You go to the nearest watering hole, anxious to pick up some adventure companions. You are Sir Vancelot, a knight living in the plight. Having fought the temptress of the seven realms, you were feeling confident in choosing out some companions. You had fought against the demon of lust, and defeated her in combat. You had also defeated her in a riddle competition, giving you the advantage to choose who to accompany on your quest. Nearly all of your former companion mates had disappeared. Ardan had disappeared, as had most of the knights you had trained with. Only a few were left, including your good friend, the son of the king, Sir Roldan. You warn Roldan, the son of the king, about that which ways we were accustomed to, getting ugly. You decide that you would take only those who could fight, as you still did not know what you were going to face on your quest. Many knights had heard about the questing series you were about to take on, and you quickly chose three companions. Ronald, the cheap, Davien the petty and Michael the ghastly were chosen. You set off to the local armory to collect your weapons and supplies. You were quickly given the steel mail, leather padding and steel sword you needed. Ronald was given a bow, Davien a two-handed sword, and Michael a spear. “What about me?” Hunter shouts. “I want a sword.” “You don’t know how to use any of those things.” Roldan says. “I can learn,” Hunter replies with a series of squeals and then off you four adventurers go. The herald will in turn pass the information on to all of the kingdom’s ‘boutiques’, which are government facilities tasked with organizing, managing and overseeing the kingdom’s regular citizens. You say “Aye, this battalion will not prove too much of a task to us four of us companions” The herald, a man named James, stares at you. “This is a fool’s errand.” You grab James by the collar, and look into his eyes. You let him go and brood heavily towards the other of the gang. You let James go, he smiles. “Thank you Sir Vancelot. The king will be interested to hear about this.” The herald leaves, and the four of you begin to speak. What you come up with as a group doesn’t have much room to stay. You all set out to find a better place to discuss business. As you begin to pack up your campsite, a knight on horseback gallops up to the edge of the forest. You welcome the knight into your companionship. “Hello Sir Walter,” you say. “I am Vancelot, a humble knight of the kingdom.” “Sir Walter D’Arcy of the Order of Virtue requests an audience with you,” You say “Yes, for which I am quite available. Most gladly, Sir Walter.” You and Sir Walter leave your camp and ride towards the castle. It is there you are shown to a private audience room. Sir Walter sits and you take a seat across from him. “I have been tasked by the order to find you, and hopefully other like-minded people. The order wishes to make amends for its past deeds.” You say “No doubt that has to include some of the ehh, sexual acts that have been going on?!” “What?!? No, what I mean is, is the… is the order trying to make amends for past deeds of sexual nature that might have been overlooked by the church?” You say “Wouldn’t surprise me none.” Sir Walter grabs the reins of the conversation again, quickly. “Indeed, this is a necessary step in our process of atonement. We have long known about our deeds and the harm that has come from them, and we must make reparations. As I said, we wish to do this by seeking out the most influential and powerful of you without you even knowing, then making reparations.” “How?” “How? Through having you of course! You blush. “We are going to have you.”-they go on, adamant. “You are going to have me? Like, taken me away?” “Not exactly, we want you to have us. We want you to join us. You say “That happens to be quite a nifty affiliation, as I am of currently a vagabond.” “We are fairly certain you will find it a lot more pleasant than being a vagabond, Sir Walter. You say “What about our crew? Shall I set them all loose?” “We will of course be paying your crew a lot more, I will even see to it that they get an equal share of this new mine we are opening up. You won’t have to do anything except enjoy life.” You say “Now that happens to be a skill I am very good at.” “Then it is settled, you will join us.” Sir Walter extends his hand to shake on the deal. You grab it and he pulls you up. “I’ll leave you to it, we will be leaving for the capital soon and would prefer to leave today if possible.” You shake hands with Sir Walter and head out of the room. That evening you replay the moments of the day with clay figurines. You laugh and joke with them, though some of them are getting worn. You really are a nice guy. Soon enough, morning comes. And you are preassigned to be getting up to some adventuring. Davien with the two handed sword is the first to speak up. “Hey, where are you going to be going today?” You say “I shall be heading east, as there is a scarcity of heroes to the east of here.” “I shall be heading out with you, there are some us who could use the help.” You say “Yes, yes. So it shall be, a multiple of adventurers’ mission” You clap your hands and the group gathers around you. “Well then, let us be off!” The party rides out to their first mission. Michael could handle his spear, and Ronald could handle his bow. And so begins your journey as an adventurer… In the first realm of conquest, Davien lost his temper and started striking out against everyone that was present. When you got to the mine he attacked the goblins there. When you went to the cave he attacked the orc tribe there. And so on, and so forth. Davien was quick to anger and managed to kill a lot of people, which means he gained a lot of infamy. By the time you reach the Emperor’s throne he should be fairly infamous. Michael and Ronald kept purely pure of essence. They didn’t attack any people, but they also didn’t avoid any battles. They were still fairly new to adventuring, so their battles weren’t a walk in the park. You say “Let’s see here, let’s try on switching positions among you two, let’s have Ronald equip the spear, and Michael equip the bow..” As you make the changes, the pair of them look at each other and nod. They are smart enough to know that the other’s strengths would help cover their weaknesses. The pair of them are just entering the middle stages of their adventuring careers. They’ve fought a lot of things and killed a lot of creatures, but they are still fairly young. You place an apple on the head of Ronald and ask Michael to take the shot. The apple goes smoosh and the bow position is there to stay. “It seems that I’m in the quiver now!” Michael says with glee. Over the next few weeks you make progress. You manage to get to a point where you are fairly certain you could tackle the Emperor, but of course that isn’t your goal. Your goal is to gather more support for the cause. The next mission takes you to an abandoned mine. It seems that all the miners there have all died of some sort of plague, so the Empire is trying to salvage whatever they can from the place. And you manage to come out of it quite providus, though Dravin got lost and never returned. You learned this after you got back and heard about it from some of the other members of the group. You try to keep your spirits up though. You say “What are we? Are we not warrior men?” As the weeks pass, your group seems to fall apart. Killing and war and conquest are not the things that unite men. Michael and Ronald were nevertheless still presentable enough to be recruited by another group, which leads you to wonder if the pair of them just didn’t give a flying flip about the revolution anymore. Of course this wasn’t too surprising. You harden up, the most of the burden of going at it alone is now upon you. You still manage to fight off several assaults of Empire soldiers. You see the next group that rides into your camp, you recognize one of them as one of the soldiers that was with you on your last mission. You sneak a powder keg into one of their ranks, and light the fuse. Then you take off running. “Go, Michael! Shoot the sonofabitches!” you hear the soldier shout before the explosion takes place. Yes, well, I shall be confounding a hefty sum of priceless treasure You say as you ride on out of the valley with two horse loads of implicating treasure with you. You stop in a nearby secluded spot to hide the loot. You say “Yes, yes, this shall prove to have been quite a fruitful venture for me and all of my kin.” You and your two new traveling companions have some fun. The next morning, however, you find that you’ve been followed. A group of riders were chasing you for quite some time before you even noticed. That’s when you stand fast, and let the oncoming struggle up upon you. Your skill with the longbow had never came into as such questioning. You were rather good at it, one of the best actually. Your experience with that weapon and in general gave you confidence in your other abilities. Your companions also had their experience with swordplay. You say “Let them have no mercy” “No mercy!” you cry as you swing your blade. Your words are followed by the cries of several men. There is no mercy for those who oppose the Empire.
You say “At the last bit of battle, we’ve lost Michael but kept Ronald.” As the first arrows thud into the dirt, you see your other companion fall. You turn to face the soldiers, only to find that they’ve all already run off. This doesn’t phase you. You embrace the spearman, Ronald, and keep him in your company, for the last of the night. Your actions have proven victorious, though the next day a messenger from the Emperor arrives. The messenger declares that the next three towns up the countryside have all been turned up against you. He has no proof, but suspects that the same people are involved. You allow for Ronald the spearman to take his own decisions, and he obliges by your side. You find some solace in your friend’s positive attitude. It’s refreshing. The messenger states that you must be destroyed. You are a threat to the Empire and the Emperor’s “holy rule”. You’re going to have to let Ronald take on a spy mission, spying out across the town how the legions were stacked against you. You’ll meet up with him afterwards and make your way back to the next town, together. But before you do, you say farewell to the spearman. “What’s wrong?” he asks. You say “Never ask your chieftain that.” “Never,” he says, and grins. And goes on: “Never mind.” The men who surround you appear somewhat disappointed with this answer, but accept it nonetheless. As he reappears the day after, you are relieved to find that the troops aren’t stacked high. “We’re good,” he says. You say “Well, as long as we are good, we might as well camp out for the midnight and really have some rest.” “Camp out?” asks one of the soldiers. You say “Yes. You heard me. And adieu” A long restful night’s sleep later, you awaken in the morning, and find that the mood has lightened among your soldiers. “I like it,” says Michael. “Much better than the march to the town.” “Yes, I feel much more refreshed,” says Roger. “But I have to say, didn’t you say that the scout reported no signs of the Empire at all here?” You say “Well, to those of you that have actually kept your eyes open, there is a lot of them in the resistance” You go on to say “The full unit of 22 men are feeling combat ready, you can feel it.” Michael: “Maybe, but I still feel a bit wary. I don’t like just going into an area we don’t know.” You say “Maybe that. Or maybe you could have stayed your tongue. You can feel free to ask my scouts about anything in the upcoming landscape.” “Or maybe I could have. But I chose not to. I like to think that I know when to keep my mouth shut, chief.” “Yes, well it doesn’t hurt that the scouts are out there.” You go on to say “So, anyways; shall we go forward and march, men?” “Yes, let’s go ahead and do that.” You march through the forests, and you don’t encounter a single enemy soldier. You even have scouts to cover more ground than your original team could have done. Then you get to the enemy village’s head chief’s lodgings. You careen in there with reckless abandon. Chief Slaane is nowhere to be found, but the place is a wreck. All of his personal belongings are destroyed or moved around. It’s clear that someone has been living here. You say “Ahh, yes. So the slaves of this place have wrought an mutiny, someplace in the before time” Michael: “These are the slaves we’re looking for.” The slaves have clearly taken control of the place, and they’re all currently armed with weapons of some sort. We make an onslaught up onto these slaves, and soon have them all outnumbered. It’s only a matter of time before the slaughter begins. However, as we’re coming up on them, we hear an odd sound, like the tolling of a bell. “Quick! To the woods!” you shout, and all of you start sprinting. The others follow, but unfortunately, you don’t. You turn to make your own escape, but you don’t get far. That’s exactly the time for the secret weapon. You unleash a horrifying scream onto them the slaves, so that they shall never recover again. These men will be haunted by the appearance for many a year to come. And now, they know fear. That’s when you snare a mare and ride the hell out of this malarkey of a town. A few hours later, you find a suitable camp spot in the woods. Your men are soon again with you. “What was that, chief?” asks Roger. “I think we all heard it.” “It was the last screams of the slaves of Hell.” You say: “To take it quite literally.” Michael: “I was never one for metaphorical speech.” You say: “We’re looking for something to burn.” You remember that there is a large farmhouse nearby. You say “Yes. We must unleash flames for the demons of Satan now.” A fellow combatant: “Burn it down, then.” You and Roger jog there. You find the place completely empty. There’s no one around, and all signs of struggle were removed. You not only burn that house, but several of the neighborhood’s houses as well. The area is soon as dead as the town you were originally at. You decide that that’s enough for now, and Roger nods in agreement. You all go back to camp. You strike up a conversation about embellishing the soldiers. Two of them could make good lieutenants. “We could also look for a bigger camp.” You say. “I mean, right now we’re basically just a small band of raiders.” “That’s true.” Roger replies. You promote the two men to lieutenants. They’re certainly ready to lead, but the two of them have very different ideas about what your band of raiders should be. One of them, David, wants to add more wives and children to your group. The other one, Henry, doesn’t trust the women at all, and wants them gone. You say: “Well, at least you fellows wont be party bread for the out ghastly minions of Satan” “Exactly!” Roger laughs. You let the matter rest. You don’t really get along with Henry either, mainly because he holds a cynical view on life, in general. You say “Henry, dear boy, will you take participant in commandeering us as a legion of hell minions?” “You’re asking me to go steal from a church?” You say “We’re just taking the horses, and if they raise holy hell, it’s not the end of the world.” “Yeah, but holy hell.” You say “We have got it all covered in the end game, my lad, we’ve just run amiss of some horses to have, is all.” “What happens if they call in the holy warriors, then?” “It’ll make it easier to hunt them down.” “Yeah, but at what cost? You say “Ronald, certainly you will have at this without having too many denouements” “Alright, but what am I getting into?” “You’ll get some help from your friends at the village. They’ll all pitch in.” “That’s good to hear.” Now off they go to fetch us some much needed horses, while you begin construction on your new fort. It’ll mostly be made of wood and dirt, but who’s keeping track? The horses are brought back to camp, much like you said they would be. Now it is time for you to squeal, Henry. Squeal like you have never been before, with power in your lungs. Henry lets out a series of high pitched squeals. Roger lets out a low growl, and points at Henry. Roger then begins laughing, and you join him. Your men do not find this too amusing though. Anyways, your kingdom sets upon the hills for the better half of two centuries, and that had to be the pure resolve of you and some of your common men. The noise of battle and war were slowly replaced with a more quiet, but no less deadly, type of war. A guerilla war. Where you ambush and harass the enemy rather than large battles. Your group of men, no, your band at this point, of raiders is a problem for the Kingdom to handle. Their will to ransack runs deep. The prospect of easy gain and the thrill of the chase is too much for some to resist. They are demon’s breath to the Kingdom’s manacles. You, having relinquished Satan’s fury for kingdom, only longed for the quiet life. Sure, there were battles, but it was all quieted down with a few pennies to the ale pot and you didn’t mind the peace.