The War Camp
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War Camp has been set up in the bridge area. Defenders have taken the Gypsy Towers, and some simple protective fences have been built. A few frost giants and Troff Legionnaires are seen patroling the area as well. Adventurers are welcomed to come kill the occasional gnoll there.
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** _During gnoll raids against the bridge, keen eyed Defenders and adventurers may occasionally spot a goblin archer attacking gnolls from a distance. It gets close enough to help, but not so close that he can't scurry away when challenged by gnolls or Defenders.
Anyone keen enough to investigate may notice that the arrows he fires are distinctively from Norwick. And anyone knowing Grobble would be able to recognize him._ **
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@3e1225d4a8=AubreyMaturin:
// From "Apocylypse Now", one of the greatest antiwar war films of all times. Francis Ford Copola produced it in 1979, setting it in Vietnam. It was based on the novel "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, set originally in Africa. I remember!!
((Bah, you got me. Here's the rest of it. I don't normally like the idea of playing the role of NPCs, but … anyway ... )))
_I was stationed at the bridge, tasked with the defence of the tower there.
I waited for a mission.
… For my sins they gave me one._
The Captain, his second and a civilian man dressed in a cook’s attire sat around a campfire. It was close to dawn.
“Her cooking … it has to stop. What does she put into that stew?” the second asked.“I hear she adds snails.” The cook answered. “But, it’s the way she adds them. Instead of cutting them up she makes them slide along a razor blade, alive…”
A soldier appeared from the darkness, joining the circle by the campfire. The Captain’s Second greeted him. “Ah here he is.” The soldiers saluted each other, and the second motioned for the newcomer to take a seat.
“Son,” the Captain began, “In this war things get … confused out here. Power, Ideals, morality, practical military necessity … But out here with these Gnolls … it must be a temptation to … be a god. Because there’s a conflict in every persons heart. Between the rational and the irrational. Between good and evil. And good does not always triumph. Sometimes … the dark side … overcomes what clerics call “the better angels of our nature” … Every soldier has a breaking point. You and I have one. And judging by her cooking, that Hin lass from the Legion has reached hers.” The Captain paused to stress his next point. “Based on that last meal, she has very obviously … gone insane.”
The cook looked at the Defender, then back at the Captain. The Defender paused for a moment. Whatever had been put in the pot the night before had reacted badly with the giants, and their loud fluctuating had kept most of them up all night. It wasn’t that the food tasted all that bad. It was more that nobody actually knew what they were eating. But not wanting to get on his commanders off side, the Defender answered, “Yes Sar. Very much so Sar. Obviously insane.”
After a pause the Captain merely glanced at his second. The second then began rattling off the details of the mission. “Your mission will be to follow the river along to the pot where Private Marty of the Legion prepares her ‘meals’, approach her, and then …” The second clears his throat nervously, “terminate her position as cook.”
The Defender looked back at the Captain. “Terminate … her position as cook?”
The Captain answered in a serious tone. “She’s out there cooking with out any decent skills, serving meals totally beyond the limit of any acceptable edible foodstuff. And she is still in the field cooking meals.”
“Terminate,” the civilian cook added, “with extreme prejudice.”
“Err .. yes Sar.” The Defender stated, with a slightly confused tone. “I’ll just tell her that Command has sent me to …”
The second cut him off, “You’ve got to understand soldier, that this mission does not exist. Nor will it ever exist”.The Defender stared at the second for a moment, trying to figure out why this was such a big deal. How hard could it be to tell the hin that she didn’t need to toil over a hot cauldron any more? But the fear and seriousness in the officers eyes … “Yes Sar.” He saluted and made his way down the river to the pot.
Marty had woken before dawn, as she was in the habit of doing when she wasn’t on watch. She washed her face with clean water from a wooden bowl. The Defender still had trouble understanding what the fuss was about. He had heard stories about the Halfling woman being a little “mad”, but she seemed quite stable most of the time as far as he could tell. A little cranky at times, but hardly insane. A bad cook maybe, but no real danger to anyone. The Defender watched through the darkness as the tiny Halfling woman washed her face with the clean water. At least her personal hygiene is pretty good he thought to himself.
“So … boy … “ the Halflings voice was as one half asleep, yet eerily sharp, “did they tell you why … they sent you to “terminate” .. my position as cook?” She continued washing the water across her face.
The Defender was suddenly afraid to answer, remembering stories of hin curses that strike men impotent. He paused for a moment, thinking of the best way to answer. “I was sent on a classified mission.”
“Well, it’s no longer classified is it? … what did they tell you?”
“They said …” the Defender paused, summoning his courage, “That you had gone … totally insane.” He noticed the hin’s hand clench into a fist. “And that your cooking methods were … unsound.”
Without raising her face, Marty answered, in a chillingly calm voice. “Are my cooking methods “unsound”?”
“I don’t see…” the Defender gulped and continued, “any method … at all.”
Marty’s gaze lowered. “I expected someone like you.” She mumbled. “what did you expect?” … she paused, but the Defender didn’t answer. “Are you a cook?”
“I’m a soldier” the Defender replied, a little too stoically.
“You’re neither. You’re an errand boy. Sent by grocery clerks… to collect a bill.” Marty’s words were way creepier and more hostile than she had intended them to be, but she resisted the urge to soften them with a more positive follow up statement.
The Defender paused for a moment. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m a soldier. In fact, you run the errands don’t you?”
Unable to argue against the Defenders solid logic, Marty threw up her hands. “FINE!” she barked. “You lot can COOK YOUR OWN BREAKFAST!” She stormed off “And I have my eggs SUNNY SIDE UP!”
Almost as soon as Marty began moving away, the civilian cook with a couple of Defenders on potato peeling detail took her spot by the cauldron. Marty didn’t go too far. She watched their efforts from a distance. She was actually impressed. The cook was cutting up some beautiful looking meat, nice fresh steaks, beautifully marbled. She suddenly had a hankering for a juicy steak for breakfast. But then the cook brutally diced it up and tossed it into the pot. The meat boiled, and began turning grey. A fatty scum began to form across the top of the pot. Marty’s heart sank.
“The horror ….. the horror … “
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"That smell. You know? That … sulphur smell. With burning hair... Smells like ..."
Marty paused for a moment, taking in another sniff from the air.
"... Victory. "
// From "Apocylypse Now", one of the greatest antiwar war films of all times. Francis Ford Copola produced it in 1979, setting it in Vietnam. It was based on the novel "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, set originally in Africa. I remember!!
AubreyMaturin
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Marty leapt up onto the gnoll's back, pulling herself up by the shaggy hair on it's back. It shrieked as she sank her cruel bowie knife down into its shoulder. It turned around to try and fight her off, but she was already bring the blade down again. This time driving the dagger between vertebra. The Defender that the gnoll had been attacking stepped aside as it collapsed toward him, Marty riding it down to the ground.
"Thanks" exhaled the Defender, bleeding and exhausted from the melee.
"No worries" answered Marty casually. She wiped the bloodied blade clean onto the gnolls fur before sheathing it in a thigh scabbard. She then grabbed the dead gnoll's ankle and began dragging it off toward the pile.
The Defender Captain came up to the young Defender private. "You alright son?"
"Aye Sar. Thanks to that Legion hin … I guess?"
The Captain snorted in contempt. "Mad Marty? Don't go counting on her." The Captain sheathed his sword. Drawing a little closer he quietly added "Legion are fine enough fighters, but don't go looking to them for discipline. Or sanity for that matter. Good for hacking things down or blowing things up, but that's about it. Count on your fellow Defenders."
"Yes Sar". The younger Defender looked over toward the pile, where Marty was struggling to drag the last corpse up to the top. "Wasn't she a Senator Sar?"
"Was." The Captain looked the Defender over. "Let's get you to a healer son. Have those claw wounds loo-". The Captain's words and train of thought were violently interrupted by an explosion, followed by a whoosh as a flaming mushroom cloud rose up over the the pile of gnoll bodies. Marty strolled away from the inferno, lighting up her long clay pipe, her hands still bloody from the battle.
"You smell that?" Marty casually asked the Captain and the other Defenders present. "Nothing else smells like that."
Marty tilted her head back a little, breathing in deeply through her nostrils. "I love the smell of alchemists fire in the morning."She took a quick puff from her pipe before continuing. "You know this one time we killed so many gnolls on this pass, we piled their bodies up so high, I never thought we'd get rid of all that shite." She glanced back at the burning pile of gnolls. "After the fire I didn’t find a single thing, not one stinking Gnoll body.”
"Alchemists fire...That smell. You know? That ... sulphur smell. With burning hair... Smells like ..."
Marty paused for a moment, taking in another sniff from the air.
"... Victory.
Some day, this war's going to end… "
Marty paused again, almost sadly. She drew again from her pipe as she strolled casually back to her tent.
//Loosely based on a bit of IG RP. And one of my all time fave movies.
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_*It's one of the quieter nights, when an outroar echoes from the gnoll woods. The sound of clashing steel and magic being thrown about is heard for hours, but no attack or raid seems to be on the approach to neither the War Camp or Peltarch. It seems that the gnolls are simply… killing each other. After some time, things seem to calm down within the gnoll camp to return to an apparent normality.
Nobody was seen entering or leaving the gnoll woods, but anyone could say that that plenty of fireworks, fighting and gnoll deathcries were heard during that night. Which, some may or may not call it a coincidence, is the night before a rumoured planned assault of the allied forces of good on the gnoll army.*_
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The defender army has made their first offensive move of the war, attacking the gnolls around Legion tower. Although they couldn't manage to get a foothold in that area due to response from gnolls which made the Defenders retreat via spells, the lack of casualties on defender side means it can be considered a victory.
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The preparations recieved a setback as the gnolls found a way to poison the defenders' water supply. Luckily a ranger and a mage managed to solve the problem.
Later Thom Tiller was seen slaying wyverns in the pass for some reason.
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_A massive assault was launched on the camp by the gnolls. The assault consisted of some undead, some demons and alot of gnolls. Third Star Jonni and private Anna led a group of adventurers to deal with the source.
The general was heard talking about changing into offensive gear…_
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General Theaon Thorn of the Troff Legion can be seen speaking with several Defender troops at the encampment, warning them about drow in the Kuo Toa caves.
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Marty has set up camp with the Defenders and other Legion troops by the bridge. She occasionally does mail and supply runs back to Peltarch, sneaking past gnoll patrols north of the bridge.
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In the war camp, the last few days have been quiet. It seems that after it was discovered that the gnolls were eating through the stone wall blocking their entrance, and more stones were added, the furry creatures have given up on that plan. The more pessimistic veterans note that it's likely calm before the storm.
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_The War Camp was assaulted by a large number of gnolls, from younglings to fiery demon-tainted ones, flown in by manticores. Gnolls upon gnolls were repelled by the joint efforts of Defenders and a number of volunteers, including Senators Talindra Verados and Maria, yet the manticores kept swooping down with fresh waves - until a larger shape loomed high in the sky. As death cries from gnolls and manticores still echoed, a large and fearsome white dragon descended, calmly helping itself to some fresh manticore flesh before taking to the skies again.
Speculation whether the dragon is an ally, a mere opportunist or something more sinister may fly, but its arrival certainly put a stop to the gnolls attacking - for now._
