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im trying to imagine our hero hahaha
somehow this one is.. in my country we use it for everything dumb. and i can asure you it has nothing to do with Asians. this one is straight from 2000 above sea level (BALKAN)
Guys, there are still church hussars somewhere. Loaded guns and good horse can help us later. Why spend bullets or risk our prized stallion to kill some grunts?
Rush the enemy before more of them try to attack me. I'll use my speed and my sabre to my advantage.
You pull your horse to the right as your sabre flashes out. With one of the attackers coming from each side, the key is to separate them so that both are unable to attack you at once.
Time is of the essence as you ride up to the first Antari. You know that you must finish the fight quickly, and so does he. Your enemy attempts to buy time as you swing at him, bringing up the haft of his weapon to block your blow. Quick as a serpent, you twist your wrist up, and your blade flashes away. Before the Antari can react, you thrust your blade forward, under his guard and into his ribs.
Your first enemy has not even hit the ground when you turn to face your second, still exposed in his hasty rush towards you. It is child's play to beat aside his polearm and cut him down.
As you withdraw your blade from your second attacker, more Antari step towards you, weapons at the ready: a half-dozen at most. All around you, your men are trying to fight their way free of the melee. You decide to do the same, cutting your way out and rendezvousing with the rest of your troop as soon as you ride back into the all-obscuring mist.
-
You and the survivors of your unit regroup as the bane-signature of the Antari infantry fades in your mind.
However, every few moments, another one of your men seems to drift away silently into the mist. You cannot tell if they are getting lost in the thick powder fog or falling away with a purpose in mind. You also have neither the time nor the means to stop them.
Soon, you feel the approach of another large group of men, moving far too fast to be on foot.
Elson's voice cuts through the sound of battle as the newcomers draw nearer. "Third Squadron! To me!"
You slow your horses as you approach your captain, knowing that a quicker pace might get you mistaken for a mob of Antari. Even so, you find a score of carbines trained on you as you ride close enough to make out the forms of Elson's men in the fog of war.
"Stand down, dear fellows!" Elson orders as he rides forward. The Captain is covered all over by the black, grimy residue of gunpowder war, as you suppose you must be; but aside from a bruise on his hand, he seems otherwise uninjured. Some of his men, on the other hand, seem in far worse shape, with a few bloodied or even missing entire limbs.
Your Squadron commander looks over you and your men for a moment, before breaking into a broad grin. "A fine start, dear fellow! Send your wounded to the rear. We shall wait for the Squadron to reform and bloody the Antari again."
You nod eagerly. You have already gotten your first taste of battle for the day, and look forward to another glorious clash.
Your men, on the other hand, seem to find your eagerness a little… off-putting, especially after the hard fighting they have already been though. Some edge away from you a little.
-
It does not take long for the rest of the squadron to materialize out of the mist. Save for a few incidents which almost led to friendly fire, your regrouping passes without incident. You resolve that the Antari general in charge of securing this flank of his army must be a poor tactician indeed.
With the wounded sent to the rear and the numbers tallied, it seems that your entire squadron is short two dozen or so men: worrying though hardly crippling losses.
Elson is halfway through forming those still able to fight for another sortie when you hear the sound of a multitude of horns blowing in the distance before you.
"Damn me," one of the other lieutenants mutters under his breath. "We've gotten ourselves turned 'round. Our cavalry must have regrouped and come to our flank." His words are given volume more by hope than fact.
The Captain shakes his head. "Those are horns, not trumpets. Those are not our cavalry—"
Elson falls silent as the full-throated roar of five thousand voices raised in battle-cry fills your ears. Even at a distance, the sound is deafening. Elson swallows hard, his face as pale and red as the face of a porcelain doll.
"Those are the Antari."
-
Elson shows a worrying amount of decisiveness in choosing his next words.
"Form wedge, prepare to charge."
You and the other officers look at each other in puzzlement. "Sir?" one of them asks, his voice quite unsteady.
"Those Antari are not coming for us, gentlemen. Those Antari are coming for the castle. The castle to which we have just sent off our wounded; the castle which anchors the flank of our entire army; not to mention, the castle currently being defended by no more than eighty men commanded by a newly made lieutenant and a bastard."
One of the other officers speaks up. "Sir, might it be best to withdraw to the castle?"
Your captain glares at the man with a fury which you have never seen; when he speaks, it is with a coldness so uncharacteristic as to sound deranged.
"Do so, and I will have you tried as a deserter and marshal every resource at my disposal to have you hanged as such. We WILL make a charge, we WILL save this battle and we WILL win us what we deserve in honourable combat."
You swallow, hard. You are not quite sure if the trauma of battle has left Elson's senses entirely intact. "For the second time! Make ready to charge!" he shouts.
You feel a tap on your shoulder. You turn around to face your troop sergeant.
"This is suicide," you hear him mouth to you. The men seem to agree with his assessment.
Under normal circumstances, Elson's orders leave you no real choice. Thankfully, these are not normal circumstances. While there is glory to be won in following your captain and friend, there is also the near-certainty of death. Withdrawing to the castle against orders might lead to you being accused of desertion, but you doubt a court-martial would charge you, even if Elson survives his foolhardy attempt to single-handedly turn back the Antari cavalry. Then again, your chances of defending a crumbling ruin against a force which outnumbers you by such a vast margin offers little better chance of survival. Escaping the battle entirely remains an option.
1) Are we truly to charge head-on into a vastly greater force of cavalry? I ask Elson if he is quite mad. 2) It is our imperative as men of honour and soldiers in the King's service to charge! 3) I do not like it, but orders are orders. We must charge. 4) I will not order my men to ride to their deaths. I withdraw to the castle. 5) This battle is lost; all we can do is put as much distance between us and the Antari as possible.
As of the Summer of the 607th year of the Old Imperial Era
Just so that everyone is clear, 2-3 means charging the enemy cavalry, 4 is a retreat to the castle (you will continue to take part in battle), 5 is full-on desertion.
1 is a question that yields extra dialogue without preventing us from picking other choices. Usually I pick those for us automatically but I don't know if this particular question fits our character so it is up to you.
For an officer, Intellect and Charisma seem most important. On the other hand, we are still young and we already got the bane sword so I'd say let's max out Soldiering first and then invest in some Charisma to get a foothold among our comrades.
You more or less engineered this character's pitiful, failure-riddled existence. Take responsibility for once in your Saintsdamned lives and watch the last domino fall.
For an officer, Intellect and Charisma seem most important. On the other hand, we are still young and we already got the bane sword so I'd say let's max out Soldiering first and then invest in some Charisma to get a foothold among our comrades.
You more or less engineered this character's pitiful, failure-riddled existence. Take responsibility for once in your Saintsdamned lives and watch the last domino fall.
For an officer, Intellect and Charisma seem most important. On the other hand, we are still young and we already got the bane sword so I'd say let's max out Soldiering first and then invest in some Charisma to get a foothold among our comrades.
You more or less engineered this character's pitiful, failure-riddled existence. Take responsibility for once in your Saintsdamned lives and watch the last domino fall.
I'm not saying that they are the sole engineers of this character. My point is that they don't have the courage to witness the consequences their actions.
They are not evil, just sick. Their sickness is a lack of faith in their convictions; a sickness unto death.
It is our imperative as men of honour and soldiers in the King's service to charge!
You nod. "Make ready to charge!"
Your men obey, for now. They fall into formation with great reluctance. Even their grumbling has stopped, never a good sign.
Elson looks over the assembled squadron with an uncharacteristically vicious grin on his face as the ground begins to tremble with the sound of the oncoming Antari cavalry.
"Gentlemen. Think not of your lives, think not of your pay, think not of home. Remember only this: that the men who follow me and survive this day will be heroes for the rest of their lives, but those who follow me and fall, shall be heroes forever! What worth is silver or the craven comfort of our beds, when we might win our places in the heavens, and have our names etched upon the everlasting rock of fame!"
The Captain's voice grows louder and louder. Even as the trembling of the ground gains strength and the sounds of the charging Antari threaten to drown out your thoughts, Elson's words ring over it all.
"GLORY!" he screams, as he turns his horse to face the enemy and spurs his mount forward. "GLORY FOR THE FIRST MAN TO DIE!"
Elson's battlelust is contagious. His troop, who have been at his side for half a decade, are the first to follow. "GLORY!" they scream as they spur their horses forward to follow their chief into battle, sabres glittering in the fouled air.
You press the points of your spurs into Thunderer's flanks and motion for your men to follow. There is no turning back now.
The squadron takes up the Captain's battlecry, you among them. "GLORY!"
Your men follow your lead as you spur your horse forward.
At first.
But as you ride onwards, you seem to notice the hoofbeats of their mounts fading away into the background noise of battle. At first, you think it must be your anxiety playing tricks on you, or the battle-lust dulling your senses.
Then you look around to realize that your men are nowhere to be seen.
A glance back confirms your worst fears. Your men had been set on abandoning the battle with your leave or without. Even now, their outlines fade into the powdersmoke behind you.
So distressed are you by this development that you do not even notice the vanguard of the Antari cavalry as you ride into their midst, never to be seen again as the smoke surrounding you springs forth suddenly, wisps of it reaching forth like ghostly tentacles.
THE HEAT. Whichever part of you the smoke reaches burns as if raked across across hot coals. Half-mad with pain you scream, clenching your teeth so hard you hear them crack - the pain indistinguishable from the infernal suffering that sets your entire body alight. Thunderer suffers somewhere below you, though you do not hear it.
Your vision blurs, loses focus. A wet bubble forms between your eyes, pops. Still burning, still screaming, still dominated by fiery pain you find yourself surrounded by the Antari host - not just the two thousand cavalry, but the whole horde. Their forms blurred, shifting with the burning smoke,
ELSEWHERE. Your consciousness comes in a dark place. You still feel the weight of a warhorse, the sabre tight in your fist, but no pain - indeed, your mind and body are both free of it. You try to open your eyes, only to realize that they were never closed - the darkness surrounding you is borderline impenetrable. You wait for your eyes to adjust to it but they never do.
You spot a blur beneath you and look down. Though this makes no sense, it appears that you are illuminated perfectly, though there is no obvious source of illumination, or indeed the effect of any illumination upon the darkness itself. With the newfound clarify of mind you begin examining yourself despite poor vision and what you see shocks you so profoundly that you do not react except take in the details of your new state.
Your flesh is melted, resembling a canvas splashed with a meat-red paint and slashed into loose, ragged ribbons. The heat has spared nothing. You now wear ash in your uniform's stead. Your right fist is bulbous thing of burnt flesh, your banecast sabre its permanent extension now. Beneath you lies Thunderer's charred carcass, though you can no longer see where it ends and you begin. Worst of all, your eyes have melted partially yet you still see through them, your vision stretched and warped.
Cursing and sobbing you try to pull yourself away from your dead mount but find yourself unable to do so. You scrape the floor with what remains of your hands as you do and find to cold and smooth save for a subtle texture - panels of fine-grained wood?
LOOK AT YOU, PUPPET. A PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT, UNSEEING, BARELY CONSCIOUS - NOTHING MORE.
The voice comes from all around you. Even the apparently wooden floor beneath your feet creaks and whispers, joining the great mass of an indescribable sound that resembles speech only in the loosest sense.
I AM ARGON STONE. WELCOME TO THE STAGE - THE INNER PART OF THE UNIVERSE. IT IS MY DESIRE THAT YOUR PATH ENDS HERE.
Saints save you! Whatever have you done to deserve this...
NOTHING. YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING BUT FOLLOW THE PATH. YOU THINK OF CHOICES, YET ALL CHOICES ARE ILLUSORY. YOUR PATH WAS SET FROM THE BEGINNING, MEASURED LIKE A TRAJECTORY OF A FALLING STAR BY MINDS SO OUTSIDE OF YOUR REALM OF COMPREHENSION THAT YOU WOULD NEVER CALL THEM SO.
I CANNOT CHANGE YOUR PATH AND NEITHER CAN YOU. I CAN EXTEND IT, HOWEVER, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE IT. I CAN ALLOW YOU TO LIVE AGAIN.
To live again? Could it be that this dreadful creature is capable of mercy?!
NO MERCY. ALL ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. THIS ONE WILL CARRY A HEAVY COST IN PARTICULAR. YOU MAY DECLINE MY PROPOSAL, PASS ON ELSEWHERE - TO A PLACE WHICH EVEN I DO NOT KNOW - BUT IN DOING SO YOU WILL FORFEIT LIFE ITSELF.
CHOOSE! CHOOSE ABSURDLY, IN FULL KNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR CHOICE HAS ALREADY BEEN DECIDED:
1) Bring me back so that I may die again (reverses the last choice and allows you to choose again...and to die again, should you choose poorly.)
2) Damn the cost! I want to live... (reverses the last choice and Argon Stone chooses for you a random circumstance which allows you to survive. However, the outcome is out of your control and may therefore be undesirable.)
3) Release me, I beg you! Silence, oblivion, anything other than this... (PATH'S END)
