back into the darkness, his soul knows what it must do.
The familiar roof of the Temple of Two Faiths starts to come into view through two weary dragonborn eyes. The high priest stands over, a few faces start to appear - Ghesh, G'lorth, Bones and Onno, familiarity and recognition creep back into Taz's mind. Pain and tiredness are in every bone of his body - just like Menace and Wil had described.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
They had set out on another standard adventure. Notice in the sea shank. Some Bollywugs needing help with a troll problem. A few new faces had come along though - Ghesh, another dragonborn, who he'd seen around in the Seashank, but never fought with, and this guy called Gulorth, who seemed a bit pompous but generally alright. They'd met in the mid afternoon someway in between Daring Heights and Port First.
Their somewhat pathetic Bollywug guide Quegflumpf had met them there and taken them to his village. Turns out they probably should have walked a bit quicker, because by the time they got there the village had been burned down and the Bollywugs presumably eaten. After a brief and somewhat pitiful period of mourning for Queggie, they set off tracking the trolls.
A few hours later, and well into the night by this point, they found themselves at the troll camp. There'd been a plan of sorts. BB, Onno and Ghesh had disguised themselves as trolls, and were planning to find out why the trolls had come this far north and attacked the villages. But they hadn't been careful, and fell into a mud trap that had been set by the trolls. Almost immediately, the trolls attacked them, and from there, chaos.
The trolls quickly came down on the trapped adventurers. What's more, the Bullywugs inside the cages had turned into some sort of hag, and were raining down lightning on them all. Taz jumped straight in, of course, landing a jumping strike and a few more heavy blows on some of the trolls. But against the force of numbers, hacking and slashing wasn't enough, especially as with each hit, the trolls acid blood splashed back over him.
There was magic everywhere, Ghesh and BB were paralysed, Bones was made to vanish (it would turn out later he had been turned into a worm). The paralysis spells didn't work on Taz - his training gave him the focus to resist these mind control tactics - but that didn't mean he knew how to stop them affecting the others.
Eventually, after pulling every bit of energy and focus he could find in himself, he went down. Seeing the battlefield around him as he fell - Ghesh out, Bones gone, Onno on his own on the other side of the field, he felt they would never make it out of there alive.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A while after waking up, resting in his room, things start to become clear to Taz. He had been lucky - both that his friends had survived, and that they had taken him back. He had been resurrected. Just thinking about that made him shudder.
This wasn't a game now. Leaping into every fight and swinging an axe around wasn't going to be enough. He was going to need to learn the battlefield, to know everything that was going on - the magic too, not just the swordplay - and to know how to deal with every situation. He always kept a clear mind during combat, it was time to start using it.
Feeling that thoughts alone weren't enough, he takes out an empty notebook, and writes in the first page:
29 Alturiak 1497
How do I become a true warrior?
- Terrain
- Tactics
- Magic
- Monsters & Other Foes
- Traps and fortifications
And then he sets about organising the notebook into sections with these headers, and starts making notes on what he already knows.
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