Open Chronicles Getting the Band Back Together, Warband

[Roul]

Honestly, Toren's head hurt so hard he couldn't remember what continent this inn was even on. He slapped the wooden table in the dimly lit interior and yelled for some food.

Eventually, the innkeep brought over some porridge and milk, which Toren started shoveling into his mouth. He looked around, head swimming, trying to remember exactly what had happened last night. There were a lot of rough looking types in the inn. Most had swords nearby or still belted on. Toren frowned, then looked over at a man sitting at a desk with a quill and parchment in front of him who seemed familiar.

Every so often, someone would wander into the inn and talk to the man at the desk. He would write something down, they would get some coin, and then they would leave.

Slowly, things started coming back to Toren. This was a mercenary freecompany trying to reform its banners. They called themselves the uh, what was it again? Thronebreakers, or something of the like.

Toren chewed on his porridge and thought.

 

[Charlemagne]

Inns made him uncomfortable.

Charlemagne was a child of the Spine. He made his bed beneath the pines and the stars, and far away from those that might see him to harm. He had little love for the drink, and even less for the nightly women that gathered in such places to make their coin. Such mortal distractions appealed to the animal in men, and Charlemagne considered himself far and apart from his flesh.

His only indulgence was in blood, and that was far more of a spiritual venture than anything so carnal as primal enjoyment.

Or so he told himself anyway.

The mercenary drew back his cowl as he stepped through the doors. He did his very best to seem as unapproachable as possible, his eyes narrowed like a predator's, lips pressed into a thin disapproving line. As much as he disdained these gathering places, they were the best source of work, and the gods knew he needed coin after the debacle at Alliria.

"I was told you have work available for men at arms?" He asked brusquely of the desk-man. He didn't much notice Toren Urahil. He was far more concerned about getting the job and then getting the hell away than he was with socializing.

 

[Singar]

Times were hard for humans. And that meant hard times for the Orc who drifted between them under their nose. The recent Orcish horde, a pair of words humans forever loathe to hear, had organized and sacked Alliria. The great merchant city ailed, and so did feudal economies across the world. The prices of everything a man needs had gone up. Whores in short supply charged double, beers were watered and dirty , food was meager and grueling. The fertile human lands where Singar poached away from the lands of Orcdom had been defiled and depopulated. An influx of refugees overworked the serfs, and those who could not be supported turned to banditry.

When Singar had heard cry of companies seeking men-at-arms, he obliged with a rumbling in his stomach he had not felt for years. He knew without a doubt they would offer him some paper contract, as humans so often did. Yet, it was only right to hear them out.

It was early in the morning when he arrived, yet the inn bustled with people looking for work. What he least explected, of course, was a familiar face. At the desk where a mercenary clerk sat cluttered by sheets of papyrus, stood Charlemagne. This human had been the unlikely travelling partner of Singar's across the blighted lands and the Spine. Their meeting before had been by chance. This one seemed more like fate. He knew this man to be a fighter, and wherever Charlemagne was going there was bound to be a good fight.

Singar approached the desk quietly along side his acquaintance. The hunched clerk shuffled his long nose through contracts and lists without word to either man.

Singar coughed abruptly, "Are you following me, swordsman?" his voice was only semi-serious.

Charlemagne Toren Urahil