Fetzen

Kingdom's Fall: Fantasy RP where the Dark Lord has won

I'd be interested :)

The Five Senses

Týfurkh

_{@Pezz570@13org@HokumPocus@Jerkchicken@Typical}

It all could have gone so well... Illusions, companions putting up a distraction, jade candles to hide them from the Sightless' view for a while... A swift, rather bloodless in-and-out operation that would allow the troops from outside to enter this damn place.

It fell to the ground with a not so subtle thud and the gurgling sounds of a man trying to take his last breaths through a throat filled to the brim with blood. Chres' handling of the dagger was, without any doubt, excellent, but the fact that everybody had been able to notice it in the first place not so much. And why did Chres follow the urge to charge into a room with no less than six hostiles ? It only made even more abrupt intervention necessary in an attempt to save the crazy man's life.

Týfurkh forgot every aspect of stealth for the moment. The sound of him rushing in through the door behind Chres with a lot of clanking armor and a huge crossbow was easily noticeable and the man himself didn't like it at all right now, but Týfurkh thought that he needed to do what must be done. Right now and with no alternatives. He pulled the trigger without hestiation, shooting one of the men at point blank range. The bolt punched through the guard's armor and quite nailed the body one of the small room's walls. It was a waste of a ranged weapon's ammunition weighed against the waste of time.

Týfurkh enganged the next guard right away, trying to use his crossbow as a makeshift melee weapon which he could use to hit some vulnerable parts of the other man. Hopefully the others of the party would come here soon as well, because two versus five still was not a very good ratio.

The Prince's Royal Guard

It had taken a while for Manald to return into his somewhat more 'normal' shape, if one could say so at all if everybody else around him was perfectly human, but it had not helped to make anything less... boring. It was far from the beastman's intention to discount the fact that they were under a damn siege, but there also was no way to deny that his options on top of the wall had been rather limited.

Pull some guts out of a goblin's belly ?
None of the little squeaky things had managed to reach him and he had not been able to simply go down.

Have some small talk with the soldiers around him once things had become calm and quiet again ?
Maybe the prejudices and anxieties about beastmen were not as prevalent and obvious as those about Zatana's race, but they were there still.

Just abandon the place clearly stating that he'd be more useful as a furry bartender in the tavern than blocking everyone else's way on top of the wall ?
The prince would not have been happy about his troop's reputation being pulled into the dirt that hard.

As long as the goblins did not put considerably more men and effort into more than a probing attack throwing stones down murder holes was not very entertaining either. The vast majority of the attackers had been taken out by the archers. And on top of things even one of soldiers himself had said something accusatory about Manald's lack of 'usefullness' there. So, to put it in more short words, Manald obvious had more than just a bad fur day when he ducked his way through the doorframe into a tavern he didn't even know. A good binge was in dire need, definitely!

However, the place was packed to say the least. Some of the visages he saw felt oddly familiar to those whose owners had just left the same shift as he had, but what he didn't see was a free table or even just a free chair. The lycan trudged his humble self forward, people staring at him all around both in admiration about his sheer size and animalistic features and in disgust about pretty much the same. Having reached the counter, Manald slammed his flat hand on the desk in an attempt to get some attention in all this mess. A quite average-ish looking man turned away from a large fire, approaching him and picking up an empty tankard for cleaning in the process.

"Ah... you. I've heard people talking." He sniffed quite pronouncedly. "You don't smell that bad. Seems like some claims are badly overrated... So. What can I serve you ?"

"Beer! A lot!"

The man sighed. "Why am I even asking... At this rate it'll be the first thing we'll run out of. Alright..." He put the tankard aside and grabbed a fresh one, filling it with the juice from a wooden barrel.

Manald took it and now it was his turn to sniff, even though much less noticeable. He did not need to inhale a lot of air to smell something, and in this case he was quite happy about that. "It seems like you've run out of good beer already... Why don't you serve the bad stuff first if you have the unique chance to ?"

The man just shrugged his shoulders, not even putting on as much as a disappointed look while polishing the tankard again. "I don't subdivide into good and bad stuff. I just have this and I didn't have any complaints about it so far. Drink it or leave, but not without paying for what you already got!"

Now the beastman took a very carefully executed sip. "Just like expected... tastes like one quarter pig piss." As if this day could go any worse...

"Hah! Does your kind come as pigs, too, or how can you tell how pig piss tastes ?"

Manald looked at the man askantly with a facial expression that was clearly devoid of any amusement. "No, my kind only comes in shapes capable of tearing a man's head off. And the felines can't even purr, very sorry for that!" He now just stared into what felt like an abyss filled with liquid, homogenous horror in a single shade of amber. Then, with some considerable and no less visible hesitation, the beastman took a larger portion of it and let things roam around in his mouth for a little bit before swallowing. It didn't help either. Not at all.

The tavern owner became a little triumphant in his words: "You will drink it, I'm sure. Simply because... you won't find anything better in Berkhoff right now. What the hell did you expect in a siege ? Very sadly though..." - and now there was nothing but sarcasm in his voice - "I don't have much of a chair left for you. So... you stay ?"

It was exactly the kind of words Manald did not want to hear, simply because... The man was probably right. So maybe just focus in on the alcohol ? The lycan decided to empty his tankard in one go, rapidly washing away bad taste with more bad taste and taking the time to breathe again only after it was all over. Presenting his razor-sharp teeth, he made clear what he wanted: "More!"

What else should he do this evening... He'd be capable of sleeping sonner or later anyway and his body had always been quite fast when it came to digesting liquor.

------------------------

"Ugh! I can't... lift this man. He's just too heavy!"

"Then just drag him around on the floor. I don't want any drunken heaps in my main hall waking up in the middle of the night and putting on a show because they can't get out! Also I have to clean this place!"

A scream was to be heard, following by a very nasty curse. Some blood noe was dripping onto the ground.

"That's what you get if you're an idiot trying to hold his hands! Didn't you see those claws on them ? Now get moving!"

"Where shall I go with him ?"

"Just drag him to the others, around the corner where less people will see him! They'll warm each other in the night so no worries!"

Manald was left asleep in a small side street, accompanied by a few other patrons who had maneuvered themselves into a similar fate. By now it was the middle of the night, but he would probably be awake long before those around him.

The Prince's Royal Guard

Even at his new size, Manald was unable to see what was happening on top of a 30 feet tall wall. He still was able to notice the blast though that occurred right in front of the other side of the gate. The movement of the massive construction was quite easy to see and so was the fact that the blast wave stirred up his fur and tried to push him away. Albeit not being able to hear the cracking sounds and thus unaware of the fact that the gate had taken serious damage, Manald knew that the threat of goblin sappers was over for now one way or the other. There was no real reason left for him to stay down here.

The lycanthrope's next idea was to rush back up to the wall's crest and make himself useful there. It took a little longer for the giant beast to get moving fast, but once he was at speed it was enough of an impression to make a few soldiers crossing his path to rush out of the way. Once up there he saw a Acrius in the midst of a crowd of soliders that didn't look like they were busy shooting arrows or throwing stuff down the murder holes anymore. So... what had happened ?

He came closer, each of his steps sending vibrations throughout the wall in his vicinity that the more sensitive part of its defenders would be able to notice along with the scratching sound caused by large claws hitting the stone floor. Then, already quite close, he could finally see that there was someone lying on the ground in the middle of the crowd. It was Zatana it seemed. Manald hardly knew her, but that was not relevant right now.

"If there's nothing to help with or you don't want to help, then make yourself useful somewhere else! Get more arrows, inspect the gate for damage, I don't know!" Manald's intention had been to make it sound indignantly, but combined with his current physique it had potential to feel more like an announcement about who'd be his dinner tonight. The werewolf stepped closer now, hoping that he wouldn't have to start to push soldiers aside in order to start helping himself.

The Prince's Royal Guard

By the time the bell rang, Manald had found himself on the wall somewhere in the eastern part of the city. He couldn't tell exactly where himself for the lack of detailed knowledge of the whole place, but it didn't matter anyway. The bell's reverberating sound was loud enough to easily track it back to its origin. Running through the city itself would probably have been less of a long way, but only so at the risk of getting lost and needing even more time. Therefore Manald relocated himself to the west gate by running along the top of the wall in the south.

Upon his arrival he wished for having gone through the city and gotten lost there...

The lycan was unfamiliar with this dwarven invention of 'cannons'. The ongoing preparations to fire one of them were not as obvious to him as they were to many others, so he didn't care much when running past one of the crews manning them. He could hear the men beefing about him as he ran past them as one of his elbows accidentally touched one of them in the overall turmoil that was going on. Then, a moment later, there was a bang that felt next to unbelievable for him. The last bit of information he could get from his ears was that it came from behind his back. Then there was only disturbance and ringing, no further voices or other meaningful sounds to be heard.

Had his hypersensitive ears just died ?

Not even noticing himself anymore that he was hissing in the process, Manald turned around and looked back at the men with their cannon. A plume of smoke invaded his nostrils, too, but the slight itch it caused was nothing compared to what had happened to his hearing. He saw the soldiers returning the stare, a few of them grinning nonchalantly. The expression quickly faded from their faces once they saw Manald's threatening teeth. He was not amused!

One the plus side he would not have worry much about more cannon shots, but he could no longer receive any orders or hints anymore as well. That was unless someone would dare to wield a big shield with letters on it, of course. Luckily though a quick look down the wall still told him the story about the goblins doing something at the gate's threshold. It could only be a bad thing for the smell of explosive powder and the sight of fire reached him once more. But what should he do ? Jump down the wall ? The gate wouldn't hold for long anymore this way.

Manald quickly discarded the thought. Instead he retreated into the gatehouse, taking his second set of leather armor with him. At first there was nothing, but then a muffled scream could be heard by everyone closeby. It wasn't like the war shout Manald had delivered earlier, but sounded much more like the very mundane attempt to stifle intense agony with crying. It was followed by several others, albeit much smaller outbursts until there was silence again in the gatehouse. The bottom-level door on the city side of it was tossed open and clashed against the wall quite hard. Manald had no intention of damaging any of the lord's properties on purpose, but the sheer inadequacy of the exit's size almost left him no other choice. And of course he currently was flat-out unable to hear anything almost breaking.

Ducking greatly and walking halfway sideways just in order to get his shoulders through somehow, the lycanthrope emerged on the street behind the gate fully shifted and clad in his much bigger armor. Manald had borrowed a two-handed sword from a rack in the gatehouse, but his confidence in the weapon's durability was as low as was his confidence in his own ability to wield it like a real swordsman. Anyway, he'd try his best to give those goblins a warm welcome should they breach the gate in any case. If they wouldn't at all... well then he wouldn't be able to pull this off a second time this day or so, but maybe he could make himself useful in other ways then.

Post a random fact about yourself.

I do not have any random facts for you. All properties that my existence is comprised of are causally deterministic.

Wait... There is quantum mechanics.

The Prince's Royal Guard

So far all information Manald had got about what they were going to face were Orcs, so the appearance of goblins had come quite a bit as a surprise. However the lycanthrope had soon found himself less worried about the petty, ugly looking fighters and much more about what kind of creature they were riding on: wolves. It had hurt to see those wonderful beasts being abused by these dirty, pesky little things with all of their miserable intentions, but the prospect of having to kill them had done so even more.

Or did he ? For what had been a fraction of a second in reality, but what had felt like a cruel series of moments, Manald had considered not steering his horse into the direction of the harrased caravan. In the heat of battle there would have been plenty of ways to explain his way out into pretty much any direction he wanted, but in the end it would still have been disobedience even if only a harmless one due to the fact that there would have been more then enough cavalry men left to deal with the goblin threat. As he had pushed the best possible speed out of his horse in order to keep up with the others, Manald had considered alternative options.

What he had ended up with was an attempt. The first thing that had come from him and which had hurt the goblins had neither been his mace nor his shield, but his voice. A scream that had made those riding next to him wince in their saddles, one even almost falling off his horse. An outburst of unintelligible gibberish that made no sense to an untrained human ear, but which told a message to any wolf listening: I am the alpha male, the leader of the pack. Obey me.

Unfortunately a battleground being littered with blood at an astonishing rate was anything but ideal terrain for even a wolf to pick up the distinct scent coming of Manald that would have given some proof to his claim. It had seemed to work on the nearest goblin, his mount stopping so abruptly that its rider was jettisoned into a forward direction, only to be crushed beneath the hooves of Manald's horse as he was charging in. He could have transformed, thereby greatly amplifying his strength before repeating the shout, but having done so while there had been fighting all around him would have posed too much of a danger. So the lycanthrope had fought on by conventional means, which in his case meant broken skulls and crushd ribcages with priority given towards the goblins and not the wolves.

By the time he rode into the city at a slow trot his horse was done. Not only looked it as if it was on the verge of collapsing, but one could also clearly see that Manald preferred using his right hand for holding his weapon... It simply was the side covered in the larger amount of spattered blood and other remains one wouldn't want to identify. Both it and its rider were in obvious need for a decent wash. Manald handed over his mount to the very next person he believed could do the job for him, then attended to himself for a proper cleanup before all of the blood would have dried and become one ugly mess of a crust.

While his leaders appeared to be discussing things on their own and several pounds of water were still clinging to his now tidy fur, Manald took an investigative stroll through the city. Now that the cannons were silent it was a good moment to take a curious look at them himself. They had to be fascinating pieces of craftsmanship, but the wolf also wondered about the toll the siege so far must have taken on their stock of ammunitions. He had enough experience to know that hauling big weaponry over long distance and on short notice like it had happened here was enough of a challenge by itself. Doing so with a large stock of projectiles was another. Hopefully they had thought about the latter as well...

Also, while the Orcs and Goblins didn't have cannons, they still could have fire. A spark finding its way into the stockpile of propellant for these things might blast a hole in the city wall faster than any catapult or ram could do.

The Prince's Royal Guard

Cannons ? Oh what brutal instruments of death those dwarves could develop! Death for his sensitive lycanthropic hearing that was... If he found the sound of those things deafing while still a fair bit way of them what would happen once they'd be next to them ? It was not a bright outlook Manald found, but hopefully those things would do more damage to their enemies than they did to their own troops. One could never know for sure with such inventions...

When Manald heard Leonidas giving the order that involved him in leading the cavalry units he knew what to do: Make preparations. He needed not only to retrieve his shield and weapon from his tent, but also his second armor that was more suited to his alter ego -- the one that only came out on rather rare occasions and for a rather short amount of time. Five minutes was not much time for grabbing all things, putting those needed immediately on, then walking back through an entire camp of people all doing the same thing at the same time to the stables and getting one's mount ready.

Still Manald was not in the mood for shoving aside those not making way for him, even in the hurry given. It was important to treat people with at least a certain degree of respect or bad things would come crashing down upon oneself one day. So what everybody caring to look would be able to see was Manald getting his fur dirty as he compensated for any necessary evasive maneuver by walking even faster, thereby transporting a fair degree of mud from his feet to other regions of his body.

He barely made it in time, making his appearance in the makeshift stables while breathing considerably heavier then before. "Leonidas ? I hope your majesty is aware of the fact that horses and I are not best friends." He knew what he was talking about. Horses were sensitive beings and felt that there was something very, very predatory in Manald even if it was not directed at them in any way. And then there was the fact that the wolf-man was just very bloody heavy.

The Blackwood

Arden sighed, not very intensively but sitll enough for anyone in his vicinity to notice. All that week long of meandering through the density of the woods and all they'd end up with would be a stay in the stable. If the Skayleigh was honest to himself he wasn't sure if he should be surprised about the local tavern already having so many guests or not: On one hand Berute, with its at best mediocre looking farmland and rocks that probably did not hide any precious minerals, did not seem like anyone's dream come true. On the other hand if one's stomach was just as empty as one's waterskin and belt pouch pretty much any settlement was welcome. Still... there had to be something about this calm village which kept it going well, but which at least he had not yet figured out.

Arden darted a glance towards his companion, trying to read the small woman's thoughts just by looking at her face only to discover once again that he was no good at it. Then he made the decision he thought she'd agree with: "We'll take the barn. Are there any distinct times when food is served or are things handled one a basis of come and get it ?" the Skayleigh replied to the raven-haired local with a friendly, but dark voice. He tried to look at it from the plus side of things: The barn was for free -- and given that he had a horse that was in need of some kind of stay as well he could look at their sleeping place this night as some kind of permanent watch over one of his more valuable possessions in an unfamiliar environment. A fresh stack of hay couldn't be any more uncomfortable or dirtier than the bare forest floor, could it ?

In the meantime, the events to his rear did not entirely slip past Arden's attention. That harsh tone gave him a hint about the species of those behind him even before a quick turn of his head could provide any visual confirmation: Dwarves... definitely not his favorites, but even if they'd have demanded for the melody to stop by kneeling in front of the elf and kissing his feet: the demand itself just was utterly wrong! If the elf would pay brief attention to Arden's presence he'd be able to notice a brief occurrence of commiseration in the Skayleigh's facial expression before the latter directed his attention back towards the tavern's owner. Seeing the workers had given him an urgent reminder about another pouch being close to empty -- the one containing the little remainder of his money.

"Excuse me if this request might appear a little... direct, but do you know of any work for our kind ? Like some kind of seasonal work or such ? Pretty much anything that comes to your mind ?" Mercenary stuff was not what Arden would like to do most at the moment, but a realistic onlook on reality dictated that such was to be expected more often than not.

The Prince's Royal Guard

Manald was not amused. In his mindset, 'varying reports' was a quite shameless euphemism for one's system of intelligence having either broken down or been successfully deceived by the enemy. It shouldn't be that hard to keep track of a horde of Orcs marching straight for one of the more important settlements humanity had, should it ? Being outnumbered was one thing, but not even knowing whether it would be one to four or one to twenty if one only counted the soldiers around the prince himself was another.

Setting up camp here was a gamble. If it had been his own decision he had not stopped just 5 miles before the destination after days of marching, but pushed the troops harder so they would have arrived earlier, reducing the enemy's chances to do so before them. The big downside of this idea ? The possibility that the Orcs might already have reached the city even before that, resulting in 50 soldiers who had not been given any opportunity to rest running right into them. Manald could have made an argument out of that, but he held himself back. In his opinion they all had been thrown into a situation that had already been a dilemma, caused by others. He'd really liked to have a serious word with Leonidas' master of spies instead...

As the beastman meandered around the camp at a sluggish pace he could almost feel many of the soldiers turn their heads towards him behind his back. At least some of those had to be new people, not part of the gang that knew him already. Another item on today's negative list... just knowing that the men around oneself were good was much better than merely hoping for it. And then he heard the splashing sound of someone falling into the mud. Or, given the intensity of the noise, maybe one should even say 'having been dumped into it' ?

Out of sheer curiosity, Manald took the detour around the bunch of tents to investigate. What he saw made him cross his paws in front of his enormous chest: "Already starting the fighting before the fight, are we ? The lycan chuckled.