ftp.ee.pdx.edu/2014.02.ftp.ee.pdx.edu.tar/ftp.ee.pdx.edu/pub/frp/Archives/911

Internet Message Format | 1995-04-04 | 13KB

Path: usenet.ee.pdx.edu!insosf1.infonet.net!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.duke.edu!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!uunet!not-for-mail
From: Marshall Ryan Maresca <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.archives
Subject: STORY: Voyage of the Spirit of Fire, Part Three
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc
Date: 3 Apr 1995 10:29:10 -0400
Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church VA USA
Lines: 241
Sender: [e-mail]
Approved: [e-mail]
Message-ID: <3lp0nm$[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net




    "'Neel,' I said to the captain, 'We've got to turn around.  If
we do it now, maybe we could reach Lyrana or Burgin in five weeks.
 There is nothing out here!'  Neel just looked at me with one
ye (the other one hadn't quite settled after the storm, it just
looked off somewhere in the distance) and shook his head.
    "'We sailed for four weeks before the storm, which pushed us further
east, and then another week.  This ship can't go as fast as it
did before, and the wind is against us.'  he turned from me, as
if the matter was closed.
    "'Neel, turn this ship around!  We can't last much longer, and--'
 I got out before he cut me off with that same fire he used to
convince Jolsan and I to take the venture.
    "'Druthal is four weeks away!  And we have just enough supplies
to make that.'
    "'Neel!' I shouted, 'I'm in charge of this vessel and I'll...'
 Just then, the watchman on the crow's nest shouted exactly what
I did not expect to hear.
    "'LAAAAAAAAAAND!!!!!'  Neel and I were so surprised we almost
fell over scrambling to the bow to see."
    "So the sea does reach Druthal," said Honifet, "Fine.  I'll be
going."
    "Sit, Uncle!" shouted Solrhat.
    "Was it Druthal?" asked the Magistrate.
    "If it was," said Solrhat, back to a calmer, but once again distant
self, "I wouldn't be here now.  And we were too far south.  For
a moment I thought it might be Acseria, but I realized that we
could see the northern shoreline, and Acseria doesn't have one.
 No, this was a new place, indeed.
    "We were approaching it for three days in excitement.  We thought
they might send skiffs to meet us, whoever these people were,
but realized since the main sail went with the mastpole, they
probably couldn't even see us.
    "'That is, of course,' said Neel on the third night, 'If there
are even people there, and if they are civilized.'
    "'Well, there must be people, mustn't there?' I asked him.  Neel
just shrugged.
    "I won't keep you in suspense.  We got as close as we could with
the Spirit, and we could see some structures on the shore.  Still
no one had come out to greet us, or give us any sign at all.
It was definitely odd. Finally I decided to take one of the longshore
boats to the land to see what was happening.  I wasn't surprised
to find when I got in it that Lovatska had joined me.  I tried
to get her to go back to the Spirit, but either she didn't understand
me or didn't care.  Maybe she knew better.
    "We reached the shore around dusk without incident, near the structure
we had seen.  It seemed to be some kind of fortification or such.
 I'm not quite sure.  The only sensible thing to do was approach
it, but doing that required climbing a steep slope.  Lovatska
and I were about halfway up when we heard this noise, a loud thump
and a whistle, and a ball of fire shot out from the top of the
slope out to the Spirit.  I rushed to reach the top, to see a
small contingent of men loading a barrel into a catapult of some
kind, like the ones the Kierans use.  They shot again, and the
barrel burst into flames as it flew.
    "The Spirit didn't stand a chance, she was already in terrible
shape.  She was ungulfed by the fire and sank.  All hands lost.
 A started to pray to the Elements for their souls when Lovatska
started to pull on my arm and shout some Turjin gibberish.  I
looked over and the men who were firing the catapult were now
pointing to us and shouting.
    "The most sensible choice at this time was to flee, and that is
exactly what we did.  These men were soldiers or such, and I am
just a trader. Apparantly an out-of-shape trader at that, for
Lovatska had quite a lead on me.  When I glanced back at our pursuers,
I saw that one of them was well ahead of the rest, and still gaining
speed.  I had never before seen anyone run that way.

    "He was on me in seconds.  More to the point, he ran past me,
striking me in the shoulder.  This man had a punch like you could
not believe.  I dropped to the ground, and he circled back at
me.  For a moment he stood over me, at first, I thought, to gloat.
 But then he seemed genuinely confused.
    "I'll take a moment to tell you what he looked like, because it
will keep me from repeating myself later-- that's because everyone
here looked virtually the same.  His skin was pale, almost pure
white."
    "Like the Druths or the Waish?" asked the Magistrate.
    "Paler.  And his hair was black, as was all his clothing.  Either
way, as strange as he looked to me, I'm willing to bet I looked
as strange to him-- he hadn't met anyone who didn't look his way.
 His moment of confusion saved me.  That, and Lovatska.  She came
out of nowhere, leaping through the air with one foot extended
in a kick which sent him to the ground.  That kick should have
knocked him out, but he got back to his feet.
    "Lovatska looked at me and yelled, 'Solrhat, julka!', which I
think is Turjin for 'Run!', but I didn't.  Instead I was frozen
in fear as they fought.  Lovatska used the strange but descructive
Turjin unarmed style I had seen a few times before, and her advesary
was all punches, but they both had a skill and speed which astonished
me.  Strike for strike, they were incredible until the strange
man missed a step in the dance.  I think he was a bit thrown off
balance by her style, having seen nothing like it before.  Her
foot hooked into his jaw and he dropped.  She grabbed me and pulled
me along.  I was out of breath, but she was in prime form.
    "After running for a bit more, we had lost the men chasing us
when we found a small cave to hide in.  And while I am hazy on
it all, I am rather sure we passed out at this point.
    "When I came to, there were lights and people in the cave.  This
was, to my initial instincts, quite bad.  I shouted in fear and
jumped to my feet, and shouted again from the severe pain in my
shoulder, which was much worse than I remembered it being.  My
shouting woke Lovatska and startled, even frightened the people
around us.  Lovatska was already in a defensive posture in front
of me when I got a good look at these people.  They were similar
in features to the gentleman who attacked us, but these weren't
soldiers.  They looked closer to brigands, except they seemed
more afraid of us.
    "'Where is this?' I asked them.  They looked confused, then one
stepped forward and said some babble.  I suppose I shouldn't have
thought they'd speak Fuergan, but I was hopeful.  I tried again
in Trade, the only other language I could speak, but that didn't
work either.  they started to confer with each other, and then
another one stepped forward.  He looked at us both, peering and
squinting.  Then he mumbled and waved his hands, and my head felt
like someone had shoved it into a fire.  Whatever it was affected
Lovatska as well, because we both dropped to the ground.  The
man then rushed over and helped me up, saying, 'Are you all right?'"
    "I was quite surprised, because suddenly he was making perfect
sense.  It took a second for me to realize that he wasn't speak
my language, but I could understand his.  I nodded my head, and
again asked where this place was.
    "'This?' he said, confused, 'This is Poasia.'"

                ***************

    "Magistrate," said Honifet after Solrhat had fallen asleep during
the telling of his story, "Must we continue?  I'm quite satisfied
that this is the ravings of a lunatic.  'Po-azea'?  Fighting Turjin
women?  Ludicrous!"
    "Jorchal Solrhat," said Jertin, "I think there is more here than
you realized.  Solrhat is the only survivor of the doomed Spirit
of Fire, and while they might not have found the new route to
Druthal, they may have found something far more incredible: a
new land!"
    "I am not the slightest bit interested in this!  Just keep him
locked away with his bugs and he'll be happy.  I'll even pay for
better accomadations for him."
    "But the possibilties, Jorhcal..."
    "What possiblities?  Even if this is not a complete fantasy, these
'Po-azeans' sound even worse than the Turjin.  No, I've served
my familial duty to him."  Honifet started to leave.
    "What about your duty to Jolsan?" shouted the magistrate, "Is
he not your nephew as well?"
    "Jolsan..." started Honifet slowly, "Is dead.  And I mourn him.
 And now, I go home for supper and sleep."  He walked to the door.
    "Jorchal..."
    "I will return in the morning to hear the rest of the story."
 Honifet sighed and walked out into the evening.

            ************

    The morning came with Solrhat's cornmeal barely touched.  He did
not seem to be complaining about it, as he was moved into a cleaner,
drier cell.  But it was a cell, nonetheless.
    "Are you ready to continue?" asked the magistrate.  Solrhat nodded.
    "The man later explained that we were actually in Cthell, which
was part of Poasia, or Poasia had conquered it, or something like
that.  The men who destroyed the ship were under the orders of
the Poasian government, a council of some sort.  These people,
who were with us, however, did not like the Poasians.  They thought
I was some gift from the Elements, I think, because they had never
had anyone come from across the sea before.
    "'You have proven that the world does not stop at the ocean,'
he said, 'And that is something the Poasians would never admit
or believe.'  He then sent the people around him to fetch food
and water for us.  I sat back down, rubbing my shoulder.
    "'I think it's broken,' said Lovatska.  I was quite surprised,
but I guess whatever allowed us to understand the Poasians or
the Cthellians or whatever they called themselves also let us
understand each other.
    "'Maybe,' I said, 'That gentleman had quite a punch.'  She smiled
and reached over to my shoulder, touching it carefully.
    "'Definitely broken,' she said, ripping part of her silken wrap,
'I'll see what I can do.'  As she got to work, her voice dropped
to a whisper, 'Do you think we can trust them?'"
    "'They are preferable to our other option,' I said.
    "'Could we really be the first foreigners here?  It's hard to
imagine.'  She sat up from her work."
    "'I think you picked the wrong ship to hide on.'  She just laughed
to herself.
    "'Great Vatka, what would the Emporer say?' she mused, standing
and taking a deep voice, 'Lovatska, how dare you discover a new
country?  I'll have you're head!'  I was a little surprised by
this.
    "'The Emporer?  Of Turjin?' I asked, swallowing hard.  She simply
nodded, saying, 'I have the distinct honor of being his eighty-third
wife.  Do you think just any girl can learn how to fight like
that?'
    "'No, I guess not.'  I didn't want to think about it, I mean,
from the Emporer's harem?  More than I wanted to deal with.  At
that point the others returned with the food.

    "Now, and I say this with the greatest of seriousness, there is
no act of bravery greater than eating Poasian food.  I would have
rather been in front of the Emporer of Turjin at that moment.
 They brought us a plate with these giant scarab beetles, turned
upside-down and emptied out, filled with some mashed beetle parts,
and in the center of the plate was a bowl of some syrup with small
particles in it.
    "I neither wished to seem ungrateful or rude, and I was ravenous
at this point, so I picked one up.  Lovatska did the same, looking
afraid.  I dipped it into the syrup and tasted it.  I won't say
it wasn't bad because it was, but the syrup was sweet enough to
kill the taste.  Unfortunately, I made the error of asking what
the syrup was.
    "'Gupmarg juice,' one of them responded.  'What's a gupmarg?'
I asked.  Whatever translated things in my head didn't include
gupmarg.  He just frowned for a second, then looked to the cave
wall and grinned.  He reached out and pulled something off it
and showed it to me.  'Gupmarg.'
    "It was a large mud-slug, dripping with the same slime from the
bowl.
    "Lovatska and I both gagged in unison.  I was about to apologize
to our hosts when another one came in.
    "'Sorighar!' he said, 'Sorighar are coming!'
    "'How many?' one of others asked.  He shrugged frantically, 'At
least twenty.'   Everyone there seemed to panic.
    "'What are the Sorighar?' I asked the man who cast the spell on
us.
    "'Warriors, who used to fight for Cthell.  But now they work for
the Poasian government.  We have to get out!'  He and the others
started for the mouth of the cave, but a number of figures blocked
their way.  One stepped forward, and our hosts all parted for
him to enter.  The bruise on his chin told me he was our friend
from before.
    "He looked at me and Lovatska in strange regard, as if he was
unsure of what to do.  After a moment he said, 'I am Sojirand
of the Sorighar.  And you are my prisoners.'  He then turned to
the others behind him, 'Kill the rest.  They've seen too much
already.'
    "All of Hell broke loose, and in moments, only the two of us and
the Sorighar were still alive.  Lovatska stood before me to fight,
but I did the only sensible thing.
    "I surrendered."