Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games - Jennifer Grouling Cover [114]
“Well, the town is nearly evacuated now. I don’t know what they’ll think of this,” I explained, and added, “It was Fletch’s idea to go ahead and evacuate.”
Fletch shrugged his shoulders in his easy-going manner and said, “It needed to be done.”
So, we went about the task of finding any pack animals that had been left behind and chasing after the villagers that had taken theirs and convincing them to give them back. It turned out with everyone so scared of the orcs it wasn’t as difficult a task as we anticipated. We reassured the townspeople we would have twenty-five pack animals sent from Gateway to replace their twenty, and they thought it was a fair deal. Having gathered the livestock, we settled down in a few of the abandoned houses for some rest. It had been a very long day.
We were awakened by the news that some eighty orcs were headed for the town gate. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and combed my hair and headed out to see. We brought the cattle out from the gate and met the orcs. Cuthalion greeted them in the orc language, but we did not see Grumbach.
Out of nowhere, the voice of the ogre returned the orcish greeting in our own common tongue. With a lopsided grin, Grumbach’s shiny black teeth appeared, as did the ogre himself. He towered above even the tallest orcs by several feet. His light blue skin and white eyes contrasted his black hair and teeth and a pair of vestigial horns adorned his brow. I noticed his fancy club and thought that my old friend Boris would be quite jealous for it was nearly five feet in length and quite shiny. I couldn’t quite tell if it was made of metal or of wood.
Cuthalion presented the livestock as our gift of peace, and Grumbach told his men to take the animals. Then he turned to us. “What stops me from taking the town, too?” he asked.
I exchanged a nervous glance with my friends, but Cuthalion did not waiver. He replied defiantly, “Us.”
Grumbach laughed, but it was a friendly laugh. He didn’t believe us, but he respected our courage. “Maybe we meet some other time,” he said.
Cuthalion responded, “And when will you be returning through here?”
Grumbach replied, “It should not take long to kill Skullbash. Three weeks.”
“Then we will tell the humans not to disturb you on your return,” Cuthalion replied with all the diplomacy of his elven ways.
Grumbach once more flashed a blacked grin, and the orcs continued on without incident.
Giddy with the joys of success, we headed back toward Black Tower where we sent a message relaying our accomplishments to the magistrate.
The magistrate returned a note, “Congratulations. Twenty-five horses and cows seems a small price to pay for the safety of Barrenstone.”
Although none of us were injured, we decided we would like a cleric to meet up with us and have a look at the curse before entering Gateway. However, due to the nature of the communication and our fears that it would somehow be compromised, we simply requested that a cleric meet us outside of Gateway to attend to our injuries. Naturally the magistrate had no problems arranging this.
As promised, a half mile outside Gateway a jolly old cleric named Celegorm met us along with four guards who spouted the diamond district emblem. We explained our situation to Celegorm, but unfortunately he was not a skilled enough cleric to help in the removing of curses. The guards insisted that we were to come straight to the magistrate upon our return, and though I was nervous about entering town with the curse still upon our heads, we had little choice but to follow.
As we walked through town, it seemed everyone was looking at us. A ragged old man stared intently and then ran off suddenly, as did a young boy. But we made it to the magistrate without incident.
Once in his chambers, I introduced my new comrades to Eldonerand, the honorable magistrate