• Back to Chronicles of the South - Part 5

--Grandpa, grandpa wake up and tell us a story!
--Huh, what? What is it broos, Lunars, slarges? What, what? Oh. It's you damn kids again. You almost sent me on to Waha early. I swore after the last time that seven deaths was enough, next time I'm not coming back.
--We're sorry grandpa.
-- Well what do you little buggers want this time as if I didn't know.
--We want a story!
--Oh, not again.
--Please grandpa, please?
--All right. Well...have I told about the time we were swallowed by the giant eel?
--Yes!
--Oh, well how about the time we killed the giant gorp.
--Oh, not that one again.
--Well, how about the giant priest of Pocharngo?
--Was that the one where you were killed right at the beginning of the fight or near the end?
--Oh, so you've heard that one before. Hmmm, a new story. Well did I ever tell you about the time we rescued the dog from the ogres?
--A dog!?!?!
--Good, let's see it happened like this...

It was during Storm Season in Pavis, it'd been raining for days and it almost made a body long for Fire Season. Just almost mind you. I was with the usual bunch of weirdos I hung around with then, the Humakti, the Bison Rider, the Yemalio, the Axe Maiden and that Orlanthi who managed to die more often than I did.
The season before three of us, I think it was the Yemalio and the Bison Rider and me'd (or was it the Orlanthi who was with us?), anyways we'd been hanging out in Gimpy's when we spotted that stinkin' ogre, Harnval Threefingers and his sons. He'd somehow hooked up with the survivors of that bunch of ogres we'd almost wiped out the previous year. Wasn't much we could do about ‘em in Gimpy's so we tried to ignore them. They looked as obnoxious and mean as always except they had this little yappy dog with them on a chain leash. Well that mutt freaked out when he spotted us and started yapping up a storm. Harnval cuffed the dog and said "Shut up Ratbane."
Damn dog hardly looked big enough to kill rats. Then that bloody dog cast a disruption at Durnfal the Yemalio. (Guess it wasn't the Orlanthi after all). Surprised the hell out of us-I'll tell you. Never heard of a dog familiar before, especially such an unobedient one. Well, the cursed ogres left soon after that and we sat there and tried to figure out what the hell had happened. Durnfal was scared for a bit when he remembered his "moment of weakness" with that good- looking ogress the year before. He was worried for a bit there that he might be a doggy daddy. Had him scared shitless mind you. Eventually we figured that it seemed unlikely that the dog was an ogre itself.
Then we figured, that dog can't be the late lamented Dorian Tavish could it?

--I ever tell you kids about Dorian Tavish? Called himself Ogrebane? He was a kind of reckless fisherfolk who tried to attune one crystal too many and ended up covered with sea metal scales. Too bad it happened in the guest quarters of the main Sun Dome Temple. Old Solanthos Ironpike was mighty quick to pass judgement on poor old Dorian. Them thar Yemalios were mighty quick to fry ol' Dorian. High noon, swoosh! A couple of my buds tried to beg their gods to remove his Chaos taint but nobody was listening to our prayers that day. Harnval even showed up under Lunar escort and offered to take Dorian with him. Damn ogre always did claim that Dorian was his son. Got to hand it to ol' Dor though. He refused to go with the ogre and choose to fry instead. Almost brought a tear to my eye. ‘Course he was chaos and he had to die. Least it was quick.

Now where was I? Anyways, Dorian was dead but here was that tricky ogre with some small yappy dog who seemed to be trying to get our attention.
We decided that we'd get Gerhardt the Orlanthi to pick up a Mindspeech spell so we could talk with this mutt the next time we saw it. Since we was paying he didn't mind much. All we had to do once he had the spell was stake out Gimpy's until the ogres came back. Sigh, those were good times, especially since we were working off a pre-payed bar tab for that troll beer we'd given Gimpy's. I think I ended up drinking most of it. Those were the days...
--Grandpa!!
--Huh, oh sorry kids. Where was I?

Eventually the ogres came back when Gerhardt, Svart the Humakti, Greystone the Bison Rider and I were in Gimpy's. Think this was about half a season or more later. Gerhardt managed to cast the spell on the mutt and sure enough that damn dog was Dorian! Claimed he'd had to haunt the Sun Dome Temple ‘cause of the way he'd died. Apparently Harnval and some broo shaman had snuck up to the barbecue site and caught his ghost. (How the hell they'd snuck so far into Sun County without being spotted I'll never know). They'd taken the ghost and bound it into a little mutt that they'd just killed and damned if they didn't have a mutt with a human spirit. (Again why they'd bother I don't know).

Well, the dog, Ratbane talked to Gerhardt and told him about his life with them there ogres. He was just freakin' out and begging us to save him. He told us where the orges lived as best he could and we said we'd save him. Ratbane told us that the ogres lived in a small fort near the Wyvern gate. They climbed over the wall ‘cause there was no gate and lived in a big house guarded by eight big dogs. He told us roughly the path the ogres followed to get home from Gimpy's and said he'd take a dump at the spot where the ogres left the main road leading to Wyvern Gate. While Gerhardt and the dog was yappin' those buggers sent a drink over to us. Well, to show my contempt I dropped my loincloth and pissed in it (the beer, not the loincloth) and sent it back. (Almost got us kicked out of Gimpy's that did). Harnval put the beer down on the floor for that poor little mutt to drink but I guess he was too smart for that. Gerhardt ended up telling ol' Ratbane we'd rescue him as soon as we could

We went on a little scouting trip into the Rubble and managed to find the compound. It was a rough square with the walls made up of a mix of rubble and wood posts stretching between these ruined buildings that had been filled in. We couldn't get a clear view inside the fort but we could hear the dogs. We didn't feel like jumping seven ogres and their guard dogs by ourselves so we decided to invite some Storm Bulls to go with us. We got Stikklebrix that stinkin' Pol Joni Storm Buller to approach the local Kahn about taking the ogres out. We had to get him to ask ‘cause the Kahn was mad at Gerhardt for suggesting he take over the Temple to Storm Bull in the Rubble that the Axe Maiden's Storm Kahn brother had left empty when he went on another one of his missions. Seems Sax Bolderson, (the Axe Maiden's brother) was a might ticked when he got back to find another bunch of Uroxi in his temple. But that's another story.

So Stikklebrix asked the Kahn and he agreed to bring seven of his followers along with him to help off the ogres. (We didn't bother mentioning the dog). He was mad when we met on the morning of the attack but decided that he'd killed Gerhardt after the ogres were dead. "Business before pleasure", he said. First thing he did was ask us what the plan was. Well we couldn't tell him the real plan which was to use the Bullers to soak up casualties so less of us would die or be hurt. We realized that we didn't have a ladder and there was no way that we could get one on such short notice. We also wondered how we'd get rid of the dogs. Someone mentioned poison but there was no way we could get a hold of any. We thought about distracting the dogs maybe by throwing some meat over the wall. Then some genius suggested throwing an animal over the wall, maybe a cat or a rabbit. The Kahn sent Stikklebrix with some money into town to buy some rabbits. He came back a half hour or so later with two sacks with a cat in each sack. Bastard said something about "Hope these aren't anyone's familiar." We decided to ignore that last comment. Can't say that the Kahn was too impressed by our planning abilities.

On our way through the Rubble we met up with this party of Zorak Zorani trolls. Stinkin' little trollkin with them screams, "That's them, those murderers there!" In Tradetalk no less. Crazy bastards accused us of having something we didn't. "Where are they", this big pisser in lead armour screams at us. We can't think of what the hell he's talking about since we've never stolen nuthin' from Zorak Zorani trolls before. (Now Kyger Litor trolls, that's a different story. In fact this bunch had that two-timing trollkin whose kin we'd slaughtered in Darkness Season with them. We should of killed him then when we had the chance. Remember kids the only good troll is a dead troll).

Anyway, we told the trolls we didn't know what the hell it is they thought we had so they could just piss off. Fortunately it was daylight and with the Storm Bulls we had ‘em outnumbered two to one. I'll bet the iron axes the Kahn and the Axe Maiden were carrying didn't hurt either. So they left leaving us wondering what the hell it was they thought we had and making us realize that we'd probably find out soon enough and we'd probably wouldn't like it when we did. We spotted trollkin shadowing us the whole time we were in the Rubble that day. But we kept to the business at hand and kept on heading to the ogre's fort. We got close to the compound and they decided that I'd sneak up on the other side of the compound and toss the cats over the wall distracting the dogs so the rest could go over the other wall. Sure enough with the help of silence magic I managed to sneak up to the base of the wall. The wind was in my favour so I didn't have to worry about the dogs. Then I thought to myself, "How the hell am I going to chuck a cat up over a ten foot wall?" Well I tried to heave the first cat up and over and missed. Bloody cat scratched the hell out of my face when it fell back against me. I did manage to heave the second cat up to the top of the wall but the damn thing just clung there. Fortunately that was enough to distract the dogs and bring them running to this side of the fort.

I missed most of the fight but what follows is what I was told about later. They said their prayers and called up their spirit magic and then went the wall. Well, most of them went over the wall in the first wave just by clambering over (except for that damn, prissy Bison rider who threw a knotted rope up to catch between two of the stakes. Well, la de da). Soon as they dropped down the dogs spotted them and raced over barking their fool heads off. Well the Kahn lets a javelin loose and drops the first mutt. One of the ogres sticks his head out and says, "What's with you damn dogs." When he spotted us he ducked back inside yelling for help. The wave of dogs swept forward and hit the Storm Bulls. Poor mutts didn't last too long. Stikklebrix tried to head around back and enter the rear door. Showing his usual luck he found the first of the pits that Ratbane had mentioned. Did I forget to mention the pits? Well there were some. Bugger fell straight down and landed on a stake. Hallelujah the Axe Maiden went to help him but he decided to climb up the other side and go in the back door. Greystone, Hallelujah and Svart the Humakti decided to climb up the wall of the house and drop down on the other side.

Meanwhile the dogs had all been chopped up except the last one that buggered off with its tale between its legs. One of the Bullers ran up to the front door and been hit with a couple of crossbow quarrels. He went down and then the Kahn went through followed by most of his flunkeys. He attacked the ogre in armour with another Buller while another one and the Yemalio went to enter the backroom. Durnfal was the first to the door and saw Harnval just as he drove this dagger into the breast of the young female ogre. Bastard was just finishing up some kind of spell. Then all hell broke loose.

There was this huge cracking sound and this enormous scaly arm ripped up through the floor. This big fucker of a monster with wings and a long whip like tail crawled out of the hole it'd made in the floor and stood up. This was bad news for the people on the roof because the monster was over 4 metres tall! The whole damn roof caved in and everybody was dumped into the room. Svart ended up next to Durnfal and Hallelujah ended up on top of Harnval. The old ogre female had her skull cracked and one of the old ogre's sons buggered off through the far door.
This critter had everybody's attention but that only lasted for a few seconds. With one swipe the monster tore one of the Bullers in half! Meanwhile the Kahn chopped an arm off of the ogre he was fighting and decided to leave him to Gerhardt and one of the Bulls. He wanted to get at the thing but there were too many of his followers in the way for him to get free. The creature was attacking Durnfal, Greystone and Svart at the same time! The worst thing was he had this long dick with poisoned teeth!
--Grandpa!
--Well he did. Do you want to hear this story or not?
--Sorry.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the monster was fighting three of us and only their skills and heavy armour was keeping them alive. They were slowly chopping the creature apart. Meanwhile Stikklebrix had poked his sword in through the room's window and had pinked one of the ogres. Well that ogre turned and ran for it (did I say he'd buggered off earlier? Well he hadn't). Hallelujah was standing on top of the ogre priest and tried to kill the bastard with her pole axe. She had to shorten up her grip a bit and the scum managed to spit acid on her destroying her abdomen armour and chewing a big hole in her gut. She was still standing and even though the prick parried her next blow he didn't parry her last blow.
--Grandpa where were you when all this was happening?
--Err, well I'm a llama rider not a mountain goat so it took me a while to get up and over the wall. When I did manage to get over the wall I got closer and hit the monster with a javelin. Then I went in through the back door and found Ratbane cowering under a cot. I took him out ‘round back and went to go through the front door.
Well the Yemalio got knocked down. His armour and his spear saved his life and this gave the Kahn a chance to step in. Finally after less than a minute the big monster was dead. I think the Kahn dealt the death blow. We ransacked the place finding piss all in the way of loot and let the Bullers take any thing we found to keep them happy. When they realized that we'd attacked this place to rescue a dog they weren't none happy. Fuckin' Kahn was upset that he hardly got to kill anything-don't get me wrong, he was pleased that we'd offed what ogres we did (though the ceiling falling in almost killed as many as we did, not to mention their butchering each other) he just hated losing a man and not killing much. (Turns out the tight bastard was mostly upset about having to pay to get his boy raised. Gerhardt made things between him and the Kahn nice somewhat by offering to pay for the healers). Still, all in all the Bulls weren't too happy about that mission. We ended up sending a few kegs of beer to their temple to make ‘em happier.
--But grandpa what about the dog?
--Oh yeah, the dog well that's another story kids. Now piss off and let an old man get some rest.

• On to the Tales of Grandpa 2

Email me at oliver_bernuetz@hotmail.com.