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It is a sunny, pleasant day in early autumn.
The trees are just starting to take on their rusty hues, as orange and red leaves mix with greens.
The sun is high in the sky, showing a landscape of miles upon miles of forest. Within the forest, scattered here and there, are quiet villages. The houses are made of mud and logs, with thatched roofs. Each village stands in its own little circle of -c-
cleared ground, with a road running strait through the center and out into the forest on either side.
This is the Great Road, the road that connects all the villages, and makes up just about the only safe path through the forest.
Each of the villages is about a day's journey apart from the village on either side, which means they don't have much contact with each other, though often people have-c-
relatives in other villages, and once in a while take a couple of days to go to another village, stay awhile, then come back.
It comes as quite a shock to the sleepy village of Forth when a ragtag half-dozen or so, citizens from Peace, the village to their West, come straggling into their clearing, clothing burnt and torn, some sporting vicious wounds.
They tell of a terrible thing that has -c-
happened in Peace; fire and huge boulders rained from the sky, destroying their houses, ending the lives of almost everyone in the village.
The little stone house in the center of their village that centered their safecharm was also destroyed, and when they searched through the rubble for the shard of crystal that kept them safe from the denizens of the forest, they found it had vanished.
The -c-
people of Forth have opened their hearts and their homes to the survivors of the Peace Catastrophe, which is what they now refer to the disaster as.
This attack, though no harm was done to them, has scared the simple folk of Forth. If such a think could happen to Peace, what if the same thing happens to them? And with the Peace safecharm missing, what would keep the stretch of road closest to -c-
it safe from the monsters of the forest?
What would happen to the people who used this as a trade route regularly?
Should they go for the help of the king's army, or to the Forest Wizard for a new safecharm, or should they just go about their own business?
What they had thought of as their unchangeable life is now in turmoil; how will they deal with this strange chaos? -d-
bic: He mingled with the "crowd" of villagers gathered around the refugees, frowning as he listened to their stories.
This was odd... Very odd.
Tugging on his scruffy blond hair (a bad habit he'd developed), he wondered who on earth had the motivation and the means to attack the village of Peace in such a way.
And he'd been there just two days ago, on his way to Forth!
Today was to have been the-c
day he traveled on to Clover, the next village down the line, but that wouldn't do now. He had to stay, had to figure out what had happened here, and why.
It was what the leader of his branch of the Ranger Corps would have wanted.
He pulled a cloak of an ambiguous color between gray and green more tightly around his shoulders. Its hue seemed to change when his surroundings did, and watching it -c-
could be almost mesmerizing.
Other than the cloak (a trademark of a Ranger) and the silver clasp that held it in place (it showed one, if they knew what to look for, that he was a Ranger, and which division he was from), his appearance was quite ordinary. His clothing consisted of a green tunic and black trousers, and well-worn leather boots. He wasn't especially muscular, nor very tall, and -c-
there wasn't anything very remarkable about his face. He had plain brown eyes, and l'ps that were a little too full. He wasn't quite handsome, but there was a certain something about him that was pleasing to the eye.
Currently he was clean-shaven, having stayed at an inn overnight, and at least he was clean.
Beside him stood his horse, white with black dalmation-like spots, a brown underbelly -c-
and brown socks. It was a Shetland Pony, the kind of durable beast of burden that Rangers preferred. Its coat was rather shaggy, and its mane tangled, but it looked content and well-fed. On its back rested travel packs, a short bow strapped to the front of the saddle and a longbow behind. Though his Ranger master wasn't the best shot, Rangers were encouraged to carry them, just in case. -c-
Hanging from his belt was a long dagger, and a shorter one was concealed just behind his neck, underneath his cloak. He wasn't very good with daggers, either, but again, he was encouraged to carry them.
On his hip hung a rapier, since he didn't do well with heavier swords, and belted around his waist was a sling, with a pouch of good-sized stones at his side. He was a master at handling this -c-
sling, and used it rather than a bow and arrows most of the time.
He pushed through the villagers, bowing to the refugees from Peace. "I am sorry for your loss. Perhaps I can assist you? I am called Thatch, and I am a Ranger by trade. As you probably know, it's my job to figure things out and help with situations such as this." -d-
 Ithtar · Thu Dec 24, 2009 @ 06:37pm · 0 Comments |
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