Malmo the Procrastinator
Recruit
-or- A Funny Thing Happened To Me On My Way To Zendar
Twas early morn as I best recall, and the familiar sights and smell of the perpetual digital summer filled my virtual senses as our company trundled along the dustry trail to Zendar. Our trade mission to Praven had proved a surprisingly easy feat and the excesses of our celebrations last night when we reached our destination accounted for the many sour visages that surrounded me this morning. I lay on the furs in the back of the bockety cart I call home. Nursing a hangover is a nobles right; after all, we pay good money to the peasants so that they can just get on with looking after us.
As usual I felt bloated, sour and irritable, like a turkey just days before christmas. As every traveller knows, the road to Zendar is long and featureless, and so I occasionally relieved my boredom and hungover frustration by throwing rotten vegtables at a captive dark knight, Sir Ethelred the Incontinent, who we had been dragging behind the cart now for several weeks. We had allowed him to keep his treasured black armour as it meant he was kept cooking at a suitably sweaty temperature during the day, and this combined with the rotten vegtables splattered all over it meant he was constantly attended by legions of midgets and other Very Annoying Wee Biting Winged Beasties. This kept his face comically animated and provided great entertainment for onlookers most of the daylight hours (providing the wind didnt change direction and give you a blast of his stomach churning perfume).
On this particular morning however my vegtable practise was rudely interrupted as shouts from the front of the caravan that warned of impending danger as a horde of scruffy mountain bandits attempted to gatecrash our collective hangover. As was his habit, Raedwulf the midget muttered dire predictions as our company donned our armour and readied our weapons. At the time I believe someone just threw a shoe at him to shut him up, after all what was one more gaggle of unkempt vagabonds when you have slain thousands of such scallywags. I had no such worries: although hungover, my retainers were professional archers to the man and had overcome greater foes than these without even breaking a sweat. In hindsight of course events proved the cowardly dwarf's incoherent babbling to be catastrophically accurate.
We filed onto the battlefield and took up our positions. As usual I selected a nearby hillock and readied my men, ordering them to wait for the enemy to show his face. We didnt have long. With a thunderous roar ten bandits crested the nearby hill and bore down upon our company with murderous intent. Perhaps it was the alcohol of last night or even a sinister secret mutiny, but for whatever reason when my zealous retainers loosed their first volley, they cut down not a single bandit but instead several of their own men. It was the beginning of an episode that started as a routine exercise but descended into the melee from hell as my men proceeded to cut each other to pieces with shot after shot. By the time the bandits reached our position I was surrounded by the ruins of my once proud company and forced to do some fancy footwork to even the odds. However by the end of the battle, my once proud detachment of archers had lost 90% of its strength - and none from the enemy.
Ye have been warned!
Twas early morn as I best recall, and the familiar sights and smell of the perpetual digital summer filled my virtual senses as our company trundled along the dustry trail to Zendar. Our trade mission to Praven had proved a surprisingly easy feat and the excesses of our celebrations last night when we reached our destination accounted for the many sour visages that surrounded me this morning. I lay on the furs in the back of the bockety cart I call home. Nursing a hangover is a nobles right; after all, we pay good money to the peasants so that they can just get on with looking after us.
As usual I felt bloated, sour and irritable, like a turkey just days before christmas. As every traveller knows, the road to Zendar is long and featureless, and so I occasionally relieved my boredom and hungover frustration by throwing rotten vegtables at a captive dark knight, Sir Ethelred the Incontinent, who we had been dragging behind the cart now for several weeks. We had allowed him to keep his treasured black armour as it meant he was kept cooking at a suitably sweaty temperature during the day, and this combined with the rotten vegtables splattered all over it meant he was constantly attended by legions of midgets and other Very Annoying Wee Biting Winged Beasties. This kept his face comically animated and provided great entertainment for onlookers most of the daylight hours (providing the wind didnt change direction and give you a blast of his stomach churning perfume).
On this particular morning however my vegtable practise was rudely interrupted as shouts from the front of the caravan that warned of impending danger as a horde of scruffy mountain bandits attempted to gatecrash our collective hangover. As was his habit, Raedwulf the midget muttered dire predictions as our company donned our armour and readied our weapons. At the time I believe someone just threw a shoe at him to shut him up, after all what was one more gaggle of unkempt vagabonds when you have slain thousands of such scallywags. I had no such worries: although hungover, my retainers were professional archers to the man and had overcome greater foes than these without even breaking a sweat. In hindsight of course events proved the cowardly dwarf's incoherent babbling to be catastrophically accurate.
We filed onto the battlefield and took up our positions. As usual I selected a nearby hillock and readied my men, ordering them to wait for the enemy to show his face. We didnt have long. With a thunderous roar ten bandits crested the nearby hill and bore down upon our company with murderous intent. Perhaps it was the alcohol of last night or even a sinister secret mutiny, but for whatever reason when my zealous retainers loosed their first volley, they cut down not a single bandit but instead several of their own men. It was the beginning of an episode that started as a routine exercise but descended into the melee from hell as my men proceeded to cut each other to pieces with shot after shot. By the time the bandits reached our position I was surrounded by the ruins of my once proud company and forced to do some fancy footwork to even the odds. However by the end of the battle, my once proud detachment of archers had lost 90% of its strength - and none from the enemy.
Ye have been warned!
Teaches you not to lead a cavalry charge into the fray while the sharpshooters are still firing... or at least stay out of their line of fire 
