There exists in this world much which, if stripped of even one of its components, would be rendered naught but a frail illusion. Roast pork without applesauce? An insult to god and man alike. A sword without a hilt? Merely sharpened iron, stripped of use or dignity. As our band of eight rode into Heuwiller – Thillmann at the head as befitted his command, Slackbladder at the back as befitted our nostrils – a dark cloud fell upon us. For what is a village without a single poxy alehouse in sight? Nary a trough full of fermented carrot juice. It was going to be a long day.
The boys were in rough spirits, too. Dissatisfaction all around, although not having been paid since we’d left Kobmanhaven protecting that caravan surely hadn’t helped. Well, at least we had coin now, and were short a certain welching Rick Nipples besides. The next settlement on was a village named Tannenweiler to the west. It wasn’t a short journey, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell the company there was no ale to be had before the next job, so we set out.
No pub in Tannenweiler, either. This wouldn’t do at all. We’d narrowly avoided a pack of direwolves getting here n’all. North it was then, to see if we’d have better luck at Jadeburg keep. Dogpollock the historian tried suggesting we go sober for a bit, see if that helped with all the headaches, although we all suspected this was just sour grapes for the sour grapes that Fritz vomited all over his parchment last week. Jason of Stathingham threatened to stick Dogpollock’s quill in his ear and write the word ‘twat’ on his larynx, and we heard no more out of him for the trip north.
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It’s on that trip north that we realised we’d near run out of food save a impromptu stew the band have labelled ‘crotch broth’, and Jason suggested we politely liberate a nearby farmstead of its edible goods. Having a regular fondness for edible goods myself and suspecting the boys shared the same predilections, I nodded the go-ahead. The family that lived there didn’t take much convincing, and we left with a good bit of smoked ham, feeling for all the world like heroes from song for not murdering everyone in order to acquire a second, possibly larger bit of smoked ham.
Soon, as if a benevolent god had espied our privations and noticed how lacking we were in anything to properly wash down the ham we’d so righteously liberated from that bastard farm, the lamplight from Jadeburg’s tavern bathed us all in its warm glow as soon as we entered the city. We woke up two days later, lighter of both purse and spirits, swearing only to do good in this world as long as we lived, then promptly set about finding some skulls that needed cracking for booze money.
For that, we needed to travel back to the one-horse, no-pub village of Tanneweiler, where we found another trading caravan that needed guarding. Sitting on horseback for a few days in exchange for a thousand crowns sounded like just the cushy job we needed after all that ham-based exertion, so we agreed. If we were attacked, we’d get another 19 crowns for every head we brought. Dozing lazily in our saddles and dreaming of three-headed bandits, we set off.
We were stopped not long out of Jadeburg by a frantic woman seeking help for grandfather, who’d fallen down a well. “Well good luck with that,” shouted Terry, and we rode off in a cloud of dust, guffawing and slapping him on the back for making life worth living with his top tier comedy.
Other than that, the journey was uneventful, and we soon found ourselves in Tanwir, in awe of its majestic dome-crested structures, and a thousand crowns richer. We stocked up on rice and lamb, then decided to welcome a few new faces to the band, providing those faces cost under a hundred crowns each to hire. We don’t need anyone showing us up, now. Glass Toe Jim Joe Jackon used to be a servant, until his masters made him fight a hyena for party entertainment. Now, he was a free man, eager to join us fighting wolves for much worse benefits. Galib The Peculiar was a tailor, which made for the third tailor we’d hired so far. We set him about tailoring Slackbladder some new breeches, bought them both weapons, and went to find a contract.
Another delivery job, this time taking an astrologer’s package West to the city of Al-Hazif. Another uneventful journey ensued, and I could tell the boys were getting impatient for lack of violence, for violent men cannot live on ham alone. For lack of options, I signed us up for a dangerous contract seeing off some local nomads. We made our way over to their camp, only to find a paltry five bastards awaiting us. Five? We’d barely need to get our weapons out….
First blood went to Terry, who plugged a bolt right through the ear of a club-wielding nomad. Markward ate a cleaver to the chest, exposing the rest of the band to far more of his ribs than they’d ever planned on seeing this side of a rack of ham ribs. Then, Jason damn near lost his arm to a scimitar. Markward managed to get himself clubbed to giblets, the silly sausage, and Terry took down the first of their number with another well-aimed bolt. Dogpollock tried to back off from a melee to give himself space to throw a javelin, getting his windpipe crushed in the process, which did at least mean Jason would have a harder time scribing ‘twat’ on his larynx. Then, Thilmann took down a second man, getting himself clubbed good in the process.
Rumjugs, pioneer of an axe technique he’d named ‘split man’, proceeded to split men, and soon we’d seen the last of them off. We’d lost Dogpollock and Glass Toe Jim Joe Jackon in the process – proof from a higher power that no one man has any right laying claim to that many names. Markward has survived, but was in poor shape, still showing at least three times as many ribs as a man should ever display in polite company. We’d get him a nice new shirt when we got back to the city.
