Open Chronicles On the path to Crobhear

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Sigrun peered in a stupefied manner at the production of a mirror. A luxury she had rarely seen, even in Belgrath. How had this young man not gotten himself robbed yet? She frowned to herself. It was also curious that Ispir had decided to flee so far north. But who could guess how humans thought?

"Well, we're headed for Crobhear Keep, as you might have heard. I'm certain they could find some use for you there, earn your keep." She shrugged and cracked her neck audibly. "Music and archery alike would go the rounds. Gloomy walls could use a bit more singing in my book." Her mouth downturned, nodding towards where he stowed the mirror. "You can take the time there to sort yourself out."

She slapped her knees and rose abruptly, tearing out of the somber, thoughtful atmosphere with the brisk task of packing and preparing.

"To Crobhear it is, then. Lucky you found us, truly." She slung a sack of gathered pots and pans over her shoulder. "Any cult-buggers appear, and we'll set them straight." She traced a splitting line with her hand to the middle of her own brow, grinning. "Axe between their eyes 'fore they can so much as spit an unholy word."

Irman Harefoot
Ispir Sione
 
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Ispir Sione said:
"Oh yes. I'm afraid I'm not good for much save my words, music and archery Sir Irman. Which, ah, I've never exactly shot a person per-say but..."

He blushed, shrugging sheepishly, and looked down at the ground as his shoulders hunched.

"I at least haven't forgotten how to do that. It just isn't really useful when someone is so close."

Sigrun Flintfeet
Irman Harefoot[/CENTER]
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“You say that as if it’s a bad thing, not having to kill or maim a man. We ain’t murderers kid, won’t go lookin down on you for not having blood on your hands.”

Irman kicked dirt onto the makeshift fire as he wiped off the face of his frying pan. Soon after the trio was back on the path, with Sigrun’s turn to take the lead this time around.

The trek was beginning to lean upward as the path took the cart from the midlands into the chilly highlands. Crobhear was located on the opposite side of a line of peaks, that didn’t open for several miles save for a singular narrow pass. It would take the rest of the day to reach that pass, then from there most of a day to get through the pass and make for Crobhear on the other side.

The wind grew louder as elevation climbed and the vegetation was growing thin.

“Good thing we aren’t having to do this in winter, I can tell just by looking around this place must get buried in snow during the colder months.”

Irman reclined in the back of the cart but perked up when he heard a strange sort of scraping noise buried beneath the wind.
 
Ispir was overjoyed at the support from his new friends. Both Sigrun's encouragement that he was safe with them and Irman's reassurance that never having taken a life was not a bad thing brought a rosy hue to his cheeks as he nodded in thanks. Genuinely grateful for the wisdom and largesse of the two of them as he spoke.

"Thank you both so much. I must profess I didn't expect to make friends on this lonely road but I'd gladly count you both among that number now. So I would be honored to bring some joy and music to Crobhear Keep."

Giving an emphatic nod Ispir would not hear the noise Irman's superior senses detected and would simply hum a soft tune to himself until a new sound, and sensation, joined the relative quiet of their journey. A low, ominous rumbling would begin to quake the cart from above as an artificially triggered avalanche crashed down into the path like the deafening shout of a god of thunder, coming perilously close to making jerky of poor Honey Pepper.

But the ambush was expertly sprung by their assailants as, no sooner had the cart ceased shaking than an arrow THUNKED into the wood of the cart within a hair's breadth of giving Irman Harefoot an unwanted ear piercing. A second arrow, even as Ispir jerked his attention to the arrow that had nearly hit Irman in pure shock, suddenly lodged itself in the Minstrel's thigh and he simply.... screamed.

It was not a measured grunt or a suppressed howl, but a true, genuine cry of astonished agony as blood soaked into the otherwise pristine white pants he wore. In the cacophony of Ispir's scream two more creatures, snowy and furred but not that large, reptilian and malicious, would drop from the mountainside with short spears in hand, one landing upon and the other beside, Sigrun Flintfeet to jab at her with spears and slash at her with claws, before Ispir simply flung himself down into the cart beside the covered.... whatever it was!​
 
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The kobold landing on Sigrun would soon wish it had gone for someone else.

She cried out, her anger quickly superceding her initial bout of fear at seeing arrows flying and piercing the poor bard's leg. Hitting two birds with one stone, or in this case, two kobolds with a single throw, she grabbed the creature on her back by its neck, crunching its thin, vulture-like throat and nearly popping out its eyes, before flinging it over her back in the face of its spear-wielding ally.

The spear found kobold flesh as one catapulted into the other, crashing into the snow. Blood trickled down Sigrun's brow, thin slivers of bloody claw-marks mixing with her blue patterns. She bared her teeth in a snarl and whipped out her throwing axes - never far from her side.

"Stay down!" she yelled at Ispir in the cart, a sling-shotted rock whizzing past her ear. Her eyes flashed wide and she spun, flinging an axe at the shooter, scything through the air before finding its mark in a kobold face. The creature sprawled back from whence it came, axe-head splitting its skull.

She attempted to gauge how many kobolds that were, but in vain. They seemed to burst out of the snow like - damnable - moles or something! She sprang off the cart and rushed towards the one she had felled, both to retrieve her axe and to be a moving target.

Then, she saw it. The kobold alchemist. A creature wearing a splintered barrel with straps, bedecked in waterskins and stolen tankards that most certainly were filled with anything but water. It rushed their cart from the other side, giving it cover from Sigrun's thrown axes.

"Irman!!" She bellowed, pointing in its direction, before being engaged by three other kobolds in a furious melee. "The alchemist!"

Irman Harefoot
Ispir Sione
 
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Trusting Sigrun to handle the assaulting kobolds, Irman quickly checked Ispir to see how urgent his injuries were. The bleeding was bad, but the embedded arrow was stopping the worst of it. A length of rope was quickly tied higher up the bards thigh to stop the bleeding further. Doubtlessly the tightly tied knot would be uncomfortable in its own right, but better that then bleeding out in the middle of nowhere.

“Hold the arrow in place and do not move no matter what!” Irman snarled. His Lapine face was scrunched and his eyes were practically glowing green.

Sigrun Flintfeet said:
"Irman!!" She bellowed, pointing in its direction, before being engaged by three other kobolds in a furious melee. "The alchemist!"
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Irman looked up from the bleeding bard and saw the kobold Sigrun had mentioned, it was at the back of the ambushes formation a good 23 yards away. Without a moment wasted, Irman grabbed his billhook and leapt from the side of the cart towards the charging spearmen.

The cart rocked a bit back and forth as Irman moved with incredible speed, going past the front line of attackers before they could even process what was going on and running the alchemist’s throat through with the billhook’s long metal spike.

Blood poured out of the kobold’s neck at a chilling rate as color drained from the alchemist’s face and it silently reached for its rapidly bleeding throat.

Irman tried the best he could to not look too closely at his “opponent’s” face as he yanked back his weapon back and kicked the kobold in the abdomen to quicken the removal.

Irman had counted no less than twelve kobolds during his sprint to the alchemist. This was a full scale kobold ambush, the kind one would expect deep within a ruined dwarf hold but not randomly upon the open road. To make matters even weirder, these kobolds were well equipped but had no traps set up. A small comfort in the current crisis.

The kobolds reacted with alarming cohesion, splitting their efforts between the cart and Irman. This included the two kobold archers loosing arrow after arrow directly at Irman as he tried to avoid dodging straight into one of the kobolds armed with lost dwarven weaponry.
 
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'Stay Down!' came the command and Ispir did not need to be told twice. He would give a wince and whimper of pain as Irman bound the length of rope around his thigh, biting his lip to stifle the noise as best he could. Irman's snarled command earned a hasty, wide-eyed nod as tears beaded in the Minstrel's eyes before spilling down his cheeks silently. It may not have been composed or strong but he wasn't a fighter, wasn't a trained soldier, and this was the worst pain he could ever remember being in and so.... he cried. Sniffling and rubbing at his eyes as he hunkered down low in the cart and tried to NOT think about the fact his blood was currently running down his leg to pool in a sticky, smelly mess beneath him. Even with the arrow lodged in the way and the rope slowing the blood flow he could feel his leg tingling from falling asleep and starting to feel outright cold.

As Irman displayed his speed in a rush past the front line and Sigrun dispatched her attackers those twelves kobolds would pause, slightly startled by Irman's speed, before splitting up and beginning to attack in earnest at both Irman and Sigrun. Six kobolds would now stand in a semi-circle around Irman, between he and the cart, and used their short spears to fight very defensively. After all they were after the artifact in the cart and Irman was away from the cart. Why risk attacking an enemy being peppered by your archers who is obviously a skilled fighter?

Speaking of the archers an arrow would get lucky and, of all places, smack bluntly into one of Irman's fingers upon the haft of his billhook. It did not penetrate the metal but it did ring out like a hammer blow to his finger, leaving a dull, throbbing pain behind that left it tender when trying to grip his billhook properly. Meanwhile the other six kobolds swarmed over the cart and toward the artifact, Ispir and Sigrun like a scrabbling wave of scaled flesh. One of the kobolds had scooped up a handful of snow and, as they crested the side of the cart, Ispir's eyes would go wide as the kobold flung the snow into Sigrun's face and hissed.

"Pocket snow!"

Ispir, to his credit, let out a very brave and completely coherent.

"B-buhhh uhhh Si-Sig... uhhnn..... ahhh!"

Of pure fear. Which, of course, was him pointing out the obvious of the kobolds getting into the cart to Sigrun. While three of the kobolds would jab at Sigrun to try and make her fall off the cart, or skewer her, three more would begin to circle to the cart's back.

Irman Harefoot
Sigrun Flintfeet​
 
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"Verun tho bjoulvn skirth udovr!"

Sigrun sounded like a different creature altogether when belting out dwarven curses. Her voice echoed in the valleys, startling packs of birds from far-away trees tops, thrumming between mountain-tops like they were distant tuning forks.

The vulgarity of her outburst defied polite translation. But the message of her cleaving axes came through loud and clear.

Snow and blood dripping from her face, she hacked and stepped a bloody path through kobold lines. Stray spear-jabs connected either with her thick hides or scratched flesh off her arms. She hardly heeded them. Pain had dispersed for battle rage and furious energy.

She cut her way back to the cart, leaving three kobolds dead in the snow behind her.

Just as she was about to reach the cart, the kobold who had flung a snowball at her had made its way to Honey Pepper. Honey Pepper, who had shook and snorted in fear, stuck to the cart with her reins. The kobold stabbed its rear, cackling in throaty, reptillian fashion.

Honey Pepper reared and screamed. Then the animal bolted forward - and the wheels of the cart ground harshly, as the creature swerved away from the blockade of snow to rush off-road. On uneven terrain, kobolds, Ispir and artifact alike jumped and jumbled aboard, the primitive cart crashing over mounds of earth and loose rocks - disappearing from Sigrun's reach.

Ispir Sione
Irman Harefoot
 
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Irman heard Honey Pepper the riding elk cry out and run away from the kobolds off of the old dwarven road. The injury she had received was hardly serious, but startling none the less. The bigger concern was how a rocky cart ride could worsen Ispir’s leg injury. The arrow was still in his leg after all, and the more it could move meant the more it could open the wound.

“Sigrun! You need to stop the cart, cut the reins if you have to!”

Just then Irman felt a dull pain in his left hand fingers. A rock thrown from a sling had struck him on the hand, though at first he feared it had been an arrow. One of the kobolds, seeing this as an opening, charged forward with its spear to try and run the rabbit man through.

The charge failed though as Irman caught the spear in the head of his billhook, diverting the thrust and setting Irman up to swing his polearm around and strike the furry pale kobold straight on its shoulder. The monster screeched as muscle tore and bone broke. This didn’t kill the kobold out right but gave Irman the opportunity he needed to escape the surrounding formation.

Irman then dashed for the closer of the two kobold archers, aiming to run them through one after the other, but concerned that he still didn’t know where the rock slinging kobold could possibly be.

Unlike the alchemist, the archer was prepared for Irman and loosed an arrow at him as he charged across the weeds and rocks. The arrow hit Irman in the chest, but shattered on his metal breastplate. Irman’s attack didn’t fair much better as the archer dodged to the side and avoided the billhook’s sharp and pointy head by a hair’s length.

The kobold flashed a devilish grin at Irman for this feat, only for the colorfully dressed rabbit to draw a dagger with his off hand and stab the kobold archer as many times as he could manage in a three second window. The dagger was left in the collapsing body however, as the remaining spear kobolds were hot on Irman’s trail. He had to move fast and kill the second archer before it could pull off a lucky shot on either Sigrun on Honey Pepper.

Meanwhile, the cart was holding together pretty well as Honey pepper pulled it over uneaten terrain. Several kobolds were running after it, though one was in the cart with Ispir, its reptilian eyes solely on the thick burlap sack.
 
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Ispir would flinch a bit at the sheer whirlwind of blood Sigrun Flintfeet left in her wake. The cart, the sack and even Ispir being somewhat flecked by the spattering of Kobold blood she sent flying! Ispir would grimace at this and, yelping as Honey Pepper bolted and cried out in pain, would wince and grit his teeth as the cart began to jostle and agitate his arrow-wound. Blood would flow, fresh and thick, down his thigh and he would begin to panic as he hastily pressed his hands down over the wound, shuddering at the feeling of blood on his hands. Only for him to realize that he was not, in fact, alone and his heart sunk as one kobold climbed up into the cart with him.

Eyes wide and, frankly, terrified as the kobold approached the undulating sack Ispir would throw his arms up in a useless attempt to shield himself, clenching his eyes shut tight as death came for him, only for the cart... to lurch? A low, unholy sound came from the sack as the kobold blood splattered onto it had stirred the evil within. The kobold, in it's greedy haste, would grasp for the sack.... only for what lay within to grasp back. Ispir heard the kobold cackle with glee, then hiss in confusion, then cry out in terror and pain before... silence.

Well, at least the kobold went silent, but Ispir dared not open his eyes as something else began hissing, began chanting in words that felt... wrong. Something colder and slimier than seaweed would snake out to grab his arms, wrapping itself around him tightly only to... recoil? That chanting ceased and turned into a non-sound of agony and Ispir could taste that disgusting, cold magic dissipate as something slammed into the bottom of the cart several times, as if a drunken ogre were punching the wood right beside him and he then smelled... smoke?

Beginning to hyperventilate at this point it was only when Honey Pepper slowed down a bit, and he DIDN'T die, that Ispir would blink his teary eyes open and wipe at them. Looking around the cart nothing seemed threatening anymore. The kobold was gone, it's spear left on the bottom of the cart where it had last stood, the sack of whatever-it-was sat there, perfectly still. Outside of a fading cloud of smoke billowing up into the air like a thick, choking cloud Ispir saw nothing and was thoroughly, absolutely confused.

After another few moments Honey Pepper came to a halt and Ispir would flop back in the cart, breathing heavily, skin feeling sweaty as he huffed out breathlessly.

"Th-Thank you H-Honey Pepper. Ughhhh...."

Closing his eyes he swore he'd only nap for a minute.....

Irman Harefoot​
 
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