Sunday Night Gaming

Governor Nighthill stood in the hall of the keep his head bandaged and the wounds suffered the night before attended to by his clerics as best they were able given the circumstances of the attack. Hrodulf watched as Morfindion approached the governor "My Lord" he said "please explain to my companion the request you have made known to me". The governor looked to Hrodulf and approached both he and the Elf. "I cannot thank you enough for the axe work you have already performed but I have a proposition for you... I would ask you... And your companion here... To follow in the wake of the raiders, find where they are lurking, what they have planned... If you can I would ask you to return here with what information you have and I will ensure that it is passed on to my own masters and we will crush these raiders completely. Do this for me and I will pay you in gold... 250 pieces for each of you" "you would pay that just for word of their   movement...

Hrodulf looked again at the man who had been his captain, shrunken in death in a way that never could have happened in life. His death had drained him of the vitality that had made him one of the most feared captains on the sea of fallen stars... A name that gods fearing mariners wouldn't even mention for fear of attacting his eye to their vessel. "Go to Greenest, rectify the mistakes I have made!" the old man had pleaded and Hrodulf could not understand why these last few words had a hold of him the way they did. Was the old man truly his father? Hrodulf had no way of knowing his earliest memories being those of the boiling stews and rookeries he had grown up in and always the Captain had been there...when he wasn't aboard ship at any rate. He had taken the young Hrodulf to sea before he was 10 winters old and he had participated in his first act of piracy no more than a few short days later. Had the Captain, his father, kept him safe? Had he raised him to b...

The fight with the half dragon had been brutal, the creature was far and away a better swordsman that Hrodulf was with his axe showing a degree of skill and training that Hrodulf's ill discipline had not allowed him to master and soon knicks were evident on  both combatants. Hrodulf's cold rage and physical toughness having aided him just as much as Cyanwrath's skill at arms and the two broke away to circle one another warily "You are my plaything human" the half dragon spat at Hrodulf as he circled to the left, his huge blade in a high striking position. Hrodulf knew that he couldn't match the creature in strength even with the cold fury that filled him.  He did not reply because his jaw had locked shut and his whole body quivered as the adrenaline filled him and his racing heart pumped it through his body like quicksilver making it burn like ice against exposed skin. The dragon attacked again and Hrodulf started to see the pattern... the way the cre...

The captain was dead, the stench of piss and shit now mingled with the sickbed smell that pervaded the room. Hrodulf ignored the smell... It was nothing he hadn't smelled before though usually it was mingled with the metallic, coppery taint of blood. Death, in many forms, was the constant companion of the pirates of the sea of fallen stars. He approached the captain's table, a table that he had thought would be his but that his captain... His father... Had passed on to another. The book on the desk that he had once thought was a journal that the captain would read daily seemed to be something else... Writings that tugged at the edge of his mind. The knocking at the door awoke him from his dream... His memory of the recent past fading as the warmth of the leg of the woman he was sharing the small bunk with. His clothing was mixed with hers on the floor of the barracks, he slapped her bare arse as he rose and offered her a wolfish smile as he rose and pulled on the leath...

A cold fury burned within Hrodulf's eyes, a twitch pulling at the muscles of his face as he adjusted his grip on the axe he named Grimnir. He rose silently and charged towards the group clustered at the door, action being the answer to the question Morfindion had asked. Grimnir whistled as it rent the air cutting the thread of life from one of the cultists and burying itself in the neck of a Kobold. Morfindion followed up behind and once he got close launched a spell that covered the other human with a green spray that caused him fall to the floor jerking and spasming in his poisoned death throes. The remaining Kobolds seemed to not quite understand what was going on until it was too late, Grimnir swung again, rending the air, drinking their blood and spraying it across the rear door of the temple. Two more lay dead at Hrodulf's feet, no sound issuing from his lips that were drawn back from his white teeth. Morfindion stabbed at one of the remaining Kobolds cutting ...

Three men at arms lay dead and two more were screaming in agony in the wake of the dragon's breath, a great blackened swathe coats the top of the walkway with the stink of scorched flesh and ozone lingering on the air as the Dragon soars up and away from the battlements. Morfindion stretched out his hands and with a word darts of force leapt forth and chased the Dragon impacting across the beasts tail and hind quarters. The beast screamed and wheeled turning almost in the length of its own body as it dived once again towards the keep. "What the fuck are you doing?" Hrodulf shouted as he launched two javelins at the Dragon looking angrily at the Elf "This is nothing to do with us!" one of the javelins sailing wide and the other nicking the giant beast as it passed over the battlements dragging another man at arms to his death. The Governor, who had  been caught in the wake of the dragon's breath, rose groggily to his feet and steadied himself against t...

Hrodulf and Linan half dragged her husband past the Kobolds and the giant lizard, Grimnir thudding into the neck of the reptile causing it to flop onto its side and jerk spasmodically as its heart's power jetted dark red blood into the air. Morfindion had already covered half the distance to the gate with Hrodulf and Linan dragging Cuth not 20 feet behind. The Kobolds gave chase seeing that the humans only real interest was. In making it in through the closing gate of the keep. As they got within 20 feet of the gate arrows flew down from the crenulations above causing the Kobolds to break off their pursuit. As Hrodulf made it through the gate he practically threw the injured man inside and threw his weight against the door as it was slammed shut and the huge bar dropped into place to secure them. Men at arms clapped the three standing runners on their backs and pulled the injured man to his feet. "we'll get him to the healer" one of the guards said ...

Morfindion engaged the woman in quiet conversation and was no doubt treated to a tale of woe and hardship from both her and the man she was with, presumably her husband. Hrodulf admired her shapely legs as he checked the Kobolds for coins and trinkets but finding little he spat on the corpses and turned his attention back to the woman. "We must head for the keep" she said her eyes flicking between Hrodulf and his Elven companion "the raiders haven't got that far yet but it won't take them long". Morfindion agreed and Hrodulf rolled his eyes "There had better be something in this for me" he said through gritted teeth to Morfindion before examining the way the woman, Linan he learned later, filled the tight leather britches she was wearing and a wolfish grin lit up his face, making it seem almost boyish... Except for the blood "maybe I can think of a reward..." he said not quite quietly enough for the woman and her husband not to he...

Hrodulf looked back towards the caravan, the master had wisely headed back towards the cover of the trees. He sneered and his gaze lingered slightly as the caravan disappeared. "Are we headed into the village?" Morfindion asked his elven eyes taking in the scene impassively. "Time for Grimnir to feed" Hrodulf muttered running a finger along the blades of his great axe, sweeping the hair from his eyes and loping towards the smouldering houses and the raiders. As the two travellers headed into the village a scuffing noise came from the left hand side of the road and from around the corner of a single story house with a smouldering thatched roof came a well proportioned woman herding a limping man and two small, very frightened children. The woman was holding a broken spear and they all piled up as they came face to face with Hrodulf and Morfindion. The woman looked back the way her family had come and back towards the two men before her while the limping man, def...

The road came out of the wood, the green canopy having hidden the sky for the last half of the day revealing a hill beyond which, according to the caravan master, stood the village of Greenest. Hrodulf sat on the bench directly behind the buckboard, Grimnir resting across his knees as the driver beside him chattered to the elf sat between them. The driver's chatter faltered and he halted the wagon as the smell of smoke assaulted their nostrils. Two, no, three pillars of smoke rose from beyond the brow of the hill "that don't look good" he stated obviously. The caravan captain rode up on his horse and said "Go on you two... Time to earn your pay" waving a hand imperiously at Hrodulf and the Elf whose name was Morfindion. Hrodulf jumped down, rolled his shoulders and stalked towards the brow of the hill at a half crouch. Reaching the brow he looked down on the village on the other side of the hill. The village itself seemed to have grown up around a ...

The old man coughed, blood flecking his lips and staining the frills on the white shirt he wore "it is a grave error I have made my son... The things I have done for them..." another wracking cough shook his wasted frame "the dragons have had me at their beck and call and I need you to change things... Make things right" his breathing was ragged as he weakly squeezed the hand of the blonde man sat beside him. The younger man ran a hand through his hair, the tattoos on the left side of his face moving in the light of the single candle that lit the cabin of the ship, his home for more years than he cared to recall "you have always turned a profit for the crew captain" he answered his nose wrinkling at the stench of sickness and impending death. "you are an idiot my son if you think money is all that matters" the old man barked harshly blood staining his teeth red as he bared them at the young first mate. "there is a debt that has ...