Chapter 2
Sitting astride Thunder, Boric conducted one final inspection of his troops before they set off. Though they
were still a motley crew, Kilgram had whipped them into a shape vaguely resembling a crew of military personnel. The
fact that he was the only one with a mount might cause some delays, but Boric was sure that a little exercise would do
no harm for the slackers he had been saddled with. Natasha had been the most resistant, still thinking she should be
leading this little expedition, but the realization that her choices were to follow Boric, or go home to her father
with her tail between her legs kept her quiet for about five minutes.
The route to Lord Cranston’s was fairly simple. The entire trip would take an average troop about five days
to traverse. The most difficult part of the trip would be the crossing of the Great Chasm, a deep crevasse created by
a horrendous earthquake two years ago. Though the area is now stable, the crossing is still dangerous.
As the party started packing up their equipment, Guido was overcome by a wave of nausea. Moments later, a
messenger from Commander Walsingham arrived. Apparently a special arrow was prepared by the mages guild for Natasha.
An arrow of mage slaying. A note was attached to the arrow addressed to Boric, which Natasha quickly removed and
threw into Mid-year park. Leaping over the fence, Boric almost managed to grab the note before it was caught by a
strong gust of wind, and blown deeper into the surrounding forest. Undaunted, Boric continued to chase the paper
around for several minutes before the parks rangers had him forcibly removed. By the time he returned to the party,
they were all packed and ready to go. The ensuing argument between Boric and Natasha, one in a long list of future
arguments had one positive aspect. In Boric anger at Natasha for throwing the note away, Boric completely forgot to
go to Commander Walsingham’s office in order to determine the notes contents.
Trotting out of the city gates, Boric watched as his minions tried valiantly to keep up. It was not long
before Guido started to fall behind. Considering his legs are all of six inches long, it was really no surprise.
But without a word, in one swift motion, Morath lifted Guido into the air with his foot, caught him, and placed
him on his shoulder. It was surprising that no one had thought of that before. Considering Thoram probably tipped
the scale at over two hundred stone, and considering Guido probably didn’t break two stone soaking wet, Thoram
never even noticed the extra weight.
Thoram really didn’t need to worry. It was less than 20 minutes into the trip when Bluebell started to
really fall behind. Being the chivalrous man he was, Boric immediately surrendered the front of Thunders saddle
on which Bluebell could sit.
Though the total mass applied to his back was presently still less than Boric in full plate armour during
a joust, Thunder was still not happy with this arrangement. And made this fact readily apparent. Every couple of
minutes, Thunder would vocalize his displeasure by trotting too close to the side of the road, brushing the much
lighter Bluebell, with low hanging branches, almost knocking her off his back. Unfortunately for Boric, there was
little he could do to stop this behavior. Thunder is a medium warhorse, and as such was trained to be afraid of
nothing, except possibly his master. But Thunder was also smart enough to know that Boric was in no position to
discipline him now. So Thunder continued with his little game undaunted. Boric even went so far as to walk
occasionally, to give Bluebell the saddle to herself, to no avail. Thunder would not stand for that, and upped his
rebellious behavior, to which Boric had to surrender. Before long they were all walking.
Which made Thunder much happier, since no matter how much they tried, there was no way Boric was going to
let Thunder be treated like a pack horse. Not that Thunder would have accepted such treatment in any case.
Once the battles for dominance were finished, and Thunder had come out on top, the rest of the day went
very smoothly. Bromely had changed dramatically over the last two hundred years since Morath had taken command.
Two hundred years ago the face of Bromely had been little more than a barren plain. The competing warlords and
feudal kings had clear cut most of the areas woodlands, not protected by the Elves, in their never ending bid
for dominance. Now that the wars were over, most of those woodlands had now returned. Performed with vigilance,
but mostly due to the fact that Morath had the University of Mages in his back pocket. Long ago Morath learned
that Druids were especially good at growing forests, and they were more than happy to re-grow Bromely’s, at a price.
Traveling for the rest of the day was uneventful. The time went quickly, or slowly, all depending on which
side of the bickering you were on. Natasha did everything in her power to annoy Boric, but it was actually Guido
who truly got on Boric’s nerves. As the party traveled, Guido would bring out his flute, in an effort to liven the
mood, and to distract Boric and Natasha from their constant bickering. For some unknown reason the sound of Guido’s
flute aggravated Boric more than Natasha ever could, so in fact it was the arguments with Natasha which distracted
Boric from Guido’s flute playing. Normally, a group of strangers who have been thrown together would spend time
getting to know each other. However this company was far from normal. For the entire first day, they spent little
time doing anything other than bickering. Except for Kilgram of course, who just took point guard. The rest of the
party members just considered it him doing his job. He did it to avoid them.
The first nights encampment was no better. Boric spent the entire evening was just as Kilgram predicted. Boric
spent the entire time before he slept grooming his horse, maintaining his equipment, bossing the women around, and
trying to break Guido’s flute. Natasha, as would be expected, took great offence to being told to do the cooking and
cleaning of the cookware.
The ensuing argument was quickly averted however as Guido volunteered to do the cooking. So as Kilgram and
Boric rechecked and maintained the equipment, Guido and Bluebell prepared camp and the food, while Natasha stood
guard, and Morath collected firewood by uprooting near by dead trees. For two and a half hours the area was peaceful.
That was until dinner was over. Boric being Boric ordered Natasha to clean the cookware. She refused. They bantered,
as Guido and Bluebell quietly cleaned up. At the point where it was finally decided that Natasha was a cast iron Bitch,
and Boric was a horse’s ass, the camp had been tidied up. The night’s fire had been fed, and everyone else was prepared
for the night.
As for the evening’s entertainment, it was spent watching Boric chase Guido around camp, as Guido played
chase and hunting music on his flute. Though Guido was fairly agile, being only thirteen inches tall, Kilgram knew
that Guido was no match for Boric physically, yet strangely enough Guido always managed to escape from Boric’s grasp
at the very last moment. It took Kilgram several minutes to realize that Thoram would smile mischievously just before
Guido would avoid Boric’s grasp, not afterwards. So apparently with Thoram’s help, Boric and Guido entertained the troops
for the first night. It is still difficult to remember exactly why Boric hated music so much, but for the years that
I knew him, that hatred stayed true.
Being too riled up to sleep, Boric decided that the night watch duties would be as follows. Boric on first
watch, Kilgram second watch and Natasha would take third watch. This would of course allow the lazy mages to sleep.
An excellent plan, except for the fact that neither Boric nor Natasha could see in the dark, and since it was almost
a new moon, that would cause some difficulty with the whole “watch” concept, not actually being able to see anything.
Guido could of course cast night vision on the human party members, but he refused, and Morath could only affect
himself. Finally, after another half hour of bickering, it was decided that Boric would watch with Morath, and Natasha
would watch with Bluebell. This was fine by all, except Guido who felt left out, and Bluebell who REALLY wanted to
spend the night with Boric, or so she said.
The first two watches went without much problem. Boric was accosted twice by a very friendly squirrel looking
for nuts, and Kilgram, appreciating the silence lost track of time, allowing the ladies extra sleep. Midway through
the last watch however, a couple of hours before dawn, the party was to be tested for the first time.
Bluebells acute hearing picked up the sounds of footfalls, coming from the south. Not being able to identify
the noise, she alerted Natasha, who was oblivious. In what would later be referred to by Boric as a true act of bravery,
Bluebell ventured out into the forest to discover the origin of the noise, while Natasha was to awaken the rest of the
party. Before Natasha could protest, Bluebell had blended into the trees and was gone.
Giving Boric a swift kick to the head, Natasha gently awakened him, and then roused Kilgram and Morath. Guido,
soundly a sleep in a tree was nowhere to be seen. The following events happened in such close succession that it is
difficult to say which actually came first and when. Surrounding the campfire, the entire party was a picture of military
discipline. Kilgram lithely spun his axe in a defensive motion, so fast it was difficult to detect any openings in his
defense. Natasha, bow notched, scanned the tree line for any form of movement. Boric bravely stood defiantly, broad sword
in hand, daring anyone to attack.
What came next was a complete surprise. As all the fighters looked out into the forest, the party was surprised
by a sudden hissing sound. Before any of them could react, the entire camp was engulfed in a fireball, boiling the first
few layers of skin off the party members. Before their eyes had time to recover, they were laid upon by a small horde of
goblins. Being well versed in the art of blind fighting, Kilgram managed to protect Boric and Natasha’s exposed flanks,
while keeping himself well defended.
Boric, always protective of his underlings, made only one sound as be bounded into combat, “Kilgram protect
Bluebell.”
There were many goblins, and they managed to get in a few good hits, simply by plying their forces on masse.
Thoram, unable to hurt a living soul, mentally searched the area for the goblin’s mage. Unfortunately he was a little
late, as a shower of fireballs came crashing down upon the clearing. Once Natasha’s and Boric’s eyes had re-adjusted,
the fight turned decisively against the goblins. The barrage of fireballs luckily killed over a third of the remaining
goblins. Circling around in opposite directions Boric and Kilgram closed in on either side of Natasha, pulling her out
of melee combat and allowing her to utilize her bow. Making short work of the rest of the goblins, Kilgram, Boric and
Natasha had just finished fighting off the last of the goblins when the last fireball hit. Boric took the brunt of it,
as Kilgram and Natasha were in a flat out run before the fireball coalesced.
Moving like lightning, Natasha was out of the clearing and into the forest before she heard the ‘phoom’ and
felt the heat on her back. Though Kilgram was slower, his armour as well as his nature saved him from being badly hurt.
Moving through the forest, it did not take Natasha long to track Bluebell through the forest.
So the search for Bluebell and the enemy mage began. Thoram reaching out with his mind could find no sign of
Bluebell or the mage. Deep in his heart he felt this could only mean she was dead, but he did not voice this opinion.
It was not long after that Natasha found Bluebell, or to be more accurate, almost tripped over Bluebell.
As Natasha charged through the forest, she hopped over a log not far from camp, there she found Bluebell
unconscious, a pair of dead goblins beside her. From the cuts and bruises, she had put up quite a fight before killing
both and then collapsing into unconsciousness. Natasha checked Bluebell’s breathing, which was slow and shallow, yet
regular. She then did a quick scan of the area for any medicinal herbs, but found none she felt appropriate. So she
picked up Bluebell and carried her back to camp.
When she returned to camp, she found Boric checking the dead bodies for any distinguishing marks or insignia’s,
and upon finding none, threw the corpses into the fire, which Thoram had built up. Kilgram was still in the forest,
searching for Bluebell, Thoram was sitting in the middle of the camp, like a lump of stone, un-moving, and Guido was
charging around, trying to be as helpful as possible. In other words, being a complete nuisance. Though Thoram’s pants
were cut and bloodied, when Natasha checked later, his skin was completely healed. Apparently another mentalist ability
of Thoram’s was self healing. Guido upon seeing Bluebell’s seemingly lifeless body immediately rushed over to see if she
was still alive. It took Boric a few minutes to notice that Natasha had returned with their lost party member, and only
after Natasha vocally chastised him, did he come over and check her condition.
Luckily for all assembled, Guido had brought a small vial of healing potion, which he carefully poured down
Bluebell’s throat. This however did not sit well with Boric who thought that as leader, he should have been given first
drain of the healing potion. However, before he could vocalize his concern, Kilgram, who had returned, pointed out that
with Bluebell conscious, she could easily heal the wounds of the fighters.
So it was that they waited for Bluebells revival. By about two and a half hours past dawn, she finally stirred.
She was still groggy, but was coherent enough to check her own wounds and determine herself fit to ride. It was another
hour before Boric was able to convince Thunder that it was in his best interest to let the woman ride today, and
begrudgingly Thunder finally accepted the new rider. In the mean time, an interesting new development had shown its ugly
head. It appeared that as an initiate priestess of Helora, Bluebell was unable to cast healing spells of her own, but was
permitted to perform a laying on of hands, a much slower yet more personal type of healing. Checking Boric’s, Natasha’s
and Kilgram’s wounds, Bluebell figured it would take at least four hours to properly heal all three. Time, at this point,
they did not have. So wounded they set out on day two.