With the news from Jack that some people had been spotted headed their way from up north, Isolde takes to the skies and glides over the tops of the trees to get a look for herself. Spying the group nearing their clearing in the woods, she flies their way and touches down just short of them. With a wave, she smiles and says, “Hello everyone, would you all happen to be looking for Shadytrails?”
In front of the group there was a large griffon wearing bronze mail and copper helm whom was armed with a halberd and wooden shield. He looked the peach colored gryphoness over before putting his halberd on his back and approaching her. “Yes, yes we are.” He hoped to the gods his unicorn “associate” would have the decency to stay silent while he spoke with Isolde.
The unicorn of course, did have the decency, however she elected to stand next to the
much more imposing gryphon. She simply stared at the gryphon, awaiting any notion of needing her to speak.
“In that case, let me welcome you to our little settlement,” Isolde says in a slightly joking tone, waving her claws around to the trees surrounding them. “It’s not much to look at yet, I’m afraid, but we do have warm food and somewhere to sleep indoors at night.”
The griffon about had a heart attack the moment the unicorn stepped forward to stand with him. He had a feeling she’d say something foolish, but when she kept silent he relaxed a little. He’d then look around at their surroundings the moment Isolde gestured. “Yes... I see.” He was under the impression this place was more established and was more of a real outpost than a small shelter in the woods. “I take it you aren’t quite done building up, eh?”
“Not by a long shot,” she replies, turning part way back toward the settlement. “If you’ll excuse the joking earlier, everything is back this way. We do have a lot left to do, and housing is at the top of our list right now. I’m really hoping some of you know a thing or two about carpentry.”
A few murmurs come from the others, affirming that someone present at least knew how to stick boards together.
The griffon seemed a little concerned about their situation. “Are you guys well protected? Do you have a wall or enough armed people to hold back any sort of problem?” The group had ran into some trouble earlier, and he was afraid this outpost would be a sitting duck if anything bad happened.
“We have a couple of trained guards that can run off any wildlife or the odd wandering thief, but that’s it. We haven’t had time or resources to devote to any prepared defenses yet, although there’s not a lot out here to attract trouble anyway.” Isolde starts leading them deeper into the woods and toward the clearing ahead.
The mare follows the two closely, keeping closer to the gryphoness leading them, despite the complete lack of any protective gear, maintaining her silence.
The griffon didn’t know what to do. Here he was expecting to drop this group off in town and look for someone else needing some sort of escort or protection while traveling, only to find there really was no town and by extension anyone looking for protection, and the place he’s going to be staying at is ill defended and in the middle of nowhere. “I really didn’t come here expecting to be migrant. I was paid to escort this group and nothing more... and I must ask how many guards do you mean by
A few?” His voice sounded of sincere concern.
“How many guards? Um, literally a couple. Two. A zebra named Kiume, who’s good with swords, and a pegasus mare named Shooting Star who’s good with a crossbow.” Isolde chuckles nervously. “I know it’s not exactly ideal, but bringing the two of them with us was taking up a fifth of our space as it was.”
“Please understand I am by no means trying to be critical. I’m just worried you’re little um... outpost might not be prepared for a real danger. You see, me and my er-” He looked at the unicorn for a moment, trying to think up a decent word to describe her. “Um, ‘associate’ here ran into some trouble on our way here. I can tell you that there are some things in the woods that two armed guards aren’t quite prepared for.”
The unicorn speaks up finally. “Yes, we lost one on the way here. Sad. My armor bearer was killed, along with the expected armor stolen. Sad, yes, but considering we were a group of ponies wandering the cold, harsh, unforgiving winter…” She chuckles. “Inevitable. Not as sad as I would be though.”
“I’d like to let you know I have no prior experience with Lucky Lands here, and I had no knowledge of her ways before agreeing to escort this group.” She spoke damnit. She said something. Immediately after she finished speaking the griffon was visually distressed. Now the old bird has to try and distance himself as far away from her as possible before she spoke again, else she could make him look bad through association. “And I find it to be a disgrace that a member of our party fell under
our protection. Regardless though, we were under same impression as you until we were ambushed by what I assume where bandits.”
Isolde freezes in her tracks and wheels to face them. “Someone died on the way out here because of bandits? What? What happened?”
“My armor bearer was out frolicking -or whatever their kind do to pass the time- and got ambushed by some bandits. Me and my companion were able to reach them before they found the group-” Lucky begins, her tone less caring than intended.
Fargo cut her off by speaking a little louder than her and putting his hand up to signal her to stop. “I heard a noise of someone yelling and when we went to investigate we saw the poor pony on the ground. Later on we learned he had a arrow buried in his chest but at the time we didn't’ know and he wasn’t dead yet. We knew something was wrong though as the armor bearer was curled up on the ground and the armor missing. Whatever it was must of been spooked when they saw the armored guards and chose to run, but they had the decency to shoot a few arrows at us before falling back. We tried to follow but they were lost in the overgrowth and were faster than us. Once we figured we’d ran them off we went to check back up on Lucky’s um... servant...” He felt uncomfortable referring to him in such a way, he did have a name after all. “Tragically he’d been curled up holding onto the arrow buried in his chest. It must of been a good shot as he bled out quickly and was dead by the time we returned after running the enemies off.”
Isolde holds a claw up to her chest. “That’s terrible! Is anyone else hurt? We have a doctor here.”
“No but it is still a tragedy. Regardless though we were quick to run away. We had set up camp for the night so we had to leave a lot behind, but I made sure we left quickly before they had time to come back. We took every precaution to ensure another of the group members wasn’t ambushed.”
With a more somber tone, Isolde says, “That’s good. I hate to hear that happened… but there’s enough of us and protection here that I think we’re safe. Especially if you’re sure enough that the bandits didn’t try to follow you?”
“We didn’t see any sign of them after the incident and I’m certain they didn’t follow, but I cannot make any promise.”
“We’ll have to hope that they didn’t,” Isolde murmurs. “But… we can worry about that later. For the moment, we should get you all oriented and get you something to eat and drink.” She resumes on the trail through the trees, and the sound of running water begins to become evident.
“Yes that would be for the best.” The griffon was really more interested in taking a nap than eating. He hadn’t been sleeping much since the incident with the bandits. “Also, I do not mean to disrespectful, but I honestly believe from what I’ve heard and seen your
town could use some extra protection while it gets on it’s feet. Perhaps I could assist for the time being, eh?” He was genuinely concerned about how this town would hold up, and the cat-bird wasn’t one to let a business opportunity go to waste. He was probably going to be stuck her for a while anyways so he might as well try to make the best of it.
Isolde looks back as she keeps walking. “I won’t turn down an offer for help, of that you can be sure. There is a bit of a catch though. See, we’re operating on a bit of a budget deficit here. That is, we have
no budget. No money with us, really, except whatever personal bits we brought. I definitely could hire you, but you’d have to wait a long time before we could possibly pay you. It might take a year or more to get it all back paid.”
“The date on which I am paid is of no matter so long as I know I will indeed get paid. The thing I’m really looking for is food and a place to sleep at night.” He looked at over at her and grinned a little “And of course it’s always nice to know I’ve done some good, eh?”
“I believe a courier was up here some time ago, no? My first five years are covered by Coupledye. I suppose you’re still dependent on them?” She chuckles. “Regardless, should those five years run out before you have any assets to pay the Raven’s Claw for my next five years of service, there may be a distinct lack in help.” The unicorn says. “If you do not have the document, I prepared for this and have an extra stored away. Handling papers and all is necessary, after all.”
“Coupledye? The pony kingdom’s capital?” Isolde tilts her head a bit. “We do a lot of trading with them, definitely, but we’re, uh… let’s say independent. Of course, we wouldn’t mind the help, and do have contracts with them if yours would cover that.” She turns her attention back to Fargo. “Well, shelter and food we definitely have if that’ll tide you over. I’m happy to have another armed guard around in case something goes wrong, and we can go talk with Kiume about it after everyone gets settled in if you want.”
Fargo nodded at that “Very well, but um...” He tried to think of a way to put it. “I feel like before we make any agreement I should let you know that I am not a mercenary, or a soldier. I am a guard, and my profession to protect and keep the peace.” He wanted to make sure his potential employer knew that he wasn’t a common sellsword. “And I’d also like to reserve the right to leave your employment at any time.” he wasn’t grinning anymore, and he had a very serious look on his face, and the tone in his voice was equally serious in nature.
After the Fargo had finished speaking, Lucky spoke up once more. “Yes, and while I won’t fault you for being… Slow in the uptake of settling here, my main purpose of being sent here was to observe the military undertakings here. I presume that will be of no problem?”
“Heh, you spend less than five minutes talking to her you already demand housing and claim to be a spy. Perhaps that wasn’t a good idea, eh?” Fargo sounded as if he was talking to a foal. His time with Lucky had made him critical and short with her, and try as he may he couldn’t fight the urge to correct her.
Lucky chuckled. “A gryphon would accuse only a pony of spying without prior knowledge of intent.” She turned to face Fargo specifically. “I have simply been sent to observe. If anything illegal or anything that’s even
suspected to be illegal occurs, I have no special protections.” She turns back to face Isolde. “I apologize. May we continue?”
“Observe?” Isolde asks, getting a bit mixed up in whatever they were talking about. “You mean Coupledye sent you to see how we were protecting ourselves?”
“Essentially. However, I am also legally required to protect and serve where possible. Before you question what’s in the contract, the observation was added postscript. There is not official documentation. I assume there’ll be a revision soon.” Lucky responds, sounding much more official compared to seconds earlier.
Fargo just sighed and looked away when Lucky responded to him. He swore every time she called him “griffon” to her it was the equivalent of an insult. He simply hoped the peach colored Griffon in front of them felt as much spite in the statement as he did. Of course he was probably perceiving more spite than there actually was, but after dealing with the mare for weeks he knew damned well she didn’t exactly think highly of his race. He wanted to give a witty remark back at her, or correct her, but he knew bickering would only make things worse because it always did.
Isolde nods slowly. “Yeah… okay. Um, we can discuss the details of that a bit later if you want.” It sounded too complicated to sort out in the middle of the walk back anyway. She again turns her attention to the other griffon. “To get back to what you were saying, if you’re not a mercenary then I’ll have to figure out exactly what kind of contract you’d be working under. Arranging one that allows you to just up and drop it whenever you want is going to be hard to swing, but I don’t think you’d have to commit to anything more than a month or two at a time if that’s okay with you?” She shakes her head slowly. “Speaking of which… I don’t think we’ve exchanged names yet. I’m Isolde Hookbill, functioning representative of The Confederacy.”
“Lucky Lands, ex-military advisor, now swordspony, of the second Regiment. Raven’s Claw mercenary company.” She says, nearly stumbling over her words. The ‘ex’ part is
probably an on the spot thing.
“I am Fargo.” He stopped for a moment before realizing he probably should give some description of his credentials, “I have eight years of military experience and I have been working as a guard and or escort for thirt-” He stops for a second, as if he caught himself. “uh, eight years as well and I even come with my own armor, eh?” It was low quality armor, but at least it was something. “And it a pleasure to meet you.”
“A pleasure to meet you both too,” Isolde assures them. “Experience will definitely be a good thing. Kiume and Shooting Star have a few years apiece themselves, but I’m sure they’d be happy to have help that knows what they’re doing. Equipment is good too, since we don’t have access to much yet. It’s all on the todo list, but until we get a strong trade route established either with headquarters or a nearby settlement we’ll have to deal with what we can find or dig up out here. So far that’s not much of economic value.”
“I’m sure if you dig deep enough you’ll find something you can use. Still though, I trust you have some place for me and the group to rest?” As hard as Fargo had been trying to seem strong as ever he couldn’t hide the fact he was honestly running on empty, and looked tired as could be, even compared to the other’s in the group. “I haven’t exactly been allowed much sleep since the
incident.”
“Of course, right this way,” Isolde says, pausing at the river. “I’m afraid we don’t have a bridge yet, so some of you migh get a bit damp…” She treads through the shallow water to show that it wasn’t too deep or fast. “I’ll go speak to our cook, Shortstack, and see if she can rustle something up for you all. In the meantime, if you head to that building right there…” she says, pointing to the only substantial structure in sight, “...there’s enough beds, tables and chairs for you to all get off your feet and get some rest.”
As much as Fargo wanted to head off to the building and finally get some sleep, he made sure to wait for the group to cross the river successfully before he even considered flying across. He still had to protect them, as they weren’t in the fort just yet.
With everyone across, Isolde points again to the building and says, “Okay, go ahead and make yourselves at home. I’ll be back in a minute to finish discussing things and get everyone oriented.” She turns and starts toward the stockpiles, surrounded by little worksop areas, in search of their cook and current guards. There was going to be a long discussion coming up. Best to get those relevant ready, and some food so they wouldn’t all be too hungry to think.
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Topic: Shadytrails (My Little Fortress) (Read 39575 times)