Part 13: Anchor Crisis

That's the reason why I'm so late with the update, and nothing else. Not Wargame, not Battlefield, not painting 40K miniatures and not the lack of ability to concentrate on one task. Nope.
Really not looking forward to doing the Exiled campaign again. Maybe they'll patch the shit out of it in three months

Chapter 7: Anchor Crisis



New in Ardania! A cog full of imps passes a cog full of rats. Seamen everywhere baffled, claim that it ‘sthe result of taking women on board.



Yet even worse things were happening up north. An impetuous regiment of young werewolves charged in too far into the Dremer anchor containment area. Not even their fabled regeneration helped against the dread powers of the alien structure and fell sorcery of traitor mages.



The more experienced (wolf) men mourned the passing of their youthful peers. Yet among the many howls of sorrow one voice spoke up. A humble serjeant offered an idea: while they were stationed on the perimeter, the werewolves should try to harness their heightened agility to avoid the blow of the enemy, rather than taking them and hoping that their werewolf bodies will handle the rest. To that end, many a frozen day was spent dodging blows, running zigzag among the trees and generally learning to appear in an another position once their target loses sight of them.



King Lich V felt a chill go down his spine, which was strange, since undead never felt thing like that (or felt that much at all). After a brief moment, a ghost materialized in a shower of red sparks. Tall and gangly, it looked strange with this un-un-natural coloration and a skull-like head.
“Hark, intruder! Who are you and what are you doing in my tower?”
“M’lord Lich, I’m Arthfael the Forgotten. Ages ago, I was a great wizard and scholar!”
“I don’t think I remember you – and I have been around for ages, you know!”
“Hence my moniker. Nobody remembers me anymore… So sad. Anyway, I came to offer you my services at war. I don’t think you’d mind having an experienced ghost at your beck and call. Of course, they come at price”.
“Name it, wraith” King Lich spat out impatiently.
“Seven hundred gold pieces”
“Seven hundred? For that much money, I could drown the Dremer anchor in goblin corpses! Why would a ghost need money anyways?”
Ah, you see, I have ambitions. In this day and age, universities don’t really accept women nor provide lodgings for their students. I intend to change that. I would start a university of my own name, probably even hire some of your wayward alchemists. And I would erect bunkhouses for the students, one for boy and one for girls. Three per room they’d live, each having a table and a bed. Why, I’d even hire gnomes to provide hot communal baths….”
“So, this is all about vanity and long lost ambitions?”
“No, no, no. Well, partially. Mostly it’s about watching nubile maids soap their breasts in a hot tub, fight each other in pajamas and with straw pillows, as well as shyly discovering the first touch of feminine gentleness”
King Lich slowly raised his boney hand to reattach the side of his jawbone that fell loose in astonishment. The sound of it sliding in place sounded like “What?”
“You see, m’lord, other ghosts moan about their pain and rattle chains. I have been a ghost far too long to that. Actually, I find it cliché. I, I like to haunt lakesides and watch maids go do their washing or taking baths. Unfortunately, hard work in villages is really bad for their slender physiques. And I must flit around many villages to get my fill in a day. So ineffective. My way would be a lot more elegant: a lot of young girls in one place, all them intelligent enough not to spoil my haunting with stupid conversation, all of them spared the indignity of physical work”.
“This is the most maddening idea I’ve heard in this post, and I had goblins poisoned with mushrooms speak about casting votes to choose their leader. On the other hand, I could probably use your talents”
“Excellent. I’ll wait for a few days till scrounge up the gold. Goblin maids are so homely they should stay home!”



Lucius pried open the mouth of the goblin head that flew in through the window and unrolled a damp scroll.
“Ash-Haar the Wisest, leader of all monsterdom demands that you pay a sum of mana and as well as hand over a spell. These will be used to protect Ardania and the monster nation from Dremer threat. Refusing would mean that you are on the side of the alien interlopers and, thus, war”
“To hell with this. Pay him, Lucius, I really don’t have the strength to fight on two fronts. Do I need to be concerned with the insult over the goblin head?”
“No, sire, it’s accepted that dead goblins, no matter who they belong to, don’t warrant an insult”



Khargem didn’t like this one bit. Soul vision blurred when he targeted the Dremer anchor.
The bow wobbled when it loosed and the twang of string was wet somehow.
The arrow flew ill and eventually landed stubbing on the of the patrolling evil mages in the toe.
The bow hissed.





“My liege, I’d claim, with all my academic background, that at this point, it would behoove to call Ash-Haar the Crazier-Than-a-Goblin-Shithouse-Rat.



The retaliation of the mages was fierce. Pooling their foul energies into a huge blob of evil, they hurled it at Khargem. Flesh boiled off Khargem’s skeleton, then his bones were pulverized, and the dust scattered in the wind.
Only the bow remained.



Yet there was no time for mourning. Sensing another Dremer gate through his magical senses, King Lich send word to the Anchor isolation troops. They had to abandon their posts and fall back to destroy the gate and any Dremer that followed.



Sir Flangorn’s Touch of Cold was usually agreed to be a fairly simple enchantment, usually cast of weapon, that made the touch of the now magical item, to be freezing cold and cause instant frostbite. It a lot less clear, however, how and why it was made. The most reputable sources suggested that the spell channeled Flangorn’s feelings towards his red-headed son, who decided to become a bard and married a catamite.



Another goblin head flew in through the window.
“That’s it, I’m ordering those barred. Avgustus, could you pick it up?”
“M’lord. This comes from Amberon. Says something about the Truth – that’s with a capital T – Dremer and so forth. The point is, he wants mana and a spell”.
“Or he attacks?”
“Or he attacks, yes.”
“Fine, give it to him. But if he does that again, I’ll have werewolves tearing elven heads off in a minute.”
“A wise decision, my lord”.







Killing Dremer was never as easy as just ripping the brutes apart. Some magic had to be expended to clean the tainted land that harmed the friendly troops and bolstered the beasts. However, once that was done, and sufficiently trained forces were, killing Dremer was no harder than taking down ogres.



The invaders were still repulsive and all sorts of wrong. And nobody felt that wrongness as well as a person devoted to Agrella. Emerah detestation with foul creatures was almost palpable and tinged the air green. Some even claimed that this righteous wrath even warded away deathly spells employed by sorcerers under Dremer command…



“M’lord, are you sure it’s a good name?”
“Lucius, it’s a town filled with gnomes and goblins. The only significant thing about it are the ruins and the mana springs, both of which they’re incapable of using. So yes, Ruin Springs is a well enough name for it!”





“Melchior, I don’t understand this at all. He threatens me, breaks alliances, burns down perfectly good cities… What’s wrong with that damned goblin?”
“Maybe he tried to eat Dremer, m’lord? Goblins are notorious for trying to eat something. That’s how they become shamans, really: one must eat something so foul and inedible that they start communicating with the gods”
“I’m starting to miss the days when all of my subjects were skeletons”.



Back in the south-west, werewolves prepared and launched the last attack against the Dremer gate. No tool made by mortal hand rends Dremer as well as a werewolf claw does and so the gate was taken down in an orgy of blood and gore and ichor.
Luckily enough, living amongst goblins made the werewolves mostly immune to such foul contagion.



“It is most unfortunate that we couldn't place the new city closer to the holy grounds, m’lord”
“Bah. It’s all my own fault, Melchior”
“Your own what?”
“My own fault. You might not be used to kings admitting mistakes, but there’s no way around it. I might have mastered life and death, but planning cities is still beyond my grasp. One day… One day!”
“Well, sir, this will probably help us get the dwarves, and they have some sturdy, if stunty, fellows to offer. I hear that they actually wash themselves, too!”
“The more I hear about them, the more I like them, Melchior.“



Gentleman’s Coat was spell borne out of greediness. One ancient mage liked to ask noble ladies and young maids out for a walk. Unfortunatelly, he was somewhat niggardly in that he never lent them a coat if it got cold or started to rain. And since he was a mage, creating a spell that would get around this issue seemed to be a good idea.
Small surprise that he died alone and unloved.



“So tell, me Lucius, why are we not at war?”
“Well, Master Avgustus, like they say, cooler heads prevailed. And nobody has a colder head than a lich”



King Lich was touring the new shipyard in Golddale.
“So you built all this why?”
“Vengeance, m’lord” answered Clubfoot John, the stocky harbormaster of Golddale “ Lotta good folks died on the duck. A lot folks missing luvd ones. Some say that ol captain Duckwinson comes to them in da dreams. Shakes his fist at the sky, he does, shouting ‘Serpentssss’. All that hissing’s no good for sleep. And they say Bile’s wraith has been seen in the inn. Even caused a fight, it did, claimed he slept with th’ inkeeper’s wife”
“Did he actually do it?”
“Well, yes, he did, but it’s still unkind to say so”.
The king gave the shipyard another glance.
“So, vengeance?”
“Aye, m’lord. A much bigger ship… maybe a few. We saw a few corpses wash up. Elves, sir. Looked like they were gnawed by th’ serpents. Those are ripe to be a problem. Not much shipping after the king disappeared!”



Used to be that halberdiers would guard the Kings castle in his re-conquest of Ardania. Heroes went on their well-paid quests, tax collectors would collect money and halberdiers would patrol around, fighting back the attacks of giants rats and what not. After the disappearance of the King, they had no duties, but the suit of armor and the halberd was still there. So, to spite the Warrios’ guild, they set up the Halberdiers’ Guild. The prices were a little steep, but the quality of the troops was commendable.
The local waif also liked their beards better.



Another new institution that drew the ire of the menfolk and was a source of joy for the women was the Minotaur Palace in Dreno. Here, instead of chasing would-be troops around a labyrinth, minotaurs trained all day to sell their service to the highest bidder, preferably a grand mage.
The Palace was maintained, in part, by the money that noble ladies and idle merchantmen wives paid to look and the minotaurs sweat and flex in training.




Money exchanged undead hands and, almost faster than in a heartbeat, Artfael’s Academy of Magical Arts and Lucius Rendclaw School of Philosophy opened its door.
“You managed to talk one of my advisors into helping you, ghost?”
“Well, Lucius showed interest in an academic subject near and dear to my own immaterial heart…”
“Wait, don’t tell me. It’s comely young maids, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?”
“Well, when I first met him, he had just eaten a gnome drunkard. And he talks when he drinks”.



“Never the less, my lich lord, this is a reputable place of magic sciences. We won’t be giving away diplomas to just anyone!”
“So that’s why you’re tryng to fleece Emerah for a hundred gold pieces?”
“Well, she wants us to teach her over a distance. Balderdash! Especially with the prices of ink and imps these days. She can pay!”



The bridge loomed over a chasm, huge and imposing.
“So you say the trolls built it themselves?”
“Yes. All from the stones of city walls. They like destroying fortifications, m’lord”.
“Excellent”.