Bring this back.
pugbutter Member
STATUS: Fuck yeah, girlfriend. Sit on that ass! Collect that unemployment check! Have free time 'n shit! 7 mos ago
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Fuck yeah, girlfriend. Sit on that ass! Collect that unemployment check! Have free time 'n shit!
4
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2 yrs ago
Apologies to all writing partners both current & prospective. Been sick for two weeks straight (and have to go to work regardless). No energy. Can't think straight. Taking a hiatus. Sorry again.
3
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2 yrs ago
[@Ralt] He's making either a Fallout 4 reference or a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky reference i can't tell
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2 yrs ago
"Well EXCUUUUSE ME if my RPs don't have plot, setting, characters, any artistry of language like imagery/symbolism, or any of the things half-decent fiction has! What am I supposed to do, improve?!"
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2 yrs ago
Where's the personality? The flavor? the drama? The struggle? The humanity? The texture of the time and the place in which this conversation is happening? In a word: where's the story?
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If it's any consolation, most people treat the 18+ tag as a general content warning. They're saying a game might devolve into smut (or splatterpunk, or dark themes or w/e) if one thing leads to another, not that it definitively will. Essentially it can mean "I'm not going to censor myself or my content, so be aware of the possibility of smutty themes if our characters have chemistry."
I don't like writing smut but I've never felt uncomfortable signing up for games tagged 18+.
I don't like writing smut but I've never felt uncomfortable signing up for games tagged 18+.
In
ThatWeirdChick's Plots, Cravings and Gen Partner Search! (Always Looking)
→
5 yrs ago
Forum: 1x1 Interest Checks
free bump
Without the distinctive sway of the Grauglang for a guide, Swidda could have thought them the features of another valley, another river altogether. For the scene he accosted now was nothing like the one unto which he had wandered just a night and a day ago. No birds sang here; or if they did, the scrubbing of pots drowned them out. No fish swam where the buckets and gourds were dunked, and where naked hairy men waded out to wash their bodies, to the vexation of the ones throwing hooks and nets out from shore. Lines had formed downriver where they waited to take a dump while the ones with bursting bladders marked any trees wide enough to keep them modest. They even tromped the far banks, scanning for prey long since driven deep, deep over the ridges. It was loud. So loud.
Swidda knelt and found a washberry shrub. They had trampled it; the pale green of its snapped branches looked to him like the color of weeping, and they too were naked, stripped of every fruit, even the hard green ones too sour to chew on. He had seen enough. The horns began to blow just as he descended the last bluff, entering the bounds of the village again, the sacred trees marked with runes, the others thinning far and fast across the hillside. One of the lords had ordered a mansion built. What was a patch of grass when they bedded that night was now a foundation, stripped bare and scooped up, and already cords and cords of wood were cut for the walls. Upon the foundation sat little more than a groaning ribcage so far, still shabby with bark in places, but this tangle of pillars and rafters would demand many more venerable trees yet before it was built.
That Swidda would soon be politicking on an empty stomach was a far and fleeting concern. If he already did not recognize the Skeldefjarn of yesterday, how much longer did the Acani have left? Would Swidda return there only to find himself an intruder in a changed land, as he had once before, east of the mountains so many years ago?
But Gederik waited for him. For now, the tribe needed his cunning, not his pity. The old man shrugged past the construction site, past the fields of stumps (some dozens of rings thick), past tent of canvas and hovel of clay.
He must have made a struggle of it, however. A nearby soldier was making the same hike look effortless even under mounds of wool and iron. "Need a hand?" he asked.
"Thank you," said Swidda, noting the colors of the man's tartans. "To which people would I owe the kindness?"
"Ah, just wanted to help," replied the soldier.
"I would that you tell me, nonetheless."
"There'll be time aplenty for flags and borders later, I reckon. Just wanted to help."
The calluses grated on Swidda's skin as the swordsman drew his hand away at the top of the hill. Swidda wavered and nearly collapsed, learning all at once how badly he had worn himself on all the other hills he'd marched that morning. His phantom toes burned, the stubs of his fingers too. The soldier watched for a time longer but then he turned and parted.
At the foot of the hill sat a sheet of stone, slate, maybe, which was meant as the top of a table. It sat in a tangle of damp, muddy grooves where the earth had been ripped away; vainly some team or other of Þraxian engineers had gathered to excavate that stone, then to get it up the hill, but they had no pulleys, no cranes, and the earth gave out beneath them. The people ascended without it. They climbed up to the law-stone, which jutted from the very peak of this hill, and they settled there a ring of blankets and hewn stumps. At a glance it was not always so evident who was the chieftain of a tribe and who its lieutenants; many sat on the stumps, taking the higher seat as the more esteemed, while others preferred to sit nearer the earth and the damp. Some sat in front of their advisors, meaning to lead the charge of their people; some stood in the back, the cooler, more measured place. But they sat in their grape-bunches. Friend to friend, and kin to kin.
The stone itself drew a strange reverence from the guests of this land, like salt drawing the moisture from slabs of fish. A dozen times or more a man may have walked by this shape in the distance, this silhouette in stone, and paid it no more mind than that. The power in such a shape was in its size, a monolith best beheld from afar. But now they had come to it. They nodded in its shadow, and its letters glinted where the sunlight struck, or where its features dribbled with rainwater. This particular menhir was far from the most magnificent or the most august even among more remote places'. But the stone could have stood proud among any of those estimable storytellers. The laws there written—and the blank, unmarred sections—both of them sang. Of Skeldefjarn's past—and its future.
Near the top of the southern facet, the first decree had already been scrawled. Þraxia's first greatcouncil had begun.
Except—no one seemed to know who had chiseled it: for whose turn they waited, or what signal to be silent. Somebody had to have organized this conspiracy, somebody here had to have a strategy, but he was letting the agitation bubble up around him, biding. Until he wasn't. It took the hum of the crowd a moment to die away, but the cheek of an axe was driven against a copper shield like they were drum and mallet. An elder, wearing his silvered hair long and in a tidy braid, rose to meet this summons.
"I am Hwulgô," he bellowed. "We thank you for coming."
Behind him, and to whom he gestured, sat several chieftains more. A few of them nodded sternly, affirming the we by which they were addressed. They, at least, raised no objections with their chosen spokesperson.
Hwulgô continued.
"Some among us will look at this gathering and see friends: to be kept, or earned anew. Rivals. A bloodstained past, and an uncertain future. I would invite those people to look around them, even across from them, and see this gathering as I see it. It is a miracle. For behold. We have Rhaeads sitting beside the Dralgi. We have Alduluz and Brulgirs breaking bread with Carogacts. Sons of Slōgri and sons of Firrudal, ready to forget old blood, and bury an ancient feud. I do not recognize you all, nor all your colors. But we will learn them, for we are strangers no longer. Despite one or two—incidents—"
The assembly flared up again with its murmurs and sidelong glances. Swidda and his company were among them. What, the old sage thought to himself, already? Certainly the scene at the riverbank could have preceded any number of troubles. Aunstō looked sure, however, that Hwulgô spoke of something else entirely.
"—each of us has gathered here his tartan. We have bared our bosoms and sliced out the hems. We are ready to sew them together, and create of the colors a single rainbow, unfurled on the winds of fate. Great and glorious would be this flag, representing each and all of us at once, the body and its hundred organs.
"It was not easy, you must have realized. You had to look old enemies in the eye. Accept their remorse and acknowledge their grief. You've forgotten old vows of vengeance, broken decades-old cycles of hatred. By even being here you have proven your mettle. Already your courage distinguishes you from your peers, the tribes too complacent for this work which we must do. Or too cowardly. You should be proud.
"But this battle is not won. We will be waging it for months to come, years, even. Soften our resolve for even one day and we may fracture again under new blows. For I need not remind you that our enemy is already united. He is one king, ruling over one nation, and all his armies carry the same banner. It is for them that we must persevere. Even when our loyalties are tested, even when we strain and suffer; if we lose our faith in each other, we'd may as well yoke ourselves now. Geld ourselves, whip ourselves like we whip our cattle, in preparation for how our enemy will treat with us. His unruly, rebellious slaves.
"Faith. Yes. We do not always see our gods' grand designs or knowingly partake in their plans. Yet still we build their idols, we burn their wheat, we sacrifice their enemies. Because we know they are there, judging us. Have faith in your allies, though they may not always be friends. Trust in them. Only then can we triumph.
"This is the brunt of what we wanted to say. Thank you again. For coming, for listening, and for believing."
Hwulgô finished to the silence which only the rustling of leaves and squabbling of birds can invoke. His breath floated in his throat. Waiting to see whether they approved; whether he had slain some of the doubts hanging over the village. At least for a little while, before the negotiations started.
Swidda knelt and found a washberry shrub. They had trampled it; the pale green of its snapped branches looked to him like the color of weeping, and they too were naked, stripped of every fruit, even the hard green ones too sour to chew on. He had seen enough. The horns began to blow just as he descended the last bluff, entering the bounds of the village again, the sacred trees marked with runes, the others thinning far and fast across the hillside. One of the lords had ordered a mansion built. What was a patch of grass when they bedded that night was now a foundation, stripped bare and scooped up, and already cords and cords of wood were cut for the walls. Upon the foundation sat little more than a groaning ribcage so far, still shabby with bark in places, but this tangle of pillars and rafters would demand many more venerable trees yet before it was built.
That Swidda would soon be politicking on an empty stomach was a far and fleeting concern. If he already did not recognize the Skeldefjarn of yesterday, how much longer did the Acani have left? Would Swidda return there only to find himself an intruder in a changed land, as he had once before, east of the mountains so many years ago?
But Gederik waited for him. For now, the tribe needed his cunning, not his pity. The old man shrugged past the construction site, past the fields of stumps (some dozens of rings thick), past tent of canvas and hovel of clay.
He must have made a struggle of it, however. A nearby soldier was making the same hike look effortless even under mounds of wool and iron. "Need a hand?" he asked.
"Thank you," said Swidda, noting the colors of the man's tartans. "To which people would I owe the kindness?"
"Ah, just wanted to help," replied the soldier.
"I would that you tell me, nonetheless."
"There'll be time aplenty for flags and borders later, I reckon. Just wanted to help."
The calluses grated on Swidda's skin as the swordsman drew his hand away at the top of the hill. Swidda wavered and nearly collapsed, learning all at once how badly he had worn himself on all the other hills he'd marched that morning. His phantom toes burned, the stubs of his fingers too. The soldier watched for a time longer but then he turned and parted.
At the foot of the hill sat a sheet of stone, slate, maybe, which was meant as the top of a table. It sat in a tangle of damp, muddy grooves where the earth had been ripped away; vainly some team or other of Þraxian engineers had gathered to excavate that stone, then to get it up the hill, but they had no pulleys, no cranes, and the earth gave out beneath them. The people ascended without it. They climbed up to the law-stone, which jutted from the very peak of this hill, and they settled there a ring of blankets and hewn stumps. At a glance it was not always so evident who was the chieftain of a tribe and who its lieutenants; many sat on the stumps, taking the higher seat as the more esteemed, while others preferred to sit nearer the earth and the damp. Some sat in front of their advisors, meaning to lead the charge of their people; some stood in the back, the cooler, more measured place. But they sat in their grape-bunches. Friend to friend, and kin to kin.
The stone itself drew a strange reverence from the guests of this land, like salt drawing the moisture from slabs of fish. A dozen times or more a man may have walked by this shape in the distance, this silhouette in stone, and paid it no more mind than that. The power in such a shape was in its size, a monolith best beheld from afar. But now they had come to it. They nodded in its shadow, and its letters glinted where the sunlight struck, or where its features dribbled with rainwater. This particular menhir was far from the most magnificent or the most august even among more remote places'. But the stone could have stood proud among any of those estimable storytellers. The laws there written—and the blank, unmarred sections—both of them sang. Of Skeldefjarn's past—and its future.
Near the top of the southern facet, the first decree had already been scrawled. Þraxia's first greatcouncil had begun.
Except—no one seemed to know who had chiseled it: for whose turn they waited, or what signal to be silent. Somebody had to have organized this conspiracy, somebody here had to have a strategy, but he was letting the agitation bubble up around him, biding. Until he wasn't. It took the hum of the crowd a moment to die away, but the cheek of an axe was driven against a copper shield like they were drum and mallet. An elder, wearing his silvered hair long and in a tidy braid, rose to meet this summons.
"I am Hwulgô," he bellowed. "We thank you for coming."
Behind him, and to whom he gestured, sat several chieftains more. A few of them nodded sternly, affirming the we by which they were addressed. They, at least, raised no objections with their chosen spokesperson.
Hwulgô continued.
"Some among us will look at this gathering and see friends: to be kept, or earned anew. Rivals. A bloodstained past, and an uncertain future. I would invite those people to look around them, even across from them, and see this gathering as I see it. It is a miracle. For behold. We have Rhaeads sitting beside the Dralgi. We have Alduluz and Brulgirs breaking bread with Carogacts. Sons of Slōgri and sons of Firrudal, ready to forget old blood, and bury an ancient feud. I do not recognize you all, nor all your colors. But we will learn them, for we are strangers no longer. Despite one or two—incidents—"
The assembly flared up again with its murmurs and sidelong glances. Swidda and his company were among them. What, the old sage thought to himself, already? Certainly the scene at the riverbank could have preceded any number of troubles. Aunstō looked sure, however, that Hwulgô spoke of something else entirely.
"—each of us has gathered here his tartan. We have bared our bosoms and sliced out the hems. We are ready to sew them together, and create of the colors a single rainbow, unfurled on the winds of fate. Great and glorious would be this flag, representing each and all of us at once, the body and its hundred organs.
"It was not easy, you must have realized. You had to look old enemies in the eye. Accept their remorse and acknowledge their grief. You've forgotten old vows of vengeance, broken decades-old cycles of hatred. By even being here you have proven your mettle. Already your courage distinguishes you from your peers, the tribes too complacent for this work which we must do. Or too cowardly. You should be proud.
"But this battle is not won. We will be waging it for months to come, years, even. Soften our resolve for even one day and we may fracture again under new blows. For I need not remind you that our enemy is already united. He is one king, ruling over one nation, and all his armies carry the same banner. It is for them that we must persevere. Even when our loyalties are tested, even when we strain and suffer; if we lose our faith in each other, we'd may as well yoke ourselves now. Geld ourselves, whip ourselves like we whip our cattle, in preparation for how our enemy will treat with us. His unruly, rebellious slaves.
"Faith. Yes. We do not always see our gods' grand designs or knowingly partake in their plans. Yet still we build their idols, we burn their wheat, we sacrifice their enemies. Because we know they are there, judging us. Have faith in your allies, though they may not always be friends. Trust in them. Only then can we triumph.
"This is the brunt of what we wanted to say. Thank you again. For coming, for listening, and for believing."
Hwulgô finished to the silence which only the rustling of leaves and squabbling of birds can invoke. His breath floated in his throat. Waiting to see whether they approved; whether he had slain some of the doubts hanging over the village. At least for a little while, before the negotiations started.
I cannot promise that I'll be as active as you expect, with my very sudden and very overwhelming schedule changes come the advent of the new school year/marking period. But I promised to be there so I'll be there.
I'm going to be very busy these next few weeks. If you don't see the new post this weekend (and I'll be real: you probably won't) then you might not receive it until next weekend. FYI.
Okay, I'm gonna reserve judgment until I can see just how the magic turns out. Cuz there's gonna be a very delicate line to walk between the magic feeling mysterious and interesting (not too game-y in other words; the fewer hard mechanics the better) but also not being too exploitable for military miracles.
That said, feeling pretty optimistic. Thanks.
P.S.
This is objectively the best part of your entire post.
That said, feeling pretty optimistic. Thanks.
P.S.
I hate dragons, abhor them with all my might, there will be no dragons. Ever (ever).
Yeah, could we see some of the setting? Even if it's just a couple of aesthetic photos you pinned to a Pinterest board, visual care is a big indicator of overall quality to me.
What levels of magic, monsters, and the supernatural will this Fantasy setting put on display?
What precautions are you taking, if any, to deter your players from minmaxing? How do you intend to assure they will prioritize good storytelling over "winning the war"?
Finally, I don't ask because I am wary of you or your abilities in particular, but because I am wary of roleplayers in general ... this language could suggest to someone (me lol) that this RP is more of a fleeting "craving" than an idea to which you will be truly dedicated for months or even years. For my own peace of mind could I receive some assurance that I'll be in this game for the long haul once I've put the appropriate effort into being accepted with a character who meets your standards?
Thank you.
What levels of magic, monsters, and the supernatural will this Fantasy setting put on display?
What precautions are you taking, if any, to deter your players from minmaxing? How do you intend to assure they will prioritize good storytelling over "winning the war"?
I am sampling interest for a story and idea I've recently caught interest in.
Finally, I don't ask because I am wary of you or your abilities in particular, but because I am wary of roleplayers in general ... this language could suggest to someone (me lol) that this RP is more of a fleeting "craving" than an idea to which you will be truly dedicated for months or even years. For my own peace of mind could I receive some assurance that I'll be in this game for the long haul once I've put the appropriate effort into being accepted with a character who meets your standards?
Thank you.
"Aye, another redcurrant bitter for me."
"Sorry. We're all out."
"A wild sour, then?"
"Coming right up."
"Another oatmeal ale for me, darling!"
"Me as well!"
Egeleht squirmed and side-hopped her way back to the cellars, remembering what orders she could. But they were many, and like when she grabbed too many tankards at once, at every step they tottered further from the grasp of her memory. She could not reckon it mattering much, of course. To men who had marched a month or more, liquor was liquor, and they all knew it far superior to the dilute they received with their flour and bacon.
"I can't believe this," muttered the servingwench, who hadn't even a moment to push away the bangs prickling her eyes, never mind to wipe down her apron or chat with the regulars, wherever they had sat themselves in this throbbing horde. Egeleht's fingertips were going pruny; blisters screamed from the insides of her knuckles. Nevertheless, a wry grin kept her cheeks afloat.
"And what are you so chipper about?" It was Ihdrun asking. She had limped in from the back stores-room.
"Nothing, ma'am, nothing at all." The server stared furiously at the spigot now, her smile sent away. Why couldn't it pour faster?
"Don't want to let an old hag in on your secret? Gah!"
"Are you all right?"
"Fine." Ihdrun had let out a yelp as she sat herself down on a quarter-cask.
"Your gout is flaring up again?" asked Egeleht.
"Something's always flaring up. Do yourself a favor: don't grow old."
The swelling and the spasms had not spared the rest of her body, either, the way pregnancy only swells the belly, and mourning only the eyelids. Ihdrun fanned herself with a soaked rag (the one which had never left her apron-string in all the years Egeleht watched her work the brewery). She was hunched over and heaving like a dog about to vomit, and the sweat was a drizzle from her moon-shaped face. The entirety of her had come up to the shape and color of a salmon egg, and that cask looked about the only thing stopping her from popping, one joint at a time, from the toes up. The vents in the roof should have been letting the evening breeze through, when it was angled just so against the rafters; they should have smelled warm yeast and barley germ wafting from the fermenting room. Instead the stale air carried only sweat and breath to the brewer-women's skin.
"Well, I need to get this out to the tables."
"Pardon me. We're still talking," said Ihdrun. "What were you smiling for?"
"Hah, uhm, it's just ..."
"I'm only curious."
"I've just never worked this hard before," Egeleht panted out. "What an incredible crowd!"
But Ihdrun had stopped fanning. Worse, she braced herself to stand, to torture her swollen feet once more. This sign never bade well, for Ihdrun could not shout, scold, or waggle her finger while sitting. But most egregiously of all, this done, she waddled to a cask to fill her own cup, having snatched it first from the wash basin.
"Ah, to be young again," she said between gulps, feeling the fresh foam as it sprayed her upper lip, clicking the pleasant bitterness against the roof of her mouth. "So what does he look like?"
"Hold on. That's not what I—"
"I know what you said. I've still got one good eye, sweet girl, and it can spot a lie from any hilltop in town." With two fingertips Ihdrun stretched out an eyelid til the pink showed.
Egeleht's reply was drunk. It stammered and stumbled from a slurry tongue, and it grasped for meaning with groping hands. Her proprietor didn't care to hear the half of it; insistence and excuses. These girls would have bedded any mustache that twitched at them if Ihdrun looked wayward for too long, an inevitability of living where there were more goats than decent lads. So she didn't take her good eye, the cloudless eye, off of them, and that had been an elegant-enough solution in the past. Now the soldiers had come, far too many soldiers, and the one eye was no longer enough. Scarred men, lean, wolfish men, men with beards and top-knots, braids and sideburns, a horde of leery glances and drooling grins. Ihdrun had to protect her flock; from themselves, and their own bad tastes. They couldn't wait for a Kerentanam or a Swutgerþ to sweep them off their feet when the attention this pack lavished on them was already so thrilling. Ah, Swutgerþ—Ihdrun had heard the name out by the hamlets some hours ago, so his master must have brought him along. Tell be true, she would have ridden that stallion til week's end. Not that the girls needed to know that she, too, had once been young.
"Whoever he is," Ihdrun sighed. "hope he's not much of a temper. We're closing early."
"What!" The news left Egeleht agape. "But there's so much we're yet to sell."
The old woman was still standing, still clutching her cup in a raisiny hand which stunk of wort. "No, dear, there really isn't."
"We're the only alehouse in town. I know they'll buy, no matter the price. You're the one always saying you wish you could charge 'tunic and trouser' for first fill."
"That's one thing when it's just old Argiz and Sifgir in here. Men like these, Egeleht, that'll go one of two ways." They embraced, the old woman and the young. "Trust your elders. You haven't seen it like we have—these 'soldiers.' When they run out of silver they draw iron. When we've got no more ale to hand over at swordpoint, they'll take other things from us, things far more terrible to lose."
Egeleht had no response for that.
"I'll tell them. You and the others start corking the bungs. Do not, do not, pour another drop for anyone, even if he follows you back here. We have to ration it, for as long as it will last."
"How long is that, Ihdrun?"
"That depends on our brave chieftain. Somebody has to tell these mongrels—somebody has to send them home."
Ah, Arlanna—the northstar of his heart, the cooling brook of his soul; douser of its flames, polisher of its sharpest stones. Doubtless the table could see her whispering, the breath warm against his ear, but Kerentanam could not but sit there and marvel at the gratitude he knew then.
What did you mean to gain from this gathering? He would ask her later, but her temperance, her virtue, already they had unlocked for him an answer of his own: something he now knew about Aedþel; something he would not have noticed blazing down the path he chose for himself, the scorn and the indignation both a blinding fog.
Any fool could see the priest could not swing his own sword, wear his own shield and mail, march his own miles. But these disciples—no, these slaves, drug along by the chains of dogma—when they weren't wiping his arse they even apologized for him, like humility itself would have profaned those withering lips. What Aedþel would not admit, or could not, from his own mouth, was that a true leader is responsible for the dispositions of his men. He alone burns away the laziness and the stupidity and fashions the goodly servant from the remnants. The dispositions of the men relay the dispositions of the commander ergo, and to behold what the high priest had wrought in his men, as they spoke out of turn, and derided each other, and trampled each other for the cheap approval of their lord ...
Thank you, Arlanna, said Kerentanam to himself, thank you again and always. Tomorrow I will show you what I have learned.
His mouth however said something else. It was curling up, pushing gleeful wrinkles up into the corners of his eyes. "No, no, I fear he may be quite right," said the chief of the Rhaeads, who pushed a skewer through his first morsel of beef. "But enough delaying. I must try this for myself."
"Sorry. We're all out."
"A wild sour, then?"
"Coming right up."
"Another oatmeal ale for me, darling!"
"Me as well!"
Egeleht squirmed and side-hopped her way back to the cellars, remembering what orders she could. But they were many, and like when she grabbed too many tankards at once, at every step they tottered further from the grasp of her memory. She could not reckon it mattering much, of course. To men who had marched a month or more, liquor was liquor, and they all knew it far superior to the dilute they received with their flour and bacon.
"I can't believe this," muttered the servingwench, who hadn't even a moment to push away the bangs prickling her eyes, never mind to wipe down her apron or chat with the regulars, wherever they had sat themselves in this throbbing horde. Egeleht's fingertips were going pruny; blisters screamed from the insides of her knuckles. Nevertheless, a wry grin kept her cheeks afloat.
"And what are you so chipper about?" It was Ihdrun asking. She had limped in from the back stores-room.
"Nothing, ma'am, nothing at all." The server stared furiously at the spigot now, her smile sent away. Why couldn't it pour faster?
"Don't want to let an old hag in on your secret? Gah!"
"Are you all right?"
"Fine." Ihdrun had let out a yelp as she sat herself down on a quarter-cask.
"Your gout is flaring up again?" asked Egeleht.
"Something's always flaring up. Do yourself a favor: don't grow old."
The swelling and the spasms had not spared the rest of her body, either, the way pregnancy only swells the belly, and mourning only the eyelids. Ihdrun fanned herself with a soaked rag (the one which had never left her apron-string in all the years Egeleht watched her work the brewery). She was hunched over and heaving like a dog about to vomit, and the sweat was a drizzle from her moon-shaped face. The entirety of her had come up to the shape and color of a salmon egg, and that cask looked about the only thing stopping her from popping, one joint at a time, from the toes up. The vents in the roof should have been letting the evening breeze through, when it was angled just so against the rafters; they should have smelled warm yeast and barley germ wafting from the fermenting room. Instead the stale air carried only sweat and breath to the brewer-women's skin.
"Well, I need to get this out to the tables."
"Pardon me. We're still talking," said Ihdrun. "What were you smiling for?"
"Hah, uhm, it's just ..."
"I'm only curious."
"I've just never worked this hard before," Egeleht panted out. "What an incredible crowd!"
But Ihdrun had stopped fanning. Worse, she braced herself to stand, to torture her swollen feet once more. This sign never bade well, for Ihdrun could not shout, scold, or waggle her finger while sitting. But most egregiously of all, this done, she waddled to a cask to fill her own cup, having snatched it first from the wash basin.
"Ah, to be young again," she said between gulps, feeling the fresh foam as it sprayed her upper lip, clicking the pleasant bitterness against the roof of her mouth. "So what does he look like?"
"Hold on. That's not what I—"
"I know what you said. I've still got one good eye, sweet girl, and it can spot a lie from any hilltop in town." With two fingertips Ihdrun stretched out an eyelid til the pink showed.
Egeleht's reply was drunk. It stammered and stumbled from a slurry tongue, and it grasped for meaning with groping hands. Her proprietor didn't care to hear the half of it; insistence and excuses. These girls would have bedded any mustache that twitched at them if Ihdrun looked wayward for too long, an inevitability of living where there were more goats than decent lads. So she didn't take her good eye, the cloudless eye, off of them, and that had been an elegant-enough solution in the past. Now the soldiers had come, far too many soldiers, and the one eye was no longer enough. Scarred men, lean, wolfish men, men with beards and top-knots, braids and sideburns, a horde of leery glances and drooling grins. Ihdrun had to protect her flock; from themselves, and their own bad tastes. They couldn't wait for a Kerentanam or a Swutgerþ to sweep them off their feet when the attention this pack lavished on them was already so thrilling. Ah, Swutgerþ—Ihdrun had heard the name out by the hamlets some hours ago, so his master must have brought him along. Tell be true, she would have ridden that stallion til week's end. Not that the girls needed to know that she, too, had once been young.
"Whoever he is," Ihdrun sighed. "hope he's not much of a temper. We're closing early."
"What!" The news left Egeleht agape. "But there's so much we're yet to sell."
The old woman was still standing, still clutching her cup in a raisiny hand which stunk of wort. "No, dear, there really isn't."
"We're the only alehouse in town. I know they'll buy, no matter the price. You're the one always saying you wish you could charge 'tunic and trouser' for first fill."
"That's one thing when it's just old Argiz and Sifgir in here. Men like these, Egeleht, that'll go one of two ways." They embraced, the old woman and the young. "Trust your elders. You haven't seen it like we have—these 'soldiers.' When they run out of silver they draw iron. When we've got no more ale to hand over at swordpoint, they'll take other things from us, things far more terrible to lose."
Egeleht had no response for that.
"I'll tell them. You and the others start corking the bungs. Do not, do not, pour another drop for anyone, even if he follows you back here. We have to ration it, for as long as it will last."
"How long is that, Ihdrun?"
"That depends on our brave chieftain. Somebody has to tell these mongrels—somebody has to send them home."
Ah, Arlanna—the northstar of his heart, the cooling brook of his soul; douser of its flames, polisher of its sharpest stones. Doubtless the table could see her whispering, the breath warm against his ear, but Kerentanam could not but sit there and marvel at the gratitude he knew then.
What did you mean to gain from this gathering? He would ask her later, but her temperance, her virtue, already they had unlocked for him an answer of his own: something he now knew about Aedþel; something he would not have noticed blazing down the path he chose for himself, the scorn and the indignation both a blinding fog.
Any fool could see the priest could not swing his own sword, wear his own shield and mail, march his own miles. But these disciples—no, these slaves, drug along by the chains of dogma—when they weren't wiping his arse they even apologized for him, like humility itself would have profaned those withering lips. What Aedþel would not admit, or could not, from his own mouth, was that a true leader is responsible for the dispositions of his men. He alone burns away the laziness and the stupidity and fashions the goodly servant from the remnants. The dispositions of the men relay the dispositions of the commander ergo, and to behold what the high priest had wrought in his men, as they spoke out of turn, and derided each other, and trampled each other for the cheap approval of their lord ...
Thank you, Arlanna, said Kerentanam to himself, thank you again and always. Tomorrow I will show you what I have learned.
His mouth however said something else. It was curling up, pushing gleeful wrinkles up into the corners of his eyes. "No, no, I fear he may be quite right," said the chief of the Rhaeads, who pushed a skewer through his first morsel of beef. "But enough delaying. I must try this for myself."
provided those are 2k words of substance
So like 7% of Advanced is actually Advanced lmao
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