Staggwood - Reunions (June 26, 2010)

1 Merit

Local Staggwood event. Site is in Sullivan, MO

 This event has been moved back to the 26th of June.

Contact AJAX for more info.

Storyline -

 It used to be so nice up here. He had found peace, perhaps because the people here did not see him as monstrous like most others of his own kind. To the plains people, a predator is a predator. During the day the mothers would tend to the children, the older children would practice shooting or help with the crops. The hunters would go out onto the plains and provide for the community. Those were good times for him.

Ajax and Set, the warrior chieftain, would lead the hunters out and spend their days adventuring on the plains. They had noticed when spring onset this year that the herds had thinned. Several months in and all the larger wildlife had moved on.

A haze of clouds moved in over the region casting a perpetual gloom upon its residents. The crops grew lifeless and withered. Though clouds loomed overhead, crackling with lightning, no rain would fall. The earth grew parched and dry until the grasses began to die off completely.

The cat-folk began to bicker and argue amongst themselves. Some believed it was time for them to migrate onward to a new area, to follow the herds as their forefathers before them had always done. Despite their pressure, Set held firmly to Ajax and their partnership. After all, this was their home.

That all changed the day -it- came. In the beginning it was just one. A decayed corpse, one of their own perhaps? That couldn't be, it wasn't the right body type. The cat-folk surrounded the abomination in a frenzy, tearing it apart with their spears, careful not to get too close.

For those that wanted to leave, this was seen as an omen. The last straw. They began to pack their meager possessions and move onward. Set was left with no alternative but to lead his people out of the camp. After their faction left, only a quarter of the population remained, mostly the shamans who could not ignore the unnatural plight of the land.

Several days later more of them came. Nearly half a dozen this time. With the warriors gone, it was up to Ajax and a small regiment of his own soldiers to take them out. The next night, a dozen came.

Preparations had to be made. The company grew stressed and weary, fighting at night and struggling to build and rebuild barricades during the day. Ajax's non-human gifts granted him stamina that his purely human compatriots lacked, but as the weeks drew on even he began to grow exhausted.

--Presently--

Ajax sputtered. He leaned against the barricade wall behind him. Had it finally started to rain? Or was he just bleeding that badly? It was dark with no moonlight,their only light from the encampment fires.

The broken corpse laid before him, its hand still clinging upward to the spiked club embedded in his side. With a grunt and a jerk he pulled it from his flesh and let it fall to the ground. A bit of blood came up in his mouth and he spit it to the side, crumpling down slowly to the ground.

He managed to retain a sitting position, his back to the barricade and his feet out before him, his left hand holding his wound and his right hand thumbing the hilt of his sword, as if begging its powers to come back to him at this moment. If not now then when!?

It was infuriating. He couldn't hear the other bushwackers behind him in the fort anymore. Were they dead? Perhaps they were smart and retreated. Or was his hearing still blurred from the combat? He didn't know, but he was getting tired, fast. That was not a good sign.

He had sent the letter to Wynaldian weeks ago, where was he? Had he abandoned him? Maybe the letter never got there...or it was intercepted. Images began to run through his mind as his eyes lost their ability to focus on anything around him.

There didn't seem to be any reason to them. Drawn from his emotions perhaps? There was an image of his human father. No, contorted, turning into a dark draconic...thing. He could see Luth in a flash from his youth, teaching him how to fire a bow.

Then a voice rang through.

"...no..no..I want him alive."