This letter also dates from after his exile but was discovered in
the same archive as the others.
Dearest Felicitus,
My goodness Felicitus, I never expected to experience such
excitement in my exile as I have in this rather pathetic land of Balazar! As I had
told you in my last letter I was travelling with this ragtag group of barbarians when they
were attacked by some Lunar peltasts. After an amazing battle and some trickery at
the end the barbarians managed to defeat the peltasts. Once the battle was over the
Praxian Greystone came over to talk with me, or rather the spirit that had possessed his
body did. He, a Sartarite Humakti named Svart Ulfsson asked whether I could heal
their dead and wounded. I told him that I would heal their wounded but that I would
not do anything about the dead (not that I could have but there is no point in revealing
too much of one's abilities is there?) I healed all their wounds and we agreed
to continue on to Trilus. Loading the corpses of their friends on their sole
surviving horse we made some haste since they believed themselves to be pursued. The
Humakti in the Praxian's body was allowed to stay in that body so that he could regain his
magical power. He wanted the other Praxian to surrender the bastard sword he was
carrying (as it had originally belonged to him) but that one refused as it was the only
weapon he had. After all this was settled we continued on our way and our travel was
uneventful for the rest of that day.
That evening however I had a visitor. Gregorius had gone out
to answer nature's call and upon his return told me that no less than Merodach the Black
was lurking in the bushes, wishing to speak with me. Accompanied by my Groratoran
bodyguards I made my way into the bushes (under the pretext of relieving my bladder.
Cursing as I stumbled through the bushes I tripped over something I had thought to
be a root but quickly realized was the foot of that bastard Merodach. He moved to
help me up but my Groratorans quickly intercepted and gestured him aside. I cursed
him and the following conversation (as I remember it) followed. "Are you not
happy to see a fellow Lunar in this wasteland, friend Fresser?" "Oh
certainly, what in all the hells do you want?" "I wanted to warn you not
to offer any aid to those fugitives you are travelling with for some inconceivable
reason." "My reasons are my own and while I will not interfere with your
plans to capture them neither will I assist you in any way." "You realize
that it is your duty as a loyal subject of the Empire to assist me in capturing these
villains." I snorted and replied, "Since I have been exiled and am
travelling as a private citizen I do not believe that you have any authority to give
orders to me." This angered him and he started to move towards me while at the
same time moving his hands towards his scimitars saying, "Why you fat tub of..."
He stopped when both Groratorans lowered their bows, arrows ready,
at him. The sight of a pair of mobile siege engines threatening you would probably
stop any sane man and it even gave him pause. He straightened up, slowly, while
lowering his hands palm facing towards me at his sides. "Fine stay out of it
then. But do not expect that I will forget to tell the Emperor about
this." I snorted and said, "Since when have you had access to the
Emperor?" He glared and turned on his heels and stalked off. I returned
to camp and some well deserved sleep.
The next morning we awoke and had a rather dismal breakfast.
The Praxian whose name I cannot recall had spent the whole of the previous evening
collecting deadwood for a funeral pyre with the assistance of the beauteous Burning
Willow. Once we were ready to leave the pyre was lit. (It was amusing seeing
these brave adventurers in action as they pored over the belongings of their deceased
compatriots and decided what was worthless enough to them to allow to be burnt). I
had assisted them the previous evening identifying some vials as poison that they had
gotten from the Lunar they had killed in Elkoi. They poured these out much to the
distress of the Praxian whose name I cannot recall who did not seem adverse to using
poison. I shall keep my eyes on that one). After the pyre was burning well
(they had placed it right across the caravan trail running from Elkoi to Trilus so that
the chance of the fire spreading was lessened) we made our departure.
We traveled for half the day and had just had lunch when we became
aware of hoof beats coming from behind us. We were down in a slight dip in the road
and the barbarians quickly decided to make a stand as there were no trees or cover
anywhere near. My party moved off to find a good vantage point and we settled down
to watch. The Praxian whose name I cannot recall set up a heavy crossbow that he had
liberated from the dead sorcerer and the rest prepared various missile weapons. They
did not have long to wait as over the ridge from the direction they had come from appeared
six horsemen and seven peltasts. I recognized the bastard in the middle with the
black plate armour as Merodach and the other horsemen as his inevitable initiate followers
while we learned later from the survivors that the peltasts were the very same ones they
had battled earlier. Merodach and his followers had met them on the road and ordered
them to accompany him in his pursuit. Merodach ordered them to surrender while the
Humakti in the Praxian's body moved over next to the other Praxian and cast some sort of
spell on the loaded quarrel. The barbarians refused to surrender and were preparing
themselves for battle (or more likely death) when an unexpected development occurred.
The first we knew of this development was when a booming voice was
heard bellowing out some dreadful Orlanthi doggerel about foul chaos, etc., etc. I
saw that a group of nine horsemen (and women) of very motley aspect were aligned on the
crest of the rise behind the barbarians. The leader of this group, an Orlanthi
windlord named Torath Manover (as I later learned) told Merodach that this was not Lunar
territory and that the barbarians were now under his protection. Merodach told them
not to interfere or he would destroy them all. I could spy covert spell casting on
both sides as rune and spirit spells were cast. I could see that Merodach was
somewhat unwilling to engage these unknown Orlanthi in battle since he had no idea how
many priests or lords were in their party. The Yemalian rode back to talk to the
Orlanthi leaving his three compatriots all alone in the middle. A great deal of
cursing and name calling went on and Merodach offered single combat. (I learned
later that an Orlanthi priestess named Pay Surney talked the wind lord out of accepting
the challenge). Finally Merodach ordered his followers to attack. The Praxian
whose name I cannot recall fired the crossbow (which of course had been multimissiled) at
Merodach but all the missiles bounced off of his armour. Then the three of them
started running back to the Orlanthi line. Merodach's initiates fired their bows and
then charged down the slope while the peltasts threw their javelins. The Praxian
Greystone took a javelin through the arm and the other Praxian was pierced through the
abdomen. Burning Willow and Greystone made it up to the Orlanthi lines but the other
one fell down and had to lie there while a cavalry charge passed over him. (I later
learned that Greystone had regained control of his body.)
A female Orlanthi cast a spell summoning clouds while the rest
charged the Lunars (along with the Yeamlian). One Orlanthi was unhorsed by Merodach
and a Lunar initiate was demoralized by one of the Orlanthi initiates (Bjorn
Windchaser). Only Merodach among the Lunars was armed with a lance and few of the
Orlanthi were so armed. The rest were unscathed by the attack. The Orlanthi
swept on to attack the peltasts while all the Lunars but the befuddled one charged the
priestess. Before they reached her she cast a massive spell that affected all five
unbefuddled Lunars summoning thunder from the skies to strike them. Four were killed
or badly wounded by this while Merodach (of course) was unharmed due to his protective magics. He and the surviving initiate attacked the
priestess who was badly wounded before using more magic to teleport away from her
attackers. Merodach and the initiate turned to attack the Orlanthi who had killed or
disabled three of the peltasts. The rest seeing most of their side out of the fight
threw their weapons down in surrender. The priestess took care of the demoralized
initiate with some spell that shot lightning out of her sword and the other one was
knocked out of the fight by the Orlanthi runelord. From here on the battle was
basically Merodach versus all the surviving Lunars and barbarians.
The windlord and he made pass after pass (since neither would strike
at the other's horse) to little effect (though any normal man would have been killed by
the massive blows dealt out). Eventually one of the Orlanthi with less compunctions
rode up to Merodach while he was busy with the windlord and attacked his horse wounding
it. Merodach asked Yanafil for divine favour to heal it! Then it was wounded
again and he was on foot versus horsemen. They called on him to surrender but he
refused saying that he would kill them all. His skill and magical
protection was such that he faced off these foes for quite a while armed only with a
pair of scimitars or a bow. (At one point in his anger he threw an iron throwing
knife at the wind lord's horse, little good that did though!) He looked to be trying
to escape but it was impossible with him afoot and opponents still on horseback. He used a
Sever Spirit spell to slay the windlord's horse to even the fight but there were too many
remounts available for this to be effective. The Praxian Greystone managed to boost
a demoralize spell enough to affect Merodach but this only forced him to cast a Berserk to
counteract it.
They called on him to surrender but he refused saying that he would
kill them all. This made him even more deadly an opponent as he had had little need
to defend due to his armour and magical protection. Firing arrows he finally took out the
windlord's second horse and the fight continued on foot. He proved to be a deadly
foe and while the wind lord was able to take his blows and survive he had no ability to
deal blows like Merodach. At this point they would have let him go but he was still
Berserk and would not parlay. Even the Yemalio follower who seemed to be the best
fighter of the barbarians was very reluctant to face Merodach. No matter how they
manuevered Merodach turned to face at least a few of them. Even striking from behind
the Baron was unable to wound Merodach! They tried to surround him but all that got
them was one dead and three wounded Orlanthi initiates. The wind lord was reduced to
parrying and watching his iron shield and sword slowly getting destroyed by Merodach's
blows while others held back because they feared to face Merodach. Finally the
beautiful Burning Willow threw a javelin that got through Merodach's protection and the
Humakti spirit in Greystone's body and an Orlanthi initiate also got wounds in that struck
Merodach down. Unfortunately he called Yanafil's divine favour down unto himself
again and was answered! He stood up again uninjured and declared that he was leaving
(apparently Yanafil removed his Berserk spell when He healed him so he was no longer mad).
The wind lord told everyone to let him go and Merodach stormed off on foot all by
himself vowing that we had not seen the last of him!
What a life it is to be an adventurer. Gathering their Lunar
prisoners and the dead and wounded we travelled on to the citadel of Trilus to see about
getting the dead Orlanthi resurrected. Life certainly is quite interesting (if
short) out here in the hinterlands of the Empire.
Yours as always,
Fresser
GM's Note : Merodach had 21 points of
armour/magic in all locations except the chest, abdomen and arms where he had 29 points of
protection. With his fine scimitars, Bladesharp 6 and True Scimitar he was doing
2D6+12 plus his 1D6 damage bonus so 22-23 points on average. His attack percentage
was 300% with his left hand and 210% with his right or two left hand attacks at 165% and
two right hand attacks at 125%!!!
This page last modified February 18, 2000
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